My Passion for Knowing You

There is a note at the center of the psychology and journalism Venn Diagram. It is a kind of heartbeat. There, in the middle, sits a neurotic interest in people. A deep devotion to the discoveries hidden through what makes us thinking and feeling humans. And it is here where my heart lies too.

Psychology is considered a soft science for its sheer amount of inference and focus on interpersonal relations. Not to mention its shortage of rigorous mathematics - an aspect I am more than grateful for. Psychologists observe, measure, and record real but abstract phenomena in our ever-complex behaviors and brains and say, ‘Well, maybe this is true because of that.’ This is a dangerous game because if you forget that many of these conclusions are theories (well-researched and constructed theories, but still, theories), you will get very confused with and/or mad at psychology.

Most of this ology’s advances happened about 150 years ago; we’re working with a very new science! Before then, most psychology was really philosophy - you know, the Socrates and Plato of it all. This kinship with philosophy is fixed in its roots. And it takes time for science to develop, and probably even more so when working with the ambiguous nature of behavior and minds. This field is intricate for a completely different reason than chemistry is. We deal with the most scientifically frustrating subject of all: people. Still, none of these prefaces absolve psychology of its fascinating character and necessary research.

I’m infatuated with learning about our feelings, thoughts, and actions. I want to understand why we love, how we hate, who we trust, when we explode, where it happens, and what we amount to. My brain is interested in our brains. I am not afraid of our puzzles, I am obsessed with our mysteries. My nihilism from psychology’s inference sits hand in hand with my existentialism from its valuable findings. You get it. You can love something unabashedly when you are honest about its pits and peaks. And there is another field that I believe greatly contributes to the satiation of my curiosities: Journalism.

Both areas seek a kind of truth through the very source that is their subject, and with a healthy set of ethics. Journalism is a storytelling system for our experiences, often laced with a myriad of feelings and behaviors. Most media focuses on the objective reporting of these experiences (like news journalism); Some media also includes the thoughts and feelings of the author (like narrative journalism). This is a place of important information dissemination and also where many psychological theories can actually be observed. Journalism is another tool for understanding people.

And it is especially when I get to ask a pile of questions about someone or something’s story that I am most excited. It's when I can investigate human phenomena through conversation and writing that I really start to drool. Yes, the creativity of it all is a definite piece of my journalistic puzzle. 

 My passion for knowing you is deep. And it is through the psychological scientific method and the journalistic writing process that I know you best. These are our greatest tools for exploring ourselves.