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That old man here. That young woman there. That girl. Your colleague.  Your neighbor. Your sibling. Your spouse. We all have our burdens—fear, loss, terror, grief, threats, despair, memories, dreams, a dashed hope—and we bear them alone. Even if another tries to understand and sympathize. it doesn’t entirely work. However earnestly I try to explain, however earnestly you try to understand, you cannot enter my mind, nor I yours.  No one can enter into the mind of another. Even when the two become one, there are still two.

Maybe there are special situations: two who are very close. They may get close to knowing what is going on in another’s mind. But they are not in that other mind, not feeling the weight in the same way. Maybe those instances of identical twins who seem to know what the other is thinking (and that is astonishing enough   itself) come close to being an exception, maybe. But near is not there. 

In the end, “None knows the weight of another’s burden.” In the end, we live alone.