Can You Sense Another's Presence in Darkness
We have two kinds of moods. One is visible and obvious and the other is invisible and under the radar. The invisible kind can only be sensed through presence. When we meet virtually, we hide how we’re really feeling because we only show our face. We smile but sometimes we are crumbling within.
This disconnect reveals something fundamental. Physical co-presence operates through channels we rarely acknowledge, evolved over millennia. The quality of silence in a shared space carries information no microphone transmits. Tension or ease in someone’s posture speaks without translation. These ambient signals function below conscious awareness, yet shape our understanding profoundly. Virtual encounters strip away these layers, reducing human complexity to what fits within a frame.
I ask my students a question that makes this clear. If you are sitting in a dark room, do you know if someone is there? Some people cannot tell. But isn’t that a problem?
The question exposes a crucial absence. Those who cannot detect another’s presence in darkness have lost access to an ancient form of knowing. We evolved to read breath patterns, to sense air movement, to register occupied versus empty space. This capacity represents more than perception; it constitutes intelligence we’re systematically unlearning. Digital mediation accelerates this loss, training us to trust only what appears on screens whilst embodied faculties atrophy.
The implications extend beyond relationships. Institutions optimised for virtual interaction design for what cameras and microphones transmit, ignoring what cannot be captured. Education becomes performance for screens. Collaboration reduces to scheduled calls. Intimacy shrinks to curated self-presentation. We construct entire systems around this diminished capacity, then wonder why connection feels hollow.
We are not pieces of furniture, inert objects occupying space without awareness. We are human beings whose aliveness depends upon sensitivity to other human beings. If we cannot sense another’s presence without visual confirmation, we face a diagnostic question: have we dulled ourselves into objects? The inability signals something more troubling than lost skill—it suggests diminished vitality. Being alive and being sensitive operate as synonyms here. One cannot claim full humanity whilst remaining imperceptible to presence itself. This isn’t a technological problem requiring solutions. This is an existential condition requiring recognition.