Monday, January 17, 2005, 5:24pm
Monday, January 17, 2005, 5:24pm
Instead of tracking down a smattering of passengers strewn throughout the train, access to the first two cars of the 5:30 Worcester Local is blocked off to save work for the fill-in conductors.
In other words, I am once again reminded of the holiday.
Tonight is typical for January in Boston – perhaps 20 degrees plus a 15 – 20mph wind out of the northwest – directly into my face while I trudged the 200 yards across the ancient 1899 Bridge above the rising tide level of the Fort Point Channel beneath my feet.
With a single blast from a far away whistle we are underway plowing through the uninviting blanket of air. It is colder still to the west, but I suppose not as windy away from the seacoast. The wind can transform ordinary cold into a miserable experience and I’m happy to be away from it even if technically chillier on my walk home this eve.
Many people at Back Bay who’d planned on one of the two blocked-off cars are hustling to reach the first available door. If they were willing to walk farther still they’d likely find lots of spacious seating. Yet that space seems reserved only to those willing to override established rituals.
What was I thinking as I walked across that 1099 bridge besides keeping my nose from freezing? I’ve been wondering why I feel so much more comfortable around people these days and how somehow this has to do with disconnecting first impressions from assumptions and established rituals and concrete conclusions about how things are or should be – in the way that Arthur describes.
For example, if I hear someone with a Norwegian accent, and especially if the person is of an older generation, I am taken back to a childhood filled with first-generation Norwegians relatives and their “Old Country” points of view. There is nothing I can do about this recollection. The association is instantaneous. Yet I don’t necessarily need to take the next step, which once dictated that all older Norwegians are of the same stock with the same stark opinions as those I contended with more than 40 years ago.
The solution is to recognize how new experiences may remind me of a past interaction, but this is not the same as an old event happening again. There is no predetermination about other people, except that which is hardwired into my own head. In reality, the facts of any given present moment are never the same. With or without preconceptions I have no basis to draw an automatic conclusion – at least with any reliable accuracy.
When relating with another person on any level, I must constantly shake myself loose from the shackles of the past to focus on an empirical process something like this… First I admit that I have no special insight for who someone is or what the person is about. I may know what I have learned, but I can’t assume and extrapolate reliably beyond this. Going forward I have only conversations and actions and impressions, and after a bit of investigation I can pull this together to form a somewhat reliable picture – at least one rooted in the present, even if not fully populated with data.
If this were an engineering project I might bring mathematical modeling and simulation to bare, distinguishing what is reasonably possible from what is obvious poppycock, and from there I might propose a conservative list of specifications that could be followed as a guide to further investigation, testing, and predicted results. I might even consider experimentation.
In a much less formal way, when refining my ideas of a person, initial notions either appear clearly in later encounters – or not – and based on simple empirical observation over time I bring what I feel are accurate observations forward and set the less accurate and less certain notions aside to await further evidence.
In science we start with an experience of an observed phenomena, develop a theory for what might be driving it, then think up specific hypotheses that would have to be true if the theory were correct. To test a hypothesis, experiments are designed that should fail to show a positive result unless the hypothesis were true. If the sun had not bent the light of a distant star as predicted by Einstein’s Relativity, the theory – no matter how elegantly written – would have been wrong, end of story.
In the murky world of human interactions overt experimentation is not acceptable, yet we are nonetheless presented with ongoing evidence. Unlike science and engineering, my understanding grows through a collection of impressions collected over time in the course of regular events. There are no experiments per se. There are observations, and from this my picture of a person is constructed from firsthand experience – not from memories I have of anyone else.
The healthiest relationships begin with a presumption that no two people are exactly alike. Starting out – right out of the gate – I am not allowed to peg someone as the representation of any other person I’ve ever met. Rather, I distinguish each person apart from all other people who have ever lived, and the better I know the person based on actual evidence the more the person is unique to me. If I am seeing people this way – as unique – I’m living in the present no longer trapped by my preconceptions. If I’m seeing most people like so many others ‘of that type‘ then I’m not doing a very good job living in the moment.
Similarities with other people cannot be avoided, yet no connection is allowed that says that because person A acts a lot like Person B that person A and B are basically the same people. And especially I cannot extrapolate from one to the other now assuming that annoyances or benefits I might have experienced with person A should also be expected from Person B.
Persons A, B, C, D, and as many letter combination as there are people, are unique, and as soon as I forget this, I will begin to drop people into categories of my own imagination and forget what renders each person distinctly in the real world. I will have fallen into the time-honor trap of stereotyping and pre-judging, which is at the root of many if not most human conflict and isolation.
Remembering how the goal in human relationships is to gain an understanding of the actual person, I also can’t simply cheery-pick observations and impressions from the elements of the person I may like or dislike. I need to include every aspect presented to me – the whole person.
In principle the process seems pretty easy and appears no more complicated than the underpinnings of engineering or science. Simply don’t jump to conclusions. Instead, to understand the other person, collect impressions and data and pay attenuation to facts about who that person really is in the present – forming a picture apart from all other people I have known.
Of course old habits die slowly, and in practice this is really hard.
The reason I feel so much more comfortable these days comes from how it takes far less energy to accept present-moment people as they really are than to impose my entire internal structure on the world around me. Until I was willing to discover and accept the reality of the world around me, I was doomed to live in the past with all of its preconceptions, unfair biases, and emotional baggage as I struggled to maintain all of this in a world that had no use for it. Finally I saw the enterprise as entirely impractical, woefully dysfunctional and thoroughly harmful to myself and everyone who dared to care about me. It had to change.
To boil this down to daily living – when I am unsure about another person’s presentation I need to collect more data. I compile impressions until I’ve constructed a more accurate picture. Emotions and ideas can then rise in response, and these responses will be rooted in a present-day reality. This is not a robotic research project or a fishing expedition or an exercise in pigeon-hole judgment. It is simply a realistic way of life, and it works as long as I’m willing to adjust my understand over time based on actual evidence.
From my experience everyone feels a lot more comfortable when accepted warts and all – rather than for how well they are able to hide behind a veneer of perfection in its many forms. From the beginning of the Universe 13.7 billion years ago throughout the countless galaxies of stars and planets – perfection has never been attained – anywhere – ever. Nobody’s perfect. Not even close. Never gonna happen. Total waste of time.
The point is this – it’s okay to size people up for exactly who they are, not for how they would like us to think about them. It is not an intrusion to accept all incoming data. It is not any sort of faux pas to clearly see people’s weaknesses alongside their strengths. Real relations are based on a clear canvass painted by genuine experience and honest reflection. There are no paint by number results hanging in the great galleries of this world.
Perhaps the more important point is the way we should likewise allow ourselves to be known this way, at least by those close to us (maybe less so in public, though even in public ‘real’ people tend to be more effective and comfortable).
When it comes to my desire for real life – as opposed to the mercurial life imposed by preconceptions and ancient memories and imposed rituals – nothing is sacred. No falsity or twisted invention of the mind or fantasy or corn-balled idea is allowed to stay. The great Truth of the Universe is how there is no one great truth – there is only discovery and refinement. There is no destiny. There are no simple solutions to truly complex situations. There is rarely a definitively ‘right’ answer – rather most often there are only those ideas that fit better than others for a while.
People change, so even if I believe I know someone, I still need to recheck my impressions from time to time as well as ask questions and give tactful and reliable feedback of my own. We may have altered our thinking or feel differently than before on some topic and we might not realize this unless all topics are left open for discussion. If I don’t keep up to date like this, strangest of all, even my honest efforts to know somebody might congeal into an implacable opinion.
I’ve probably said the same things here more than once, and because of this perhaps made it sound more complicated than this really is. But what strikes me most is how ideas about other people are best formed using actual data just like any idea about anything that is worth believing. When it comes to other people there is no difference in the process of understanding than for any other complexity in life. In short – rather than assuming anything or accepting prepackage notions or memories or unconscious biases about other people, I need to interact in the moment based on my own individually-acquired evidence.
Somewhere in the night we are approaching West Natick Station where our train will stop. I only know this mainly as the conductors seem to have little else to keep them busy than make station stop announcements every few minutes at the stations, before the stations, and sometimes many stops ahead of time.
Framingham is next, and as I write this I notice a guy who seems familiar. Yet instead of confirming this, I let him pass my seat without so much as a quick look in his direction. And with this I conclude that when it comes to connecting with other people to confirm my notions, perhaps I’ve reached the place where I understand the value, yet still have a long way to go in practice.
