Leave the Person Out of It

Leave the person out of it.

It seems it should go without saying and without further adieu, and yet… here we are. Adieu. Why has everything become so personal? The way someone dresses, speaks, thinks, lives, orients, votes, loves, hates? What exactly is happening??

Society has become rather uncomfortable as of late has it not? Black and white thinking, or a tendency to think dichotomously has entrenched us in a culture war that says “if you’re not in, you’re out.” In my not-so-professional opinion, “Yikes.” This means you must be pure in essence, orthodox to a fault. You must know your doctrines and adhere to your dogma or you risk upsetting your social ecosystem and, maybe even worse, making a connection with someone who doesn’t agree with you on a myriad of issues. Quite the blow to your polished social media ego if you have one. That ego that is perfect by merit of being free from conflict and that can protect itself by engaging in avoidance, intimidation, public shaming or a complete dismissal by digital blockade. But again, why??

The truth I feel is simple and well explained by those much more experienced than I. But since they weren’t available I’m all you get.

Simply put, we’ve begun to hide from material that makes us uncomfortable and have created quite sensitive nervous systems as a result.

When I was a kid I hated scary movies. Still do. The jump scares the hack scenes, the uptick in the music, the sudden silence. I would cover my face so hard and wrap a blanket around my head that was just see-through enough for me to see the film in low resolution, so the overwhelming scene was bearable. Over a few years, I noticed, even as a young lad, that my fears around movies spread into action sequences of, possibly my favorite genre, superhero films. Whenever the scenes became too intense or gore filled, I’d run out of the theater, and I’d only return once my heart rate and breathing had settled (if I returned at all).?

What I’m describing is often referred to as generalization, and it’s a common phenomenon experienced by all of us. As one element of a film became too scary, I’d avoid it in one way or another. And any indication that I might have a similar experience led to the same reaction, so I'd run. Boy did I have a buffet of avoidance choices. I could avoid watching the movie altogether, always a “un fan favorite.” I could cover my face, and watch until my tolerance level was reached, then leave. An arguably more helpful decision. I could even sit through it, and risk the terrible bedtime panic that would ensue.

Again, generalizing. After avoiding long enough and learning my avoidance kept me safe, I began to expand the tactics that were keeping me safe to material that was similar. Thus, my movie world and choices became smaller and smaller.

This same phenomenon happens to us when we stop exposing ourselves to that which bothers us. Think about the last time something bothered you. Did your heart race? Breathing quicken? Sweaty armpits and beady brows? It’s called anxiety. We all know it quite well. It keeps us safe and informs us of potential dangers. But these safety signals can inadvertently lock on to the unfamiliar in life. And as a result, benign occurrences become seemingly dangerous because of that same tendency to generalize. Categories of experiences become blended, and over time our network of feared associations grows.

If you avoid anxiety-inducing unfamiliarity, then you stay safe from anxiety and other consequences, so your mind and physiology decide the common factor to avoid is “unfamiliarity" that causes anxiety. And your world gets smaller still.?

At the same time, you may seek novelty within domains considered to be “safe,” thus doubling upon your interests and comforts. And now we have two challenges. We are compelled towards our comforts, which we've been cultivating, and we've become repelled by our discomforts. Again, “Yikes.”

So what happens when we come across material we have conditioned ourselves to avoid? The same thing as me and my movies. To put it technically, we freak out! And we freak out due to pre-existing beliefs about what is “okay” and what we can “handle.”

(This makes sense, past experiences have not allowed us to expand our range. And even if we ever did break our rules regarding safe and unsafe, we probably discounted positive outcomes because they weren’t experienced with great enough frequency. In cognitive behavioral lingo that’s known as “discounting the positives” and is a totally different topic.)

So now we understand a little about how our safety systems operate, but what am I really getting at? We conflate ideas that make us uncomfortable with people proposing those ideas. Don’t believe me? Think about this:

“Guns are our civil right.” - What group says that?

“Health care should be available and free to all.” - What group says that??

“The Holocaust never happened.” - What group says that?

“George Bush started 9-11, Obama is from Kenya, Silence is violence, the McRib should be year round.” - Who said all of that? Well minus the last one, that could be anybody.?

My point is you likely had a prototype reaction and person/group that fits each of those thoughts. And if you didn’t, you’ll likely come across some after reading this, or Google a statement to see what comes up. We can’t help ourselves.?

We categorize! We discern. We discriminate and we project ourselves onto everyone and everything all the time. So sometimes, we get it wrong. We don’t see the person, we see the ideas prismed by the feelings they evoke in us. And the ideas that make us uncomfortable literally become synonymous with the people who propose them. Now we can avoid “those” people. We can avoid their seedy, treacherous ideas. Their mustache twirling and their plot to ruin the world. We can group them, dehumanize them, and denigrate their level of flexibility. All while propping ourselves up. And we can ruin them, their careers, and their quality of life. Because… because we get anxious? Or…

We can leave the person out of it. We can choose to hear their ideas in the presence of our discomfort. We can expand our range and realize the truth. Most ideas, don’t come with an immediate consequence in the environment. So most people proposing them don’t either. And if they don’t pose an immediate threat, maybe we should stop being so quick to attack or dismiss them. Maybe it’s we who require a nervous system reboot! Some fine-tuning. Maybe we need to get a little thicker skin to handle the moment and then run off to our dominions of safety to lick our incorporeal wounds. Maybe we should listen with intimacy in mind, a motivation that requires closeness and compassion to be achieved. Maybe we can hear the other's pain. Maybe we can listen to the ideas and leave the person out of it.?