You and Other People

Do you know how sometimes you hear something and it sticks with you essentially forever? I'm not talking about a catchy song turning into an ear worm, but hearing someone say something and it striking a deep chord within you. This might have been from a parent, perhaps, or just something random that you keep coming back to over and over again, turning it over in your mind.

That's happened to me quite a few times. One of the most memorable was at a meditation retreat back in 2018. It was being taught by Jon Kabat-Zinn, a very well known mindfulness teacher. This retreat was a little different in that there were Q&A/dialogue sessions interspersed with silent meditation during some of the days. There were actually a couple of things during one session that really stuck with me. The first was a discussion about how people who seemingly have everything do things to harm themselves. You may recall that in the summer of 2018, celebrity chef and author Anthony Bourdain took his own life. I was a huge fan, having read his books and followed his TV shows.

Anyway, during the discussion someone brought up his suicide and how they didn't understand why he hung himself when he seemed to be at the peak of his life. Jon's answer was very curt: "you think you know Anthony Bourdain? You don't even know yourself!"

That stopped the discussion in its tracks, and I still think about it all the time.

Unknowable

You see, the reality is you know absolutely nothing about what is going on with other people. Even people you are close to have inner lives that are inaccessible to you. When it comes to strangers or acquaintances, whatever you may think you know is probably completely wrong.

Whatever you think about what is going on with another person is just your projection onto them, not reality. It actually says more about you than them. We create judgements about people almost instantly, and we store those heuristics for future use. Let's be honest, when most of us interact with the other people in our lives, we think we know exactly what the other people are thinking, their motivations, and perhaps even their thoughts. It's interesting that, as I wrote about a while ago, humans don't even realize other people have thoughts different from their own until the age of about 3 or older. By the time we're adults, we think we know everything about other people's minds.??

This fundamental misunderstanding creates framing effects that are truly unfortunate, and detrimental to our interactions with our fellow humans, and society overall. Take even the simplest of examples, someone who is driving erratically or cuts you off in traffic. What do you think when that happens; how do you react? Well, I know for me personally there is lots of cursing and creative descriptors of the other person ??. Now let's say after the fact you find out the person is trying to get their pregnant wife to the hospital or is rushing to see a loved one on their deathbed. Now how do you feel?

“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” — Ian Maclaren

These sorts of framing effects are a cognitive error we are all subject to. Being aware of it can be the difference between constant annoyance and empathy towards others. Sure, Anthony Bourdain looked like he was at the top of the world. But clearly from the inside looking out, things were quite different. There are tons of other examples of famous people - Robin Williams, Chris Cornell, and many others. And forget about famous people; most of us have family members or people we know who it turns out were going through horrible things physically and mentally and we just never knew.

What do we do with this?

I'll go back to Jon Kabat-Zinn's curt quote I started with: "...you don't even know yourself!" That's a good place to start. How can you expect to understand other people if you don't have grass roots understanding of who you are at the core? I don't mean the narrative of you that you've carefully cultivated all these years, but you at your essence. If you strip away all the stuff, the stories, the past history, the aches and pains of the body, the emotions, who's there? Or is there anyone there at all?

I have no idea of the answers to these questions, and likely there is no answer that we can put into words anyway. I think the construction of "how are you" is better than "who are you" or "what are you". How are you, right now? What's here, in this moment? Not your interpretation of it or your conclusions, but the raw experience of it. That's what's at the heart of mindfulness practices, and also one of the most misunderstood parts as well, because it doesn't matter what's there. It doesn't matter if you can't stop your thoughts from swirling, or you are distracted, or bored, or angry, or sad. That's what's there in that particular moment - can you just be with it? Sounds easy, but of course it's not.

Confronting the stuff

That brings me to the second dialogue from that same meditation retreat that stuck with me. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but someone asked "my friends are all going out, partying, drinking, and having fun, and they are oblivious to their inner lives. I've been spending all this time meditating and I feel worse than ever - I'm more attuned to what is going with myself and I don't like it. What's the point of all this?"

That's another profound statement. Sometimes looking within yourself without artifice or stories, sometimes... you may not like what you find. Actually confronting what's going on instead of pretending it isn't there is really scary and something we're not often prepared to do. But that's the difference between growth and finding true happiness and contentment instead of burying all your problems down deep. The reality is that sooner or later, all that stuff you bury is going to explode, or perhaps worse, slowly eat you away from the inside. Better to deal with it now, with kindness and patience.

There's more to this topic, but I'll address it next week. In the meantime, sound off in the comments!

-Scott