Author: James

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Linguistic Reparations

Whether I’m working out on one leg during T25, or seeking the right mix of work and play, I’m always trying to achieve balance. Nowhere is this more important than in choosing what to say to others. Clear communication requires directness, sometimes even abrupt boldness, and yet every person is a potential minefield of unique sensibilities. Stating the plain truth is important, but poor timing or bad choice of words can arouse emotions that prevent the content of your message from ever being heard. Selecting the right personal pronoun is an example of how hard it can be to strike that balance.

In many ways pronouns illustrate some of the differences between the sexes. Women have received the short end of the stick in a lot of ways for a long time. Pay, job opportunities, myriad legal rights are just some examples. This inequality even crept into English grammar so that when the gender of an antecedent was unknown, proper English automatically defaulted to he, him, his. Well, that’s not only biased, it’s often inaccurate. So what do we do? Some have combated this linguistic misogyny by simply flipping the script and defaulting to she, her, hers when referring to an unknown antecedent. This still leaves us vulnerable to the same inaccuracy problems. So some language leaders use “they” now when the sex is unknown, even with singular subjects. Sometimes I do that when speaking, but when in writing I can’t overcome concerns about lack of clarity.

Some gender neutral words have been invented, but none have gained much acceptance. For now they I’m afraid they create a distracting source of confusion among mainstream readerships. Since many of the scenarios I describe in this blog require a personal pronoun without clear antecedent, I need a solution, and here it is. Most of my posts deal with how people treat each other. When I am referring to someone who is neutral or behaving well, if the gender of that person is not known I will use a female pronoun, she, her, hers. But if I am writing about a person of unknown gender who behaves poorly, thoughtlessly, or is an asshole in any way, I will use the pronoun he, him, or his. I can’t make everyone happy with this decision, but for now I’ll pay up some linguistics reparations. Sorry for all the years of oppression and neglect, sisters. P.S. I’ll deal with binary gender and gender fluid concerns later.

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Visual Eavesdroppings

One person’s attention can create a powerful affect on its recipient. Parents’ attention on their children shows love, lack of it, neglect. Our attention is finite, and most of us have less than we want to admit. We should use it wisely. Sometimes, though, it goes astray.

When someone starts composing or reading email on an open laptop near you, do your eyes ever drift over and start reading it? If we read an email like that, without explicit permission, that is screenlifting, the ugly cousin of hacking. Never mind that when you Google “screenlifting” you find images for tools to physically lift screens; I think it fits well in this context and I hope to see it used this way more often. And this form of visual eavesdropping isn’t limited to laptops; in fact reading others’ text messages in line at Chipotle or on the bus or subway might be even more common.

While hacked emails make headlines almost every day, we don’t hear much about screenlifting. Perhaps we don’t talk about it because we don’t think it is a problem. You never hear about important secrets being exposed because someone didn’t cover her laptop screen at Starbucks. But maybe it’s something deeper than that. Perhaps we don’t talk about it because we all do it in some way and therefore think it’s no big deal.

Not matter the reason, discussion of screenlifting may provoke some thorny emotions and thoughts about how we give attention and get it from others. We all see things about people that they aren’t necessarily aware of. Sometimes we stumble on situations or views of them before we can turn away, and sometimes we look for it. What we do with that tells us a lot about ourselves.

Here’s an example: you’re in a meeting at work, or next to someone at a crowded coffee shop. Something in the email on the screen next to you catches your attention and instantly an ethics algorithm runs itself in your brain. I’m not going to do anything harmful with this information, the person must not be too concerned about or he wouldn’t be writing it here, by knowing what’s in it I can possibly help this person…All these rationalizations grant permission to read the screen, or possibly make you feel okay about it having read it after the fact. Activity in your brain happens really fast. Suddenly you have about four or five sentences worth of information about the person next to you they don’t know you have. What do you do now?

In future posts I will explore what to do if the information is dangerous, or how to deal with people who deliberately seek to harm others. But for now let’s say you read it just because you find other people interesting and by seeing writing styles you can learn about how they think. You’ve just gained some insight into the person beside you. Should you let them know?

You might say: Excuse me, I just wanted to let you know I read your email and found it quite interesting. You have a lot of stuff going on in your life right now but seem to be handling it really well. And oh, the way you phrased that second sentence was pretty awkward. I had to read twice to get the meaning. I’d re-write that one.

Maybe the author would be grateful. She might even be flattered by your interest and glad that you had the courage to let her know your thoughts.

But those of us living on Planet Earth know this scenario is quite unlikely. Instead, you would be hesitant to share what you know for fear of being thought creepy or weird. And even if the author were an open and trusting person, she would most likely regard your revelation with suspicion and fear. And that’s the way it should be, right?

People get small amounts of information about others all the time, from a bit of gossip, a certain look, or behavior in a situation. Do we feel we need to inform others about everything we know of them? Common sense says we should not, if for no other reason than lack of time. But let’s use this weird little example to consider how much we notice about others. We should be interested in each other. When you interact with someone else, you are that person’s business. Yet, we usually want a signal that it is okay to get to know someone. For many, though, the drive to send such a signal is overwhelmed by the acute risk of rejection or concern about self-promotion.

What would society be like if most people were like this well intentioned screenlifter and grateful emailer? Where we were genuinely interested in each other, and if we realized we crossed some kind of boundary we disclosed it? If our first reaction to any slight transgression was forgiveness and understanding? Would you want to live in a society like that?

Even if you say yes, do you think you could truly feel at ease in such an open and trusting environment? Can you simultaneously let your guard down enough to trust others, while making sure to avoid sending easily misinterpreted signals? Being trusting and forgiving of others and yourself might lull some into relaxing their vigilance over self-control and improvement. But that only leads to personal dissatisfaction while giving ammo to critics of the open and trusting approach.

I am not suggesting we all start looking at each others’ screens. It’s just my lighthearted attempt to provoke thought about how we look at each other. But I do think we should welcome the curiosity of others just as we try to cultivate genuine interest in those around us. And when you encounter information about someone, try to think about it consciously, at least a little. How does what you just learned about the person affect you? Does it make you like her more or less? Does it make you think they are smarter or less intelligent? Odds are that impression will affect how you treat that person. And if we measure character by traits like kindness, honesty, and loyalty, how you manage that information may shape the kind of person you are.

 

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Applying the Ware Care Continuum Part 3: Discovery

Gathering enough information about a person in order to assess awareness and caring can be tricky. Just the phrase “gathering information about a person” sounds ominous. So here are some common sense suggestions. I haven’t scientifically tested these methods, but I am, as far as I know, still a member of society in good standing. And while they may not help, they at least don’t seem to hurt.

The first thing most people do when they want to know more about someone is to look at him or her. But beware not to intrude with your eyes. Most of us, at some point, have been made uncomfortable by a stare of another person. If the individual is imposing or sinister, it can be scary discomfort. If they appear to know you, but you don’t know them, expect awkward discomfort. And if you the person seems to like you or wants something from you, a range of comforts might open up – from very comfortable, to how can I get out of here –discomfort.

Try to gather information directly, while making eye contact. If you are in an unpleasant encounter, too much eye contact or questioning can escalate tensions. If your goal is mutually satisfactory outcomes, you may need to avoid making things worse by trying to learn too much too quickly. But if you are on a mission to understand someone’s awareness and caring, you can’t give up.

The deepest understanding often comes from conversation, full of questions and answers. People don’t like a lot of personal questions unless being asked by a person who cares about them, and even then they don’t always appreciate it. It’s often helpful to state why you are asking questions. While learning and sharing the truth about each other is an important objective, the emotions devoted to our sense of vulnerability can make it complicated. Figuring out the best way to express our interest in others will is goal of Participastory.

For example, if I tell someone I don’t know well, “Hi, the only reason I’m asking these questions is because I want to know how much you are aware of and care about other people,” that will probably make that other person nervous, unless she is running for office or some kind of advocacy job and has thought about that answer quite a bit already.

Looking and listening won’t always reveal everything someone’s awareness and caring. When those are insufficient, use your other senses. Smell, but from an appropriate distance, which is the standard area of personal space, at least 18 inches. And be sensitive to how loudly you do so; while it’s poor taste to smell someone secretly, sniffing loudly a person can send the wrong signal too. Touch can be okay, but mainly in the form of a hearty clap on the back, a hug, or a handshake. Touch can quickly send a negative signal about your level of awareness and caring, so if you have any reservation about it use, avoid it completely. Even greater caution should be exercised around gathering information through the sense of taste. Some cultures promote active cheek kissing as a form of greeting. In that situation you might collect some data about the person from the lip contact, but rarely should you use tongue. You need a good understanding of a person’s level of awareness and caring well before using tongue.

One of the best ways to learn about someone is to discuss him or her with friends and acquaintances. Again, be careful because there is high risk of discomfort, guilt feelings, and the invasion into family and friendship bonds. Just as I hope you know I’m trying to get a few chuckles by exploiting assumptions about gossip, you should realize that talking to people about others is a rich source of information. Sometimes you can learn more about the person from their friends than from that person directly. This is not to turn our society into a police state full of interviews and friendship canvasses, but to utilize some of the same techniques for finding bad actors to learn how to better appreciate our good ones.

Future posts will explore the best ways to learn more about each other, and in the process, ourselves.

 

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Applying the Ware Care Continuum Part 2: Care

The previous post provided a basic template for evaluating a person’s awareness. Accurately judging how much a person cares about other people is more difficult. A history of often getting it wrong, sometimes with very painful consequences, has given the judging process a bad name. It’s easy to be wrong. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. After all, knowing how much a person cares about others is important. Some might say the most important thing.

So how do we do it? First we must establish what care means. You can care about another person in many ways, not all good. For practitioners of the Ware Care Continuum, caring shall be considered as wanting the best for another person, even if you don’t wish to be part of that person’s life. A better definition is that caring means seeking mutually satisfactory outcomes. This only works, though, if both sides have some knowledge of what the other wants. In other words, they must have some awareness of each other. And to evaluate another’s level of care, you must need to know how much that person is aware.

For an example, let’s evaluate the care level of someone you watch interact with another person. How a person treats someone else should have a strong affect on you, even though they are not doing something directly to you. Imagine seeing someone spit in another person’s face. It’s tempting to think that the spitter doesn’t care about the spittee. Or that she cares very much about that person and wants to inflict humiliation and indignity. Since humiliation clashes with a mutually satisfaction (except in certain sado masochistic relationships), that kind of powerful caring is considered low- care.

But, what if the spitter perceived a wound on the recipient’s face, and, with no first aid kit available, and having just learned that there are antibacterial properties in saliva, thought she was doing the right thing for the person? This knowledge changes the care assessment. Would licking the wound be the more caring response? Perhaps, but again, it is possible the spitter was aware of the wounded person’s aversion to tongue contact or some other overall need for personal space.

Okay, so this is an extreme example, but one that illustrates how easy it is to misunderstand another’s level of care. A more common instance might be a man ignoring his child’s cries. It may appear that he doesn’t care, but what if he is trying to teach the child to self soothe?

So, what does an actual low care status look like? A hearing, fully capable person, who walks past someone in obvious distress without stopping is an obvious example. But it is probably less common, and might not be so useful. How about this – a person who appears to be listening to another individual express a point of view, but who just smiles, nods his head, and walks off. That would be a sign of not caring about the other person’s issue.   We will continue to look for other examples, and post them here to aid in developing this process. Your help puts the “participate” in participastory.

The easiest way to assess if a person cares is to determine if they have the ability to do something, fix a problem, make a change, and yet fail to act on it. The affect we have on others often starts with how we care for ourselves. If you see a person with poor personal hygiene who also has obvious material advantages such as a nice home, car, job, it may seem obvious the person doesn’t care about his appearance. While this person may be a slob, before quickly assuming he is a low care, remember that our assessments are about interactions with others, not an individual’s personal habits. But this example begins with basic actions and expressions of existence. If he smells bad, and his body odors creep into your nostrils, that does reflect a lack of caring about the experience of others near him. Even if there is an allergy to deodorant, the person might use some sort of oil or scent to mitigate the smell. Similar examples can be made of those who don’t try to control anxiety, fear, or anger. These emotions directly affect other people. Anxiety can be as infectious as the flu. But how do you know if someone’s anxiety is controllable or run amok by abnormal neurochemical balances?

Making these assessments will be complicated. Difficulty in figuring others out may be one of the main reasons people give up and decide they don’t care. Indifference is easier than the difficult work of properly assessing others.

Staying in the same subject as hygiene, just because a person is very clean, does not mean that he cares about others. He might conceal his body odor due to fear of embarrassment and vanity. However, everyone who doesn’t have to smell him will probably be grateful, whatever the motivation. So how do you evaluate people who commit thoughtful, considerate acts for others, but don’t really care about them? Those who help others only to advance themselves socially or position themselves to exploit others? We will explore these questions and more going forward. One goal of practicing the Ware Care Continuum, though, is to understand and read people better. But in order for that to happen, we must do more than just think their assessments, we must share them.

Feedback is only useful if you share it. Please feel free to share feedback with me about this blog below.

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Applying the Ware Care Continuum

To improve our interdependence, we should invoke John F. Kennedy. Ask not how someone or something makes you feel, ask how you make others feel. That’s not always an easy conversation to start, unless you step on their toes, spill hot coffee in their lap, cut them off in traffic, or turn them on in some irresistible way. That gets quick feedback. The rest of the time, though, asking about feelings evokes a sense of privacy, intimacy, and for some, weak sentimentality. So let’s call it how we affect other people. That sounds more neutral, less vulnerable. How do you learn how you affect others? Do you just ask? Maybe sometime we can get that direct. But for now we probably need to give something of ourselves first, namely we can share information about how they affect us.

It’s usually easy to tell someone if she has made a positive affect on you. It can be much harder when an interaction is unpleasant. Negative impressions stick with us. We often avoid giving feedback about the experience for fear of upsetting the person, saying the wrong thing, or we actually say the wrong thing that makes the situation worse. When your interests are offended, it’s easy to conclude that the person doesn’t care about you. The person might care, but lack awareness. Using the Ware Care Continuum can help you avoid some unpleasant reactions associated with a negative interaction by increasing your understanding of the person. It can also open up ways to share your impressions of others in case that person wants help with personal growth.

Here’s how it works. When someone upsets you, interrupt the counterproductive chain of reactions with questions. Instead of thinking, this &^%# just cut me off, or interrupted me, or wasted my time, ask, did this &^%$ know I am here, or aware I wasn’t finished, or think I wasn’t busy right now? If calling that person an expletive helps relieve a little tension, go ahead. But only in your mind. And keep your face neutral too. Sometimes your expression can call a person a douchebag without you saying a word. The curiosity behind the questions should replace some of the animosity, and what you learn should give you better options in handling the situation.

This inquiry should get at how this person affects you, not other aspects of personal preferences, tastes, and so on. Remember, though, that we are not promoting self-centeredness, but interdependence. Ask specific questions about areas the person can control. Some qualities like how a person speaks, looks, moves, for example, are outside control. They may annoy you, which is an affect, but one that shouldn’t change your reaction. If it does, you need to examine your own sense of tolerance. To know how a person affects you, ask how much is the person aware and cares.

Is this person aware of me, of my presence? That’s the most basic level of inquiry. Then, is this person aware of what I’m doing? Am I driving? Talking to someone else? Busy at my job? That’s a lower to medium level. A low ware or med ware. Is this person aware of how I am doing right now? If I am in pain? Distress? Happy? Sad? Angry? Knowledge of these mental states range from a medium level of awareness to high. Some folks mask their emotions well or simply always have flat affects. Is this person aware that I like her? Dislike him? Is this person aware of my thoughts, my cares? If yes, that signifies a high ware.

Your evaluation of the person’s awareness indicates your level of expectation. In other words, by evaluating that person you are also examining yourself. Why do I think that person should know my name? Have I introduced myself properly? Am I friendly and engaging? Do I think I am well known in this area? The answers to those questions might help you interact better with everyone else you meet. It will start a path for you to understand how you affect others. And if your warecare assessments are shared properly, they might help others.

It’s taken me a long time to write this post because I’ve made so many revisions to it. I’ve even changed the name of the process from Care/Aware Index to the Ware Care Continuum. I hope the latter is better. Another big question was about the best names or descriptors to use. These descriptions need to be short, and preferably pleasing to the ear. To start, we will modify high, medium, or low along with care and aware to create the phrases high ware, low care, med ware high care, low ware, low care, and so forth. I’m sure when someone blocks you in the hallway without seeming to care, or gets upset about something that wasn’t your fault, calling or thinking of them as a low ware may lack the satisfying sense of power that asshole or SOB provides. But understanding the person better should be satisfying on a deeper level. Now, if you dig into the situation and discover the person is a low ware, low care, or worse, high ware, low care, you may find they are in fact an a-hole. At least now you will have something to back it up. And by participating in the development of the WareCare Continuum, you might discover ways to help someone overcome such a personality deficiency. Isn’t changing someone better than just judging him?

 

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Where to Start

The Care Aware Index is meant to focus your thoughts about other people in ways that can easily be expressed as feedback to start valuable dialogues. It might seem ideal to apply these assessments to everyone you meet, but that’s probably not a good place to start. Our schedules won’t allow it and the human brain may not have that much processing power. And even once we can augment our mental abilities technologically, do we want to assess everyone we see on the street? It is possible to care too much and we’ll discuss that later.

It’s tempting to think that the first people we should assess are our friends and family. Aren’t your odds of success better with people Continue reading “Where to Start”

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Judge and Be Judged

Before certain misguided individuals take my call to start judging people too seriously, here are some important caveats. In order to judge someone, you must be willing to be judged. That just reflects a condition of our existence, because people are often judged for their judgments. But it is my intention that no one use this system who doesn’t wish to participate in being evaluated by it. No one can stop you from using the Care/Aware Index if you intend to avoid being assessed by it, but your deceitful behaviors will be obvious, especially to trained practitioners. Since using the CAI requires you to assert your opinion of another, the more you use it, the more exposed your thoughts become.

The ultimate goal of making these assessments of others is to understand oneself and each other. Some seek this information for Continue reading “Judge and Be Judged”

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Forgive and Take

I am writing a novella about a series of fictional characters who try to implement many of the ideas discussed on this blog. It’s titled Forgive and Take and here is a synopsis of it. I’d love your feedback.

Forgive and Take

            Mike is bright, energetic, and full of ideas he never follows through on. Lisa is smart and disciplined with a long list of successes. Their chance meeting leads to a plan to improve society by teaching people how to judge each other better.

Lisa wants to promote a clinical way for everyday people to judge Continue reading “Forgive and Take”

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Intro to the Care/Aware Index

I am not a social scientist, nor philosopher, but I play one in the blogosphere. And in that capacity I suggest that humanity has the ability now to solve many of its most of its threatening social problems. Simplistic explanations for violence and famine such as Evil, or the difficulty in getting disparate groups to agree, are just not productive. But, my simplistic explanation might be – many social problems are caused by people who aren’t aware or don’t care about others around them.

Think about poverty, crime, intolerance, war… We now understand much of what causes or contributes to all these issues.  We extract Continue reading “Intro to the Care/Aware Index”

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Disclaimers and clarifications

Participastory is devoted to exploring human interdependence. That means hiking, sometimes crawling through the rugged terrain of interpersonal relationships, all the while scribbling notes, taking photographs, collecting samples. The need to fend off attack is always present.  Now that I hope I’ve made it sound exciting, here are some clarifications and disclaimers.

You can learn how people affect each other in many ways. Reading, discussing, scientific observations and experiments. Or just close people-watching. We’re going to do a little of all that.

Many of my future posts will suggest ways to start conversations. Continue reading “Disclaimers and clarifications”