Category: Exploration

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I Am Aware and I Care Emoji

 

How do you react when someone looks at your mobile phone or laptop screen without your invitation? Maybe you just shrug it off, or glare at the person. But please consider it a good opportunity to develop social skills, beginning with your ability to read expressions. Is the person looking with concentrated effort, or just gazing about with no clear purpose? You can check your answer by asking in a non threatening way – “Hey, why you’re looking at what I’m looking at?” or just moving the screen out of range and monitoring the reaction.

A more tech approach would be to open an app that featuring an eye staring back at that person, alerting them to the fact you know they are looking. Even more empowering would be an emoji that could convey the range of mental reactions you might have to their screenlifting. But what would you want to express?

Anger or hostility would only seem to beg more problems. It might help if you are reasonably sure the looker was an immediate threat. But otherwise, how do you know she wasn’t about to warn you that she had spotted a terrible malware? Fear might be an honest message, but probably unwise if the person is inclined to cause harm. Kindness is usually always good, no matter what the situation, but might be exploited by a person you know little about. I would recommend a neutral expression that sends this message: I am aware, and I care.

What better position to find a mutually agreeable outcome, both for you and the looker? The fact you care doesn’t mean you are angry or glad they are looking, just interested in why. It invites discussion of their intention and puts you in the best position going forward no matter what the lookers’ intention. It broadcasts strength through awareness and engagement. A neutral state of caring gives you options to focus on yourself if they are too self interested, or more about them if it turns out they need help. Of course, if the person harbors immediate malicious intent, forget the emoji expression and either fight or run, depending on the situation.

Now on the flip side, if you are discovered looking at a screen, how should you respond? If you mean that person harm, well, I’m not sure why you are reading a blog devoted to improving human relations through mutually agreeable outcomes. But perhaps you are trying to become a better person and my first piece of advice would be to acknowledge wrongdoing while making sure to restrain yourself from any violent impulses. If you are a secret intelligence officer and are caught reading the screen of a dangerous enemy, just rely on your training. I don’t know what to tell you.

But, if like most in this situation, your eyes land on another’s screen out of genuine curiosity, inattention, or boredom. And you won’t yet have an emoji to express an emotional state, so you’ll need to use your face and body language to respond. What will you want to say?

Do you feel you had a right to look at the screen, since it was right in front of you? If the screen owner is unhappy, then they shouldn’t have held it up, right? It’s much easier to convey this with a sneer or look of contempt, than actually using those words. Or do you feel guilty, like you have trespassed on this person’s digital property and you should get off as quickly as possible? Your embarrassed look away and inability to make eye contact will get that message across.

Your attitude about being discovered, your response to it, should match your belief about how far your rights extend into others’. And here lies an opportunity to turn a minor incident in line at Starbucks or the local library into a philosophical examination of wide ranging implications. How much do you feel entitled to others’ space or inner knowledge? How much should you know about what others know? How much permission do you need? And do you think others should expect the same of you? If you have decided that your goal in every interaction is find a mutually agreeable outcome then your inquiry, your curiosity, your efforts are trying to serve the both of you. Even if you make a mistake, you can avoid the sense of guilt that accompanies self conflict, and focus on learning from it.

It’s okay if what you think your rights are overlap or intrude into what they think their rights are. That happens all the time and will continue. But it’s not okay to ignore or lie about it, though. That just makes problems worse. Figure out how your overlapping, conflicting interests can find a mutually agreeable outcome starts by expressing that you are aware that they are aware, and you care.

I wish I knew how to tell you exactly how to express this caring awareness. Figuring it out is one of the main near term goals of this blog.

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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

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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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”