On Seeing Eye-To-Eye

I’ve been thinking about a conversation I listened to some months back, on an episode of Simon Sinek’s A Bit of Optimism podcast, which featured Trevor Noah as a guest. They were talking about how closed-off society is becoming and how that is bringing to the forefront this desperate need for community and belonging, which unfortunately causes people to form groups based on viewpoints and causes that are sometimes taken to the extreme.

Trevor’s response was, in summary, that while it was the human experience to have their politics and gravitate towards certain issues, he was concerned there were fewer spaces where people’s worlds met — communal spaces and intersections where you had to interact with people who held different views and work with them for the common good while allowing them to be who they are regardless of the opinions they held.

The entire conversation was great and you should check it out, but I’ve been mulling over this point on interactions since I listened.

It appears that there’s a lot of disrespect prevalent in interactions, especially online — topics discussed in black and white and limited consideration for the reasoning and merits of the other person’s argument. People (including me sometimes) want to be right all the time.

Watching the Netflix series Sanctuary some time ago made me feel I had a lot of work to do in this regard.

Sanctuary follows the life of this young, crazy guy making his way into the world of Sumo. He is arrogant and brash and there are a lot of interesting characters and storylines distilled into 8 episodes. I remember watching it and feeling angry at how many of the relationships unfurled in the story — unconditional love and filial piety in the face of what I considered irredeemable behaviour. I thought, “How dare you forgive the wrong done to you?” I was a little annoyed because different characters in that show go through a lot with other people but, somehow, come around and accept who this person is.

I reinstalled my social media apps after taking a mini hiatus and I’m often reminded of that conversation and TV series because I witness a lot of extreme conversations — little nuance, little acknowledgement of chance or luck. Everything has to be black or white – everything has a box.

In person, it is easier to see that’s just not how things are. Sure your perception plays a huge part, but there are the facts of the matter. Some things are universally true and a lot of how we live is dependent on how we perceive those facts, interact with them, and how those facts come to bear in many different situations with many variables. And I’ve just been thinking about that a lot and how we could stand to be more forgiving and not be quick to take our annoyance out on people we have decided are a certain ‘not-so-acceptable’ way.

While I think doing so can be useful for keeping your space happy and controlled as well as removing potentially dangerous ideologies and people from your circle, there is some merit in not immediately shunning people when they upset you, in sitting there with the discomfort and untangling that mess, and only after that, making a decision. Of course, the caveat here is the potential harm you or the person is causing, especially when it can be immediate and/or physical.

I think that process of untangling brings you to a point where on some level, you understand what this person is going through. You understand the point of view and its antecedents or you don’t but you can appreciate the existence of a varying viewpoint and understand their reasoning and this allows you to be more gracious to them in your interactions and even better, open to other views that make your life richer for knowing them.