2012 Learning

Highlights of 2012 (4): What was the most important thing you learned this year?

Probably the Speaker-Listener Technique, our marriage counselor's first lesson for us. This communication protocol is priceless for any kind of sticky conversation, provided both parties agree to it. It's essentially an algorithm for clear communication, and it goes like this:

1. Select an object, let's say a waterbottle, to represent "the floor."
2. Choose one person to be the Speaker. The other party will be the Listener.
3. The Speaker takes the waterbottle. He or she now has the floor (the right to speak).
4. The Speaker says a sentence or two about the topic at hand. (Some types of statements are not allowed, for instance name-calling.) Ideally he or she uses "I"-statements but this isn't required.
5. The Listener may ask a clarifying question if he or she is confused. Then the Listener reflects or summarizes what he or she understood from the Speaker's statements: "I hear you saying that..." "What I heard you say was..."
6. If the Listener has understood correctly, the Speaker confirms this and the process returns to step 4. If the Listener's statement was not an accurate paraphrase, the Speaker restates him or herself and the process returns to step 5.
7. When the Speaker has said as much as he or she wants to say at that point, he or she gives the water bottle to the Listener. Now the Listener has "the floor" and becomes the Speaker; the previous Speaker is now the Listener.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 as necessary.
9. Exit the conversation, having avoided a lot of misunderstanding.

Cover Letters and Bragging

I will delay a more past-reflective post once again, because I spent all my writing time today on an email, a cover letter and a resume. (I'm applying for a job as an editorial assistant!) Writing the cover letter was by far the most bizarre writing experience. I had to write a letter to a stranger, telling her how awesome I am! The language of the resume and cover letter is alien to my daily life. A lifetime of social experience, especially living in Japan, has conditioned me to downplay my accomplishments and wait for others to praise me.

If I were Achilles or Odysseus or Hector, reciting my glorious deeds and prowess at everything I set my hand to would come easily--I'd have had a lot of practice, as a man in a culture and religion where salvation comes through self-glorification (as long as it doesn't overstep into hubris, which gets you damnation).

But as an Asian-American woman, clinging to a religion that praises humility and socialized into a historically Protestant culture where public displays of pride were anathema, writing a cover letter is downright unnatural. It helps to think of it as describing how my skills match the specified qualifications, but still, the experience is, in a word:

AWKWARD.

Privacy

A few weeks back, two of our friends, A. and E., were fighting about what whether it's okay to forward an email which your friend sent only to you, to another mutual friend or friends. A., who is a young Christian, denigrated the whole concept of privacy, saying it is necessary only because of human selfishness and pride. In an unfallen world there would be no need for privacy, he claimed. I disagree, vehemently. The following are some thoughts on the importance of privacy.

I believe privacy is deeply connected to personhood, not just sinfulness. Even in a world where everyone was perfectly loving and humble, I think the need for privacy would still exist.

*Note: Perhaps in Heaven that won't be the case, because Jesus promised that we will be one there as He and the Father are one--perhaps this includes sharing all our thoughts? Likewise, in a world with telepathy or perfect communication, privacy would function differently.

This is because privacy has to do with appropriateness and the specificity of relationships. Respecting a person's privacy is honoring the specificity of their relationship with you. Each relationship is different, because every person is unique. Persons, even persons who all study computer science, or even persons who all follow the same God, are never interchangeable. When you say something to one person, that person will interpret it in a particular way, because they have some particular and finite knowledge of you and a particular relationship and history with you. If that person repeats what you said to another person, that third person is not going to hear and understand it in exactly the same way as the original, intended audience.

For example, if I say something to O., he will understand it in a much deeper and more nuanced way than if I say that same thing to O.'s best friend S., because O. knows me more intimately and also knows more about me and simply has had more experiences with me. Thus if O. does repeat what I said to S., he has a responsibility to both me and S. to provide whatever context and/or interpretation he can to make it more likely that S. will interpret my words as I intended them.

Of course, in a lot of cases, no matter how much context/interpretation O. provides, there is no way for him to repeat my words to S. in an appropriate way. Some things just can't transfer, because some context is relational and historical rather than informational. That is, the fact that I'm O.'s wife is a major, major part of the context of whatever I say to him, and that context is simply not transferable because our relationship is unique.

Now, I know marriage is an extreme example of a relationship being specific and its contents being impossible to repeat appropriately outside of the marital context. But every relationship is specific and particular. The particularity of relationships is rooted not in our fallenness but in our personhood. A., E. has a particular relationship with you, and E., A. has a particular relationship with you. That particularity in and of itself, without recourse to matters of pride, unlove, hiding, etc., necessitates a consideration for the particularity of any given exchange between the two of you.

To summarize and apply: Simply because E. is a unique individual and he said some things to you, A., as your own unique individual in the context of your particular unique shared relationship--simply because you are both persons and every time you speak to each other you do so as persons--it doesn't work to repeat what he said to you to other people who weren't invited into the original exchange. If you do so without asking his consent, you are treating him as a non-person.

Whatever bad purposes privacy may be used for, privacy in itself is an essential way of respecting personhood. That's why it's important.

P.S. It's also worth noting that when you argue that privacy is only important to people who wish to hide something, you make it impossible for anyone to request privacy without appearing to be guilty. It's a conversation-stopper. If your goal is to foster open communication and create a space where no one feels the need to hide their true self, then making the argument that the desire for privacy comes from sin is counterproductive. On the other hand, if your goals is to shut down communication and "win" the argument, this might be a highly successful tactic to take... Heh.

Reflective Listening (Literal Edition)

Yesterday, I invented a new technique for communication in our marriage: the hand-held mirror.

The need for a mirror arises from the fact that people are not always aware of what their facial expressions look like. We may not even be aware that our facial expressions have deviated from neutral and relaxed. In these moments, it may be helpful to literally reflect the face to the face-maker. Enter the hand-held mirror.

O. and I are both guilty of making daunting faces without realizing it. For instance, I sometimes make faces that seem condemning or judgmental to O., and scare him. But it's more common for O. to inadvertently scare me with his face. I believe this is due to O.'s expressive Mediterranean features: eyebrows that like to spend a lot of quality time snuggled together, nostrils that take in all the scents of the world. Strong jaw. Any tension draws O.'s eyebrows together, flares his nostrils, and tenses his jaw. From his innocent inner perspective, he is making Stone Face, which is stiff but not threatening. But the outward reality is that this facial expression would be, for anyone else, an Angry Face. And actually, since O. tries not to scare me by making Turkish Angry Face ("I kill you now!") when he is angry, the face he makes when he is angry is typically the so-called Stone Face. In other words, Stone Face is Angry Face, even if that's not how O. intends it.

O. found it hard to believe that Stone Face was scary looking. So I whipped out the hand-mirror. Hilarity ensued as O. tried to construct his typical tense face. I was focused on the eyebrows, which can be quite terrifying by themselves, but O., perceptive man that he is, remembered the contribution of his nose. "Do I usually flare my nostrils at you?" Adding the flared nostrils, O.'s countenance became truly fearsome to behold. Up came the mirror, and O. beheld Angry Face.

"Wow, that is scary!" he said.

Then Angry Face collapsed and was reborn into Laughing Face, and we burst into giggles together.

Thank God for mirrors. We're going to keep this one by the couch now, and in scary parts of the conversation, when I am choking for words because my body has gotten too tense to think anything except shhh-- be very quiet-- don't move-- maybe he won't see you-- (a reaction which only makes O. more upset), I won't have to think of words. I will grab the mirror and let it reflect O.'s face to him, and then I'll just listen for the moment when he realizes how scary his face has gotten, and laughter replaces tears.

We'll see how this goes.

[p.s. The Angry Face is compounded by way O.'s voice drops an octave when he gets angry or defensive. Unfortunately it also drops when he is nervous or concentrating hard, giving my Anger Detector a lot of false positives.]

For K.

Phone fragments       (135/160)

form our friendship     now
Words so freighted     a decades memories
hang from                   a bright screen
small as my palm       A pocket stone 
sings                          days gone by

Speak Up

What is it that drives me not to speak, to hold back the naming of my desires? Whose role am I playing? When did I pick up a script, when did I memorize these lines so thoroughly that, speaking them, I don't even realize I didn't write them myself, am not making them up on the spot? Speaking them: there are the things I say, and the things I don't say, and the things I don't even realize I'm not saying.

I hold back out of fear, but what am I afraid of? Is it you I fear, your judgment, condemnation? I remember: past reactions, upsetting you without intending to, the delicate work of smoothing things back over, finding out where we diverged. So much retracing of paths, such wanderings in the woods.

Or is it my desires themselves I fear? They grow out of my own self, yet when they are born, I am reluctant to acknowledge them. Sometimes I disown them, like children whom my tendrils of communication cannot reach. "Never come home again," I tell them. Yet they lurk just outside on the sidewalk, and their faces haunt me.

Then I blame you for not asking me, when the truth is, you've asked and asked, and I have refused to speak. The truth sticks in my throat, it catches in my teeth. I am afraid to let it out so it flaps and flutters in my mouth. A few feathers fly from my lips. If I just open my mouth, it will burst forth and escape, and then who knows what it will do? I'll never catch it again. If it flies at our faces, if it attacks our eyes, what will we do? I will cower in a corner, I will hide under a table.

To speak is to be alive, to be a person. It's so much safer to be a statue--silent marble, gracious and inoffensive. But it is so cold. O Lord, teach me to be human.

[Quote of the Day:] Secret Self

I've been doing a lot of reading and a fair amount of talking lately, and not much writing. As a reflection of that, here is a quote from a book that I finished recently, which made me ponder and brought me peace: Seasons of Celebration, by Thomas Merton.

Personalism is the discovery, the respect, but not the cult, for this deep reality. [...] The great paradox of Christian personalism is this: it consist in something more than bringing to light the unique and irreplaceable element in the individual Christian.

On the contrary, Christian personalism does not require that the inmost secret of our being become manifest or public at all. We do not even have to see it clearly ourselves! [...] Christian personalism does not root out the inner secret of hte individual in order to put it on display in a spiritual beauty contest.

This comment about "the inmost secret of our being" brought me relief in an area that I hadn't even realized I was feeling tension. The goal of self-knowledge always seems desirable to me, because understanding myself has often brought me clarity and peace--or at least calmness. The untangling of my emotions has brought the stillness and emptiness which together allow for a dreamless sleep, and which I have often sought.

But seeking has not always meant finding. Unwinding the knotted threads has not always brought understanding, which often seems too slippery to grasp. Moreover, even if understanding somehow falls into my open hands, and does not pour out through my fingers, communication may prove impossible.

This predicament is made worse by the feeling that knowledge I can't express is no knowledge at all. What good is reflection if it doesn't bear fruit: actions or at least words? If I can't make myself understood, or if I can't even understand myself, I have failed. At least, that's how I tend to think. Hiding and secrets come naturally, and so I've struggled against them and treated them as the enemy.

But Merton sanctifies secrets and mystery. He places mystery at the heart of holiness, and secrets at the heart of personhood. In that light, I can stop struggling to smooth out the shadowy folds of my self. It's okay to be a secret; it's okay that God only knows me through and through; it's okay that I don't understand.

Quote from David McNeill

"Communication [is] a matter not only of signal exchange but of social resonance and inhabitance in the same 'house of being.'" David McNeill, Gesture and Thought.

To communicate, you have to inhabit the same mental space as your interlocutor. Set up camp there, unpack your suitcase. Make it your home: learn where the silverware is kept, find out what time everyone wakes up, operate the microwave or, better yet, do a load of wash. You have to feel the nuances that shape any particular word. Learn the stories whose light illuminates the world for that person you want to communicate with. To really understand someone, you can't just drop by and chat. You have to inhabit--stay in--their home: in their structure of existence, their safe retreat, the place patterned by their habits and filled with the objects they treasure. You have to be a guest in their mind.

And that is why we don't usually communicate deeply. When we don't resonate with each other naturally, it takes a great deal of effort to interpret the signals we pass back and forth between our distinct houses of being. Often it's impossible. Which I suppose is why, when I meet someone with whom social resonance comes easily (someone whose 'house of being' has a similar floorplan to mine?), I am so anxious to stay in communication with them.

In which I am a bizarre specimen of humanity

In the past few months, I have frequently spent two or three hours talking over dinner. I have left several of them feeling bitter about the amount of homework I should have gotten done during those hours. Others, though, I left feeling pleasantly rebellious against the world of productivity. Some of these long conversations were fun, some useful, some informative; some were a combination of two or three of those; some were simply frustrating or unsatisfying.

The one I had today revolved around the definition of a (mathematical) limit. (". . . such that for an arbitrarily small epsilon, there is a number delta such that the value of the function falls within epsilon of y for every x within delta of a." "This is music to my ears!")

Based on a comparison of my feelings toward today's long conversation to previous ones, I think I can conclude that I would feel more connected in a relationship (of whatever sort) where we spent hours talking about math (or other abstractions) than one where we spent hours talking about the relationship.

What the heck does that say about me?

Clicking

What makes two people click? To click with someone is to intuitively, effortlessly understand them. You click with someone because you have in common

(1) values,
(2) interests,
(3) sense of humor,
(4) style of communication, or
(5) emotional reactions (personality).

Of course, commonalities in some of these areas are noticeable more immediately than others. A similar sense of humor is quickly apparent, and shared interests are usually discovered early on. Whether values align is a much subtler question, especially since we aren't always aware of our own deepest values, but also because most of us aren't likely to talk about our fundamental values with a person we have just met. Revealing the inner workings of ourselves makes us vulnerable and can be overwhelming or imposing for the other person, so we don't do it right away. We work on the surface.

Likewise, personality and communication style aren't always immediately clear, because in order to function in society, we must all adapt our personalities and communicational styles. The persona that initially comes across, while not necessarily "fake", is often not the person's most natural self. Rather, it is the vision of the self constructed in order to guard the real self and work effectively with the surrounding individuals. (Extroverts don't have to put forth as much effort to connect with others as introverts do, so their personalities don't intrinsically pose problems for functioning in social settings. The "successful" introvert, though, probably isn't seen as an introvert, but rather as friendly and confident--characteristics which, though genuine, do not come naturally.) The outer self is as much a function of the surrounding environment as of the inner reality.

Preferred communication style may also be hidden. For instance, take a person who comes from a background that fostered indirect communication (such as Japan), and thus prefers to communicate indirectly, but who interacts primarily with people who communicate more directly (such as Americans). This person would have to adapt their day-to-day conversation style to function effectively, so they would appear to also have a direct communication style. But underneath, their natural communication style is quite different. Yet another complication is that a person who communicates very directly is unlikely to pick up on their conversation partner's indirect requests, and may not even notice that there is a misalignment.

So initial clicking tends to take place on the surface level: interests and sense of humor, and (to some extent) communicational style.

But what happens when two people are really well-matched on the surface levels but not on underlying values? They feel like they click, but ultimately they discover that they don't understand each other's core ideas. This can be problematic, because the surface level clicking has already created a strong bond by the time the issue of disparate values comes up...

In any case, on a day-to-day level, it's easier (though not necessarily more satisfying) to interact with people who share your interests, humor and communicational style but not your core values than the reverse--people who care about the same fundamental things but don't understand your attempts to communicate with them.