The source of this pain is other
people.
What I mean is our often
disappointing, superficial, unsatisfactory relationships with people. This
comes in the form of relationships and connections that aren’t very deep
between us and those whom we consider our friends, leading to a lot of
loneliness. It comes in the form of bad choices for associates and
partners—leading to all this struggle and messy breakups. It comes from letting
some toxic narcissist into our life—leading to all kinds of emotional trauma
that can take years to get over, if we even ever do. And it also comes from our
inability to persuade, to move people, to influence them, to get them
interested in our ideas—generating feelings of frustration and anger.
We are deeply social animals and
having dysfunctional social relationships leads to all kinds of problems. It
leads to depression. It leads to recurring obsessive thoughts, to the inability
to focus on our work, to eating disorders, to even physical diseases such as
heart disease. We only see the surface phenomenon—the loneliness or the
depression or physical ailment. We don’t see the underlying source. And
sometimes we’re not even aware that we suffer from loneliness.
(…)
What is the source of this pain,
of this problem? The obvious answer is that we are generally very poor
observers of people around us. We’re poor listeners. We’ve become so
self-absorbed with our smartphones and our technology. We’re not paying
attention. And when we do pay attention, we project onto people our own
emotions, our own desires. Or we’re very quick to judge and categorize
them—that person’s good, that person’s evil; that person’s likeable, that
person’s not likeable.
(…)
Are there moments in our lives in
which we actually feel different? In which we are actually paying deep
attention to people? In which we are actually observing them? And I said yes,
there are.
First of all, as children.
Children are master observers of people. They are very attuned to the emotions
and moods of their parents—their survival depends on it. Con artists hate
children because children can see through their phoniness, their fakeness. We
were all great observers when we were children. Then, if we travel to a foreign
country and everything’s exotic and weird, our senses are heightened. We’re
paying attention to people. They seem so different—we want to understand them.
Also, if we start a new job and we’re a bit nervous—we’re paying attention to
all the little power dynamics going on. Obviously, when we fall in love—we’re
extremely attentive to that person. We’re picking out every little sign and
detail that they’re emitting about whether they like us, who they are, what
their character is like. And finally, strangely enough, if we read a really
good novel or see a great movie. We’re fascinated by the characters someone has
created, and we want to get inside of their world.
What do all these experiences
have in common? In these moments, our desire is engaged. We’re excited. We’re
curious. We feel the need to pay attention to people. Our survival could even
depend on it. And when we’re excited and curious and we feel the necessity,
suddenly our eyes come to life. We’re watching. We’re observing. We’re getting
inside people. And in these moments, there’s less of our ego. We’re getting
outside of ourselves and into the world of other people.”
More about this and other topics here:
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