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Observations on Human Connection & Contribution

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#101: Two structures of human life, and how they obstruct relationality (India Diaries)

My recent India visit was my longest since I left home 20 years ago. While I had a long list of tasks, there was space to spend agenda-less time with whoever and whatever showed up in my days. As if plucked from responsibilities and daily priorities, I was suspended from life, hovering above everyone else while they went about their routines, commutes and deadlines.

I saw the universal rhythms, transitions and evolutions embedded in life. Meal times, menus, get-togethers and health exams; caregiving and care taking; oscillations of attachment and detachment; happy and sad life transitions; the evolution of people and their relationships; hope and grief. I observed both the mundane and the moving. But I wasn’t a distant observer, I engaged with my full emotional repertoire without even trying. Because I was surrounded by people I had lifelong histories and memories with―a high concentration of those I loved―I had moments of deep emotional resonance pretty much daily if not several times a day. There was a lot of love and some frustration. I soaked it all in.

But here’s my main point: all of the above played inside two main structures, the practical and the emotional. 

  • The practical structures: These are the things we do everyday, whether paid or unpaid, whether at home or outside. These are the spaces we show up in and contribute to in tangible ways. These are often the more visible parts of our days. We can think of the practical as the “hardware” or the “what” of our lives. The practical gives scaffolding, purpose and busyness to our days.
  • The emotional structures: These are the things we feel, which are of course driven by our circumstances but more than that by the people that populate our lives, including ourselves. They are our family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, acquaintances, those we run into periodically (like the pharmacist), and even complete strangers (like co-commuters on the metro). Our emotional structures are a source of our most beautiful and terrible moments, offering both love and pain, hope and despair. They’re like oxygen―invisible and absolutely critical. This is the intangible “software” that runs the practical hardware of our lives. Think of the emotional as the “how” to the practical “what”.

Now let me thread one final thought to bring this home:

Our lives are fundamentally relational (this is backed by social scientists, leaders and humans of all stripes). That is, we become who we are and do everything we do with and through other people. We’re happier when we tap into relationality regardless of context. So what gets in the way?

  • Our main relational obstacle when we feel secure is busyness. When all of life’s practical needs are going well and we are generally feeling good about things, what gets in the way of relationships are the practical things (time, distance, schedules). We feel comfortable showing more of ourselves, if we only had the time.
  • Our main relational obstacle when we feel insecure is vulnerability. When life’s practical scaffolding starts crumbling, when things aren’t going so well and when we are more likely to be in the emotional dumps, we don’t fixate on the practical as much. We seek people out or they seek us. Then what gets in the way is the ability to show more of ourselves, to be vulnerable.

Regardless of the obstacle, tapping into impermanence has the power to bring us back to relationality. This may be counterintuitive but remembering that we, and everything we see and experience is fleeting can re-tune us back into our shared humanity. For proof: see the point on benevolence (chapter 2) in the 2023 World Happiness Report.

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Sidenote: I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’ve been playing with these ideas for a couple of years and they are core to my work. Ping me directly to let me know if they resonate or if I’m missing anything.

“Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.

Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way to begin
the conversation.”
― “Start Close In” by David Whyte, Poet

#96: Anatomy of micro interactions

I needed customer service from several companies over the last few weeks and had two contrasting experiences. This is an attempt to deconstruct that contrast.

My first interaction was through online chat. I got assigned to an agent named Oliver, who was not only helpful but had an effervescence that leapt across the chat. He gave me a link that I clicked through which, for some reason, disconnected our chat. I had all the information I needed at this point and the link was just extra. But instead of closing out the transaction mentally and moving on with my day, I felt the incompleteness of our interaction. Oliver had helped me but I didn’t get the chance to thank him.

The next day I interacted with Jeff, from another company. This time we were on the phone. It was clear early on that Jeff couldn’t help me because of his company’s policies. But what caught my attention was my rising internal irritation with Jeff. Yes he couldn’t do anything, and we’ve all been in such situations, but what stressed me was his incessant and pause-less talking and limited listening. He seemed to be repeating a talk track and clearly wasn’t skilled at handling customers yet. Part of me felt sorry for him but his talking at me made me want to shush him. I had to interrupt him several times to clarify my request and even after hearing me, he didn’t respond, he parroted the talk track. I desperately wanted to get off the phone and was amazed at the strength of my reaction.

The two interactions were only a day apart but my experience of myself was as different as night and day. I was relaxed and joyful in the first and had a knot in my stomach after the second. Below is that attempt at deconstruction that I mentioned.

In 2021, I arrived at an important conclusion about human connection through my research: The relational “table” is set before we even arrive for an interaction with others. Environmental and internal influences have a massive impact on how we relate to others and they can worsen the relational barriers that already exist.

We can see from the exchange above how some aspects of this table were set. My needs were at odds with the needs of the second company, but I also came to the interaction depleted in every way. Then, I got randomly matched with someone who didn’t listen at all. 50% of the table was set before the interaction and the remaining came into stressful existence during. It’s similar to how we’re born with certain genes but they trigger only in response to specific environmental stimuli.

Our lives are made up of endless micro interactions, where we’re not focused on creating a thoughtful relational space. Yet, we train ourselves and each other through precisely these low-stakes micro interactions…every interaction wiring and rewiring our neural pathways towards empathy and listening or distance and annoyance.

“Sometimes we’re responsible for things not because they’re our fault, but because we’re the only ones who can change them.” ― Lisa Feldman Barrett, psychologist and neuroscientist. From the book “How emotions are made”.

#93: Ecosystem awareness

Let’s start with an experiment. You can select any body part of your choosing; I’ll use the right foot as an example.

So, pay attention to your right foot. Really tune into it and wiggle it if you can. Slowly move it around to feel into the bones and muscles. Is there tightness, fluidity, achiness, a combination of these, or something else? Close your eyes now and continue to do this for 5 breaths. Really. Try it please and then move forward to the next sentence.

Now one question: When you were doing this, were you aware of your knee? Likely not, if your knee is pain free. This exercise is not about your body. It’s a simple way to note that when we become hyper-focused on one thing, we naturally lose awarenss of other things. It’s practically impossible to pay high quality attention to everything all at once. Working-caregivers know this struggle well. We can toggle attention from one thing to the next, but it’s hard to pay attention to everything all at once.

Yet, complex problem solving requires us to be aware of inter-related parts. It needs an ecosystem awareness. Some everyday examples of ecosystem awareness from my world:

  • My husband was replacing the faucet in our clawfoot tub. Mid-way he realized that his movements yanked the pipe connecting the faucet with the shower head, which yanked the curtain rod encircling the tub, which yanked the wall anchor that the curtain rod was tied to. His movement at the faucet split the wall anchor.
  • Years ago, I was cutting my nails while sitting on the balcony at my home in India. Upon seeing me, my Mom requested I do this in the bathroom sink because she didn’t want the sparrows to eat and choke on my sharp nail clippings.
  • When we moved into our new home in Seattle, I did the “Graha Pravesh Puja”. This prayer ceremony is done to bless a new home. I had never personally done this before and was blown away by the sense of connectedness embedded in this prayer. It wasn’t only to request blessings for us, it was also to thank every entity that made space for us in their ecosystem — the insects, animals and plants. I was also reminded to thank the humans that built this home in 1906 and those that took care of it over the decades.

Ecosystems consist of organisms (or parts), their interactions and relationships, and the environments in which they interact. They are relational by definition and interconnected in complex ways. We all live in ecosystems that both impact us and are impacted by us. But it can be overwhelming to understand a system if we keep widening our lens endlessly. So we zoom out and define boundaries to know which pieces of the system we need to focus on for now. This allows us to see the key parts and grasp how they relate to each other.

Without some boundary, our attention doesn’t know where the container ends. Boundaries are a way to invite-in focus and remove overwhelm. But they are often arbitrary and defined by our limited perspectives. At some point in the process, we may be well-served by redefining or even erasing boundaries. Because our ecosystems and their interconnections never end.

“The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those that have not viewed the world.” — Alexander von Humboldt: German geographer, naturalist and explorer

#91: Dressing for the weather

I recently went for a walk with a friend. We live about 2 miles apart and planned to meet midway and continue together. It was a bit cold and windy so I wore a full-sleeved top and grabbed an extra layer. When I bumped into my friend though, she was in shorts and a sleeveless tank top. She said it felt warm and windless in her neighborhood. Even though we’re geographically close, it sometimes seems we live in different microclimates. I’ve noticed on prior walks how spring and summer flowers in her less-shaded neighborhood seem to open ahead of the ones in our shaded backyard. She also lives in a south-facing home that traps heat and keeps her warm.

Even metaphorically, we dress for the weather outside our front door. Our day-to-day circumstances being the weather we plan for and our thoughts, emotions and actions being the metaphorical dress. How we “dress” is also based on the data points we’ve lived through. We assess our current circumstances but then call upon our personal histories while making decisions on how to behave. The unseen assumption is that our data points are complete and accurate, and our responses are based on the full picture. It’s easy to forget that our history determines what data we collect, and that our current reality is often different from another’s. 

Going back to the metaphor of clothing—we clothe ourselves based on context and when the context changes, we alter our outfit. It gets hot on a hike, we take off that extra jacket. It gets cold, we pull out our gloves and scarves. We don’t waste energy or get attached to the way we were dressed 30 minutes ago. We don’t question our actions or berate ourselves incessantly. We respond to the changing weather without attaching our identity to the artifacts of clothing. The response feels seamless.

Obviously it’s hard to be so detached from the trifecta of our thoughts, emotions and actions. But understanding the current and historical “weather” we or another human has lived through creates an awareness about the context within which they have had to operate. It creates flexibility, and is the first step towards relational ease and eventually shared sense making. It helps us know why they came to the walk in a tank top while we showed up in long sleeves.

“Perception precedes reality.” — Andy Warhol, artist, film-director

#88: Tithing in attention and action

I sometimes meet well-meaning professionals who crave to support a cause but their desire is almost always coupled with overwhelm. Real-time reports of calamities and injustices show acute and chronic problems that need solves everywhere. But it’s hard to fully absorb them when our individual lives are bursting at the seams with commitments and responsibilities. Our response may progress from self-protection by tuning out, then perhaps to minor guilt for ignoring, and then into the calloused emotion of apathy over time where we simply turn off that part of ourselves. A progression that wastes human spirit and capacity.

Between the binaries of turning off or massively caring about everything, there is a third way that’s more practical and over time, collectively more impactful. We can invite ourselves to care for a very specific cause that speaks to us because of our personal struggles and tithe* to that cause with our attention and action. Despite our many spinning plates vying for attention, emotion and time, there are some pieces of news and information that seem to dig deeper in our psyche than others. The key to unlocking our causes is to sit in that discomfort long enough to figure out the common thread in the pains and triumphs that manage to imprint us. Marinating in this discomfort is also critical in activating the compassionate action that this world sorely needs.

I’ve also found that the unexpected precursor to this sought-after compassionate action is patience and kindness with self. Tithing in action churns up all sorts of fears of inadequacy and helplessness. It does no good if our actions flame out before taking root because of our very natural human fears. Patience and kindness with ourselves creates the strength to keep going despite obstacles. We keep reminding ourselves that there is no need to rush, that even the smallest actions amount to invisible impact, that this process can take months or even years. We make our actions small and manageable and our timelines longer. We remind ourselves that it’s not all on us and that there are others in it with us. Over time, these practices even out our focus from over-fixating on self or to a healthy dose of self-respect and agency in light of our general smallness. We start to focus less on ourselves and more on the collective. Imagine, if everyone did this, how big our small acts of tithing could become?

*A note on tithing for those new to this concept

There is a concept called tithing or dana across all faiths. It’s a voluntary practice where one offers a part of their income for use in the service of others or a cause. Of course, like any practice, this concept has also suffered misuse at times through guilt or exploitation. Regardless, the practice has immense power to orient us to generosity. In eastern philosophy (that I’m more familiar with), dana can take any form ― material or energy, the donor’s intent while giving is as important as the dana itself. The amount doesn’t matter; what matters is the posture of goodwill and generosity. We’re invited to cultivate a sense of hospitality, abundance, goodwill and faith with a focus on our spiritual growth and other’s benefit. This practice gets under our skin in the most positive way. It teaches a willingness to make others happy, to get in touch with our natural impulse to care that gets covered in the busyness of daily life, and most importantly in letting go of our craving for applause and attachment to specific outcomes.

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”― Pablo Picasso, painter and sculptor