Sharing our Lives

To set the background, I’ve been incredibly skeptical of the benefits of language policing, tone policing, and other debates around how we should use language to communicate with each other. As powerful and flexible as the English is, it is also an imperfect vessel for imperfect humans to share imperfect thoughts.

We all, and I include myself quite strongly, personalize everything. We do it because that’s a good method to relate to and understand something. Often we need that personal connection or experience to better understand what is being communicated. As a personal example, my spouse and I had a time in our lives where we regularly had to collect and count up our loose change in order to afford groceries. That personal experience helped me relate to tales of poverty and struggle.

But the dark side of creating the personal connection, is that we can quickly take offense. Even though the topic of conversation wasn’t about us, we act and respond like it was.

Where it becomes especially problematic is when we are party to the conversation, but the topic isn’t directly about us. We’re involved, but it isn’t about us. And that, is when it gets really difficult.

A recent example that is the catalyst for this post. A person I know communicated some time ago about their struggles with alcoholism. And today in a response to something else entirely that this person said, another person responded with a joke loosely about alcoholism. I laughed. And felt bad at the same time.

The joke resonated with me and the person that made it because we both have a personal connection with it that makes it light gentle humour about how we often depend on alcohol to make life easier to bear. But I also knew the recipient of that joke might not find it funny, because I knew his personal connection with the struggles of alcoholism.

Many would agree this joke was probably out of line in this particular situation. But to know it is out of line, requires that all participants have to be actively aware why it is out of line. This is the “Awkward!” trope of Sitcom television. Most notably, the lack of awareness and empathy that created these situations was the whole basis of the Sheldon character on Big Bang Theory. The “unintentionally caused offense” plotline is so well used because it is so relatable.

But the part that I wrestle with, is that the joke resonated with two out of three participants based on our connection to alcohol, how we dance near the line that is alcoholism. The third person had a related, but darker connection where it may not be light humour. The challenge there is, how do you safely determine if someone likes to joke about a topic? It is safe to assume it is not, but we don’t know either. Straight out asking “do you like jokes about alcoholism?” is instinctively and intrinsically insensitive.

Underpinning all this, is that this is how societies, how communities, are built. Our shared experiences, the good, the awkward, and the self-deprecating amongst others. The complexities of being human means that when we tell our stories, when we joke, when we use dark humour, we’re communicating about ourselves. And this is the crux of the problem, because yes, sometimes people do not want to participate in that communication because it hurts them. But we build social connections by sharing our own lives, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

So then, how do we communicate about the toils and foibles of our own lives if there is always the possibility that we can trigger a negative response in others? I don’t think there is an easy answer to this. Humans are messy and complicated and unpredictable. I have learned that empathy and understanding are a two-way street. We often communicate that is only in one direction. You’re either always “punching up” or “punching down”’ and “punching down” is wrong. But it’s not always that clear cut, and yet the hurt caused can still be real. We punch sideways too. Often unintentionally.

As I was wrestling with this debate in my own thoughts, this tweet popped into my feed:

I have a very strong personal connection with depression. This tweet prompted an instant “Adding Potassium to Water ” emotional explosion. I had a multi-decade battle with depression that involved battling constant desires to commit suicide every time I was alone with my thoughts. At one point I was so low, I held my head against two loaded rifles with my thumbs on the triggers. I would never wish that on anyone. If people are feeling well adjusted and are proud of it, all the power to them. Regardless of the state of society. I won that battle with depression, and I would never wish any part of it on anyone.

But…

This tweet wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about my experiences. It wasn’t even about being well-adjusted. It’s a dark commentary by someone battling depression and the lens through which they view society. Shifting my perspective from me to them, altered my interpretation of the tweet. I don’t agree with the conclusion as stated, but I can see the point behind the commentary. I have to remove myself and my personal connection to understand this tweet better. And it is hard to do.

A lesson I learned a long time ago, and it is a lesson I have to keep teaching myself, is that we all view the world through our own personal experiences. To use those experiences most effectively I have to, and I think we all have to, use those experiences to build a more complete self-awareness, a better understanding of ourselves, so that we can react with empathy first, and damper the overwhelming feelings of anger, angst and other negative emotions.

It is a hard lesson to learn, and it is an easy lesson to forget.

Does this mean that we should rely on people battling depression, alcoholism, disability, abuse, racism, etc. to be empathetic listeners and to use their lessons to teach us? No. Complete self-awareness and empathy is a coping mechanism. It can be a foundation for that person to reach out, and I have used it that way. But I’m not always able to reach out. Sometimes I’m just coping, just keeping the negative emotions at bay, and that is OK. Putting the burden on the person struggling to explain that struggle is not the answer.

I don’t know what the complete answer is to how we communicate. What words we use, how we use them and when we use them. We are emotional creatures and we are social creatures. And our emotions and our social interactions can be, well, like potassium and water. Both potassium and water are necessary to life on this planet, but they are also dangerous to mix. Personal connections and emotions are what make us human. And they are also a potentially volatile mixture.

We must always remember that empathy is a two way street. It might be rutted and hard to travel, but it is there for us to travel nonetheless. Try not to knowingly hurt someone, and also try to understand that what is said is not about you. We are each communicating our own life story every day. And we often don’t tell it all that well. But we can still learn from it.