It Ain't Necessarily So

I have a friend who refers to me as ‘vertically challenged.’ After all, he is six foot something and I’m just a smidgen over five foot one, but somehow I’d never really considered that how he saw the immediate environment was any different to mine. That is, not until I used the booster step in our local store, a six-inch high step for the little kids to stand on, helping them see over the edge of the counter. As they grew, being big enough to hand over their own coins brought with it a sense of achievement, and even better was the milestone of being able to do it without the booster step at all. 

One day for no reason in particular I stepped on it as I came to the counter, and was immediately taken aback. Everything looked completely different from such an elevated position. I was no bigger, but I felt bigger, more prominent. My short stature has never made me feel inferior, and has never prevented me from participating in anything, but the added height in that moment caused me to think. As tall people look down on us shorties, do they look down their noses at us from their superior position, or see us as equals. And do we look up to them in more ways than one, maybe unnecessarily, feeling their stature somehow gives them more authority. 

A quote much bandied around in various forms, but attributed to Anais Nin from her 1961 autobiographical novel The Seduction of the Minotaur puts it succinctly.

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

The first time I came across it I had to stop for a moment. Surely that’s not right, I thought, at which point it didn’t take long to realise she was exactly right.

From the cradle to the grave we come at life from our own particular viewpoint. How we’ve come to see the world in that way is dependent on so many things, from our ethnic, racial and religious background, our economic circumstances, academic achievement, physical and mental health, even where we are placed in the order of birth within a family. The list of family and environmental factors that weigh in to produce each unique being is endless, and we are at the mercy of our own parent’s ability or lack of it to negotiate a way through it all in our formative years, and somehow become a fully formed reasoning human being.

For some reason though, we believe what we see and understand is obviously the way it is, the right way, how could anyone possibly see it any differently. Police reports of crime or accident scenes can attest to the fact that no matter how many people give a written statement, you will end up with a wide variety of versions of the one incident. We see things from where we stand, through the filters built up over years. Not until we come up against someone else who perceives the exact same things in a completely different way, and can articulate why they see them that way, do we even consider there could be another way of experiencing the world.

I had contact with an American couple several years ago when Donald Trump was turning himself into a three-ring circus while pushing himself forward as a Presidential candidate. My friends and I looked on with horrified fascination, not thinking in our wildest dreams, or nightmare as it turned out, that anyone could possibly take him seriously. My American friends on the other hand had a completely different take on it, believing he could deliver and had popular support, so would bring stability and economic growth. No matter what we said, our arguments about his unsuitability for the role fell on deaf ears. Why couldn’t they see it? I guess they were thinking the same thing, wondering why we couldn’t understand their point of view.

The framework for how we see the world begins at birth, and is constructed, whether intentionally, meticulously or haphazardly, right through childhood and adolescence, and into adulthood, at which point we tend to follow certain pathways and make choices that enhance that perception. It usually takes a monumental event to shift that standpoint, especially if held with such tenacity that other points of view and attitudes are discounted, belittled, seen as irrelevant, and along with those differences those who hold them are likewise disenfranchised and held with little or no regard.

The TV series Go Back to where you Came From is a pretty clear illustration of how an entrenched attitude can be turned on its head. Not by argument, not by reasoning, not by bullying, but by experiencing the world from the standpoint of those we are so convinced have it all wrong. Meeting people face to face, hearing their stories, and not just hearing, but listening. True listening requires us to put our own agenda on hold, suspend our preconceived ideas, hold back the words on the tip of our tongue. 

How do I, how do we, have the courage to step back when it’s needed, and open ourselves to the chaos that another person’s world might have on our own. Forming a perception of ourselves and where we fit in the bigger picture is no mean feat, fraught as it is with many obstacles, but also many learning opportunities if we choose to embark on them. To have our opinions and beliefs challenged, to be confronted by how our actions impact others, to see our assumptions crumble and prejudices exposed, are we ready for that? Am I?

Could be scary, but could be just what we need.