Relationships and their ripple effects - part 2

How do our relationships affect our selves, and ultimately, society?

Dec 09, 2023

This is a continuation of Relationships and their ripple effects - part 1 . Please go there first. And click the ❤️ button on this post so that other people can discover it on Substack.

I'm learning. My sparring partner is learning. This is practice for both of us - that' all. I know a bit more about them, and from my reaction, they're going to know a little more about me.

I have the above text on the locked screen of my phone. I can't remember where I found it, but it stuck with me. Sometimes a quote means something to a person for a period of time - right now this one helps me remember that everything is practice - every comment, discussion, reaction.

As we consider the flow of our interactions, it becomes clear that they are not just self-contained events. Our relationships are, in fact, microcosms that reflect how we are and our broader engagement in the world. Every interaction, whether momentary and fleeting, or deep and long lasting, is honing our abilities to operate within and impact our society, and by extension, our world. Everything is practice, and everything has an impact.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

Take a minute to consider how you communicate with your partner. Do you treat them with respect? Listen actively, with care and patience? Take responsibility for when you make a mistake? Have healthy barriers set, and have not just respect for them, but self-respect for yourself?

Now expand that to your friends. How do you treat them? Do you have one way conversations? How much do you trust them? Do you invite them to challenge your ideas? Do you throw temper tantrums or get frustrated at them when you don't have the same points of view?

Now your coworkers or business associates. What respect do you hold for them? How do you listen to them - waiting for a moment to fill in the silence with your ideas? Or do you hold space for them to express themselves? Do you hold grudges when your ideas are not used?

What about strangers? Do you take interest in that stranger sitting next to you on a plane, or on a bus? Want to know what makes them tick or think about? Or are they just people getting in your way, cutting you off at an intersection on purpose, justifying your anger so that you can speed down the road and burn through that yellow light during rush hour?

As we keep expand this thinking outwards we see and feel that how we are in any situation, despite our ability to compartmentalize for a limited time, ends up being remarkably similar to how we are in every situation. Those ways of being with different people DEFINITELY IMPACTS THEM AND YOU.

Sit with that for a minute or two. Take a break from reading, set a timer for 2 minutes, and think about how you are in the world.

You probably now realize that the same core behaviours and values that are the bedrocks of relationships are identical to those that constitute the foundations of long lasting societies. This isn't anything new or revolutionary - but we tend to forget it.

What most people may not understand is that people around us sometimes know parts of us better than we do. Our anticipated behaviours and values have been decoded by the people around us. If you ask your partner, your friends, your family, what values you hold dear, they'll be able to tell you. The point is you tell people every day who you are, whether consciously or not. After people spend time with you, you can be certain that there are stories, good or bad, being told about you. People will have insights into who you are that you don't even realize about yourself. These stories spread, impressions are made - your impact lingers. You are single handedly shaping part of the world.

Shared growth - the journey together

There's a point I am trying to make here, but it will take a bit to unwrap, and takes merging together two models.

First the macro.

Consider that the universe contains an infinite amount of things to know. An infinite ocean of knowledge we can call "All possible knowledge in existence". In that totality, knowledge can be broken into three buckets:

What you know you know
What you know you don't know
What you don't know you don't know

When you were born, you didn't know anything. Everything you ever learned was first contained in the "what you don't know you don't know" pool of knowledge. Over time, as you grew and experienced the world, you slowly moved things from there to "What you know you know". And sometimes you encounter things "you know you don't know" - things still in your awareness, but you don't know much about them. For example, I know I don't know how to write code, how shoelaces are made, or how many years are left before the sun goes supernova. I know these things exist, and there's a whole process and truth behind them, but I don't know much more than that.

As life goes on, curiosity helps move more and more items from one pool to the others within our awareness. And this expansion of our awareness increases our knowledge of the universe, and by extension our empathy for others, understanding of their points of view.

Let me tell you an example with a story. We own a Japanese import right hand drive vehicle. When I recently removed the Japanese radio and installed a new North American radio, I discovered there were two additional wires connected to the radio that I could not find any purpose for. Not thinking anything of them, I capped them off and finished the installation of the radio. Starting the car, at first glance everything seemed fine. However, when taking the car for the next drive, I found suddenly the car would no longer go past first gear - I had somehow blown a fuse and the vehicle was operating in what they call "limp mode". 2 weeks and a mechanic visit later, I learned:

In Japan, most or all cars have a toll payment system installed, and these are
connected to the radio and
connected to the ignition, ABS, and transmission systems.
Most of the highways that link major destinations in Japan are toll roads.
These built in toll payment systems allow you to pass to their expressways unhindered.

All new information of which previously I had no awareness of and helped me to better understand my vehicle and, to some extent, another part of the world.

Now, this example is about material objects and systems, but the concept is easily translated to views and ideas that others bring to our lives. We learn about politics, religion, sports,… anything.

Understanding Ourselves and Others: The Johari Window

This deep connection between individual behaviours and societal values is not just an intuitive understanding, but is also reflected in psychological models that help us decode human interactions.

One such model, which offers a structured way to understand our interactions and their broader implications, is the Johari Window. In short, the Johari Window is

"… a model for understanding conscious and unconscious bias that can help increase self-awareness and our understanding of others. It can also be used in group settings to expand our common ground and relatedness to one another."

Focused on the individual's experience of self, it's made up of four quadrants:

Open Arena - Things that you and everyone else knows about you.
Blind Spot - Things you are not aware of but others know about you.
Hidden - Things you know about you but others do not.
Unknown - Things that are not known by you or anyone else.

This framework allows to both visualize the value that others bring to our lives in bettering our knowledge of ourselves, and the difference between how we see ourselves as compared to how others see us. Here's a simple example using something that is common in the workplace - an assertive individual. Let's call them Alex.

Assertiveness in the Blind Spot quadrant:

Picture Alex. Alex is the go-getter at work. He's excited, energetic, and full of ideas he wants to share. In team meetings he's always jumping in with ideas, interrupting, and pushing the discussion in his direction. In Alex's mind, he's sharing his ideas and wants to show others that he knows what he's talking about. But Alex's coworkers see him as overbearing and sometimes even intimidating - and Alex has no idea. The impact is that others feel shut down, and some valuable ideas may not be shared. This perception by others places Alex's assertiveness in the 'Blind Spot' quadrant of their Johari Window.

Vulnerability and listening in the Hidden Quadrant:

Reality check - Alex gets some team feedback and suddenly realizes the impact his behaviour has on others. He realizes that his excited-ness comes off strongly, and that his assertiveness masks a vulnerability which he's scared of showing in a professional environment. With encouragement and support from his team, Alex starts making room for others to speak up. Alex shares his ideas, but also his doubts, and makes room to seek input from others.

By sharing his vulnerabilities, Alex moves this aspect of their personality from the 'Hidden' quadrant (where only Alex was aware of it) to the 'Open' quadrant, where both Alex and his colleagues are now aware. This shift also helps mitigate the dominating aspect of his assertiveness, as the team starts seeing a more holistic picture of Alex.

So what's the point of all this?

The point is we need each other to grow and expand. Sharing the world with others and bumbling around life is a beautiful thing if we will it to be. We are artists creating a shared tapestry over time and space, crafting current society and future legacy through our words and actions. It is also wondrous opportunity for individual growth - There is so much to learn, so much insight to receive from others, that we can change our perspectives and increase viewpoints to an almost infinite amount.

This shared journey of life exposes us to those experiences, viewpoints and ideas we would not encounter on our own. It's through that exposure to other ideas that we start to better understand and expand ourselves. Even if we disagree with those ideas, the exposure of alternate views allows us to consider, if we are mature enough, this understanding into our models of the world… and learn more about what makes others tick, drives their behaviour, and shapes cultures and identities. Listening to viewpoints other than your own, or that you disagree with, directly increases that social capital previously discussed. Debate of ideas, and true listening, allows for good ideas to flourish and bad ideas to dissipate. If we are mature enough, debating ideas and listening to others from a place of understanding promotes respect, trust, empathy, and critical thinking by forcing us to give up and dismantle our very own viewpoints.

But it's not easy. It takes incredible maturity and patience to be willing to revisit and dismantle our ideas and views. But this mission, should you choose to accept it, results in incredible growth.

If we choose to listen to those around us, and have the emotional maturity to see and consider other points of view, we can develop our perspectives to see reality as deeply and broadly as possible.

This opens doors to expanded understanding and empathy and can result in an awesome legacy for our future generations.

Please comment - what new point of view are you going to investigate, or try to understand on a deeper level?

Jean-Michel’s Substack

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