Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Parts We Play

Here’s a rare second post for the day (couldn’t sleep and wanted this typed).

I always liked acting. Whether it was school plays or musicals, messing around with friends on school projects, even one night when a friend and I were voice-acting the subtitles on a friend’s video game. The video game was a little ridiculous I admit, especially since after about a minute of it he was threatening to strangle us with the controller cord (and we deserved it). I was best and most at home acting around friends, which is probably why of the two plays I did in high school, my performance was better for the one with a small cast of close friends. I suspect that the reason is, for someone who traditionally was an introvert, the energy cost in overcoming my fear of being outcast would exhaust me unless I knew there was no risk of my audience casting me out of the group—friends, for instance. Regardless, I always felt like a more entertaining person when I was pretending to be someone other than myself.

One of my favorite essayists, Robert Fulghum, has an essay in which he talks of the three lives everyone leads. Shakespeare had his “all the world’s a stage” line and the seven ages of man, and Fulghum has the three lives we lead: public, private, and secret. In reverse order of his treatment, secret lives are the ones entirely inside our heads. We not only don’t share these lives with others (even spouses and soulmates), to some extent we can’t. Some of this consists of things like that secret bias we have but try to hide (like mine for women drivers…oops, put this to a lie), but some is like the way we respond to certain powerfully emotionally stimulating things—we can’t share it no matter how we try. Private lives are the ones we share only with certain people. We keep some things secret from most, but share with certain friends. Relationship details, personal thoughts on that coworker/classmate we can’t stand, etc., these things are not meant for public consumption.

The last, which Fulghum rightly considered the broadest, is the public life. This is what everyone else sees when they look at you, though some (the friends) have other information as well. This is how we dress, our favorite conversation topics, how we laugh, and other things of the sort. One definition of introvert is that they spend energy in social situations while extroverts gain energy in them, and if so this is the life that introverts find draining.

I often wished that all social interactions could be scripted. That way, being an extrovert or, more likely and less difficult, being an interesting person (okay, perhaps more difficult) wouldn’t be a function of some things that I couldn’t control but instead would be something I could learn and with my talents, learning was great. But social behavior not only doesn’t work that way, it can’t and shouldn’t.

Chesterton wrote of the two great institutions for preparing one for a social life: the family and the neighborhood (or neighborhood pub, in his case). His logic was that in those settings you have to deal with people who don’t necessarily agree with you on everything (unlike, say, the clubs we voluntarily join), and thus we learn how to get along with other people which is the heart of being a social creature. In both settings, you can’t afford to hold a grudge because of how often you must interact with them: all the time.

Recently I started treating social environments in the same way I used to treat acting. Instead of trying to overcome my fears, I started trying to circumvent them by convincing myself that my public life was just another character to perform. And what I found was that Chesterton, Fulghum, and Shakespeare were right (the first two I suppose were to be expected, but I didn’t think that Shakespeare guy was good for anything). Our secret and even private lives define us. Our public lives are just a shell. As I get more practice with this acting job, I grow more comfortable with it. Though not an extrovert quite yet, I find myself getting excited over the prospect of heading out with new groups of people or starting conversations with people I’ve just met. For the first time in my life, I can see why the extroverts are extroverted. Coincidentally, given my belief that on this planet people are the most important thing, I’ve also had a happier default state (i.e. when not with friends, my happiness level) these past few months, though of course it nothing here has been close to the good times I left behind.

We get told all our lives that we shouldn’t care what other people think. Only recently did I combine that with 2 other bits of advice from television shows: one, from Sports Night, that says we shouldn’t try to get people to like us; and the other, from House, that says indiscriminate niceness is overrated. The combination of the three (though all are obviously too general and thus wrong in some respects) is something that I do believe to be true. There will always be people who like the kind of person you are and people who don’t. I can spend my life trying to trick or convince the latter to like me, or I can just accept that they won’t and not worry about them. That freedom has a lot to do with the aforementioned changes. Perhaps this is a sign of maturity; I fear that I am growing up and will get my “Toys’R’Us Kids” membership card revoked.

2 comments:

Meesh Daddy said...

Johari’s Window
Interesting observation Dr. Ryan! What you write about is very similar to what I was taught years ago and still believe to be true today. Human interaction was summed up using what is known as the Jahari’s window.

The Johari Window is a model describing the process of human interaction. The window is depicted with four panes dividing personal awareness into four different types. Arena, Facade, Blind Spot, and Potential. The lines dividing the four panes are like window shades, which can move as an interaction progresses.

1. The "Arena" quadrant represents things that both you know about yourself, and that others know about you. The knowledge that the window represents, can include not only factual information, but your feelings, motives, behaviors, wants, needs and desires... indeed, any information describing who you are that you are willing to share.

2. The "Blind Spot" quadrant represents things that others know about you, but that you are unaware of. Others will form an opinion or impression about you as a result of what you say and what you do.

3. The "Facade" quadrant represents things that you know about yourself that others do not know. This is your personal side. As you get to know and trust others, you will then feel more comfortable disclosing more intimate and personal details about yourself.

4. The "Potential" quadrant represents things that neither you know about yourself, nor others know about you. You will slowly through life be exposed to new things, events, situations and circumstances to which you will be called upon to deal with. Because these situations have not been tested previously you will need to tap into your potential. Once you have dealt with the situation it is moved from the potential to one of the three other window panes representing your character.

The process of enlarging the Facade is called self-disclosure, a give and take process between you and others whom you interact with. Disclosure can be healthy, at least that's the impression one gets after reading Freud. However, Anita Kelly wrote that self-disclosure of personal secrets has its dangers. We are often better off not telling secrets regarding our sexual behavior, mental health problems or large-scale failures. Ms. Kelly wrote that "If you give people information about yourself, you give them power over you,"

As your level of confidence and self esteem develops, you may invite others to comment on your blind spots. You do however have defenses, protecting those areas where you feel vulnerable. Remember, the blind quadrant contains behavior, feelings and motivations not accessible to you, but which others can see. Feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, unworthiness, rejection, guilt, are all difficult to face, and yet can be seen by others. Fortunately, nature has provided you with a variety of defense mechanisms to cope with such events, such as denial, ignoring, rationalizing, etc.


On a deeper level, you may be in a group meeting, and while you secretly sympathize with the minority viewpoint, you voted with the majority. However, blind to you, you actually may be communicating this information via body language, in conflict with your verbal message. On an even deeper level, you in an interaction with others may always put on a smiling, happy face, hiding all negative feelings. By withholding negative feelings, you may be signaling to your friends to withhold also, and keep their distance. Thus, your communication style may seem bland or distant.

And let's not forget the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Our society is constructed so that many of us get very specialized, knowing only a small academic field very well, (however I do not feel this applies to you as genius is an exception) while being virtually ignorant of all others. This specialization is blinding many of us to what is happening in the world today. By my writing this to you son, I am putting more of my knowledge into the open quadrant. I am everyday consciously using the Johari window to try to improve my awareness of the world. If you see one of my blind spots, please feel free to contact me, and let me know! However please be kind and somewhat gentle when doing so. 

Letitianne said...

Your father is quite right -- and up entirely too early in the morning. As for me, I was going to volunteer to speak with Jeffery the Giraffe -- we all need to keep our inner child!