Kaleidoscope of meaning

…on the way to true enlightenment...

Hi Frank.

Hi, Francois.  Back so soon?

Yes, I want to ask you something.

Go right ahead.

I just overheard my neighbor complaining about being let down by someone.  How could he possibly know the other person's intentions?

So, he assigned an emotionally laden meaning to the person not coming through for him, is that what you mean?

Yes!

We could also assign a meaning to him doing that… somewhere in the past the neighbor must have done something that reduced good will towards him… making our own conclusions about the causes.

Probably.  You know, he loves complaining, and what he complains about most is about people complaining!

I spot the irony.  Let’s not get caught up in the content here.  Note the vicious circle though.  It seems that he has the ability to read minds. 

No one can read minds.  Scientifically proven over and over again….

He is either psychic or he automatically assigns negative meanings to what people do and say.

I’d say he assigns negative meanings by default.  No one is ever good or right in his eyes except himself. 

Mmm – it may be that these behaviours resulted the other person in not helping him, but we don’t know.  I don’t want to make commit the same meta-model violation.

Good point, Frank.  Some people go beyond assigning negative meaning to a single instance of someone’s behaviour, they weave whole fields of meaning around other people.  And this field of meaning is all in their own heads, totally enclosing the object of their beliefs in meanings that are necessarily true.  The person enclosed like this may get tired of the never-true meanings attributed to them, or get scared, or just don’t want anything to do with the weaver…

OK, Francois, give me some examples.

Sure.  Hero worship would be a good example – the hero can’t do anything wrong in the eyes of their fans.  Stereotyping of any kind is also an example.  More personal, if one person in a relationship is suspicious of their partner, or don’t accept them for who they are, they may read all kinds of things in their partner’s behaviour – and act on it.  Likewise, at work, where the meaning ‘loose cannon’, for example, had been given to someone… every creative idea or challenge to the status quo will be seen as them being dangerously unconventional – a risk to the business – no matter how well they mean with their fresh ideas.

I think I understand what you mean.  Let’s look at this from the other end.  In general (big chunks) what meanings of behaviours do you think people have difficulty with?

I think people don’t like to experience other people’s actions and communication with them as pushing, pulling or scratching.

Interesting.  What do you mean?

I mean that if another’s communication or behaviour in any way intends to or could be read to intend to move us to where we don’t want to be… I just call it scratching, pulling and pushing.  You can call it cutting, kicking or punching and dragging if you like.

I get the picture.  Some of the communication acts we talked about not so long ago would fit nicely in here.  So how do people react to these kinds of acts?

…or their perception of such intentions… I think we naturally get defensive.  Perhaps the ones that are a little more aware of what is happening would stop our selves from becoming defensive.  Like we chatted about last time, unpack the emotionally laden feedback to concrete examples and respond to that.  The thing is to not get hooked into creating or accepting meanings that had not existed before and that are not true. 

What do you mean, Francois?

Let’s get back to why.  I think people need us to commit to or clarify our meanings and that’s why they ask ‘why?’ Sometimes, ‘WHY!!!?’  Note what the question does to you.

It makes me defensive.  And it makes me look for an acceptable meaning to give to the asker.  Ah!  Acceptable to whom?  So if the asker does not accept the meaning I gave them, what then?

Well, it may be that the asker does not want to abandon the meaning they have created before and this could be for a good reason, but it could also be that they stand to gain something from keeping you on the defensive. 

The second point I understand, but what good reasons could there be?

You know, Frank, we see our own actions and hear our own words from the inside and other people see it from the outside.  People with good judgment and lots of experience would ascribe relevant meanings to our actions – things that we have not considered, but which are valid.  They know the consequences of actions like ours.  From the inside, by using introspection we may ascribe certain knowledge or motives to ourselves, certain values and behaviour patterns, while from the outside, having observed our behaviour and its consequences these people may say: “Your behaviour is more XYZ than you think.”  Introspection is not infallible.

Right.  Something for me to think about…

Now, you asked me about what meanings of behaviours do you think people have difficulty with… what about the things that people like to experience or believe they experience?

You’re asking me!  Well, I’d say things like acknowledgement, appreciation… and it must be sincere.

Yes, otherwise negative intent and meanings are read into it again!

Mmm, Francois.  It seems that we can also say that people need our motives to connect to the meanings they read in our observable actions and words.  If it does not, trust exists with difficulty.

Sure, and we’ve chatted about trust at length.  What do you do when you realize that no matter how authentic and sincere you are, you are not trusted… you’ve made the other party aware that their assumptions, interpretations and conclusions about you are not accurate, but they still act on the meanings in their own minds rather than on reality?

Showing someone their inadequate reasoning is not a great trust builder.  Demonstrating integrity is better.

And if the meanings that are woven around you just continues to paint you as unreliable even though you have done everything in your power to demonstrate reliability?

Well, if you have demonstrated good faith, good intentions, reliability and it is still not accepted, perhaps cutting your losses is the wisest thing to do.

You mean that if dynamics get stuck on this point, rather walk away than trying to get it unstuck?

Yep.  The relationship is spoilt. 

I’m speechless.

The last ting I want you to think about is that we rely so much on our models and prejudices, our structures and formulas, our recipes, which we think we can neatly categorise and analyse all human interactions, behaviour, motives, values and so on and so on…  The fact is that models are just useful maps of the territory, but just like there are different kinds of maps for the same area, so we have many different models – all valid from different perspectives – about human behaviour phenomena… The thing is, the moment we put the models and maps away, the perspective loses its particular focus and all the ‘rules’ apply at once.

You mean like quantum physics, or like scientific analysis of light our expectations of what we observe influences our findings?

Yes!  Like light behaves like a wave if you do one experiment and like a particle if you do another, so human behaviour changes according to the sets of expectations we have about it.

Wow!  That throws a spanner in the works.

Not really.  The more flexible you are, the more you can adapt to whoever’s map of the world.  With genuine fluidity you would get unstuck quickly, or not get in sticky situations in the first place.

Ah, that is what we are aiming for – actualization that is fluid.

Yep.  See it like this: a master capoeirista is physically and mentally extremely flexible.  He knows when and how to get out of the way and applies just the right amount of playfulness to diffuse even the most dangerous situations.  His focus is on having a conversation in the ‘language’ of his partner.

I can just imagine how pleasant someone like that is to be around!

Absolutely.  Whatever he does, he does not spoil someone else’s experience.  He assigns no meaning to anything anyone does or says, including himself, is not taken in by meanings assigned to his actions, deeds: he is truly enligthened.

Something to aim for!

Yes.  May you soon be fluidly fun.

Thanks Frank.  And may your fluid words soften the soil and turn the kaleidoscope to reveal new, fascinating patterns and colours.