Context is Everything

My daughter was four years old and taking a walk with her grandfather on the beach. He had a camera and was taking pictures of her. She liked to look at the pictures right after he took them. She said, take a picture of my arm. He did. And he showed her the picture. She said, take a picture of my toes. And he did. And he showed her the picture. It went on like this as they made the way down the beach and near a group of about 15 mothers who were huddled up after a workout. My daughter and her grandfather reached a group of moms. That was when my daughter said, take a picture of my vagina. My daughter thought it was hilarious.

All 15 mothers did not. They'd turn their heads with suspicion. Fortunately, my dad is a very likable guy. He explained the situation. The moms got it. And all was well. It became a funny family story until about two years later. When my son, now three and a half himself was at her local toy shop with my dad. My son had heard me tell the funny story about my daughter numerous times. And he loves to make people laugh. So he turned to the woman at the toy store and said, my grandpa got in trouble for taking pictures of my sister's vagina. This time when my father tried to explain the situation, it didn't work.

The woman behind the counter wasn't having any of it. After talking for a while, she was nice enough, but she just didn't buy it. And who could blame her? She didn't know the context of the story, the history behind it, how my son had heard me tell the story to other adults and some me make them laugh. And so we want to do the same thing. This got me thinking about context in a larger sense. We often think we know where everyone is coming from. What their agenda is, what their history is, who they are. But in reality, we can't ever see the whole picture. Whatever the situation, someone we are negotiating with, arguing with, working with, we don't know the other person's entire history.

Whomever we're talking to, our partner, a boss, a coworker, a friend, a relative, a neighbor, or someone in the grocery store line, we don't know their secrets. We don't know if someone close to them is recently diagnosed with cancer, or if they skip breakfast and their blood sugar is low. We have no idea when a kid says something innocent, like my grandpa got into trouble for taking pictures of my sister's vagina. If it could trigger some trauma from the past for that other person, that changes the entire dynamic between us. We only know our own history and our own perspective in that moment. And even that is suspect.

Research shows that memories morph over time, that we bury things that hide in our subconscious and affect us without our even being aware of it. Now, I'm not saying that we constantly need to censor ourselves for fear that anything we say might be misinterpreted. I like that my son tried to tell a joke, even if it didn't come off. That's how you learn to interact with people. What I am saying is that context is everything. If we want to truly understand what someone means when they try to communicate with us, and no one has the full picture with anyone else, or even ourselves with ourselves, here's what we can do about that.

We can choose. Choose to be conscious of what the other person might be going through. Choose to be aware of the fact that whatever the situation is, we don't have all the information. Choose to give people a little grace. Choose to give yourself some too. We all make mistakes, and usually we don't mean to. Other people don't either. It's not easy. It takes work and energy to operate in the world like this, especially during conflict. But when we're in conflict, when someone on the freeway yells at us, or coworker pops off on us, or when the guy in the checkout line doesn't have the skills that we do and is struggling to move people quickly through the line, or when someone is forcing their various political beliefs down our throat and implies that if we don't agree with them, we are against them.

Or when someone takes offense to something we said that wasn't intended to cause harm, we can remind ourselves that the situation isn't just about me. I'm not the center of the world. Maybe the person on the other end is having a bad day, or maybe life has been kicking them in the teeth for the last year, or maybe the last five decades. It's not certain, but it's possible. And if we're going to be fully aware and fully conscious, we can consider those possibilities. And if we push ourselves to pay attention, really pay attention to others, and what they might be dealing with, we'll have options for how to deal with them.

We'll notice things about them. We'll be slightly better versions of ourselves. We will at least move the needle in the direction of kindness and decency. And that's the kind of world I want my kids to grow up in. I'd like to close this thought with a paraphrase to the ending of David Foster Wallace's commencement speech, This is Water. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in mirrored, petty, unsexy ways every day. Thank you for listening to the Nick Standlea podcast.

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