Do You Validate Here?

Don't frown because you never know who's falling in love with your smile.
-- Xandra Moss, age 13

That quote is from the book "Tommy Transit's Bus Tales" by Tom Tompkins and Michele Hall. It pretty much sums up Tommy's mission in life, validating everyone he meets, finding ways to make each of us feel special, appreciated, visible, and validated.

I was once told, by a trained psychologist, that I should not require or expect validation from others, rather I should learn to self validate. Fair enough, that is sage advice, and I practice it when I can.

The problem with that advice is that life, our world, society can be incredibly invaliding at times. Every time I get into a phone menu system I feel dehumanized, my humanity is invalidated. I feel like I am treated like a robot, relegated to follow some script some junior programmer has concocted for me, who in turn was probably invalidated by his or her boss or company. To be sure, modern corporations, capitalism and consumerism are just machines that take human beings as input, and grind us up to extract profit for the small minority controlling the machines.

Even worse than phone menu systems are the ubiquity of web sites and web applications on the cloud that have automated the process of extracting profit from consumers, largely in a dehumanizing and invalidating way. I say this not as a lament, but as an expert option, for I am a software developer too, who has taught user interface design in a third year university course. I know with confidence that we can do better, we certainly know how to do better, we simply choose not to do better.

Don't even get me started on politics; one of the most invalidating achievements of the new millenium.

We owe it to ourselves to want validation, we need it, we deserve it.

I was sitting in the Humming Bird Pub, on Galiano Island, one night having a short philosophical conversation with my new friend Andrea. I was commenting on the TV show Glee, how I liked it because it taught more than just tolerating each other, it taught accepting each other. Andrea picked up on that sentiment and said "yes, tolerance is not enough, we can do better than that, and we should."

The next night I was back in the pub watching Andrea and her partner Auto play another set of music - they are very talented. Tom, who I met the night before, walks over and says to me "Are you here again? We're going to have to get you a membership." He found some time from his busy schedule to sit down and chat with me, and handed me a copy of his book. This was his personal copy, full of editorial notes, hand written in pencil. WOW - what a trusting guy. While he was gone on his next bus run, I manage to read the first quarter of the book. Much of the time I was in stitches, laughing wholeheartedly -- all of the time I was smiling. When he got back, I asked Tommy if they carried the book in the Galiano Book Store. He said "better than that, I have a couple of copies in my car." I bought both copies.

Since that amazing weekend on Galiano a lot of great stuff has happened in my life. More recently Andrea and Auto were in Vancouver playing another gig, and I went down with a couple of friends to see their show. They had a lot of their friends there too - it was a pretty happy room. I stayed late, and was privileged to get invited to a party the next night.

I got to the party early, and enjoyed a nice chat with early comers. By about 10:00 PM it became apparent that this was no normal party, as many of the people there are very talented music artists, and before long I found myself in heaven listening to one performance after another. From time to time I stepped outside my rapture to observe, and what I saw was amazing. This crowd was warm, welcoming, touchy-feely, huggy-kissy, happy, vibrant, laughing - but most importantly, they were validating.

In addition to actively validating me, and each other, I realize that the arts in general are one of the most validating agencies we have. Music and poetry speaks to our souls, validating our dreams and emotions. Visual arts validate those ineffable truths we all hold, making use feel connected to each other, connected to the inner spirit of the artist, leaving us to wonder how the artist can read our minds and souls too. And then there is dance: using movement to create an emotion.

Quite some time ago I told myself I needed to bring more art and artists into my life, but it was just a feeling, a desire, it felt right. I finally realized what I was doing, I was exposing myself to validation, and creating opportunities for it. The world will always be there with dehumanizing voice menus and frustrating web forms, and I am pretty good at self validating when I need to, but validation is out there everywhere if we look for it, learn how to see it -- more importantly, learn how to create it, give it, share it.

And then there is Tommy, who is also a gifted artist - the art of the compliment and positive quip. He taught me that I too can offer people validation. I am no angel, and I have been known to cast a few invalidating remarks around when the machinery of invalidation gets me down. A little repenting goes a long way.

There is simply no greater blessing in life than that moment when you realized you have made someone else's moment, day, week.

Andrea is right, we can do better; we can do better than tolerance, we can even do better than acceptance, we can validate each other and ourselves.

In and Out

David Eagleman on the science of de- (and re-) humanisation

After watching these presentations lot of things became clearer in my mind. Many of the questions I have about how people treat each other seemed to have explanations now. Why do the strong pick on the weak? Why do people bully each other? Why are there bigots and hate mongers who are always finding ways to divide people up and label one group as good and another group as bad?

It all has to do with 'in-groups' and 'out-groups' and 'group-selection'

Now my bigger question is that if all this hate and ignorance has such a compelling explanation, why don't more people know about it or talk about it?



I would have thought that in general most of us could agree that bullying, bigotry and hate mongering are things we should reduce or eliminate in our society. If that were so why don't we do more to solve this problem? Oh, it's not that people don't complain about these problems, but what do we really tangibly to do solve the problem; or what can we tangibly do?

I have learned over time that the most important step in solving any problem is recognizing there is a problem. Maybe some people don't recognize there is a problem, or maybe some people don't want to solve this problem because it profits them in some way.

The next step in solving any problem is to define the problem. While I don't think David Eagleman has really defined the problem here, he certainly has defined the mechanisms that contribute to the problem. Maybe if more people watch these videos, collectively we will be able to define the problem.



Part of the problem is that we have a need to dehumanize other people, and once we do that we can no longer empathize with people, and now we are free to hurt them, or even delight in hurting them.

I guess when we compete for resources, or other things, we would rather not share with everyone, it is harder to compete with people we empathize with. The greater extent that we can dehumanize others, the more we are free to complete with them ruthlessly - after all, they are not human. In particular, when we dehumanize others we can extract more profit from them.



Fundamentally peer pressure is manipulation, whether intentional or not. Ultimately peer pressure is what keeps us in one group or another. Obedience is a measure how willing we are to do what we know or suspect is wrong. Pathologically, obedience is the peer pressure to conform to the group no matter how wrong, bad or evil the group is.



So it seems one of the most useful tools in re-humanizing society is education. Who profits when we increase funding and opportunities for education? Well that would be society as a whole I guess. So who profits when we cut funding and opportunities for education? That would be anyone who profits from de-humanizing society or a situation; I guess.



While I am a scientist, and I profoundly believe in science, science is not a person or a god; science is just a tool. No matter how much I can see how this science can be used to re-humanize our society, when I put on my evil genius hat, I can just as clearly see how this science can be used to further de-humanize society.

Now why would someone deliberately want to de-humanize society or a situation? The answer is simple: profit. If you can profit by de-humanizing others then it is easier to say "it's not personal, it's just business."

I guess where this leaves me is: are the decisions we make everyday for ourselves, for our community, for our county, or for our world human decisions or are they business decisions? Maybe I have finally defined the problem now.

Good Wolf Vs. Bad Wolf

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, "My son, the battle is between two wolves inside us all"

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego." He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed".

I keep stumbling across this story over and over again. On top of that, a dear friend of mine often brings out that story whenever we have a heart-to-heart talk and she can see that I am struggling with some issues.

For the longest time I thought this was an internal struggle, and a solitary struggle, between our independent selves, our personal daemons, our critical inner voices. The thing I know about wolves though is that they are not passive creatures, they do not wait around for someone to feed them, when they are hungry they eat.

Mostly your wolves will eat whatever you provide them with, and you determine their fate, but your wolves will eat what ever they get from whoever is near you, or whatever situation you find yourself in; it is not only up to you.

If you surround yourself with people who demonstrate anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego; then guess which wolf gets fed the most. If you surround yourself with people who embody joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith; then a different wolf gets fed.

And it is more than the people who surround you, it is also the situations you find yourself in. If you work too hard, you will get too tired, you will make too many mistakes, you realize too few goals, you will too often feel like a failure; guess which wolf feeds. If you take time to find something you are good at, take some more time to get better at it, take enough time to master it, and maybe even the time to be the best at it; then a different wolf gets fed.

But the story does not end there, we are not responsible for only our own lives or situations. We also feed the wolves of others, and we often contribute to the situations others find themselves in, and sometimes we even put people in situations they are not ready for.

We should not avoid all situations where our evil wolf is fed, otherwise we will not know how to respect that wolf; otherwise others will never know our good wolf, especially when they need it the most.

The story of the two wolves is a great story, but it is a never ending story.