👀 See & Be Seen
The phrase “See and Be Seen” may provoke the idea of dressing up to the nines and heading to a fancy event to see all the people and be seen by them looking your best. But I’m writing about something else, the small act of being meeting people where they are and seeing things from their perspective. If we want to be seen by others, we must do the same for others, so let’s explore.
Imagine seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. The short word for this is empathy. We are empathetic when we can see something in the same way someone else does. To see something in the same way as someone else, we would need to know them very well.
When you look at a photo of Seattle, what do you see? You may see a pretty skyline and bustling streets, the homeless problem. I see the land that was shaped by the ice sheet that was once a half mile deep here, I see all the buildings I’ve worked in and the buildings that are new, I see the beautiful waterfront park and know the process we went through to replace the earthquake prone double decker viaduct freeway that was here when I arrived in the city, I see the glimmering Salish sea filled with ferries and with fewer salmon and orcas than I know where here in the past, I think of the human stories of 150 years of colonization and thousands of years of native inhabitation since the ice sheet receded. My knowledge of all of those things shapes my perception of the place I see today.
The same level of perception is true of every person you meet. While you may see a business person, or a coffee making person, a flight attendant person, a doctor person or a homeless person, each of those is a whole person outside of the title you assign them based on their costume. Each of those people has a mom, and had a childhood, went to school and chose a path in life that landed them where you are meeting them in the costume you’re meeting them in today. To really know them, you would have to ask a lot of questions.
(The Everyone App aims to give people a way to tell their story more holistically just like I am with alexporter.us so that people can “do their research” on you more easily without you having to tell your life story to everyone).
Perhaps seeing and being seen is the same as loving. To see someone, you must take the time and effort to know them, and that is a caring act, an act of love.
