I’m late to this comment thread. I had to read a lot of the comments (more than once) before it clicked in a way that I’m fairly sure *I recognize what Looking is* and that I already have the skill and use it more than I think is common (but not always or consistently).
“I can form deep, deep pacts with others who know how to Look. This is harder to explain, but I can point to an analogy clearly, I think: if you’re in the cell phone world and you see someone else who has figured out how to look up, there’s a kind of deep collaboration you two can do, and a level of communication you can have, that others literally cannot understand pre-kenshō. In the real-world analog, this creates room for a kind of bond that lets us sidestep most primate political baloney, because there’s common knowledge that we can both Look at all that stuff, and that that’s not what’s important.”
Now that I have a name/concept-shape for this “skill” of Looking, that paragraph brings up a lot of feelings of longing for me. These bonds are what I’ve rarely experienced and what feels to me like what I want out of interpersonal relationships. It’s like most people aren’t awake, or are NPCs, and it gets lonely.
Occasionally finding bits of these bonds is enormously rewarding.
Some comments ask questions about how you can know if someone else is “looking up from their phone.” They want real world examples.
I think you can’t know if someone is doing the real-world analog of “Looking up from their phone” if you don’t interact with them on a level beyond small talk or polite conversation. You won’t pass a stranger on the street and just see it. Looking is a frame of mind, so if you don’t interact with their mental processes, there’s nothing to see.
My personal examples of knowing someone else is Looking are composed of very private conversations that are, like I said, beyond small talk or polite conversation.
I don’t want to get specific, but I can give a vague example interaction:
Imagine a friend is engaging in a behavior that isn’t going well for them. You have an unflattering model of their motives and behavior that you don’t think they’ve considered. If you shared these thoughts with most people, their feelings would be deeply hurt and they may lash out, deny, get defensive, etc. But your friend asks what your thoughts are about what’s going on for them. If you’re both capable of Looking, maybe you can tell them the brutal truth of what you think. You may preface it with “I don’t mean this as a criticism of you, and this might be totally wrong,” and that is also the truth. And when you give them the message they may feel a pang of hurt, but they are able to Look inside and say, “Yes, I can see that too.”
Now imagine the roles are reversed. Your friend has delivered honest feedback and it can sting. But you know the negative emotions don’t matter much. You don’t have to let them high-jack you into indignation. Your trust your friend understands you’re only human and you also trust that they see more than the sum of your flaws. It is immeasurably *safer* feeling to know that they care enough about you to Look at you and try to help you grow as a person.
//end of crappy example
Other examples would not necessarily involve criticism.
I also think the terminology of “it’s okay” is a terrible way to describe the feeling of Looking. It practically begs to have someone argue or get stuck on why things are not okay. I think the phrase I substitute for myself is, “Don’t freak out.” I’m telling myself I don’t have to moralize reality.
What is, is. Don’t freak out! Freaking out doesn’t change reality. You can handle the truth. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
*Just Look up!*
(If I’m totally wrong about what Looking is...feel free to tell me. )
Can you say what it would mean for ‘it’ to not be ‘okay’?
(This has been asked already in another thread, but I have not seen an answer.)
In other words, “it’s okay”… as opposed to what?
Or, to put it yet another way:
I—as far as I know—do not have this ‘Looking’ skill that we’ve been hearing about. I have certainly never meditated, experienced enlightenment, taken hallucinogenic drugs of any sort, or done anything else which might trigger “non-symbolic experiences” of a similar sort (to use the terminology from the paper linked elsethread).
However, I also don’t find myself “freaking out”, “moralizing reality”, or otherwise having any sense that ‘it’, or things-in-general, are “not okay”. Should I? What am I missing?
Edit: To add yet another rephrasing of my question: presumably, you have gained this skill of ‘Looking’ at some point, prior to which time you did not possess it. What, exactly, was “not okay” before that, and how?
I would not personally use the phrases “it is/things are/whatever is okay.” But one way reacting like “it’s not okay” could look is the instinct to make reality retrospectively not be how it is. Denial. We can affect the future, but there’s no use denying what already is.
If the first thing you do is interpret that new info would make the world a bad place (moralizing reality), you may flinch into rationalizing ways it can’t be so before you even notice what you did.
I don’t claim that I gained this skill of ‘Looking’ at some point, prior to which time I did not possess it.
I claim I am recognizing a concept shaped thing that I already did more than average, and am now labelling it with the name Looking. I think I’ve gotten better over time and now that I label it, I think I could practice more deliberately. If I’m totally wrong, there’s still this thing I think I could practice because I’m labelling it now.
I think people are hung up on the meditation/enlightenment idea. It’s not the skill. It’s an old fashioned way to practice. I think the paper being linked is going to confuse more people than it helps.
It is super basic and not as otherworldly or profound as people seem to expect it to be.
Edit: I don’t mean to say it’s basic, so you should already understand. I mean to say it’s basic, and you’re looking for something complicated. Like maybe you are rejecting or will reject the answer even if YOU think of it, or already do Looking, because it’s just not an impressive complicated thing. You’ve invested a lot of effort in understanding this concept, and I wonder if the realization, when/if you get it, will be disappointing. Maybe it will be a relief though.
I’m late to this comment thread. I had to read a lot of the comments (more than once) before it clicked in a way that I’m fairly sure *I recognize what Looking is* and that I already have the skill and use it more than I think is common (but not always or consistently).
“I can form deep, deep pacts with others who know how to Look. This is harder to explain, but I can point to an analogy clearly, I think: if you’re in the cell phone world and you see someone else who has figured out how to look up, there’s a kind of deep collaboration you two can do, and a level of communication you can have, that others literally cannot understand pre-kenshō. In the real-world analog, this creates room for a kind of bond that lets us sidestep most primate political baloney, because there’s common knowledge that we can both Look at all that stuff, and that that’s not what’s important.”
Now that I have a name/concept-shape for this “skill” of Looking, that paragraph brings up a lot of feelings of longing for me. These bonds are what I’ve rarely experienced and what feels to me like what I want out of interpersonal relationships. It’s like most people aren’t awake, or are NPCs, and it gets lonely.
Occasionally finding bits of these bonds is enormously rewarding.
Some comments ask questions about how you can know if someone else is “looking up from their phone.” They want real world examples.
I think you can’t know if someone is doing the real-world analog of “Looking up from their phone” if you don’t interact with them on a level beyond small talk or polite conversation. You won’t pass a stranger on the street and just see it. Looking is a frame of mind, so if you don’t interact with their mental processes, there’s nothing to see.
My personal examples of knowing someone else is Looking are composed of very private conversations that are, like I said, beyond small talk or polite conversation.
I don’t want to get specific, but I can give a vague example interaction:
Imagine a friend is engaging in a behavior that isn’t going well for them. You have an unflattering model of their motives and behavior that you don’t think they’ve considered. If you shared these thoughts with most people, their feelings would be deeply hurt and they may lash out, deny, get defensive, etc. But your friend asks what your thoughts are about what’s going on for them. If you’re both capable of Looking, maybe you can tell them the brutal truth of what you think. You may preface it with “I don’t mean this as a criticism of you, and this might be totally wrong,” and that is also the truth. And when you give them the message they may feel a pang of hurt, but they are able to Look inside and say, “Yes, I can see that too.”
Now imagine the roles are reversed. Your friend has delivered honest feedback and it can sting. But you know the negative emotions don’t matter much. You don’t have to let them high-jack you into indignation. Your trust your friend understands you’re only human and you also trust that they see more than the sum of your flaws. It is immeasurably *safer* feeling to know that they care enough about you to Look at you and try to help you grow as a person.
//end of crappy example
Other examples would not necessarily involve criticism.
I also think the terminology of “it’s okay” is a terrible way to describe the feeling of Looking. It practically begs to have someone argue or get stuck on why things are not okay. I think the phrase I substitute for myself is, “Don’t freak out.” I’m telling myself I don’t have to moralize reality.
What is, is. Don’t freak out! Freaking out doesn’t change reality. You can handle the truth. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
*Just Look up!*
(If I’m totally wrong about what Looking is...feel free to tell me. )
Re: “it’s okay”:
Can you say what it would mean for ‘it’ to not be ‘okay’?
(This has been asked already in another thread, but I have not seen an answer.)
In other words, “it’s okay”… as opposed to what?
Or, to put it yet another way:
I—as far as I know—do not have this ‘Looking’ skill that we’ve been hearing about. I have certainly never meditated, experienced enlightenment, taken hallucinogenic drugs of any sort, or done anything else which might trigger “non-symbolic experiences” of a similar sort (to use the terminology from the paper linked elsethread).
However, I also don’t find myself “freaking out”, “moralizing reality”, or otherwise having any sense that ‘it’, or things-in-general, are “not okay”. Should I? What am I missing?
Edit: To add yet another rephrasing of my question: presumably, you have gained this skill of ‘Looking’ at some point, prior to which time you did not possess it. What, exactly, was “not okay” before that, and how?
I would not personally use the phrases “it is/things are/whatever is okay.” But one way reacting like “it’s not okay” could look is the instinct to make reality retrospectively not be how it is. Denial. We can affect the future, but there’s no use denying what already is.
If the first thing you do is interpret that new info would make the world a bad place (moralizing reality), you may flinch into rationalizing ways it can’t be so before you even notice what you did.
I don’t claim that I gained this skill of ‘Looking’ at some point, prior to which time I did not possess it.
I claim I am recognizing a concept shaped thing that I already did more than average, and am now labelling it with the name Looking. I think I’ve gotten better over time and now that I label it, I think I could practice more deliberately. If I’m totally wrong, there’s still this thing I think I could practice because I’m labelling it now.
I think people are hung up on the meditation/enlightenment idea. It’s not the skill. It’s an old fashioned way to practice. I think the paper being linked is going to confuse more people than it helps.
It is super basic and not as otherworldly or profound as people seem to expect it to be.
Edit: I don’t mean to say it’s basic, so you should already understand. I mean to say it’s basic, and you’re looking for something complicated. Like maybe you are rejecting or will reject the answer even if YOU think of it, or already do Looking, because it’s just not an impressive complicated thing. You’ve invested a lot of effort in understanding this concept, and I wonder if the realization, when/if you get it, will be disappointing. Maybe it will be a relief though.