On Re-Humanizing Ourselves and Others

Just over a year ago, I started a blog post with this statement: “I’m tired of answering ‘how are you?’” I stand by my discomfort with the question although my reasoning seems to be evolving.  While it’s a social custom, it just doesn’t tell me what I want or even need to know. It doesn’t give me information to help me navigate the situation that is about to unfold. 

We do this dance, it seems, to avoid the reality that might be. What if the barista at your favorite coffee shop didn’t just say she was “fine” or “good”?  What if she actually told you what feeling she was most identifying within that moment? What if you cared about the response?

See that’s the thing about “how are you?”  It’s care theatre. We want to appear to care without the burden of needing to truly witness the humanity of the person with whom we’re seeking (artificial) connection. 

It’s also judgement-based. We are good or bad, well or unwell. Our hope - as the social contract mandates - is that our counterpart will respond with a positive assessment of their state of being. Yet the reality of human existence is so much more complex. Personally, I’d like to respond to every “how are you?” from here on out with: “well, it’s complicated.”  Because it is. And I am. And, I’m willing to bet, you are too. 

But good/bad and well/unwell actually tells me very little. What are the causes and conditions leading to this response? And what if we normalized being curious about those matters? 

What would the exchange look like if our social practice was to ask: “what are you feeling right now?”  

It sounds touchy-feely, doesn’t it?  And that’s the point. Can we develop more tolerance for touchy-feely? At current, our society doesn’t seem to reward interest in what others are sensing or feeling. We seem to only offer tolerance and reward for thoughts.

However, feelings and felts senses shape every exchange we have. What if, for example, your barista misheard your order, not because she’s negligent but because she’s just finished a long rush of customers and hasn’t had a bathroom break in hours? Paying money should not entitle us to exploit or dismiss the needs of others. Her needs matter. What if we really believed that she’s paid to perform a specific service, not to deny her needs in the name of yours. Why are we so comfortable turning our eyes from the feelings and needs of others? 

This year I got in the habit of asking students to tell me how they were feeling - often just in one word in the Zoom chat. I didn’t then try to psychoanalyze or intervene in their feelings. Instead, I just tried to make space. Hear a feeling; acknowledge that feeling: “Ah, stress. I get stress. It’s common this time of year.”  “Oh, frustration. We hear that. Who here hasn’t felt frustrated? That one can be hard.” At the end of the term, I got quite a few notes from students saying I was the first or only professor who asked them about themselves each week. 

In one class, students kept mentioning feeling fried and burnt out. One student mentioned that their eyes were bothering them and others chimed in agreeing. So we turned our cameras off and we engaged in the next activity without the burden of looking at a screen. 

I had gone into the day feeling burnt out and my eyes were also fatigued. Hearing our shared struggle allowed me to not grind past my own need, but to identify a strategy to meet my need that would also accommodate and see the needs of my students. 

I don’t know whether that moment made a difference in the day of my students, but I know it allowed me space to remember our shared humanity, to meet my own needs, and to re-establish the presence I believe I need to be an effective teacher. 

So why don’t we make more space for this kind of pursuit?  Why am I not also asking my barista how she’s feeling today?  

Efficiency. 

Convenience. 

In a world where “the customer is always right,” we seem to also suggest the employee is less important, less worthy recognition as equally human with feelings and needs.

I’m beginning to develop a theory that the very things that make us more efficient and increase our sense of convenience are also the things that take us away from what makes us human. 

Aren’t efficiency and convenience-based living inherently de-humanizing? 

Let that sink in for a minute. 

Efficiency and convenience-based living are inherently dehumanizing. 

What do you do in the name of efficiency?  How might you de-humanize yourself or someone else in the name of efficiency?  What do you do in the name of convenience?  How does your adherence to convenience dehumanize you? How does it contribute to the de-humanizing of others? 

Would you live differently if you made the re-humanizing of yourself and others part of your core values?