I have recently been struck by the amazing power of human interaction.
I guess it is part of what is usually referred to as being present or being in
the now. I sometimes sit back and watch
people go about their business and observe as they interact with other
people. I sometimes also watch myself as
I go about my own business and the interactions I make.
I watch myself and other in regular familiar interactions, with
family, friends and colleagues. I see the instant recognition, warmth,
affection, respect and all other emotions that can be seen. Sometimes I also see the coldness, confusion,
sadness and many others. Because I am in
familiar environment, I can relate a lot of the observations to stuff I know
that is happening around the lives of those I interact with, be it positive or
negative. All these observations make
for daily experiences that accumulate to life and relationships growth and
improvement and is some cases decline.
I also watch myself in regular non-familiar-mostly-customer-supplier
kind of interactions. The kind of
interaction you would have in a supermarket check-out or at a gas station. These interactions are professional, polite
and transactional. The people I interact
with will usually be employed to do what they do, and they are compelled by
nature of their employment to treat me in a certain way, usually polite,
respectful and also to get me to do something that fulfills their mandate. So a security guard will politely ask to
conduct a body search on me or a car search, and his objective is to get me to
comply and then we are soon both on to our next action. In the event that I frequent a certain
service point, the nature of this interaction evolves from initially
unfamiliar-professional to a familiar professional and may soon be on its way
to a familiar friend interaction. I have
observed on several occasions when I interact, on a regular basis, with
professional guards at an office environment.
When they later are transferred to other premises, and I happen to visit
those premises, the interaction instantly becomes personal-friendly even though
they are in a professional mandate. The
same repeats itself across many other professional interactions that graduate to
friendship.
However the most interesting interactions that I observe are those of
strangers. These for me represent our
wiring as human beings, which can manifest as extremely good to extremely awful
and any other point in between. The same
individual when interacting with a stranger can be at one point very nice and
kind and at another point be very rude and mean. The individual who is a mean rude driver may
be rushing to a church where she is a volunteer usher showing people to their
seats. The guy you strike a nice
friendly conversation on a sidewalk could be the same guy leading a rough violent
bunch of football fans. The polite lady you it next to in a bus could be the
same person shouting and cursing at a luggage attendant at the station.
What then do we make of all these interactions? How can we as human being temper our
interactions towards a more peaceful and loving world? You have probably heard of the saying that
friends are just strangers we have not met.
And the classic one that says: “They chap who cursed me and showed me
the middle finger at the parking has just arrived for his interview – with me!”
Happy interacting!
