Thanks to a generous sharing of great reading by my not-very-online brother, I spent my train rides the past few weeks reading some truly wild profiles of people, like the ballerina Mormon wife constantly talked-over by her husband, the hacker who doxed all of of Finnish patients in virtual therapy, and this profile of one of the weirder people in Hollywood, Kevin Costner. (Fun fact: this little email began when I found the now-deprecated service Revue and had seen a few link roundup posts from this same brother on Tumblr.) When reading about the maniacs and monsters of the world, it's pretty easy to sit separately from them, in indisputable judgment. How could people behave like this?While judgment, by which I mean the experience of being confirmed in your rightness about someone else's wrongness, is fun, it's not a curious posture: you won't learn much. A posture of curiosity about the world opens you up to a deeper understanding of new and different people. Curiosity lets the universe teach you something. But how can we be curious about people who are so obviously wrong?
Here's a phrase to try: if I were them, I'd be them.
The phrase reminds me that if I had the life experience and the DNA and the being of the other person, I'd do exactly what they're doing. If I'd spent $20 million making Dances with Wolves and starring in it and against all odds and naysayers it collected $200+ million in 1990, then I'd probably be wildly egotistic about my ability to make the next Western and tell Taylor Sheridan his writing sucks and get booted from polite company in Hollywood and mortgage my houses to make a multi-hour, multi-volume Western epic. And I'd be far more entertaining and believable describing how all of the above were the obviously and only correct choices. If I were Kevin Costner, I'd be Kevin Costner—the whole way.
If the phrase works entertainingly for celebrity profiles, then its work for interpersonal relationships and beliefs is a whole lot more challenging. When you're staring across the table at someone who just described a choice you think absolutely terrible, the pronoun to use is the second-person: I were you, I'd be you. When one of your friends sets out a belief you think not only wrong but dangerous, do the work to stay curious: if you were them, you'd think that, too. If practiced well, this sentiment becomes a meditation. As you consider what it means, it puts you in a posture of what the Buddhists call metta, a state of lovingkindness towards all the particulars of the world. When you drive past the house with the offensive or silly political sign: if I were them, I'd have that sign. When you read about the grandmas in New York profanely expressing political hostility: if I were them, I would do that. When someone tells you how hurtful and wrong your beliefs are: if I thought opposite, I'd agree with them. It helps me, sometimes, to think about the earlier versions of myself: when I was them, I thought that, too.
That brings us to the link for this week: some entertaining, I think, essays and profiles about how some among us live. Read curiously, my friends!
Reading
Low-wage work isn't a job. It's a whole world with its own logic and norms.
I spent six years in low wage work. Media and policy debates tend to flatten something that's actually quite complex. Low wage work is a system.
Civil War at the Anti-Woke University Backed by Bari Weiss
They Wanted a University Without Cancel Culture. Then Dissenters Were Ousted.
The Hottest Spot for Sunday Church Is a MAGA Dive Bar
Saturday night, Penn Social is your typical Washington DC dive filled with conservative 20-somethings. Come Sunday morning, it’s still a hot spot—by the name of King’s Church.