One of the skills that I have been practicing in my study of NVC, mindfulness, and rationality is what is variously called “original seeing”, or “seeing with fresh eyes”. It is the skill of observing a thing simply, as though for the first time, with the intention of seeing the thing as it really is. This involves shutting down one’s automatic thought processes, and avoiding the application of judgments that come to us naturally. We need to avoid automatically “completing the pattern” and replaying “cached thoughts”, because these features of our cognition hinder our ability to simply observe the object of our attention.
Something I have recognized through this practice is that the English language often does not serve us well, when we want to see things as they are. Many words and concepts in English obscure or outright misrepresent reality. Seeing through these misrepresentations can allow deeper understanding.
To illustrate, let’s start with an example in which English is not confusing things (at least not in the way I’m referencing in this article): “The apple is red.” In this case, we’re describing an apple, which has the property that when photons strike it, photons with a wavelength that we call “red” are reflected, while others are absorbed. The apple is doing something: it’s absorbing and reflecting photons, and that’s what we’re pointing at when we say it is red. The “redness” really is something about the apple.
Contrast with this sentence: “The man is scary.” Here, the man has some properties, which might include being large and hairy. Further, there is some observer who looks at the man and is afraid. The observer applies a judgment described by the label “scary”. Notice that, although there is an observer involved in this case, the sentence doesn’t say so. In fact, “The man is scary” has exactly the same grammatical structure as “The apple is red”. “Scary” and “red” both act as adjectives grammatically. This might confuse the reader into thinking that scariness is in fact a property of the man, just as redness is a property of the apple. In reality, the word “scary” has much more to do with the observer than the observed. The same man might be seen as cuddly by his children, and lovable by his partner. Scariness is not a property of the man; it describes a judgment made by some observer. The language hides this truth. Indeed, it makes it appear as though scariness really is a property of the man. It misattributes the scary concept to the man instead of to the observer.
Many other examples of this phenomenon come to mind. Consider these:
- Delicious
- Beautiful
- Funny
- Charming
- Kind
- Mean
- Irritating
Please note that I am not denying the existence of objective actions or properties of the observed that play a causal role in the observer’s judgment. If you say that a song is annoying, doubtless there are some properties that the song objectively has that contribute to your judgment. The phenomenon I’m trying to point at is that the English language sentence, “That song is annoying” leaves out that there is a person there who judges the song to be annoying, and that this misfeature of the language can cause us to become confused into thinking that “annoying” is just something that the song is.
If this sort of confusion seems harmless or unimportant, consider the concept of desert, that is of “deserving”: a person’s worthiness of a reward or punishment. It’s common in English to say that a person “deserves” this or that, for example: “Charles deserves a Nobel Prize,” or somewhat less colloquially: “Charles is deserving of a Nobel Prize.” This has the same quality as “The man is scary” in that it is written such that “deserving” is something that Charles is or does - a property that he has. Like “the man is scary”, it leaves out the important reality that some observer is making a judgment about the his worthiness. If you can look afresh on the concrete world described by the sentence, you’ll see two people: Charles, a man in a lab coat working to cure diseases, and a person observing Charles making an evaluation about worthiness with respect to the Nobel Prize. Again, the sentence is really about the observer and the judgment. Charles may in fact be objectively effective in curing disease, he may posses unusual intellectual strength, he may be donating his time. Those are facts about Charles. Whether or not he deserves a Nobel Prize is a judgment about Charles applied by some person.
This concept of deserving is definitely in the running for the most harmful misrepresentation of this sort that I have yet noticed. I have watched friends say things like “I don’t deserve happiness,” or “I don’t deserve a good relationship,” and then proceed to steer themselves away from happiness and good relationships. They seem to be confused into thinking that “undeserving” is just something they are - that they have an essence of undeservingness - and don’t seem to see that “undeserving” is a judgment that they are applying to themselves.
This is hugely important as it relates to recovery. If you believe that the problem is “I am undeserving”, then the apparent solution is “stop being undeserving!” If you believe undeservingness to be a property that you have, then you may see shedding that property as potentially impossible, and stop trying. If, on the other hand, you can see that “undeserving” is a judgment you’re making - that it’s a process in your brain and distinct from what you are - then you can start to see other approaches. If you notice the judgment occurring, you may be able to ask “Why am I making this judgment? What objective facts about me are feeding into this mental process that’s generating the judgment?” You may be able to take different perspectives: If you had a friend with all the same objective qualities that you have, would you judge that friend as being undeserving? You may be able to notice that the judgment doesn’t come from facts about what you are: I suspect that some might look closely and see that the true source of the judgment is that it was trained into them, say by an abusive parent or partner. The implications, in terms of what actions to take, associated with these sorts of recognitions, are very different from those associated with the belief that one possesses an innate property of undeservingness.
This practice of consciously recognizing the distinctions between observations of objective facts and judgments about those facts has served me quite well, and I hope it will serve you well, too. It’s foundational to NVC, and since I’ve learned it I’ve come to understand how much it resonates with rationality (“Don’t let your mind complete the pattern!”) and mindfulness (“paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally”).
Sidenote: I have sometimes toyed with the idea of constructing a language designed to prevent these sort of misattribution errors. In such a language, it would be impossible, or at least awkward, to express a concept like “a judgment that someone is funny” without specifically evoking the concept of judgment. It’s an experimental concept, but I wonder whether it would help people think more clearly to have the language constructed such that the easiest sentences to say are the ones that expose the underlying reality.