When We Feel Seen
If you really want to see a cross section of American community, then sit in any Chicago McDonald’s dining room for half-an-hour. This is where I found myself not long ago. If you close your eyes you’ll hear five different languages, kids whining about why they can’t have something on the menu, a thousand beeps and zings from a hundred different devices, and everyone starts an order, “Yea umm… let me get a…” If you work the front lines at McDonald’s you deserve the highest rewards life— and the afterlife— can offer. There is a place for you in heaven.
The dining room was actually not a room at all. It was two separate tables with a set of chairs at each. It just happened that one table was free when I walked in. The open space felt weird for a fast food restaurant, but COVID has changed everything we are used to and everything we know. I set up shop placing a few small items from my day at my small window table. As I sat and before I got settled, I was greeted by the person at the other table— a woman, middle-aged, who was eating by herself. She was exceptionally friendly and more sincere than most adults I meet everyday in a big city. She turned in her chair as she finished her food with a bit of classic McDonald’s soft serve. She found my gaze, looked into my eyes, and cheerfully said, “Hello, how are you?” Then… she waved, like someone would to a friend they see on a Sunday morning walk. No in-depth talking. No small chat or conversation— just a moment of sincere acknowledgement from one stranger towards the other. We were less than eight feet apart. I replied saying that I was fine and then watched her wipe her table, push in her chair, check for any trash then walk out.
Actually, the encounter struck me. The main reason was that— from a complete stranger— in a fast food lobby, I felt… seen. By the way she looked at me, in the way that she smiled, somehow our brief interaction made me pause and have a great deal of gratitude. Something more honest than I am used to happened when she said hello. Her tone and emphasis was endearing, as if she were easing every part of me that became frustrated with my day. “Maybe I’m not a cog on some giant wheel; maybe all of us are in this together somehow,” I thought to myself. What seemed like coded subtext, her aura seemed to project, “I’ve been there Travis. You will be okay. What you are doing matters. Keep your chin up. It gets better— I promise.” Funny thing, my day was just fine! Her attention just seemed to signify something deeper. As she walked out, I found myself thinking about her. What was her life like? What was her name? Did she have a family? What kinds of dreams did she still have? The encounter was a brief moment of reciprocity, at least for me. In feeling seen… I wanted to see her in return. Is this principle the foundation of community?
It’s very easy to forget how alike we are as human beings. As people, we encounter the world in different but highly relatable ways. There is nothing that even a king or peasant cannot see reflected in each another, and actually they don’t really need to look too hard. In fact, the more they learn of each other the more they will learn that they are the same. And in genuinely seeing the other, each then understands more about himself. Our human experiences generally share the same structural themes— we love, we grapple, we pine, we change. And no matter how unique the circumstances that unfold in our individual experience, often we are walking in the same footsteps of each other. But— we are prone to forget and we are apt to dismiss that the best of our personal self is alive when we have curiosity about what might also be the best in others.
By nature, we build our communities with people who are most like us and with similar values. Science even suggests that many people are most comfortable with people who physically look like them; there is something safe about what’s known. Yet as we build our communities, we must also understand that at the same time we build invisible boundaries that both those subsumed inside its walls and those a part of different communities can feel and detect. If unpassed, in insular ways these same walls create communities, churches, schools, neighborhoods, departments, organizations, a board of directors, a tight knit posse, or a fleet of managers that are blind, deaf, and dumb to the suasion of communities unlike their own. A good community is one that sees itself beyond just those who create and live within it; it peers across its borders, eager to support and learn from the best of others— and thus a bigger faction lives.
When we feel seen, we attempt to see others. We come to instantly recognize that the invisible walls that separate us from each other, really… are lines carved by our personal and greater societal imagination.
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[Photo: originally color: Ryoji Iwata]
