The Other People Problem
This a big problem, and I'm not pretending to have the answer. Just "an" answer. This is very much my answer as it stands now and is almost certainly going to be revised many times.
How should I think about other people?
It seems we have a drive to be close to other humans. A drive for intimacy.
There seems to be different kinds of intimacy. There is the kind that drives you toward a sexual intimacy. This drive seems to be linked to a need to form a stable unit of physical intimacy durable across decades that provides support during times of physical crises. Pregnancy and delivery are physical crises. Caring for children is physically demanding of resources. Ageing increases the risk of physical crises needing care. Surviving these challenges is easier with an intimate partner with whom your physical existence is shared without boundaries.
There is a different drive toward intimacy, the drive to have a closeness with someone who understands the tensions of your existence. This is the drive to share my consciousness of my existence with other humans. Our consciousness has tensions that cause pain and create fog over decisions, crises of consciousness. A drive toward intimacy with other humans who understand your tensions means the tensions are shared. At the very least, awareness others share the same challenges eases your aloneness. Tensions shared are tensions clarified and relieved. The fog over of decisions is lifted by sharing the difficulty of the decision with another person. The back and forth with other people shifts the weight of considerations in a decision one way or the other, helping for a decision to be made. We all have the same basic tensions, but the degree to which they receive attention varies from each of us. We have needs that start with the physical existence, and progress to the most psychic of all, fulfillment. To meet these needs we have a drive to be intimate with others because it helps to resolve the tensions and acquire solutions.
My current framework for other people is:
other people help you get what you want
know what you want
never forget what you want
communicate what you want
work with others to get what you want
The ring of truth about this approach arises because the approach is win-win. The other person can only be asked to look out for their own interests. And if you approach them as people who can help you get what you want, and then they work with you, they are pursuing their interests and yours. It becomes win-win. I only want good things, so approaching other people in a way that gets me what I want, and gives them a chance to work with me on the good things I want, is win-win. There seems to be a ring of truth and wisdom about this approach.
But what this approach lacks is an adjustment for the difference in the degree of intimacy with people. Some people are far from you, physically far away, never to be interacted with, a score of 0 on any intimacy score with me. The other extreme is someone who is physically, emotionally, financially, past and future intimately linked with me. Then there is the in between. Those who are close and share a current phase or project with me. And those who have a degree of closeness but who are in a different phase or without a current shared project. A shared project will have an arc, a beginning, middle and end. Acknowledging that closeness also has an arc around a shared project helps the understanding of the progression of a relationship from close, to past.
People have tensions and needs that drive them throughout their lives. They will be at different phases with different tensions and needs to my current phase. There is a tension between intimacy and independence that can also be expressed as "I need you to make me the best me". Acknowledging this allows for closeness to other people. The effect of the drive for intimacy is that I receive support in the tensions, needs, drives and projects of my life as I move from one phase to the next throughout life. It also gives me a framework for the dynamic of intimacy. Understand the drive from both sides is to share the tensions and needs and drives of the phases of life means my framework for other people is to ask about them in their phases of life, where they are in the demands, needs and tensions of consciousness.
I wonder if a common mistake is to conflate the two different kinds of drives toward intimacy. That is, to think that the person you form a stable physical intimacy with is also the person who provides you consciousness support. The task of providing psychic intimacy is actually not the task of one person but requires multiple people. We need a partner and we need friends, and no one person is a match for us individually at all times and at all phases of life. Let's think about mentors for example. I have a mentor at work, but only really in one aspect of my work. When that mentor relationship ends, I will carry lessons from that mentoring with me. It is a relationship that supports me through one of the challenges of work. When the relationship is over, the challenge of work will continue. The relationship will support me over a period, but the support will be out of phase and prolonged beyond the physical reality of the relationship. In the arc of my career, the drive toward support via other people results in a mentor relationship that has a face to face component for a period of time, then becomes an historical relationship, but yet continues to supports me throughout a career that lasts decades. There are challenges in my work as a cardiac surgeon that benefit from a mentor. But those challenges are not best supported from my stable physical intimacy partner, my wife. I am aware though that I have a subtle culturally influenced expectation that my wife is supposed to be my "soul mate" and "my everything". I wonder if that means I subtly expect more of that relationship than it is reasonable to expect, when in fact, to change the phrase, "it takes a village to reach fulfillment". Understanding that one relationship cannot support all aspects of life frees that relationship from expectations and demands, and instead allows me ask what support role I am playing, rather than what support I should be expecting.
I have a framework now. Its an expansion of "the Golden Rule, Cole Variation": "Treat others how you want to be treated, but remember, not everyone is like you".
I am driven toward intimacy with others for support in the challenges of my life.
Others are driven toward intimacy with me to find support for their drives, needs and phase of life.
Other people share the same drives, needs and phases of life as me, but at different times and to different intensity to me. We are out of phase.
Know what drives and needs and phases I am at; Know myself
Never forget yourself.
Be clear about what you want. Communicate by living. Communication is everything you do, and only a little what you say.
Work with others to get what you want by supporting them. This will result in win-win.
The Other People Problem: We are all the same, but out of phase. Intimacy eases the tensions of consciousness.
