Speaking Each Other's Language

Communication is key. Every day we hear some version of it, but we rarely think about communication itself. I recently had an experience that showed me a lot about the nature of communication. A friend of mine needed someone to watch his cat for a week or so while he fixed up his house. I was a bit hesitant at first since I don't have that much extra space and I have two cats already that are very protective of their space, but I agreed for the sake of the cat. Her name is Stormy, and she's a three-year old tortico who spends a lot of time outside. Her owner even said she primarily uses the bathroom outside, but luckily we didn't have any issues with the litterbox. She's a smart girl. My girls Gilly and Rose, on the other hand, are eleven-year old tortie sisters that have been indoor most of their life and are very protective of their space. They haven't met many cats, and when they have they have not been friendly.

            It began as you might expect, with Gilly and Rose running to one side of the apartment, and Stormy running to the other. Gilly and Rose took the living room, while Stormy took my bedroom. This quickly became an issue, because my girls like to nap in my room during the middle of the day. They continuously made attempts to enter, but they only ever got to the point of hissing and growling. Stormy kept the bed that day, at least until I went to sleep, because Rose wouldn't stand for not being able to sleep with me. The roles reversed the next day, with my girls taking the bedroom while Stormy hung out on the couch and watched the birds. The routine continued with Gilly and Rose tentatively coming out to the living room to get food and water, and to stop and start a staring/growling match with Stormy.

            After a couple days of this I noticed something. Stormy wasn't keeping up the fight. She had stopped keeping a defensive stance, going so far as to give my cats slow blinks, show her belly, and even sleep with them in close proximity. All the aggression was coming from my cats (mostly Gilly). Stormy made no moves to stop them from eating, drinking water, going to the bathroom, or even coming up to say hello, and yet they would still stop and growl. I literally watched Gilly sit on one end of the couch and growl at Stormy on the other end, while she just slept peacefully. But Gilly wanted her gone all the same. This was her space, and it had always been her space. Even if the change the offered her no threat and would not take away from any of her resources, she still feared and hated the change that slept on her couch.

            I should note here that both Gilly and Stormy are quite similar in appearance. The coloring on their backs and tails are almost identical. She easily could have been another sister. But yet there is a gap of hate between them, a difference in life experience. Even though Stormy is younger, she's spent a lot of time outside, meeting other cats and other animals, learning the reality that not everything is dangerous. Gilly, on the other hand, had spent most of her life inside and hasn't had a chance to meet and interact with other cats without the mediation of a human. Everything that enters her home is an unknown, so she fears and hates it as a way to protect herself. Even though both cats are remarkably similar, and presumably have the same ways of communicating as every other cat does, the difference in life experience between them means that they are interpreting what the other says through vastly different lenses, and their actions are filtered through that same lense.

            So many issues in human life happen because of this exact issue. We see someone do something that we see as nonsensical or stupid and we think: "Why doesn't that person have common sense?" and then we think about what we would do in that situation instead and wonder why they weren't smart enough to do it that way. This an easy thing to fall into and a don't blame anyone who does, but this is ultimately a problematic and narrow way of viewing the situation. The idea of common sense has ingrained the idea that the way we think is the correct way, and we've lost the fact that common sense is an extremely relative term. It only really exists in localities. What you consider to be common sense will be the same as those from your area and those that have similar life experience, but the idea of common sense will be very different between black man working construction in South Carolina and an Indian Billionaire living in Mumbai.

            The issue here is with abstraction. It's not something that comes easy to every, and it's especially difficult to stop and do it in the moment when you're actually considering the situation. It may even be impossible for people with certain disorders, such as aphantasia, but I could be wrong. Take the phrase, "Walk a mile in another man's shoes." I've always found that saying to be lacking something, I've seen that lack in how people apply the phrase to their lives. They walk the mile, but they never take off their own shoes. They consider what they would do in that scenario through the lense of their own life experience, not the other person's. Thinking about what you should o in that scenario is still useful information, but it's the wrong place to start if you want to create empathy and understanding instead of division and frustration.

            I know what you're thinking. "How the hell am I supposed to do that? This all sounds like psycho-babble." I understand. It's hard for me, too, I just started a lot earlier. I'd like you to do an exercise with me, a simple one that will have to be repeated many, many times. Think about a person in your life, preferably someone you don't have a lot in common with, but know a good bit about their life and their story. Go through their life and all the details slowly. Try to see how their experience shape their behaviors, how the experience of their childhood effects their demeanor now. Do the same for yourself. Take a good look at the ways you act. Try to match them with experiences you had in your past. This part will likely take a while if you haven't been to any sort of therapy, or were extremely introspective from a young age like me. Once you've got a good grasp on how your experiences have shaped you and how the other person's experiences have shaped them, picture a scenario.

            I'll give you one to start with: You have a car with tires that could use replacing. One tire should be replaced immediately because it has a screw lodged in it, but could be plugged for now. The other tires are nearly bald and should be replaced soon. First, think about how you would do it. Maybe you replace all four tires, because you have the money for it and it's the safe thing to do. Now think about what the other person would do. Maybe their family didn't have much money, so just plugging the tire makes the most sense to them. Picture yourself with that experience, the feeling that you have to take the cheapest route even if you know it will lead to problems later. To you, with your life experience, not replacing the tires is stupid and dangerous, but to them spending all that money while you still could get some more use out of the tires would sound equally stupid to them. The point here is that you need to consider life from multiple perspectives, and to not to discount a perspective because it conflicts with what you know already. That is the only road that approaches objectivity, and there are far too many people who try to sell their subjective opinion as gospel. Dig long and hard for the truth y'all, and don't trust anyone with clean hands who says they've found it.