You may have already met the famous, Andrew ‘Ender’ Wiggin. He is the child prodigy from Orson Scott Card’s prolific book series that starts with Ender’s Game, where Andrew is being bred, practically from birth, to represent humans as their leader in a war against an alien race in a light-years-away star system.
What has been most captivating about devouring these books is the way that the author was able to breakdown each character’s inner workings with such completeness. He depicted the step-by-step thinking process of the characters, who are trained in military strategy from birth, as they related with each other.
As I’ve tried to apply the kind of strategy I’ve read about myself, I’ve realized that this stuff can’t be faked. Now that I’ve gotten to know people who process this way, it doesn’t mean that I can now do it.
However, I have started, and you can start, practicing a more present kind of noticing.
You could say that noticing is Phase 1 of relating.
You start noticing what you’re feeling, what you want, what you don’t want, what different voices you have inside you and what each one is oriented towards, where you put your attention, and what gets in the way of noticing.
Then as you get clear on yourself, you start to notice these same things in other people. That’s because all of us humans share qualities and what you notice in you, you can notice in others.
This part of the process is wildly exciting and just as wildly perilous. It is the place where you could think you’re done. You’ve reached the top of the mountain. If you have read this far, then you are probably saying to yourself, “not me”.
Of course, not you.
Or maybe..
Maybe you have come to notice that there is a part of you that always thinks what you’ve done is enough (not to be confused with the other part of you that always thinks you’re not enough).
This I’ve-done-enough part is adjacent to the I’ve-done-more-than-you part. There is a collection of parts in you that, together, constantly scan the people around you to find comfort in some sort of structure. It helped you orient yourself as a helpless child and it’s still helping today (you, who are reading this, already knew that).
Once you know where your place is within the structure, then you know how you’re supposed to act. Once you know who your enemies are, then you know how to orient your survival strategies. Once you know who is superior, you know who to undermine. Once you know who is inferior, you know who to ignore. Etc..
It doesn’t end at noticing. Actually, the journey of relating doesn’t end.
As fun as it has been to put together my thoughts on Phase 1, Phase 2 is what I’m curious to unfold here in this article. I’m curious because I don’t know how it goes. What I do know is that I have evidence to show that I’m not practiced enough to navigate with precision.
I have been part of a Men’s Group that meets every week for the past 2.5 years. We also have an ongoing group chat. That’s a long time and a lot of practice.
Just this past week a man in the group sent an article into the group chat without saying anything else. I was clear that it didn’t work for me to just receive content created by other people without any context about why it was being shared into the group. I prepared my fingers to make the next move and I thought I wrote something clear and sharp, but what I got back was an attack.
Ha Ha! Now I have proof that he is triggered.
I shot back with another clear breakdown of what I saw and what I wanted instead.
[Another attack]
I’ve got him now. The whole group will see what is going on and have my back.
WRONG! I did not read the situation properly. I noticed what was going on with him and what was going on with me, but I did not notice what was going on in the space between.
Maybe that’s it.. Phase 2!
It might have something to do with noticing the third entity in a relating space.
There’s a you. There’s a me. And there’s what the you and the me are co-creating.
The third entity would then have its own energy. It could drop into either collaboration or competition - into serving something greater or fighting for position.
Of course, that would mean it’s some sort of alchemical recipe of the mix of both people’s energies. And either person has the power to shift the flavor of the dish by transforming their energetic input.
When you change your orientation to the third entity, your energy input shifts, and the entity can shift.
The strategy most often used is to expect the other person to shift because, obviously, you’re right and you know what’s really going here. That’s the double-edged sword of noticing - now that I notice, I know better.
So, it seems that it’s as simple as how you orient yourself to the space you are co-creating. Are you on the same team or are you facing off?
It turns out that Ender Wiggin’s training to defeat the alien race required that he get to know the enemy so completely that he ended up falling in love with them, so much so that he wrote a book about them that changed the way the human race viewed these aliens. Maybe playing the competition out to its limit could shoot you all the way back around to the deepest love. There are no rules to this game.. only research and experimentation.
So,
Batter up!
(The baseball references were taken from another man in the Men’s Group who, because of all that transpired in this mini-war, wrote a piece that inspired this writing that you just read. I share his piece below, with his permission)
THE IMAGINARY AT-BAT
Sometimes, when someone speaks to me, I start an imaginary at-bat.
Especially when there is an audience, but sometimes when there isn’t.
The person speaks to me, and I see the ball coming full speed. Sometimes it’s a curve ball, and I better hope it’s not a knuckle ball.
If it’s in the dirt, I often let it go.
But if it’s in the zone, I’ll swing. Chance for a hit, a home run. Sometimes I set up to bunt, to just gently make my way to safety at first base.
Sometimes, the bat flies out of my hands and hits someone.
Anyways, the ball is coming full speed.
I swing.
Contact!
It’s going deep.
It’s outta here!
Home Run.
I run the lap with my hands raised in victory, I pass second and third base on the way to home plate.
And then, just before I reach home, I glance over to the left, at the pitcher.
The person who just spoke to me.
And I feel sad.
He did not know he was pitching.
He did not know he was the villain and I was the hero.
The imaginary at-bat is over.
And then I see it.
There was no home run.
Only a miss.
A missed opportunity to really connect.
- Written by Guy Shamir
3 MONTHS OF VORACIOUS READING
In case you’re looking for your next book:
Ender’s Game - Orson Scott Card
Mount Analogue - Rene Daumal
Baghavad Gita
White Witch of Tenerife - Elsemaraijka Koster
Four Feelings & What to do With Them - Valerie Lankford
Out of the silent planet - CS Lewis
Perelandra - CS Lewis
Ishmael - Daniel Quinn
Siddharta - Herman Hesse
Cat’s Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
The Prophet - Kahlil Gebran
Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card
Xenocide - Orson Scott Card