As 2023 draws to a close, it’s celebration season. From Dec 7 to Dec 15, Jews observe Chanukah. On December 25, Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. From December 26 to January 1, African-Americans mark Kwanzaa. Deepavali precedes these by a few weeks. These weeks which are the darkest and coldest seen by the northern hemisphere are lightened by festivity. Festival messaging, while it might also promote consumerism, is framed in terms of generosity, compassion and giving.
As I write this, I think I can barely remember worse years. My heart and my mind, not to mention the news and social media timelines are full of violence, anger and grief, most of it the consequence of human actions against other humans. I might once have been trained to seek who started it and track who said what to whom but everybody suffers and that has come to matter more to me. I still read and write about ‘causes’ in my academic work but my conscience as a human and my duty as a citizen prioritise empathy and care. The history of conflict and a review of conflict analysis in various settings show that ‘who started it’ is an endless and perhaps pointless quest. Bereavement and grief too call for compassionate care by skilled healers though expressions of concern do count.
There is, however, a place where even someone like me can start and that is to have the conversations that connect us, or rather, re-connect us.
There is so much that divides us these days—within a college circle, within the workplace, within the housing society, within the family—that reaching across to speak about anything contentious (and almost everything is contentious now) risks unpleasantness and acrimony. We skirt around the elephant in the room—whether it is communal hatred or caste discrimination or conflict—hoping it will go away and not obstruct our daily interactions. We self-censor in any setting, trying to guess what the other people want to hear or what we can say without causing trouble. Sometimes it is our ego wanting to be seen as getting it ‘right.’ Sometimes it is our reluctance to get into confrontations that we do not feel confident to handle. Beneath the silence, our differences fester and our distances grow.
The most difficult peace-building work arguably is to have that mine-laden conversation with someone you love who sees a particular issue quite differently.
Where do you start? First, set aside your own strong emotions—anger, grief, passion. They are good motivators for having the conversation but self-defeating when the conversation starts. Like slippers left outside when you enter a home, leave your strongest feelings outside. Take a deep breath and enter.
Let me acknowledge here that this is easier said than done for most of us who are still learning to walk this road. This includes me. There are things I am angry, even furious about and my feelings border on hatred. When those conversations come up, I can feel the bile rise but I cannot leave the conversation and anything short of vitriolic feels hypocritical. I must confess that too often, I say something sarcastic and then try to end the conversation before my words escalate the conflict. Sometimes I do manage to change the words in my head before they come out of my mouth to a milder (sometimes more academic) phrasing of what I want to say. My heart screams, “They’re all liars!” and I can somehow school my mouth to say, “It is hard to figure out what is true and what is an exaggeration or fiction.” It is the same thing but it leaves a little room for the other side to respond.
There is a deep well of grief in my heart, with personal loss and the losses of others that I feel deeply all running into each other. Some topics tip that grief over the edge. It makes me inarticulate. I want to cry, “Don’t you feel this? Don’t you have a heart?” But this one is easier because I know that of course they do so I am usually able to take my grief to be a mirror of theirs. I try to use a “we” in the sentence, to include them in my feeling. “It is so hard for us to be a witness to this, isn’t it?” “It doesn’t matter who you are or what your circumstance, leaving home lock, stock and barrel has to be very difficult.” And say, if you have not experienced something, “It is hard for me to fully understand but I can imagine a little,” or words to that effect—not appropriating the right to express their feeling but showing you want to understand and feel with them.
Passion is the easiest one for me to set aside. Maybe because as I have grown older, it is already mellower within me or I have learnt to transform it into actions. Passion is a great fuel but like other fuels, is combustible. Faced with a person who is as passionate about the opposite view it is useful to remember that the best use of your passion is to give them a dispassionate hearing. Let them say their piece and listen while they do. For me, it is much harder to rein in what I feel in the face of people who do not care; I do want to shake them into caring, ahimsa notwithstanding.
I would begin by testing the waters to see whether it is a good time to talk. It is simple consideration to not force a difficult conversation in a moment when the other is in pain, is overwhelmed by responsibility or has a work crisis. Wait for circumstances to be normal or at least, not in crisis. Sometimes though, the opportunity presents itself without your seeking. For instance, you may have planned a quiet dinner with friends, respectful of people’s stress levels, but there is breaking news on TV and there is a natural opening. At that point, even if you know how challenging it will be, don’t shy away.
Before you speak though, set aside the notion that only your view is correct. Sometimes even if we know this is not the case, we are so moved by our own position—especially when it comes to something like the death of innocent people—that we cannot make room for another view. But we must.
This means that when we speak, we must temper our words. Do not lie, but there is no need to use every strong adjective you know. Rather than state something as self-evident and absolute, preface it with, “The way it seems to me is that…” This reminds everyone that each view is only a perspective on what is happening. Consider, from the point of view of the listener, the difference between “X is wrong” and “It is hard for me to understand how X could be seen as correct.” In my view, the second formulation allows the other person to explain.
That is the second commitment we make to this conversation—to listen with all our attention, mind and heart, and without interruption. Hear the words. But also hear the feeling being expressed—there will be anger, grief, bewilderment on the other side too. Listen, hear and acknowledge. If you do not understand or want to disagree, see if you can do it with a question rather than an accusation. “Can you help me understand this better?” rather than “Your reasoning is all wrong!” This does two things. First, it signals that you are willing to listen and learn and that you want to understand where the other person comes from. Second, it gives the other person a chance to think and articulate their view which they may not have had a chance to do. Sometimes, in times like these, you get locked into a position by the aggression of other views. It seems that a clear and deliberate articulation is a luxury or a sign of waffling. It is not. Give the other person this opportunity as your gift. As a bonus, the other person relaxes and is willing to listen to you. The best way to ensure reciprocal consideration is to be considerate first.
This is not a staged University debate where the game is to score more points than the other side. This is real life and the stakes are high—your relationship with each other, for starters. When you listen, therefore, do listen analytically to the points and arguments of the other view(s) but also do acknowledge where you can agree—everyone is suffering, no one should suffer, certain actions are wrong in principle. Find that common ground and hold on to it. Hear your interlocutor’s feelings and find their mirror in your heart.
Holding firm to what brings you both together—mutual affection, respect and history; shared values and this common ground you have discovered just now—gently phrase your disagreement and express it: “I can hear what you are saying and I am trying to understand it. I still have these questions” or “Here is a question that bothers me: …” or “The other way to look at this, of course, is…” Find gentle words. Remember, or assume, the other person is as passionate or sensitive or defensive as you are. Make plenty of room within the conversation for both of you, for all of us. Just as there is enough room in the world.
If you can both move your conversation towards building on common ground, that is wonderful. But a difficult conversation is not a Board Room or a sport final where someone has to win. You can also leave the conversation inconclusively. The point of the conversation is having the conversation, not a shared conclusion or communique.
Because such a conversation is such hard work and it takes time, it is possible that one of you will have to leave or that there will be an interruption or one of you will suddenly feel overwhelmed and tired and unable to continue. When this happens, maybe one of you says, “I’m suddenly hungry” or “I forgot to tell you…,” accept the signal with grace and let the conversation move on. When you do this, even if you feel you should have pressed your point or convinced them, you are demonstrating that your acceptance of the other, as they are, where they are and with what they believe. You are leaving the door open for each other.
None of this is easy. It calls for us to be mindful in every moment and to watch our words, our breath and our body language in this interaction. We must try to make space for the harsh words and angularities of the other even as we temper and blunt our own. They are being that way because they think we will be. If I cannot be restrained in this interaction, I cannot expect that of another.
Have I mastered any of this? Not really. But this work is important to me and so I will try to learn that restraint, to cultivate that mindfulness, to nurture that empathy and to open my heart.
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