Might I Be an Alien?
For most of my seven decades, I’ve seen myself as something other than normal. To a casual observer, the arc of my life probably looks reasonably typical: Parents, siblings, public schooling K through 12, college, work, marriage, kids, retirement. Nevertheless, early in that arc I sensed my oddness in the degree to which I found humans confusing.
Others have their ways of seeing and reacting to the world, and I have mine. When young, two things in particular caused me to wonder if I was cut from different cloth. I didn’t understand why people would be mean and why they would believe things that didn’t make sense. With that gap in my comprehension, I needed a bridge. I needed a means to translate between different ways of interacting with the world. Without explicitly realizing it, my teenage years began a decades-long quest to become comfortable with people by understanding why they do what they do and think what they think.
While living life and navigating the associated challenges, I occasionally climb out of the flow by reading, pondering, and writing. From a detached viewpoint, one can look upon the clashing and swirling currents of humanity’s chaotic struggles and reflect on the underlying forces. With all the misery in the world caused by human behavior, I know I’m not alone in wanting a cleaner understanding of human motivation than what academia provides. What about you? Do you ever shake your head and wonder why somebody did something mean or irrational?
If I undertake a task without understanding how all the essential components relate, I am like a fish out of water, thrashing about wasting time and energy. With understanding, I’m in my element. Whether working on something mechanical, like a car, or writing a program to analyze retirement finances, understanding the associated concepts and principles lets me apply my efforts efficiently. By analogy, it seems that if people better understood each other, perhaps we could reduce some of the waste and destruction we cause.
Unfortunately, understanding is not universally praised. Why would a human not want a clearer view of reality? What do they not want to see? What we have is another trait in need of translation.
The Translation Bridge
To begin, let’s stay with the alien theme. If today I were to be beamed up to an orbiting spaceship and asked for my assessment of why humans do the things they do, I wouldn’t hesitate:
They each strive for control of the world in which they live. Every human, all the time.
Think about taking medicine, going to work, putting gas in your car, or looking for the best price on something. If you neglect any of those, or the innumerable other things you do, a measure of control slips away.
Consider those who help others gain control over their lives: a teacher and his students, a coach and her players, a parent and their children, a Good Samaritan and a stranger in need. Their sense of control is enhanced both directly (“I can help others be successful.”) and through empathy with those they help.
If you doubt my assertion, check it against your own life. Examine your decisions and actions and judge whether or not your intent is to maintain or improve your control relative to what’s important to you. Things will not always play out the way you want, but that doesn’t negate the intent.
If you are aware of the key elements in a person’s world, including how encompassing or constricted that world is, you can understand why they do what they do. Going the other way, if you have enough behavioral history, you can deduce where their heart resides.
Applying the Bridge
Why Reject Understanding?
Given our behavioral hypothesis, we can anticipate trouble if the control one person wants involves a loss of control for another. For example, a con artist who scams money from the unsuspecting, or a company executive who saves money by secretly dumping toxic waste rather than treating it. Unless they’re sadistic, neither one wants to see, much less understand, the downstream damage they cause. In their constricted world, their focus is on their benefit.
We find reasons to reject understanding if it would degrade our control. As Upton Sinclair said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Our need for control, often in the form of money or acceptance, can wall off a willingness to understand. (Think climate change and fossil fuel industry employees.)
Why Be Mean?
The next time you encounter a human doing something mean, ask yourself, “Why?” Think about how the person might expect their action to enhance their sense of control. Are they trying to assert their agency? Are they trying to control someone’s behavior? Are they trying to gain favor from a third party? Are they trying to divert attention from something else? Whatever the answer, they are exposing themselves. A strong person, one comfortable in their being, would lose esteem and control if they did something mean. Consequently, they don’t. While the intent of the mean act is to gain control, it’s also a red flag that announces weakness.
Why Believe Nonsense?
Consider factually false conspiracy theories. Examples include the 2020 election being stolen, the Sandy Hook school shooting being staged, the Haitians in Springfield eating people’s pets, and the government controlling the weather. There are numerous reasons why someone might believe or claim to believe them. Perhaps they want to trigger a reaction (own the libs). Perhaps reality threatens their world view so they need an alternative. Perhaps they want a simple explanation rather than the complexity and nuances of reality. In every case, endorsing the belief is done to enhance their sense of control.
Am I an Alien?
No need to answer that question, although I have always been partial to Vulcan rationality! I certainly deviate from whatever the human norm might be, but so does pretty much everyone. We all have quirks that make us unique and make others a challenge to understand.
Despite our differences, we have this core commonality in our striving for control. That striving can cause us to reject understanding, be mean, believe nonsense, and, more generally, be irrational. However, it also drives us to explore, invent, help others, and even ferret out better ways to understand our lives and the universe in which we exist.
Just imagine what might happen if, through seeing ourselves and each other more clearly, we were moved to dampen the darker consequences of our striving and elevate the noble. What if we were to nudge our worlds toward encompassing and away from constricted? Perhaps, ever so slightly, we could brighten the world.
For those interested in digging deeper into “striving for control,” check out my other Medium articles and book, the resonance of Life, available on Amazon.
