Humanity in Our Faces

I go out into the world with the intent to love the person that I interact with. I intend to see and hear them as they are without letting my thoughts fill up the space between us. It works well enough in the beginning but when they say something that runs against what is valuable to me—my philosophy, lifestyle, beliefs—in my annoyance, I start to see my thoughts and rebuttals to what they say more clearly than the person. 

Something that helps me to avoid getting distracted by my own thoughts in difficult conversations is to focus on one expressive part of the other person’s face. It’s usually their eyes, but it could also be the corners of their mouth that move as they speak, the creases around it or around the eyes that appear when they feel something. When I focus on a living, moving part of their face, I am swept up by the humanity of this person in front of me and the thoughts in my head that want to say out loud that they are wrong or mistaken leave me by themselves. It seems that the acknowledgment of one another’s humanity is the best antidote to self-absorption.