(This one’s a bit heady, so stick with me.) Many situations have close analogies. For example, I’ve never cooked pheasant but I have cooked turkey and chicken so I can probably guess a bit about what cooking pheasant is like. Or I’ve never lost the Superbowl but I have lost athletic events that I cared deeply about (in high school and college) so I can probably guess how Superbowl losers must feel. On the other hand, many situations simply do not have close analogies. Here’s the one that got me thinking about this question: I barely remember a time that I didn’t know how to swim. So I can’t imagine what it would be like for someone who can’t swim to be on a boat, or at the beach, or on a pool deck. I literally CAN’T imagine it because there are no close analogies for what that reality is like. You could say, “It’s like being afraid of heights.” Except it’s not. Because I could look over the ledge of a parking garage and it would make me feel uncomfortable, but I wouldn’t die after 40 seconds (which is the average amount of time a person can struggle on the surface of the water before submerging). A closer analogy would be walking around in daily life as a normal person except there are areas of your environment that are quicksand and you just know you have to avoid those places. Or pockets of blue poison gas that will kill you after 40 seconds. But that’s fantasy. I’ve never even seen quicksand. That’s why I can’t imagine what a non-swimmer’s experience of water is like. There are many other circumstances with no close analogies. Pregnancy. If you’ve never been pregnant, there is NOTHING in your experience that you can draw on to give you an idea of what pregnancy is like. (“Oh it’s like eating a really huge meal for 9 months! Oh birthing is like passing a kidney stone, I bet. I would guess that, nutritionally, pregnancy is like when tape worms were eating all the food I was eating.” Look! You sound batshit crazy just trying to come up with approximations.) Not knowing how to swim, being pregnant, being a different race than the one I am… To me, these things have no close analogies. What about for you? What circumstances have no close analogies? When you go through this thought exercise, you emerge with more humility, more willingness to dialog, and a changed posture that makes you more likely to learn from others.

Source: WBQ Original

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