Force yourself to find a weapon to battle your antisocial tendencies

Being the only person the room wearing a nametag makes me feel special, rebellious, creative and powerful.

These feeling are the principal motivation for have continued my experiment for half of my life.

But if suddenly it was no longer just me, if one day everyone starting wearing nametags, that would be probably fine with me. If it meant sacrificing a certain amount of my positive feelings to elevate the whole of humanity, it’s worth it.

Because in my experience, every time somebody wears a nametag, they are contributing to the collective compound interest of social capital.

That’s what happens when we choose to really see each other. It’s a subtle agreement that we are going to participate in each other’s lives, even if only for a brief moment. Each nametag is the equivalent to a fraction of a cent, but boy does that investment have a high return.

Buber, who pioneered the philosophy of existential dialogue, had many names for this interpersonal experience. The eternal thou, the path to divinity through human contact, the involuntary nervous system of human beings, the electricity that surges amid physical bodies, the pulsing field of energy and the humming electrical current between people, the mystery of reciprocity, the healing though meeting, it’s all the same thing.

It’s subjects who recognize their otherness. It’s human relationships at their fullest.

The irony of this whole thing is, despite being an extrovert, other people drive me batshit fucking crazy.

Humans beings are perhaps the greatest source of rage and confusion in my life. It feels hypocritical and shameful to admit it, but I often love the idea of other people more than the actual people themselves.

Have you ever felt that way before?

Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I would much rather interact with animals and trees and books than have sit there are pretend to care when some bonehead gushes about their favorite television show.

And so, what if that was the whole reason wearing a nametag became my mission? What if the sticker forced me to battle my own antisocial tendencies and start seeing myself and others as subjects and not just objects?

After all, humans give greater weight to things that have names, and nametags accelerate that process.

Seems to me, when we really see someone, what we are really doing in that moment is bringing them into existence.

Nametags work because they enable relational presence. Creating true encounters in which we see others for who they are, rather than what we need to want them to be.

What a simple and easy way to contribute to the collective compound interest of social capital.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
How do you acknowledge people’s otherness?