I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about how if you're able to see beneath the masked flailing - the people pleasing, the insecurities etc - and speak directly to the beautiful and particular individual underneath, you allow them to relax into that better version of themselves. A lot of us constantly feel the need to compensate for something, and when you talk to someone as if they're actually already whole, sometimes they'll start to unconsciously be moved to believe that too
I'm a bit skeptical of this sort of account because it feels like you're marking your own homework: you feel like you've found some sort of deep insight into the mostly tightly shut clam in their heart's ocean, but you may just be doing the perfectly ordinary thing of jumping to conclusions.
Have you ever rigorously tested the sense(s) which you say you've developed here? Eg making specific predictions about a person's behaviour (past or future) and then verifying them, especially across unrelated contexts and situations? Checking your views about them against people who have more exposure to them? Seeing if your perception matches other (preferably disagreeable) people who claim they have the same sense?
I just know I've seen (at least something like) the ability you describe yourself having, in people who really do not have it, and it's insufferable hearing their apparently nuanced judgements and personality descriptions which are just the good old conjunction fallacy in empath's clothing. And I also know many people who remain surprising to others even after years of close relationships. So it feels off to me.
(I might be pattern-matching you to people who believe they're capable of deeper and more predictive insights than you're claiming for yourself.)
See my wife's comment for social proof or whatever. But your skepticism is warranted and welcome. This piece was intended less as a description of my personal journey, and more as "everyone's autobiography," the journey I see (some) people go through as they accumulate wisdom and develop more granular perception about people. I hope it's happening to me. I think this skill is required to maintain healthy relationships, working partnerships, etc — and to make good life bets because most of those are in the form of people. So check in with me in a decade and let's see how I've done!
I can't provide a persuasive refutation but in the 4 years I've known Sasha I've gone from "bullshit, everyone thinks they're good at this stuff and they aren't" to "oh okay, Sasha is actually really good at it." Just based on gathering a lot of data points which are often correlated with that person's later statements or behavior. Idk if it gives me any authority but I was at one point one of the best people in the world at live reads in poker and I understand both that most people are delusional about this kind of thing and that some people are not.
Agree with you here. I can't speak about Sasha but IMO the average person here (including myself) is most likely to read this post and then get caught up in their stories and projections about the person in front of them.
I love woo and intuition and non verbal comms and all of these lovely things. Sometimes though, the good common sense stuff works better though:
1. When in doubt, ask
2. Observe people's actions and not just their words. Over a long enough time period, it's extremely hard to mask what's inside via actions (masking not always being done with bad intentions)
I used to translate meetings of Tibetan lamas and their (non-Tibetan speaking) students. It was always fascinating to me that the ones I found most impressive would give quite different answers to different people asking essentially the same question.
Of course, a lot of this gets attributed to 'realisation' and 'clarivoyance' etc. Not something i need to wade into. But even way back then, I got the sense that they were mostly just very, very good at judging people based on what they said, how they acted etc.
Basically, the more closely we pay attention, and less of our own preconceptions we bring, the more skillfully we can interact with people. As you say, a lot of this just comes with age, but a healthy does of attention training can go a long way, it seems.
The Sufic view, as far as I understand, is that you cannot gain standing in the eyes of men without seeking to gain standing in the eyes of men. This seeking is unvirtous, and is typically done in highly covert ways, such that the seeker themself is not aware they were engaged in this pursuit to begin with.
When I encountered this, I definitely found it intuitively obvious.
Ah, I agree with this for the most part and this is why I think all human beings are interesting. However, I do think there is another important ingredient to understanding people, which is being on the lookout for edge cases.
As just one example of an edge case, my son had pediatric cancer and was in treatment for several years. During that time, if I met someone intuitive, I felt it was important to let them know about this extreme thing going on in my life, otherwise they would be picking up crazy signals from my vibe, and not knowing where it came from. Any reasonably intuitive person could know there was something "off" in my life, and assume things about my personality without knowing the full picture. During that time, the constant decision fatigue of whether to disclose my edge case or keep it private was quite taxing, and a real barrier to socializing. (Now that my son is an adult, he experiences a similar issue around deciding whether or not to tell people he is cancer survivor.)
Ever since being on that side of things, I've really tried to cultivate "knowing that I don't know" about what other people are going through and have experienced, and why they are the way they are. I find that practicing this "non-intuition" and respecting people's psychic boundaries actually makes me more intuitive and receptive once I am allowed past their boundaries.
I've had people ask me a number of times why I never made friends at work - "how come you're never friends with the people at the last few jobs you've worked? Are you just not trying?"
And the simple answer was always sort of harsh-sounding: "because none of those people interest me." And I've had a few people tell me "well dude, you can't just expect everyone to be interesting all the time. Like... get over yourself."
But I think my problem in more accurate words is some of what you wrote here: the people I've always met at my jobs have not been particularly bright, put-together, self-aware, or otherwise attuned to any frequencies that I found attractive.
And I don't feel guilty about that at all - if people don't make me *feel* like a node, as you said, in something bigger than myself, but instead just have surface-level, conversation-level relationships, then I'm sorry but I've got other things I'd rather do. So it's less about people I find "interesting," and more about finding people who are sending out signals saying "I'm worth investing precious time into, because I am on the same wavelength as you in some way or another, some important way."
This is the calm I’m trying to grow toward. Most writing in this territory either resolves it too cleanly or stays inside the cost without finding a shape for it. Yours holds both. Thank you
I used to think of myself as picky. Rn in my life, people infrequently mosey into my inner circle, where my relationships are life-giving, so creative and rich and beautiful, surfy and hilarious. It made me saaaad for reasons of worrying about loneliness and my social sphere sort of stagnating...
I've just migrated back home after 5 years of living in the UK and so the "need" to make new close connections is great! In this time, there's a little Jedi mind trick which has soothed me to have in my back pocket. In the coaching course I'm doing, it's called "seeing people limitless". Steps: 1. Notice the social assumptions I'm making about a person as I'm in connection with them 2. See the emptiness of them and come back to reality: "who are you, who am I, who are we?" (Ans: "I don't know"). Underlying this is a sense that, having been blessed with generative relationships full of love, I know when something good is going on that I'm being drawn to. I am free to follow my intuition.
And similarly, when a "social assumption" about our 2-person (or more) system arises, it's useful information for what to lean into. Whether it is to bring myself more in, to be vulnerable (often the "I know whats happening with you" is really some part of myself squirming away and covering over with a Coach Trench+Stache), or to somehow check an assumption with them--of their story/reality. Which yes, is more coachy.
It’s humbling when you start to see others more clearly and realize this is how some people have always been seeing you.
The matching-and-mirroring concept works the same way: replicate someone’s posture, tonality, vocabulary—and they may like you better. But you’ll be changed by them too.
"But there is such intelligence in the interplay, in what resonates versus what dies. You can bear witness without getting hooked on every passing drama. Strangely, this is self-possession: the ability to let others be as they are."
Absolutely a stunning way to write this.
There was an interaction with a friend of mine once where he seemed irked that I perceived how his blankness when watching a comedian's special meant something. Equally, even the idea of watching paint dry is something I said to people could have its own merits. My words, their reactions, it all says something. It's mostly a case of what we see, how we explain it, and what we don't see, how we explore it.
Hyper-awareness and threat scanning can be bedfellows with this.
I feel like those who are more anxiously inclined can read the room and others very well because they’re so hyper aware of how they present, they can see the tells in others. A person who’s been confident their entire life can’t know the tics of those who aren’t confident.
A comment about not having a car and enough money can land differently if you look at context and tone. The comment can be quite hurtful and the persons ignorance can show. You get a read very quickly what that person thinks of you by what’s between the words.
I've often been in conversation with someone on a "higher plane", so to speak, where I could tell they were absorbing information out of me that I wasn't necessarily giving away explicitly, but all the same I had no idea what they actually thought of me.
I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about how if you're able to see beneath the masked flailing - the people pleasing, the insecurities etc - and speak directly to the beautiful and particular individual underneath, you allow them to relax into that better version of themselves. A lot of us constantly feel the need to compensate for something, and when you talk to someone as if they're actually already whole, sometimes they'll start to unconsciously be moved to believe that too
True, and an amazing skill to develop.
Thank you. I love this.
I'm a bit skeptical of this sort of account because it feels like you're marking your own homework: you feel like you've found some sort of deep insight into the mostly tightly shut clam in their heart's ocean, but you may just be doing the perfectly ordinary thing of jumping to conclusions.
Have you ever rigorously tested the sense(s) which you say you've developed here? Eg making specific predictions about a person's behaviour (past or future) and then verifying them, especially across unrelated contexts and situations? Checking your views about them against people who have more exposure to them? Seeing if your perception matches other (preferably disagreeable) people who claim they have the same sense?
I just know I've seen (at least something like) the ability you describe yourself having, in people who really do not have it, and it's insufferable hearing their apparently nuanced judgements and personality descriptions which are just the good old conjunction fallacy in empath's clothing. And I also know many people who remain surprising to others even after years of close relationships. So it feels off to me.
(I might be pattern-matching you to people who believe they're capable of deeper and more predictive insights than you're claiming for yourself.)
See my wife's comment for social proof or whatever. But your skepticism is warranted and welcome. This piece was intended less as a description of my personal journey, and more as "everyone's autobiography," the journey I see (some) people go through as they accumulate wisdom and develop more granular perception about people. I hope it's happening to me. I think this skill is required to maintain healthy relationships, working partnerships, etc — and to make good life bets because most of those are in the form of people. So check in with me in a decade and let's see how I've done!
I can't provide a persuasive refutation but in the 4 years I've known Sasha I've gone from "bullshit, everyone thinks they're good at this stuff and they aren't" to "oh okay, Sasha is actually really good at it." Just based on gathering a lot of data points which are often correlated with that person's later statements or behavior. Idk if it gives me any authority but I was at one point one of the best people in the world at live reads in poker and I understand both that most people are delusional about this kind of thing and that some people are not.
I like both Chapin's take and your take.
Agree with you here. I can't speak about Sasha but IMO the average person here (including myself) is most likely to read this post and then get caught up in their stories and projections about the person in front of them.
I love woo and intuition and non verbal comms and all of these lovely things. Sometimes though, the good common sense stuff works better though:
1. When in doubt, ask
2. Observe people's actions and not just their words. Over a long enough time period, it's extremely hard to mask what's inside via actions (masking not always being done with bad intentions)
I used to translate meetings of Tibetan lamas and their (non-Tibetan speaking) students. It was always fascinating to me that the ones I found most impressive would give quite different answers to different people asking essentially the same question.
Of course, a lot of this gets attributed to 'realisation' and 'clarivoyance' etc. Not something i need to wade into. But even way back then, I got the sense that they were mostly just very, very good at judging people based on what they said, how they acted etc.
Basically, the more closely we pay attention, and less of our own preconceptions we bring, the more skillfully we can interact with people. As you say, a lot of this just comes with age, but a healthy does of attention training can go a long way, it seems.
Thanks for this short post, I really enjoyed it!
The Sufic view, as far as I understand, is that you cannot gain standing in the eyes of men without seeking to gain standing in the eyes of men. This seeking is unvirtous, and is typically done in highly covert ways, such that the seeker themself is not aware they were engaged in this pursuit to begin with.
When I encountered this, I definitely found it intuitively obvious.
Thank you for writing this.
Yes. Intuition/etc is not meant to be the answer but the guide to what to observe or ask about.
If the situation has limited time, we have to jump on the gut instinct.
But if there is time, the best thing is to use the first impression and try to see whether the impression is valid or not.
This helps fine tune the process that came up with the intuition. The more I test my intuition, the better it becomes.
Ah, I agree with this for the most part and this is why I think all human beings are interesting. However, I do think there is another important ingredient to understanding people, which is being on the lookout for edge cases.
As just one example of an edge case, my son had pediatric cancer and was in treatment for several years. During that time, if I met someone intuitive, I felt it was important to let them know about this extreme thing going on in my life, otherwise they would be picking up crazy signals from my vibe, and not knowing where it came from. Any reasonably intuitive person could know there was something "off" in my life, and assume things about my personality without knowing the full picture. During that time, the constant decision fatigue of whether to disclose my edge case or keep it private was quite taxing, and a real barrier to socializing. (Now that my son is an adult, he experiences a similar issue around deciding whether or not to tell people he is cancer survivor.)
Ever since being on that side of things, I've really tried to cultivate "knowing that I don't know" about what other people are going through and have experienced, and why they are the way they are. I find that practicing this "non-intuition" and respecting people's psychic boundaries actually makes me more intuitive and receptive once I am allowed past their boundaries.
Beautifully said. One of your best pieces ever.
I've had people ask me a number of times why I never made friends at work - "how come you're never friends with the people at the last few jobs you've worked? Are you just not trying?"
And the simple answer was always sort of harsh-sounding: "because none of those people interest me." And I've had a few people tell me "well dude, you can't just expect everyone to be interesting all the time. Like... get over yourself."
But I think my problem in more accurate words is some of what you wrote here: the people I've always met at my jobs have not been particularly bright, put-together, self-aware, or otherwise attuned to any frequencies that I found attractive.
And I don't feel guilty about that at all - if people don't make me *feel* like a node, as you said, in something bigger than myself, but instead just have surface-level, conversation-level relationships, then I'm sorry but I've got other things I'd rather do. So it's less about people I find "interesting," and more about finding people who are sending out signals saying "I'm worth investing precious time into, because I am on the same wavelength as you in some way or another, some important way."
This is the calm I’m trying to grow toward. Most writing in this territory either resolves it too cleanly or stays inside the cost without finding a shape for it. Yours holds both. Thank you
I used to think of myself as picky. Rn in my life, people infrequently mosey into my inner circle, where my relationships are life-giving, so creative and rich and beautiful, surfy and hilarious. It made me saaaad for reasons of worrying about loneliness and my social sphere sort of stagnating...
I've just migrated back home after 5 years of living in the UK and so the "need" to make new close connections is great! In this time, there's a little Jedi mind trick which has soothed me to have in my back pocket. In the coaching course I'm doing, it's called "seeing people limitless". Steps: 1. Notice the social assumptions I'm making about a person as I'm in connection with them 2. See the emptiness of them and come back to reality: "who are you, who am I, who are we?" (Ans: "I don't know"). Underlying this is a sense that, having been blessed with generative relationships full of love, I know when something good is going on that I'm being drawn to. I am free to follow my intuition.
And similarly, when a "social assumption" about our 2-person (or more) system arises, it's useful information for what to lean into. Whether it is to bring myself more in, to be vulnerable (often the "I know whats happening with you" is really some part of myself squirming away and covering over with a Coach Trench+Stache), or to somehow check an assumption with them--of their story/reality. Which yes, is more coachy.
It’s humbling when you start to see others more clearly and realize this is how some people have always been seeing you.
The matching-and-mirroring concept works the same way: replicate someone’s posture, tonality, vocabulary—and they may like you better. But you’ll be changed by them too.
You didn’t learn a trick. You opened a channel.
"But there is such intelligence in the interplay, in what resonates versus what dies. You can bear witness without getting hooked on every passing drama. Strangely, this is self-possession: the ability to let others be as they are."
Absolutely a stunning way to write this.
There was an interaction with a friend of mine once where he seemed irked that I perceived how his blankness when watching a comedian's special meant something. Equally, even the idea of watching paint dry is something I said to people could have its own merits. My words, their reactions, it all says something. It's mostly a case of what we see, how we explain it, and what we don't see, how we explore it.
I love how thorough you've been with this!
Hyper-awareness and threat scanning can be bedfellows with this.
I feel like those who are more anxiously inclined can read the room and others very well because they’re so hyper aware of how they present, they can see the tells in others. A person who’s been confident their entire life can’t know the tics of those who aren’t confident.
A comment about not having a car and enough money can land differently if you look at context and tone. The comment can be quite hurtful and the persons ignorance can show. You get a read very quickly what that person thinks of you by what’s between the words.
this is such an eloquent expression of a skill/stance I aspire to consistently cultivate
thanks as always for your wonderful work, Sasha 🙏💖
I've often been in conversation with someone on a "higher plane", so to speak, where I could tell they were absorbing information out of me that I wasn't necessarily giving away explicitly, but all the same I had no idea what they actually thought of me.