Do I illuminate or diminish people?

I don’t start conversations with people. Not my jam. I’m down to chat with people but, nope, you won’t catch me kicking things off.

That extends to times when, really, I’m justified in saying “hey”. I won’t even get a waiters‘ attention if something’s wrong in a restaurant. If I get the wrong meal, I look at my partner with eyes so sheepish I look like Betty Boop, all eyelashes and innocence. [Editorial note from my partner: I’d dispute the levels of visible innocence, but this is broadly correct.]

No-one would describe me as bashful, though. I present as confident, I have a quick wit, and I’m totally fine with public speaking. Saying “hey” to a stranger at a party? No thank you – I have to mind this bowl of chips all night.

This is a work in progress for me. And I’m trying to internalise three things:

1. People like a chat
2. Being an illuminator instead of a diminisher
3. Zen Buddhism and emptiness as friendliness

People like a chat

Step one of talking to people more is simple: accept that people love a chat.

In his book How To Know a Person, David Brooks argued that part of the difficulty with starting conversation is our general underestimation of how keen people are to talk:

We don’t start conversations because we’re bad at predicting how much we’ll enjoy them. We underestimate how much others want to talk; we underestimate how much we will learn; we underestimate how quickly other people will want to go deep and get personal. If you give people a little nudge, they will share their life stories with enthusiasm.

Once you get by that initial “ahhhhh” panic of someone talking to someone and let the convo flow, chats are great.

Here’s a quick example: I was picking up a blu-ray I bought the other day and the guy serving me complimented my tattoo of a dice used when you play table-top roleplaying games. He asked if I play, and we had a low-stakes, two-minute convo about how much fun they are. We laughed and parted ways.

Now, this guy was clearly nervous about the whole thing. But he made the connection anyway. And it was a goddamn delight that made picking up a blu-ray nice.

This guy, in that moment, was an illuminator.

Being an illuminator instead of a diminisher

Brooks argues that, fundamentally, there are two ways you can interact with people: you can lift people up or you can shut them down. If you lift people up, he says, you’re an illuminator. If you shut them down, you’re a diminisher.

Brooks goes on to break these patterns of behaviour into different qualities. We don’t have to have all of them, and nobody exhibits these traits 100% of the time: they’re patterns. You can (and likely do) move between them. But, by understanding how to lift people up and how to shut them down, you can move towards the former.

(It also lets you make an honest assessment of how you interact with others. As Brooks argues, most people are worse at it than they think.)

The qualities of an illuminator

According to Brooks, illuminators are curious about others. They help people feel bigger, brighter, and respected.

Here’s what makes an illuminator:

• Tenderness: a deep emotional care for others and the bonds that connect us.
• Receptivity: open to the experiences of others. Patient, relaxed, and attentive.
• Active curiosity: eager to know and understand the lives of others.
• Affection: knowing and caring for others as a whole-body experience – not just intellectual. Enter into someone’s life and try to help.
• Generosity: eager to help, see, and understand people. Able to see them in their best possible light.
• A holistic attitude: able to see people as more than one thing. See the whole in all its contradictions – not just individual pieces.

The qualities of a diminisher

Diminishers are the opposite of an illuminator: they see people as a means to an end. They stereotype and make people feel unseen. (They’re also likely to be a bit insecure – as we’ll see, the qualities of diminishers are often about self-protection.)

Here’s what makes a diminisher:

• Egotism: too self-centred to see others. Not curious about people.
• Anxiety: too much noise in their heads to consider others. A fear of judgement stops communication.
• Naivety: belief that their point of view is the objective view of reality – and therefore shared by everyone. Can’t appreciate the view of others.
• The lesser-minds problem: the assumption that other people have less interesting, less rich inner lives because the diminisher doesn’t have access to their thoughts.
• Objectivism: applying large-scale data or population trends to individuals and personal relationships. This detached, dispassionate views robs people of their subjectivity.
• Essentialism: relying on stereotypes about people on the belief that groups of people have “essential” traits that can’t be escaped.
• Stacking beliefs: learning one thing about someone and using that as the basis to make a series of further assumptions.
• Static mindset: fixing a view of someone from one point in time.

Here’s the key trend of these qualities: they flatten people and make them as simple as possible. They also have a goal. These qualities try to protect you from making yourself vulnerable (either from being known by someone or having to change your opinion).

Why this matters

This framework is helpful because it can guide your behaviour. It gives you a basic vocabulary to reflect on the ways you talk to people (including yourself, if we’re being honest). It gives you a list of things to focus on. It can help you decide what kind of person you want to be.

And it will shape the way you are, Brooks argues, because attention is creative. The attention you bring to people will bring certain characteristics out of them – if you’re warm towards them, people are likely to be warm back.

Brooks makes this argument by citing the work of the philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch:

The essential moral act for Murdoch is being able to cast a “just and loving attention” on another person. A good person tries to look at everyone with a patient and discerning regard. Most of the time, morality is about the skill of being considerate toward others in the complex situations of life. It’s about being a genius at the close at hand.

But this kind of attention also does something more profound. Casting this kind of attention makes you a better person. Good and evil, Murdoch believes, being in the inner life. We can, Murdoch writes, “grow by looking”.

By making your inner life – and how you attend to people – less mean, less reductive, you’ll become a less mean person. You’ll grow.

Zen Buddhism and emptiness as friendliness

Illuminating others and Murdoch’s moral acts pose a challenge: they call for a whole lot of vulnerability. It calls for some classic Zen Buddhist emptiness.

In his book The philosophy of Zen Buddhism, the philosopher Byung-Chul Han describes Buddhist emptiness like so:

The central Buddhist concept of śūnyatā (emptiness) is in many respect a counter-concept to substance. Substance is full, so to speak. It is filled with itself, with what is its own. Śūnyatā, by contrast, empties out all being that remains within itself, that insists on itself or closes itself up in itself.

“In the field of emptiness,” Han explains, “there are no strict demarcations. Nothing remains isolated in itself or within itself. Things nestle up to one another, reflect each other.”

You could even say… they illuminate each other.

Without “strict demarcations”, things blend into each other (the way friends laughing together becomes one undistinguished moment). It’s why Han describes emptiness as a “medium of friendliness”.

When you embrace this kind of emptiness, relationships stop being about you. Friends aren’t a way of propping yourself up or enjoying yourself – they’re not a representation of you. You empty yourself out and, in the process, blur the lines between yourself and your friend.

Rather than losing yourself completely, you allow for change. You see people as they are and the moment as it is (you also let go of the distinction between “friend” and “stranger” to a certain extent to – that’s another “strict demarcations“ right there).

Who knows: embrace this field of emptiness enough, commit to illuminating others enough, and you might even find yourself able to tell a waiter they got your order wrong.

And wouldn’t that be something?

The 30-second action plan

1. Ask someone one sincere question today. If someone mentions a hobby, get curious about it. Maybe they say something in passing, maybe they’re wearing a band shirt. Practice curiosity – it gets easier with time. Two tips: ask about something they’ve deliberately done (e.g. there’s a difference between asking about one of my tatts vs commenting on the shape of my ass) and don’t put too much pressure on the moment or their response (if they vibe, awesome, if they don’t, also fine.) Remember: it’s not about you.
2. Reflect on your last three convos and figure out if you learned something new. You’re doing this to spot patterns in the way you interact with people. What trips you up, what feels good to all parties. Are you focusing on yourself or other people? Don’t labour this: you’re just looking for quick trends.
3. The next time you need to make small talk, as someone what they learned today. I’ve stolen this one from my sister-in-law. Many years ago, she mentioned using it as a quick opener in different situations and, for her, it worked. People are happy to divulge. Lean in, listen, and see what happens.
4. When you see someone online you dig, find a part you like and leave a comment about it. If someone posts something they’ve made online (and has comments open), they’re generally open to chatting about it. Engage with the work, find something to be curious about, and ask a question. Or just tell them you like it. It’s a chance to practice actively engaging with people.