Meat puppets

The ugly-sounding concept of 'Meat puppets' can be used to get across the idea that we sometimes see other people just as if they are things that talk and move, rather than beings that are our emotional equals and equivalents,  and who are just as real as you. Remember the last time you bought a meal in McDonalds? Was there even a little hint of meat-puppetry going on in your interactions with the server and they with you?

The phrase is sometimes used to refer to the way that people with some mental abnormalities/differences see the world and see other people. Sociopaths, for example, do not seem to have the empathetic ability which most people have, to see another person's pain, joy, feelings as being just as real as our own. This is what allows them to hurt or exploit them without compunction. It's just like hurting meat puppets. 

Or maybe I should wind my neck in on that 'most people' assertion above. Most people would like to have that empathetic ability (I'd like it too) to be able to feel what other people are feeling, but I have to remember when I say this that most people who tell you how empathetic or empathic they are can be the very opposite. Also, I am reminded of Cro's concept of the 'mimosaphant'. This is that person who has the sensitivity of an elephant towards other people's feelings but all the delicate leaf-folding response of a mimosa plant when it comes to their own feelings. 

But if we assume that we are talking about the average human (and we have to remember that half of us are worse than that!) then what can help us to not see other people as 'meat puppets' but to credit them with the same level of existence, individuality and complex feelings and responses which we are happy to allocate to ourselves? Well come on, some people make it very hard to do, lets admit. If someone always responds with the same stock phrases, tells the same stock stories, has exhausted your curiosity about them early on, is there any more to see? Is it actually the case that 'still waters just run still, not deep'? 

But maybe we look that way to others, so how do we justify our own interestingness and complexity to the outside world? The person we are looking at has been raised, almost certainly loved by parents, relatives and friends, and has learned about this wonderful world in the same trial-and-error way that we have. They have seen wonderful things, scary things, very joyful things we hope. Even if they seem a bit of a stereotype now, that may just be for convenience. Being a stereotype means you don't have to explain yourself, and people won't ask slightly deeper questions that maybe you don't like. But it doesn't mean there are no really interesting answers waiting underneath. 

Connecting with people is not of course always easy or convenient, but it feels like something that we are just hardwired to do, and something that is also one of the most satisfying things in the world to experience. And by 'connecting' I mean having some idea that what is really inside their head (or heart, if you will) is now pretty clearly inside ours, and vice-versa. It is easier usually, and hugely satisfying, to connect in that way with our loved ones and with the love of our lives, but it is also really nice to feel that you have let anyone else be their real selves to you. I don't particularly like the phrase 'to be seen' but I do like the idea. It is one of those 'key needs' coming not too far after shelter and food, and way before 'self actualisation'. 

And maybe one thing we could do is make a conscious effort each day to think of the feelings and reality inside the head of at least one non-close-friend person we are talking to. Can you put your own vivid inner life into their head for a few minutes and imagine them seeing this wonderful world just as intensely as you do?