The gentle art of being vasat

I went visiting last week. Visited some friends, just for a few days. It was entirely excellent, some of which was because of what we did and who I saw (i.e. what we picture when we plan a visit) but a significant element of my enjoyment was that it lifted me out of my life and reframed my perspective.

Public Service Announcement: a change is as good as a holiday.

Here is a (not a definitive) list of some things I took from my visit: perhaps my days would be better if I played music in the house more often; oh that’s right I forgot how nice porridge is; oh look, other people value my ridiculous invented word games in ways my family perhaps, for reasons of extreme overexposure, does not.

All of this got me thinking: wouldn’t it be great if we could visit our own lives? Just a few days, with an entirely different mindset, just to see how it really looks. Because another thing happened when I visited my mates, whom I don’t see nearly enough. I summarised the last chunk of my life for them, and they returned the favour. All this time had stretched between the last time I saw them and now. They asked about things I wasn’t even doing anymore. They wanted updates on the things that had felt terrible twelve months ago but which seem, now, to have been blips on the grid. I asked them questions and heard entire new developments. I was surprised, too, that they said expressed disappointment at various setbacks that I could plainly see did not in any way diminish their accomplishments. And when I described to them the operatic catastrophes in my own life, they seemed befuddled that I should let any of that get in the way of the clear picture they had of me, as someone who is trucking along quite nicely.

Of course, what I’m describing is one of those infuriating thought experiments, but I did (because thought experiments should be on my CV under ‘hobbies’) do a bit of a deep dive into other cultural beliefs about things, to test my idea further. Imagine coming to your own life, as a visitor who doesn’t know you, from a culture that believes that time is not linear. Some cultures see time as a spiral. It is very difficult for me to do this. I keep feeling my linear timeline clicking into place, as though there’s a preordained logic to it all (if time is a straight line then it’s partly about cause and effect, which means your actions and decisions define, to some extent, the way your life is, right? Guys? Right?).

Okay I admit that’s getting a little existential. But on an everyday, pedestrian level, it’s kind of helpful. Next time you go to visit someone, notice the things that delight you about their lives. I don’t mean just their home-related stuff, although those things are always fascinating. The way other people store their tea or what they do with the mail or what funny poster they have up in the bathroom is always fascinating. But also, notice how they exist in their own day. Their approach to hosting you, the competent way they complete a task while talking at the same time. The pause they allow when they ask you a question.

Then flip it. What would they notice if they were to visit you?

Now, for me, this is where it gets difficult. The first thing I imagine someone noticing about my life is that it’s a mess. There are things on the floor and nobody’s vacuumed the carpet. But that’s the thing, even if people do notice those things when they’re just visiting in your life, it’s what they do with those observations that can be really illuminating. Because instead of thinking messes on the floor are a sign of you being a terrible person, they might think, ‘Oh hey look, there are things on the floor over there. How refreshing is that. Wow. I’d love to care less about the things on my own floor. I love that someone I admire for the things they choose to spend their time on has actually decided not to prioritise less important things’. Does that sound unlikely? Maybe, but I heard a workmate say this about someone she met once and I have heroically left things on the floor ever since.

Visiting people makes you realise how much of your lifelong narrative perspective you’re bringing to your self-assessment. Maybe you’re unreliable narrator.

Public Service Announcement: visit your own life why don’t you.