Month: April 2023

April 2023

 

I don’t need glasses to see things at a distance, but I need a 2.5x magnification to read just about anything. I can identify a whale’s spout a mile offshore but can’t read a restaurant menu in front of my nose. I can make out a street sign more than a block away, but I can’t read the temperature on my car’s dashboard without glasses.

I see things differently depending on my own configuration, and I’m guessing you do too.

How we see things differs based on how we’re wired, what we’ve experienced, what we’ve been taught, the things that excite us, and how closely we look.

Personally, I tend to see things up close and personal, noticing a hair out of place, a perfect piece of jewelry, or a painting that needs to be moved an inch to the left. But I can also easily misread signs if I’m not paying attention or assume I already know what I see and therefore fail to look closely enough.

Some of my favorite people in the world (like my husband) are just the opposite.

They’re focused on big-picture views and overall impressions but can’t possibly tell me what the person they met for lunch looked like. They definitely won’t notice that I colored my hair or even that it was getting gray in the first place.

This leads me to wonder: When we look at the same things, do we see the same things?

He looks at me and takes comfort when he sees the “me” he already knows.

I love the “him” that already exists and look specifically for the new details that expand my familiarity.

In a world that feels increasingly polarized, I can’t help but wonder how many of us are looking at the same thing but focusing on a different aspect of it. We need some explanation for how we can live in the same household or country at the same time and still see things so differently.

In a time of social instability, we’re straining to find proof that what we see is real. We’re searching for the concrete. The unmovable. The truth.

* * *

When we feel unstable and ungrounded, most of us dial up our search for the black and white.

A black-and-white situation is one in which it is easy to understand right and wrong, true or false, good or bad. If something is black and white, it is clear and distinct. Something being black and white means that there is no ambiguity. No room for personal interpretation. No shades or subtlety.

Maybe we feel that if it’s black and white, it’s universal. After all, even colorblind people can differentiate black from white.

Of course, most aspects of life aren’t black and white.

So how do we cope with the obvious tension between a desire for complete clarity and the fact that such clarity doesn’t exist?

If we can never agree on universal truths, how do we come together to close the gaps we can all sense?

The answer might lie in the spectrum.

I recently went down a scientific rabbit hole to learn about sight and how what I see might differ from what others see. Is the gray I see the same as the one you are experiencing when we look at the same thing?

I learned that most of the colors humans see are a dizzying combination of primary hues spun for us through the three cones in our eyes.

Butterflies have 5 or 6 cones compared to our 3, so the number of iterations and variety of colors they experience is far beyond anything we can imagine. I’d love to see the world through a butterfly’s eyes, and I know that I would have to do a huge amount of processing to experience the world so differently.

Recently, scientists learned that the tiny mantis shrimp, a carnivorous marine crustacean less than 4” long, has 16 extra color cones in its eyes. Mantis shrimp spend most of their lives burrowed deep into underwater bunkers, enjoying a color experience that is incomprehensible to us. (At least, it’s incomprehensible to those of us who have never been on an acid trip.)

Obviously, we’re not butterflies or shrimp.

But even though most of us are built with three nearly identical color cones, it’s clear that we do not see the same things at all.

Maybe we need to take baby steps.

I suggest we search for shades of gray.

In color theory, gray symbolizes compromise and control. Gray areas mean that something is undefined. While gray can often mean bland or safe, it can also be a mechanism for finding common ground. Looking for the gray – a bit of black in my white and a bit of white in your black might help us move more closely towards each other.

Gray makes room for exceptions. For sharing. For humanity.

I’m working on stretching beyond the absolute “clarity” of black and white to come closer to those who seem so far away by embracing the gray.

I’m not ready to stop with the hair color yet, but at least I’ve stopped dying the roots.

* * *

Where can you find gray that matters?

Share it Small: Take some time to question your beliefs – especially the most polarizing ones or those you assume are true but haven’t reevaluated in a long time. Is there any wiggle room? If so, start wiggling!

Share it Big: Reach out to someone who seems at the other end of the spectrum, and see if you can talk about opportunities for moderation. Then explain to the people who tend to see the world as you do how you found common ground with someone so different. Who knows, they might try it too!

Share it with Me: We all learn from each other. If you have had a revelation, a breakthrough, an insight, or a triumph, we can learn from you so please tell me about it here! I’m collecting stories of these cascades of good for ongoing community building and to track The Parlay Effect in action. I would love nothing better than to hear how you lifted, were lifted, or observed something in others that made you feel good and recognize your power.

Too Long Didn’t Listen is for all of you movers and shakers, who either don’t have time to dive into full episodes, or simply prefer to skim the highlights.

We don’t want anyone missing out on the wonderful stories and fascinating insights shared by the colorful guests we host on Bring A Friend, the Parlay House podcast. So here’s the first in a series of snack-sized episode rundowns:

My Friend Making News with Jessica Aguirre

We’re kicking off Bring A Friend Season 6 with a BANG! Join us in listening to the episode in full, or read on for our highlights, as Jessica delves into the world of news anchoring, journalism, and shares anecdotal experiences about aging with this ever-changing industry across her 25-year long career.

About Jessica

Jessica Aguirre is the 5, 6 and 11 p.m. evening anchor at NBC Bay Area News and an Emmy award winning journalist. Jessica has been a prime-time, evening anchor in the Bay Area for over 20 years. She began her career at the Spanish Language network, Univision, while attending the University of Miami. Before arriving in the Bay Area in 1998 she anchored and reported in Los Angeles and Miami, conducting investigative work that earned her multiple Emmys as well as an Associated Press award.

Most recently Jessica was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Silver Circle for twenty-five years of excellence in television journalism. Jessica resides in the East Bay, with her two daughters. Her devotion to learning, supporting children and local charities has her routinely on the lecture circuit in the Bay Area discussing education, gender equity and minority advancement in the workplace. Jessica also serves on the board of Watermark, the Bay Area’s largest membership organization dedicated to increasing the number of women in leadership positions.

Introvert or Extrovert? Extrovert.

What does Jessica wish people knew about her? That for an extrovert I’m surprisingly quiet. I could spend the whole day by myself, not talk to anyone, and sit and read all day long.

What’s the hardest lesson the world keeps putting in front of Jessica? That I can’t make other people do something they don’t want to do.

What’s Jessica’s perfect snack? The perfect snack for me is crackers and butter.

Key Moments

“So much of what has changed about journalism over the last 40 years has been the technology aspect of it, the access to it, and the corporate machine of it. Just from a hands-on perspective – when I first started I was in college, I started in my sophomore year working in a television station – and back then we had paper prompters, where you would put paper on a rolling machine and someone would crank it. And versions of paper that had been typed on would flow through and you would have to tape them together. Now, it’s an electronic voice-operated prompter, which no one even mans.”

“What hasn’t changed are the elements of telling a story, of gathering the truth, of being able to do investigative journalism and tell someone’s story. The way you tell someone’s story today, regardless of technology or advancements is the same. The truth of journalism hasn’t changed.”

“We have to separate what are pundits and what is opinion news from what is news. Unfortunately, I think those lines have gotten completely blurred. As a viewer – you can’t tell – with the onset of cable news, which has been a great boon to being able to cover news 24/7 and being able to have access to that, but we are kidding ourselves if we don’t look at cable news outlets like CNN or like Fox and realize that they have their slants.”

“We are living in a world where everybody wants to look at the news from their own opinion, so that they can reinforce what their own political beliefs are, what their own standards are.”

“The perceptions that people had of me, as a young Latina woman, are so different from the perceptions that people have of me now. When I first started in television in the late ‘80s, when I was in college and starting to be a reporter, what I would hear from different agents and news directors was ‘You’re going to do great in mainstream English-language TV, because you’re a light-skinned Hispanic.’ They would literally say this to me ‘You’re a light-skinned Hispanic, you do need to straighten your hair, though.’”

“It is crazy the standard that we have for women, but if you step back and look at it, it is a standard that is consistent from when we were younger. There seems to be, that there is no place, at any age, for a woman to be treated with respect as she is. There is a sweet spot in which people want you to be that is almost impossible, and that is really evident when you are older.”

“I think what I do is very serious, but I never take myself too seriously. Because, that doesn’t allow you to learn. If I can’t laugh at my own mistakes or the things that I’ve done – and I’ve taught that to my kids, and I grew up in a family like that – then I can’t find common ground. I think as a society we’ve kind of lost our ability to laugh. We just want to be hardcore all the time. And just because you’re laughing, it doesn’t mean you’re not learning something.”

“Remember that no matter what the story is, the story is about people. No matter what the issue is, whether it is poverty or crime, it all goes back to the same thing. All of these things are things that happen to people, they impact people. So ultimately, you are always telling a story about someone’s suffering or win or struggle. And you can’t forget that. In the end, it’s all about human connection.”