Like it or not, humans are social creatures. This isn’t
an accident, it’s survival. If you aren’t part of a tribe, your life expectancy
drops precipitously. It’s pure evolution; we need others.
And god, that sucks sometimes.
We need to be relatively functioning members of a larger
body of society. It’s why we have moral systems, why we can divide labor and
specialize, the very essence of history as a moving system. It’s how we exceled
beyond subsistence farming. In even the most reductive sense, we are life
support systems for genitals that need to mash together to create more life, an
impulse ground into us by the mashing gene being successfully propagated by the
mad mashing of our forebears. And we need to be social to have any hopes of
that singular purpose of replication. Assuming you believe in the evolutionary
psychological approach, all of human behavior spins out from that.
We need others to listen to us. We need to be heard,
seen, and we need to feel at least partially understood, or we wither.
In short, we need validation. Aside from the very basic
needs for continued existence like food, water, shelter, and warmth, validation
is probably the most important need that isn’t strictly biological. The first
step up Maslow’s hierarchy. We need to feel… something from others. To feel
important. Valuable. Like our input is appreciated. Because if it isn’t, we’re
useless to our tribe, and if we’re useless, we’re on the outside. And if we’re
outside the tribe, well, that’s where we can get picked off by the predators.
Due to our general advancement, our predators aren’t
hyenas or wolves anymore. We get chased down by depression. Alienation. Loneliness.
Roving packs of personality disorders track our journey from the shadows,
waiting for us to fall too far behind the tribe. Without our kin, we fall prey
these savage forces.
Often, falling behind starts robbing you of the ability
to keep up, a vicious cycle. Read a social psychology textbook; people who are
perceived as lonely are often ostracized by others even further. Cruel, yes,
but on a corrupt level, understandable. As individuals, we need to make sure we
don’t fall out of the pack, and if we dedicate too many of our resources to
helping another lost person, we may find ourselves marginalized, too.
You likely know someone that you feel bad for in this way,
but you just don’t feel you can help them without hurting yourself. This sucks,
but it’s not uncommon. Sometimes these people are too far gone. Sometimes they
aren’t. It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference. So they get lost in the
woods and the growing darkness. And yeah… maybe we could have done more.
This validation, it can make or break someone’s life. We
all need it. We all know we need it.
My question is, if we all know this in our core, that
this is a fundamental fact of the human experience, why is it seen as so wrong
to openly ask for validation?
I need to feel smart, or desired, or funny, or wise, or
fucking something so that I feel like
I’m contributing to my chosen body of humanity in the hopes that they will
protect me when I fall. And I will fall. We all fall. You need this, too, even
if it makes you feel somewhat uncomfortable to admit. It’s the same impulse we
have to feel like we’re good at our job so that we don’t get fired, but writ
large. We need to feel good at being human, so that we won’t get terminated
from the body that sustains us.
It is so critical to our existence and yet so many people
feel ashamed to reach out and ask for help with it. I have had to force myself
to ask for it from time to time, usually couched in a joke or some long-winded
musing (hi there!). To some degree, my fear - which is probably common - is
that if I ask for validation, I will be seen as weak. Even worse, I will be outright
denied it, confirming my fears that I’m not worthy of the safety of the pack.
It’s almost better to worry that I’m not good enough than it is to have
confirmation that I’m not.
Is this something we can move past? Is it universal at
this point, or is it perhaps a side effect of the rabid American individualism
that is slowly isolating and atomizing us? Can I ask you, openly and earnestly,
to love me? To tell me you that you care? To tell me I’m worth effort? And how
much asking is too much?
Can we learn to offer more of it, unsolicited, so that
someone doesn’t need to fall before figuring out if others will care enough to
offer a hand up? Can we move past the bullshit notion that openly admitting a
dire need is somehow weak?
We fear that weakness because we know in our bones that
most people are too busy fending for themselves and fighting off their own
battles to care for us. We get stuck in this loop of pretending we’re fine, so
that others won’t see us as burdensome. All while we slowly lose the ability to
keep up.
Perhaps this is why romantic partnership is so prized. We
have a chosen person who, for however long we can convince them we’re worth it,
is dedicated to helping us along the path. The school field trip buddy system,
except instead of getting lost in the Titanic museum that one time in eighth
grade, we’re lost in our own sadness. There are fewer clearly marked exits
there.
How do we fight this irresponsible expectation of
emotional self-sufficiency?
To change societal expectations, you have to first not be
bound by them. Openly ask for validation. Openly give it. Bring people into your
pack. Let them know that they are of your tribe and that that means something
to you. Life is hard, and we’re all we’ve got. Make it easier on the people
walking your path. Aside from bringing skills to the table, one way to do that
is to let people clearly know your needs. If you are open, they will feel open,
too. Your bond will grow. Your torches will light up the night and the journey through
the woods will be safer.
Obviously not everyone will be walking the same path as
you. That’s fine. You do have to curate your resources. The entire point of
this statement is that you need to care for you and yours, and that includes
removing toxicity. Let other tribes pass as they may. Let people go when they
jeopardize the health of your cohort, but not by throwing them to the wolves.
There are kinder ways to protect yourself, even if those ways are more difficult.
Find those ways anyway, because you will be better and stronger for it.
Just fucking walk with love and compassion. We may go
faster alone, but we go farther together.
