What’s It Like To Be A Starfish?
When I stumbled upon a starfish in a low-tide pool, my inner child couldn’t help but give it a gentle exploratory prod. At first, it didn’t seem to react. I thought it was dead. Upon closer inspection, it was quite alive. It just moved its arms exponentially slower than my impatient mind.
Its gradually unfurling arms and extending tube feet arrested my attention and awoke my curiosity:
What’s it like to be a starfish?
The glaring differences in our physiology make it feel like a question that’s impossible to answer.
Five (or more) regenerating arms.
Hydraulic tube feet that rapidly glue and unglue for locomotion.
Stomach eversion to partially digest prey.
Not to mention breathing underwater…
From this place of clear differentiation, I felt it easy to slip into a space of wonderment and openness. Where will it bed down for the night? How does it sense light? What’s it like to use tube feet? What creatures does it eat? What is it like to interact with me, a loud, disruptive giant, invading its neighborhood?
As questions filtered through my mind, I remembered how impactful it can be when we approach our fellow humans with the same open-minded receptivity.
Open curiosity is loving, warm and non-judgmental. It doesn’t have an agenda or a point to prove. It’s receptive to whatever might be arising.
It wonders instead of judging and evaluating.
It listens. It invites.
It says, “Hello. Who are you?”
Since our friends, enemies, colleagues and family members are fellow humans, with similar shapes, features and bodily functions, it’s easy to think we “know” what they are like. To assume they might think similarly to us.
Yet the truth is, for all our similarities, we can’t possibly know what another’s experience is. Each of us is a whole universe with our own joys and sorrows. Our unique origin story and transformational journey. We each hold our own vastly different hopes and dreams…
They’re like ____
As we accumulate time with others, we begin to develop habitual ways of being with others and habitual ways of thinking of others. We tend to create a static image of “who” someone is or “how” they’ll react. Eg: “I know how my partner will react if ____” or “My mom is like _____.”
This is natural. As humans, our minds collect data automatically, store it away and create quick-access snapshots of the world around us. Fortunately, this lets us make efficient decisions when faced with a multitude of stimuli. It’s this automation that facilitates our ability to drive, or even type on a keyboard.
When it comes to our relationships, however, this evolutionary advantage stumbles and fails more often than not. The ossified identities we create of the important people in our lives (including ourselves) narrows our repertoire of responses, reactions and possibilities.
We stop being openly curious. We predict reactions, and orchestrate scripts we follow. We stop asking “who are you?”
Philosopher Sören Kierkegaard distills this idea succinctly: “Once you label me, you negate me.” Once we “Know” how someone is, we start shortcutting, assuming, and we no longer are present to the person who is right in front of us.
Instead of succumbing to our rote habits, let’s cultivate our ability to stay open – to question, to inquire and to be ok with not knowing.