Radical Empathy for Surviving Lagos
Learnings from The School of Life
“Hi my name is Yvette and I’m suffering because I feel like I will never be as successful as I envisioned when i was younger and so I will live off my parents money forever.”
Imagine introducing yourself to a group of strangers by telling them about the most personal ways in which you are suffering. I did that, and it was terrifying. I typically can’t handle that level of vulnerability.
In October 2018, I did something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. I attended Alain de Botton’s “School of Life” conference in Zurich. The city was a dream. My first Day in Zurich, I made fondue with a lovely Swiss and Trinidadian couple. We had a little helper in their one-year-old daughter who had these chocolate milky-way eyes. I took a 5 hour walking tour of the city. I met a girl. She was wide-eyed and full of joy and also there for the same conference! We ended up at a public park at Sunset, and I remember twirling in the fallen golden leaves and feeling like all the world was waiting for me.
Why did I go?
Why do we prize technical knowledge over emotional intelligence, when so many of our problems, so much of our pain stems from emotional intelligence (or lack thereof). Why doesn’t he love me? Am I a good enough mother? Why am I not at a senior management position yet? These questions, most fundamental to our human experience require emotional skill to tackle and answer. Yet we pay little mind to developing our emotional toolkit.
“Anyone can survive Lagos, it boils down to a negotiation of how much of yourself you’re willing to give up”
I went also because living in Lagos is tricky. Even when I suffer from all the conditions of reasonable affluence: status anxiety (Thank you LinkedIn) and loneliness (Thank you Instagram). Ultimately of course, anyone can survive Lagos, it boils down to a negotiation of how much of yourself you’re willing to give up. The city demands its pound of flesh. Here are the most wondrous things I took away to help me survive this gory city.
When it comes to love (not only romantic love) — Imagination is key
In all loving relationships imagination is essential. This is the capacity to look with great energy and curiosity at the face and character of another person. For example, my siblings irritate me frequently, but part of love is the ability to imagine all the ways in which they might be suffering and hurting and consequently taking it out on me.
Alain de Botton believes that compatibility is the achievement of love, not it’s prerequisite.
If I really understand love, and learn to flex my imagination muscle, I have the capacity to love everyone. I believe this. Largely because I’ve seen that finding perfection is unlikely. More probable is committing to learn and negotiate someone’s oddities with sensibility and humour. More succinctly, Alain de Botton believes that compatibility is the achievement of love, not it’s prerequisite.
To survive, have compassion because everyone is broken
We spend so much of lives trying to look “put together”. You know what’s radical, taking pleasure in the broken bits of ourselves. In Japan, there’s an entire art form devoted to admiring broken things and the search for “golden joinery”, kin tsugi.
According to Japanese principles of beauty, life is made of broken pieces, but if we’re lucky we can put these pieces back together through some golden glue. And that is worth celebrating. I am so ready to celebrate the idea that we can’t be perfect but what we can be are smashed up bits of pottery with interesting bits of golden glue.
For life’s toughest moments, use drugs.
Our notion of drugs is largely pharmacological and too narrow and too harmful. A drug is really anything that allows us to temporarily alter our reality. Here are examples of some of my favourite drugs: Vast expanses of nature (think of The Peak District in Pride and Prejudice) or Stan Getz’s rendition of Corcovado (especially when driving through Lekki-Epe Traffic). All these provide a moment where I feel small, in the best way possible. How magical it is to be surrounded by expanses of beauty that don’t really care about my particular anxieties, they simply persist in their beauty. It’s a pleasure to be a part of. When you think about your drug of choice, you realise you can be deliberate about creating these moments, to survive this city’s craziness.
When you can’t use drugs, use art
Art is the supreme vehicle to learn appreciation and appreciation is the supreme vehicle for surviving Lagos. This is why I love reading, and visual art, even when I find myself in a fancy gallery with experienced collectors. I rest easy because I know ultimately that art is about people who record things they’ve loved. Art teaches me to apply a sensitivity to my own life. Art is great appreciation of the unnoticed moments that happen everyday. In other words, extremely modest things looked at with special attention.
Getting over shyness and having meaningful conversations.
I am immensely shy. It stems from not wanting to make people uncomfortable by engaging them in a conversation they don’t want to have. But I’m getting over that steadily. People generally have a lot to say! In Lagos, it’s not uncommon to find myself at a friends 30th birthday dinner in RSVP, completely ignoring the person next to me or across from me. Why? So many thoughts “i don’t want to be a bother”, “they seem busy”, “I don’t want to be blown off”, etc. It turns out, people are willing to tell you more than you expect if you have the courage to engage.
Once you overcome shyness, next is to think about is how to have a meaningful conversation. Something that will enrich you. So many people in this city seem totally uninterested in other people. When engaging with other people, we often come to a conversational crossroads. We can either take the logistics way (asking about the hows, and the whats, gathering information) or the emotive way (to get at how people really feel about a subject). Pick the most emotionally alive part of what your partner (in conversation) just said and delve. There is a time and place to have “logistics” conversations, but emotive questions, give us the opportunity for something deeper. For example:
Person 1: Oh I’m so stressed out , and that 3 hour drive back to Ikeja didn’t help at all
Person 2 (Logistics response): Oh where were you coming from?
OR
Person 2 (Emotive response): What do you think is accounting for your stress?
Person 1: It’s a couple of things, I’ve been trying to get promoted this year and we’re already in the last quarter and no word from my boss.
Person 2 (Logistics response): Oh what do you do now and what’s the promotion you’re looking at?
OR
Person 2 (Emotive response): Why is this promotion so important to you?
After The School of Life, I’ve made it a point to engage people, deeply, and so far no one has shouted “Leave me the hell alone!” So my hypothesis stands true. If they feel you are genuinely interested and might actually care, people are willing to give more than you think.
In Conclusion
Listen there was a lot going on in this essay, I know. I think the biggest take away is a call, a dare even, to practice what I call radical empathy. I’m not sure this city is ready for it. Radical Empathy requires each of us to approach the world (each other) with heaps of compassion and forgiveness, as much as, if not more than we wish to be shown ourselves when we are not at our best. Because, my friends, it is impossible to make it through this city without failure or accident.
