Same World, Different Lenses

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been sharing rants inspired by watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. This weekend, I had dinner with some friends who used it as an opportunity to inquire—and gently tease—about my stance on not discussing my food. Our conversation was a reminder that everyone has quirks or perspectives that are outside the norm, but many of these remain hidden.

In college, for example, we learned that our freshman year roommate thought the family name from Romeo and Juliet was pronounced “Mon-togg.” His class covered the book during a week he was out sick, so he developed his own pronunciation and lived in that reality until he dropped, “I hate you like I hate all Montagues!” in front of us. Wait—what did you say??? 

At dinner on Saturday, my friend shared his memories of Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who appeared on MTV’s The Real World, a show he’s apparently seen every episode of. Thus, he couldn’t believe that I had seen at most one episode of the show. Despite having attended middle and high school together during his peak years of fandom, we were living in two different worlds on Real World.

I was thinking about split realities for a more serious reason—the federal takeover of the DC police and deployment of the National Guard. When polling friends about how the story was landing in their worlds, the consensus was that, outside of DC, it’s just one of many stories in the headlines. It seemed like they were treating it much like I treated the military deployment in Los Angeles earlier this year—noted, but not a material fact for my daily life. 

But here in DC, with a constant stream of videos of masked, unidentified officers arresting food delivery drivers and armored vehicles colliding into passenger cars in my neighborhood, the story is very present. 

That said, even my DC friends have varying experiences with the takeover. As someone who works with organizations in the education space, I immediately considered the potential impact of students traveling on the first day of school and the budget shortfalls that schools would face if a significant number of their enrolled students were too scared to attend. 

I saw a neighbor who leads a major civil rights organization in DC walking intently down our street with a pace that made it look like she was already behind on work. For her and the organization, the experience is likely one of urgent legal briefs and working overtime.

For a business owner I know, it means not taking any projects in DC because, despite being in the country legally, the risk of interacting with authorities is too high.

I had lunch with someone last week who saw the enforcement activities through a lens of her personal history. As someone descended from European Jews, seeing unidentified law enforcement personnel scoop up people who “don’t belong” reminded her of the worst governments of the pre-World War II era.

The same events, but significantly different experiences and perspectives based on the lenses we have. 

This is just as true in our professional and personal relationships as it is with national events. Each of us interprets “facts” through the distorted lens of our professional training, available information, and incentives—no wonder we often disagree about the path forward!

If so much of our perspective is shaped by our lenses, it’s worth asking others what lens they are bringing to bear. That won’t solve every conflict, but it’s surely better than discussions based on assuming we must be seeing the same picture.