Diversity and Harmony: Would you rather?
If you had an option to befriend someone who shared many common interests with you versus someone who had completely different interests, which would you choose?
This article is an attempt to answer that question, and the experiences that each option brings you.
I had a doctor for a mother, and a chartered accountant/lawyer for a father. As a result, I grew up listening to two very different worldviews, experiences from wildly different universes. I picked up quite a bit of jargon from both domains, and tried to understand them as best as I could. I was a good listener, and I was genuinely interested in the things that fascinated my parents. I truly appreciated this diversity I got at home and the perspective it helped me gain. How wonderful it was that I had this expertise of two wonderful domains, all at my disposal. There was so much I could learn, so many ways in which I could grow. Often, I would tell people who asked me what it was to have parents from different professions: Well, mealtime conversations are always interesting in my house.
However, my parents were different. They had very little inclination towards each others' domains, and they created an efficient transactional system where they delegated everything based on this. For instance, anything financial would be handled by my Dad, and anything medical by my Mom. I mused: Sure, that's utilitarian, but the beauty of the diversity is kind of lost on them. What's the point of being from two different professions if you can't share the things you love with your partner?
When it was time for me to choose, I picked engineering for my career, thus further broadening the diversity at home. While I fit perfectly into the transactional model by handling all things that had to do with technology, the flip side was that it also broadened the conversational chasm--my parents understood very little of my world, and while they theoretically wanted to comprehend things from my field, they weren't really interested or inclined to pick it up. This was when I first realized the pitfalls of coming from different worlds--it is very hard to understand each other's languages, leave alone speak them.
All through school and college life, I have made friends with people of different interests and hobbies, people of different opinions. I have enjoyed my conversations with them, and watched them grow in very different paths. I have had glimpses into diverse worlds I have never personally visited: dance, sketching, running, painting, microbiology, aviation to name a few. However, again, I noticed, several of these people were very happy to talk about and discuss their worlds, but weren't interested in conversing about others' worlds. Fortunately, I also had a group of people who shared my technical interests, and others my hobbies: music, reading and writing. With these people, I had a different connection. Being able to discuss my likes and dislikes, finding that a friend shared that exact perception that I had, having someone who was as excited about something as I was, these were things that brought me immense joy and satisfaction.
I reached adulthood, and was faced by this 'would you rather' again, when it came to choosing my life partner. This time, I hesitated a little. Would I be able to live with someone who had very different interests from me? Someone who was not tech savvy? Someone who thought books were boring? Someone who didn't share that same deep love for music that I did? Honestly, I wasn't so sure. I definitely appreciated diversity, but I also wanted harmony, it seemed.
Funnily enough for me, I found an engineer, someone who I could talk to about every aspect of my work. Someone who was a musician himself and shared my love for it. Someone who was every bit a gadget freak as I was. Someone who shared so many of my values and ideas. Could we be anymore similar, I wondered?
As it turns out, we were also different. My husband looked at language as a medium of communication, while I, as a reader and writer, look at language as my subject. Language is merely a mode of transport for him, while for me it is the destination. My love for spoken word poetry and sonnets was lost on him. Initially, so was my writing.
I would ask of him eagerly about a post I'd written: What do you think of it?
He'd say: Yes, I agree with your idea.
But I was looking for so much more. What did he think of the style of writing? Was the article engaging? Did it resonate with him? How about the way in which the idea was presented?
These were subjective questions, and they required a different perspective, which often puzzled my husband.
Similarly, I could not share the books I read with him owing to our different tastes. Oftentimes, I would highlight a paragraph from whatever I was reading, and I'd miss being able to bond over it with him, simply because he would not get the context of it, nor could he see it with my eyes. I would wax lyrical over a book that I was reading, but my rhapsodies were lost on him. Books were one of the things dearest to me, and I sorely missed being able to connect over them. This was diversity of thought, and I found myself craving harmony, contrary to all my beliefs about myself.
But people react to diversity differently: Some are content to live in their bubbles and cling to their perspectives, while others are willing to explore unfamiliar territory, and try walking a mile in someone else's shoes. My husband turned out to be from the latter category. When he understood how much words meant to me, he tried really hard to understand my perspective. He listened to me talk about the books I read, asked me questions about them, and discussed them with me. His feedback about things I wrote changed. These were tiny steps, but they went a long way in helping me feel connected. A couple of days back, I tentatively asked him if he would mind listening to an audiobook I was in the middle of. We listened to it together for an hour, and I basked in that feeling of communion over words. From feeling alienated by diversity to craving harmony to finding harmony by fully embracing diversity, how far we had come, I mused fondly.
Thus, I come to the conclusion of my take on diversity and harmony. Harmony of thought gives you a strong connection with someone. It can be really fulfilling and satisfying to find people who share your interests. Having said that, I also place a great deal of value on diversity. If we surrounded ourselves with identical people and lived in comfortable bubbles, how will we ever look at the world differently? How will we be able to connect ideas from different universes? For if harmony is depth, diversity is breadth. They are both essential to a well-rounded life. Diversity achieves its fullest potential when people are able to connect with each other despite their differences. When people are willing and able to take those first steps into a new world to deepen their connection.
What do you have to say about this, Reader?
This article is an attempt to answer that question, and the experiences that each option brings you.
I had a doctor for a mother, and a chartered accountant/lawyer for a father. As a result, I grew up listening to two very different worldviews, experiences from wildly different universes. I picked up quite a bit of jargon from both domains, and tried to understand them as best as I could. I was a good listener, and I was genuinely interested in the things that fascinated my parents. I truly appreciated this diversity I got at home and the perspective it helped me gain. How wonderful it was that I had this expertise of two wonderful domains, all at my disposal. There was so much I could learn, so many ways in which I could grow. Often, I would tell people who asked me what it was to have parents from different professions: Well, mealtime conversations are always interesting in my house.
However, my parents were different. They had very little inclination towards each others' domains, and they created an efficient transactional system where they delegated everything based on this. For instance, anything financial would be handled by my Dad, and anything medical by my Mom. I mused: Sure, that's utilitarian, but the beauty of the diversity is kind of lost on them. What's the point of being from two different professions if you can't share the things you love with your partner?
When it was time for me to choose, I picked engineering for my career, thus further broadening the diversity at home. While I fit perfectly into the transactional model by handling all things that had to do with technology, the flip side was that it also broadened the conversational chasm--my parents understood very little of my world, and while they theoretically wanted to comprehend things from my field, they weren't really interested or inclined to pick it up. This was when I first realized the pitfalls of coming from different worlds--it is very hard to understand each other's languages, leave alone speak them.
All through school and college life, I have made friends with people of different interests and hobbies, people of different opinions. I have enjoyed my conversations with them, and watched them grow in very different paths. I have had glimpses into diverse worlds I have never personally visited: dance, sketching, running, painting, microbiology, aviation to name a few. However, again, I noticed, several of these people were very happy to talk about and discuss their worlds, but weren't interested in conversing about others' worlds. Fortunately, I also had a group of people who shared my technical interests, and others my hobbies: music, reading and writing. With these people, I had a different connection. Being able to discuss my likes and dislikes, finding that a friend shared that exact perception that I had, having someone who was as excited about something as I was, these were things that brought me immense joy and satisfaction.
I reached adulthood, and was faced by this 'would you rather' again, when it came to choosing my life partner. This time, I hesitated a little. Would I be able to live with someone who had very different interests from me? Someone who was not tech savvy? Someone who thought books were boring? Someone who didn't share that same deep love for music that I did? Honestly, I wasn't so sure. I definitely appreciated diversity, but I also wanted harmony, it seemed.
Funnily enough for me, I found an engineer, someone who I could talk to about every aspect of my work. Someone who was a musician himself and shared my love for it. Someone who was every bit a gadget freak as I was. Someone who shared so many of my values and ideas. Could we be anymore similar, I wondered?
As it turns out, we were also different. My husband looked at language as a medium of communication, while I, as a reader and writer, look at language as my subject. Language is merely a mode of transport for him, while for me it is the destination. My love for spoken word poetry and sonnets was lost on him. Initially, so was my writing.
I would ask of him eagerly about a post I'd written: What do you think of it?
He'd say: Yes, I agree with your idea.
But I was looking for so much more. What did he think of the style of writing? Was the article engaging? Did it resonate with him? How about the way in which the idea was presented?
These were subjective questions, and they required a different perspective, which often puzzled my husband.
Similarly, I could not share the books I read with him owing to our different tastes. Oftentimes, I would highlight a paragraph from whatever I was reading, and I'd miss being able to bond over it with him, simply because he would not get the context of it, nor could he see it with my eyes. I would wax lyrical over a book that I was reading, but my rhapsodies were lost on him. Books were one of the things dearest to me, and I sorely missed being able to connect over them. This was diversity of thought, and I found myself craving harmony, contrary to all my beliefs about myself.
But people react to diversity differently: Some are content to live in their bubbles and cling to their perspectives, while others are willing to explore unfamiliar territory, and try walking a mile in someone else's shoes. My husband turned out to be from the latter category. When he understood how much words meant to me, he tried really hard to understand my perspective. He listened to me talk about the books I read, asked me questions about them, and discussed them with me. His feedback about things I wrote changed. These were tiny steps, but they went a long way in helping me feel connected. A couple of days back, I tentatively asked him if he would mind listening to an audiobook I was in the middle of. We listened to it together for an hour, and I basked in that feeling of communion over words. From feeling alienated by diversity to craving harmony to finding harmony by fully embracing diversity, how far we had come, I mused fondly.
Thus, I come to the conclusion of my take on diversity and harmony. Harmony of thought gives you a strong connection with someone. It can be really fulfilling and satisfying to find people who share your interests. Having said that, I also place a great deal of value on diversity. If we surrounded ourselves with identical people and lived in comfortable bubbles, how will we ever look at the world differently? How will we be able to connect ideas from different universes? For if harmony is depth, diversity is breadth. They are both essential to a well-rounded life. Diversity achieves its fullest potential when people are able to connect with each other despite their differences. When people are willing and able to take those first steps into a new world to deepen their connection.
What do you have to say about this, Reader?
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