Peek-A-Boo

When our children were very little, we played peek-a-boo with them. It was a simple game; we hid our faces with our hands and then opened our hands and said “peek-a-boo” to the delight of the child. Eventually, they would mimic this game themselves, delighted they could “hide” from us behind their hands.

Peek-a-boo only works once a child starts to develop object permanence—the understanding that objects exist even when you can’t see or hear them. Without object permanence, the child would lose interest once the person “hid.” However, another interesting thing happens during this game. The child seems to believe that if they can’t see you, you can’t see them.

You are probably thinking, “I certainly understand that things exist even when I can’t see them, and I know that closing my eyes doesn’t make everyone else disappear.” Mostly, I would agree with you. Mostly.

We have all had moments when we said or did something that we knew was wrong, unkind, inappropriate, or unnecessary because the person or people that would be affected or call us on it were not present. At that moment, our actions indicate that because we can’t see them, they don’t exist.

In social constructs we create “bestowed existence” when we create a social agreement between conscious agents. That is just a fancy way to say that if two people decide to include a third in their circle of socialization (friendship, if you will), then the third person now exists in that social setting.

Likewise, if two (or more) people decide to exclude another person (or people group), for all intents and purposes, those excluded people cease to exist for that community—at least as far as their behavior is concerned. If you are having trouble seeing this, just remember high school.

The difficulty here is that it is not ours to bestow or withhold existence. The social constructs that seemingly give us this power are like a 6-year-old grabbing the keys to the car and driving off. Can they do it? Yes. Yes, they can. Should they? Is it right or appropriate or safe? No. No, it is not.

What we are compelled to do in healthy community is acknowledge through our words and deeds the objective permanence of everyone’s existence. That is, people do not cease to matter when you cannot see them (or they cannot see or hear you). Our behavior impacts people whether we are in their line of sight or not.

I find it interesting that the universally held laws of physics (unless we get into theoretical physics, then all bets are off) have similarities to human behavior. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, where opposite means reflected or returned. If we are kind and loving to another person, that will be reflected back to us. (The opposite is true also.)

In a community, the more we acknowledge the essential value (existence) of others and the permanence of that value—even when they are not around—the more we get that same respect reflected back to us. It’s like being in a bubble in a good way, with good things bouncing around.

When we think about it, it is pretty childish to think that if you put your hands over your eyes the other people around you disappear. It is just as childish to think that disrespecting people when they are not around you somehow doesn’t matter or count. It does. Creating a culture (experience) where we leave the peek-a-boo to the toddlers and respect one another everywhere and always is how we truly value everyone and live out the Bison Way.