The Art of Significant-Othering

This blog is a companion piece to the one titled “From Me-dom to WE-dom.” In fact, it discusses one of the major ways we can live in a “WE” versus a “me” mindset. So fasten your seatbelts for a minute or two, and here we go.

The term significant other,” or S.O. for short, is usually reserved for one’s partner or sweetie. Of course, for better or worse, the people who raise us and the list of other important people in our lives, from special teachers, coaches, ministers, relatives besides our parents, to close friends may also merit the term. My point here, however, is that we should consider everyone we encounter as at least potential S.O.s and relate to them accordingly. What’s the line? Many a time we have been visited by angels unaware. The story of how Abraham and Sarah showed hospitality to the three men who turned out in fact to be angels (Genesis 18:1-15) is illustrative here. A modern equivalent for us might be, treat your seatmate on an airplane with courtesy and respect, for you don’t know who he or she may turn out to be...

On this point I recall my good fortune to have spent time on several occasions with Dr. Jonas Salk, the creator of the first polio vaccine. My mentor for years before and after my first meeting with Dr. Salk, the late Dr. Varindra Tarzie Vittachi, was at the time the Associate Director of UNICEF with the rank of Assistant Secretary-General of the U.N. He and Dr. Salk were friends. So when the two of them put on a small, invitational conference at a castle in England on the theme of education for a better future, I was invited to participate as an “innovative American educationist,” the British term for educator. What struck me then and thereafter was that when you spoke with Dr. Salk, who insisted that we all call him Jonas, he looked at you as if you were the only other person on earth and paid what could only be called rapt attention to everything you said. At that moment for him, you were clearly a significant other.
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I was initially attracted to Jonas because of his book Survival of the Wisest. In it he argued that Evolution, which he always capitalized and used as some of us might use the term “God,” was now calling for more and more individuals to be born with the capacity to gain and access wisdom in their decision-making. Unless a critical mass of such people were born, Jonas concluded, the world and its human and other inhabitants didn’t stand much chance of survival. As a college teacher I asked Jonas what people like me could do to help. With one of his intense looks and after a deep pause of at least 30 seconds, he said, “I think that’s for you to figure out, Reynold.” I’ve since written and published six books on practical wisdom and posted several hundred blogs like this one on my author’s website, www.reynoldruslan.com, as well as created and taught twelve times a university course called “The Literature of Wisdom.” Plus I have tried to follow Jonas’s modeling by treating everyone I meet for those moments or years as an S.O. It has served me and, I hope, them well. Would you like to join me in this approach?

Dr. Jonas Salk (1914-1995)