We are limited by our perspective and frequently wrong. Therefore, it is useful to practice being attentive and curious in order to increase our understanding of others. Usually, the more familiar we become with others, the more we assume we “know” them. We risk believing we are “relationship experts.

THREE: Illumination

“That gaze, that first sight, represents a posture toward the world. A person who is looking for beauty is likely to find wonders, while a person looking for threats will find danger. A person who beams warmth brings out the glowing sides of the people she meets, while a person who conveys formality can meet the same people and find them stiff and detached. “Attention,” the psychiatrist Iain McGilchrist writes, “is a moral act: it creates, brings

aspects of things into being.

I will not reduce you to a type or restrict you to a label, like many of those human-typology systems do—Myers-Briggs, the Enneagram, the zodiac, and so on. Instead, I want to receive you as an active creator. I want to understand how you construct your point of view. I want to ask you how you see things. I want you to teach me about the enduring energies of old events that shape how you see the world today. I’m going to engage with you. Looking at a person is different from looking at a thing because a person is looking back at you. I’m going to get to know you at the same time you’re going to get to know me. Quality conversation is the essence of this approach. If we’re going to become Illuminators, we need to first ask questions and engage with answers. We need to ask:

How does this look to you? Do you see the same situation I see?

An Illuminator is a blessing to those around him. When he meets others he has a compassionate awareness of human frailty, because he knows the ways we are all frail. He is gracious toward human folly because he’s aware of all the ways we are foolish. He accepts the unavoidability of conflict and greets disagreement with curiosity and respect.

By learning to pay attention to what’s happening in front of us, we gain more than the sensations of life; we also increase our ability to act. We’re not thinking about what’s already happened, about what might happen, about what we have to do later; we are alert to the moment, which is where any action must take place. If our intention is to connect with other people, being present is what makes that possible.