My data is bigger than your data.
A friend recently sent me an article with a lengthy argument about “what the data say” when it comes to police violence against people of color, Black men in particular. The author made a logical and coherent argument, which my friend felled with one observation: “the data don’t tell the story about why moms of color still need to worry about the safety of their children in a way that I don’t.”
We are on a fool’s errand with all this “my data is bigger than your data” conversation. I get it, I really do. Our brains are sorting machines, designed to make sense of complex or unknown phenomena, so that piece by piece, experience by experience, we turn the world into a place we can navigate, rely on, maybe even enjoy.
Accountants and my mother (this is pretty much a quote) have a deep appreciation, some might say a passion, for numbers that add up. They find joy in clear answers that emerge from the cells and formulas. It’s restful, final, sense-making. I share their appreciation for the way my accountant brings order to my bookkeeping and gives Uncle Sam pristinely correct answers each tax season. But, unlike them, the “final answer” has always made me squirm.
“Two plus two equals four,” teased my math geek friend recently. “You can always count on math.” “Unless it equals two,“ I tease back. “Two glasses of water added to two other glasses of water. Two glasses plus two glasses equal two glasses.” (Someone else told me that years ago. I’m not that clever.) The thing about “data” is that it’s far more complicated than simple percentages of for vs. against, tallies of positive vs. negative outcomes.
There is a challenge for you in here. How about we work on a community experiment, where for the next week, the only data we consume is data on our own emotions and opinions? How about we work on understanding our own reactions and perspectives rather than hurrying so fast to reject the response of others?
The truth is, numbers don’t matter much when you are the marginalized one or your loved one is part of the “only 1 percent” who get really sick. Breakthroughs in medicine, space travel, energy efficiency — even the minimum daily dose of meditation — make our lives fuller, better, and longer. I’m not suggesting we abandon studious analysis, data, and trendlines.
But please join me in getting a little more honest about the data of our own emotions. Join me in seeing how skillful reckoning with our emotions invites more room, more compassion for a different perspective. That’s data, too.
So before we defend our position about, say, wearing a mask or not wearing one, based on “what the data say,” maybe we should ask, “why do I care so much about this?” “What is the emotion around this? What do I really, truly want to do with this data?”
Pocket Practice for Noticing Emotions: RAIN
Here is a framework for noticing our emotions, courtesy of our friends at mindful.org. It’s a pocket practice with a catchy acronym -- RAIN.
This week’s 12-minute guided meditation — Attention to Breathing
Laura Callari, school nurse and mindfulness educator, offers a slow, simple 12-minute attention to breathing practice that helps us ground ourselves, cultivating the mental space that helps us pay closer attention to emotions.