The CityVP Window

The Johari Window is the starting point for Dr Ali Anani's Buzz linked above called "Is Self-Awareness a Remote Dream?" and my personal answer to that question is that self-awareness is as remote as we are.

I am not a fan of 2x2 Boston Consulting Matrix grids though they do offer food for thought and that is because in simplifying conceptually rich information, we continue do the thinking for others who need 2 x 2 grids to provide simple means of superficially interacting in the virtual revolving door that is called social media.  There is one thing adapting a concept to explain it to people but totally another to see and recognize how one can practically use a model, which ironically is why we model complex thinking to begin with.  So as I draw out the "The CityVP Window", the title of this 2x2 should inform others that this is me creating an alternative world view to the Johari Window based on what is practical for me and the starting ground of that practicality is discovery through playing with this personal reformulation.

The first thing to point out is my use of YOU-YOU and OTHER-YOU.  I will outline after presenting the CityVP Window the other aspects of relationship.   The person I am interacting with is the "OTHER YOU" - the other becomes a "You" because I am acknowledging a relationship.  Otherwise I am talking about strangers and models like the "Johari Window" are stranger-centric.  Why?  It is because they are based on one size that fits all and we know this idea of contemplating conception based on the mass is a product of mass-industralization, mass-production, mass education and mass media.  So first I will outline The CityVP Window :

I do not care about the unknown-unknowns as showcased in the Johari Window because the context is way beyond that living space that I exist in.   Nature did not give us the capacity to "know" 7 Billion human beings - there is a finite capacity to the number of people we personally can interact with or touch and for most of us that may not even amount to a few thousand people.   This mass way of looking at things isn't 21st Century thinking, it is simply importing 20th Century mass mind to a century where we do not need to have a many-to-many relationship, but can actually interact on a one-to-one basis (again recognizing the limits imposed on us when one-to-one is not personally sustainable).  The many-to-many relationship is "Polyadic" or in simpler English "more than 3 people".  I am also not invested here in a triadic relationship, because that is the beginning of mass relationship, so I am neither the Polyadic Guru or the Triadic Teacher.  I am introducing one more word here which is Monadic and to explain that I will utilize the intro an abstract by Professor Joseph Sonnenfeld.  The chief difference to his explanation is that he is talking about research criteria and I am talking about one-to-one (dyadic relationships) and self-reflection (monadic relationship).

Dyadic Wisdom then is the opportunity where the YOU-YOU and the OTHER-YOU meet in total uncertainty, but this wisdom comes through the doors of Monadic Learning and/or Monadic Privacy but ultimately both of these two monads sits on the foundation stone of Dyadic Relationship.  There is no Dyadic Wisdom if there is no Dyadic Relationship to begin with.

The Dyadic Relationship is grounded in the certainty we naturally and instinctively reach for but which we also disparage more and more as thinkers introduce the reality of uncertainty that certainty is bound in.   So Dyadic Relationship is between the YOU-YOU and the OTHER YOU.  Marriage is a symbolic meaning of this dyad but the OTHER YOU is not necessarily someone whom we marry - it is the reality of relationship.   When we relate to a guru or some famous person or dead philosopher, that is not a dyadic relationship.  That is a monadic relationship and a monadic relationship is all YOU-YOU, because the OTHER-YOU is a figment of imagination, there is no relationship with image.  That OTHER YOU is not involved in a relationship with YOU-YOU for it's monadic relationship is with the MASS MARKET.   We cannot even call that entity the OTHER YOU because the "Other" does not exist for the simple reason they don't know YOU-YOU.  What they do know is a mass ideology to the MASS-YOU.   Their YOU-YOU is connected to MASS-YOU and this can be seen by simply placing our own feet in their shoes and look at the world they are seeing or interacting with as they see it.  Everyone has a YOU-YOU but the difference between Monadic-Dyadic relationship (OTHER YOU) is very different to the Triadic/Polyadic relationship (MASS YOU).  I am not touching the mass or strangers here - if I don't know who you are, you are not my "OTHER YOU".

We must not disparage certainty simply because we are now exposed to certainty.  Thanks to the Internet there is more information available that we can convert from MASS YOU to OTHER YOU.  In other words we can move from depersonalized world of mass communication to the personalized and customizing world of dyadic relationship.  An individual relationship to an authors mind can create an OTHER YOU based on the ideas and not the being of an author.  When we cross over to the being rather than the idea we can relate to we become invested in cult thinking or group thinking, we make the shift from the dyadic into the triadic.   We are all well versed in the triadic relationship because we exist in a many-to-many mass consumer system.  Our consumption is as consumers rather than individuals relating with other individuals  Consumption as marketing value so I do not deride that as value - if I were to deride it, then I should try to build my home with mud or whatever free resource is available and free myself from a materially intelligent world. 

There is value in a triadic and polyadic relationship but there is significantly more value in monadic and dyadic relationship.  We can be professionals in triadic and polyadic relationship and mass information vehicles like the Johari Window can serve that professional relationship - a relationship which is a relationship with image and not being.  We are not anywhere near familiar with the personal relationship at the monadic and dyadic relationship.  We know that to be true because we as a society are not really good at self-reflection and we don't view relationships as dyadic in practice.  We continue to talk in generalities about the human condition rather than form the OTHER YOU - a one-to-one relationship which means that if your mothers name is Mary, we continue to have a relationship with the mass idea of mother and not the personal being called "Mary".  When Mary becomes an idea called "Mother" we apply mass prescriptions and if we make generalizations about "mothers" then we may totally lose sight of the OTHER YOU and embrace again MASS YOU.

The OTHER YOU is not simplistic as the Walpiri Counting System but there is a profundity in that number system which we have lost in our mass culture.  Even as a network being, we need to find our individuality and relationship with the OTHER - or the the most important "OTHER" - which I have called the "OTHER YOU" - the you have a direct relationship with.