I remember looking up the word physiognomy a long time ago. I think I read it in a book somewhere, but the definition was, for me, one of those ‘oh thank god someone noticed this too’ type deals where it was just so relieving to have a word put to a thought I’d been having for such a long time.
You ever meet someone that everyone seems to love and when your friends ask you about them you’re like ‘hmm, yeah they’re alright.’ Secretly you’re harboring the thought that they’re not everything they’re appearing to be, the performance lines up but there’s something about them that’s off and you can’t believe that no one else sees it the way you do.
What on earth is that? A lot of us throw the word ‘vibes’ out. Their vibe is just ‘off.’ But what is a vibe, really? You definitely have a feeling in you that something’s not right, it might manifest as a kind of awkward tension, an anxiety, it becomes harder for you to stay in an open frame, you find yourself reverting to thought, you get in your head.
But what is this feeling if not an alert from the deep, a subconscious interpretation of data that’s being brought to your attention by this uncomfortable energy, the only way the depths of your nervous system knows how.
You could have noticed the darting eyes, a smile with no crinkle in the corners of the eyelids, they might be saying all the right things but they’re just not projecting it with sincerity, it sounds forced, or rehearsed, robotic.
I would struggle with this all my life. Particularly in high school, I remembered feeling bad that I didn’t like certain people. Something was just not right about them and I couldn’t put the words to it. When asked to explain myself I would reach for reasons why I didn’t jive with their personality and just ended up feeling stupid when my words were inadequate.
I didn’t socialize a whole lot in high school, at least not outside of it. Something was happening to me. I remember when I first quit soccer and stopped swimming at the end of grade six. To this day I can’t even really recall why I let go of all my hobbies and the friends associated with them. I had some tough experiences with sport, and even though I was very good, I didn’t have the drive or the wherewithal to pursue them with the same energy and enjoyment I had when I was younger.
When I think back to that time, it feels strange. There was a time when I couldn’t remember existing before football. I played it in school first, and when I was finally enrolled to play with a club I could hardly contain my excitement. It’s all I really wanted to do. But I let it go.
I let a lot of things go, and I found that I had fallen out of practice. The only socialization was that which I got at school, and I really didn’t like school. Despised might not be strong enough a word. I went to one of those schools where you do some bullshit aptitude test to get in and all your cohort is a bunch of nerds and dweebs who want to be doctors and engineers and lawyers. I don’t have anything against those professions, by the way, but I tend to find the masses that pursue them are some of the most unpleasant people to be around.
Highly competitive, rather vapid, constantly trying to keep up with who was doing what and when. I didn’t experience the conversations of the intelligentsia to be any more inspiring or interesting than the ones I had with my dumbass mates that threw blackboard dusters across the room. Intelligence was not a prerequisite for wisdom.
It was not my crowd at all, and I found myself an outsider, even when I had a big friends group, even if I was popular with girls, something about the whole thing just didn’t sit right with me. Something was off.
When I got out of school, into the work force and started jiujitsu, things began to change. You’re exposed to a lot of new people on the job and in the gym, and the kind of jobs I’ve done really brought you a mixed bag. You had single mothers, old fathers, high school drop outs, university students, drug dealers, bikies, first generation immigrants, people with teeth, people without them. You really ran the whole gambit.
If I’m being honest, I didn’t really get along with all of these people either. I hadn’t self actualized yet. I hadn’t found my charm and easy confidence, I was too bothered by what other people thought of me, too stifled by the needs of the people around me. So mostly I just watched. If something bad happened, I thought about it constantly. If something good happened, I thought about it constantly.
I picked shit apart all day, I’d have an interaction, I’d meet someone new, I’d do something stupid, and I’d ruminate on it. The internet didn’t help. At that time the internet was a haven for disenfranchised youth. I’d get into all sorts of chats and arguments with all sorts of people and well, we all know what the internet is like. Everyone’s an asshole on here and before you know it you’re one as well.
As for jiujitsu, if you train then you already know what I’m about to say. You can have the guy that sold you an ounce going to war with an officer of the law in those dinghy little sweat lodges. Lawyers in Porsche’s getting pieced up by teenagers who rolled up on e-scooters. When I first started training the sport was not the fashion statement it is now, it attracted oddballs of all kinds. It still does. There’s a touch of the ‘tism in everyone who gets on the mats and remains there, but now it’s a lot more socially acceptable. You can say that you train jiujitsu and people will generally know what you’re talking about. When I started, they just thought you did some obscure, particularly dorky form of karate.
And boy, oh, boy, did I learn about people. Something funny happens after a while. It creates a bit of conflict inside of you. In some respects, you know you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but you still do. And you’re probably mostly right. People tend to be what they look like.
Working at reception in a gym, I can tell exactly who is going to have late payments, who is just there to waste my time, who is going to talk my ear off, who is most likely to steal the equipment, who is going to be deterred by the prices, who isn’t going to show up for the second day of their trial. I even know which martial art they’ll join. I’ll know who is here for boxing, who is here for kickboxing, hell, right away I know who’s interested in jiujitsu.
But if you asked me why, I’d hardly be able to tell you. It became a kind of thing at my job. I would make a comment about somebody, my colleagues would act shocked or disagree with me, then before they knew it something would happen to confirm my initial assertions. They started listening to me after a while.
But the creepy thing is when you take that idea that people look like what they are and apply it to yourself. What the hell do people think when they look at me? Are all my tendencies, all my bad habits and character flaws on full display for a discerning eye? The answer is, yes they are.
And you know what, sometimes people are wrong. Sometimes we can associate traits with another person based on a past experience and we miss the mark. They were the exception, or we made the call with limited data. It really sucks, but there’s nothing you can do about it. We have to make these assumptions. Safety is important, and we only have so much time. You’re parsing and filtering the majority of your environment at all times. It only makes sense to extend that to the people around you.
This is when your circle starts to get smaller. Once you start noticing these traits in people, you quickly realize who you’re willing to associate with and who you’re just not convinced to roll the dice on. I’m not saying you close up and allow no room for change or serendipity, but you certainly get so much more ruthless with your time and what you will allow.
You might be one of those people who doesn’t see the world this way. You’re in shock, how could anyone be like this? Each chance encounter is an opportunity to meet someone new, to see things in a new light! But you’d be wrong.
You can’t tell me you haven’t looked at a person before and known EXACTLY what their political beliefs will be, what causes they support and what they think about various topics. In today’s climate as ideologies rip through the digital landscape with the virulence of the black plague, it has become easier than ever to spot such archetypes.
But now’s the tricky part. How do you leave enough room in there for them to surprise you? Well, that’s the art of it. As your sensitivity increases, as your skills of observation and discernment sharpen, thus must your social abilities sharpen with them. You need to learn when you can let someone in a little bit, when you must pull back and assert your boundaries, you need to learn how to approach topics with lightness and style, when the person is ready to hear you and when they’re not.
But perhaps most beautifully, you can see the positive change in someone when they make the inner transformation. I knew this lady who was in a dying relationship. I remember chatting to her at an event once and thinking how awful she looked (I know). She was young but she looked pallid, unhealthy, her face was lined, I found it slightly uncomfortable to be around her.
Soon after she broke up with her partner and started dating one of my friends. The change was almost instant. Her skin became more taut, color flushed back into her cheeks, the lines were gone and a kind of soft glow started to emanate from her face. She was happy now, I realized. A burden had lifted from her, she felt free. And it showed.
So I wonder. Do people see it in me when I’m down? Do they see the sag in my skin, the lack of light in my eyes, the dullness of my hair? Does my posture slump, my shoulders roll forward, is my inner state written in the cells of my body? How would I see me in those moments, were I seeing from the viewpoint of another? Would I glean some glimpse of the contents of my heart, based purely on what encased it?
So then too, must the inner light shine when the murky window is scrubbed by good food, good actions, good habits, good thoughts. Just as the body changes through diet and exercise, so too does it change through good choices and good circumstances. If I take the time to be happy, to be grateful and make inspired effort, thus will everything else change.
What would your physiognomy say about you, right now?
I write more on substack: https://substack.com/@nathan21?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=tueto
A New Perspective
Nathan's Writing 