Do you know who I am?

We rate each other all the time. The criteria we use is an absolute expression of what we consider important. Thus for many, how much money you have, or earn, is an important measure. The size of your house and newness of your car, where you go on holiday and the shoes on your feet can all be used to place you on a scale. As we do that, we also place ourselves.

There are trickier measures around more subjective things –beauty and creativity, influence, skill. Not all of these things are fixed, either. Most are not. Today I may have less money and a bigger house. Today I may look even worse but have written a very good poem. All too often ‘meeting new people’ seems to be about figuring out what they value and then what we can say about ourselves that will impress them.

I am decidedly guilty of valuing people in this way. I try not to – I come from a folk background where there’s a culture of treating people equally regardless of skill and success. Nonetheless, I’ve struggled to put coherent sentences together on those few occasions when I’ve spoken to Ronald Hutton in person. I fear I would be equally unable to say anything if I found myself in the company of Neil Gaiman, and I was an entirely awed fan-girl when trying to talk to Peter Knight a few years back. Those responses are just as much about the value scale as any other ways of changing how we relate to people because of their perceived worth.

Mostly, no one around us knows who we are, what the best of us is, why we might be entitled to respect. The vast majority of interactions are fleeting and superficial. But we want to be known, to be recognised, valued and respected. The reality is so very different. If I do an event with a few hundred people and a couple of them turn out to have heard of my books and stop to say hi… that’s an epic achievement, in the grand scheme of things. For the majority of people at a gathering, the majority of others have no idea who they are.

We’ve evolved as tribal creatures. Look at herds and packs, and you’ll see complex social interactions where status does matter. Little wonder then that we can be so driven to find our place, and figure out where everyone else is. Our ancestors lived closer together, knew each other in multiple contexts, while we tend to have separate work, family, social, and geographical networks. So the people at work don’t know about your amazing garden, and the people you socialise with don’t know how important your job is, and your family don’t know how valued you are socially, and your neighbours don’t know how much your family depends on you, and so forth. So we get anxious about where we fit, and we respond by putting ever more emphasis on markers of success.

“Do you know who I am?” is the cry of the person who knows full well that the answer is ‘no’.  I wonder whether more recognition, more sense of being known and valued, would reduce our hunger for signs of wealth and importance. If everyone that matters knows you make the best cakes ever… (or whatever it is that you need your tribe to honour) maybe there’s nothing else to prove.