Validation

Earlier this year I attended a social function, which is rather rare for me. As with most social adventures of this nature, attendees came from various levels of coolness/importance in society. When I attend events such as this, I have a tendency to rank  the people in attendance. Here my rankings were based in large measure upon where a given person was sitting and with whom they were seated. The seating was not assigned, but attendees generally placed themselves in a sort of natural hierarchy. Those of larger importance at the party sat closer to the food. Those of lesser importance sat further from the food and also many times had fewer guests at their table.

Part of the way through the event, one of the associates that I attended this event with was invited to move from our table and ascend to a table of higher "rank." The people at this table were more highly regarded by those in attendance than the table I was seated at. The people at this table observed my associate and deemed him worthy to ascend to a higher rank. This was validation.

A person I was sharing my low ranking table with connected this to a parable in Luke 14. I will not fully relate it here, but it speaks of moving from a position of low rank to a position of higher rank at feasts.

Now I was okay with this associate moving up to a higher table, as he usually has zero validation in his life. As my brother and I have said, "Ryan always gets the short end of the stick." I like to think of it as the "bunting game." If you are familiar with baseball, sometimes when a player gets on base, the following batter will lay down a sacrifice bunt to move the base runner into scoring position. There are deeper examples of the bunting game that are topics for another day. (Generally, our success always comes at the expense of someone else. This leads to null/fixed points in topological sociology models. If you have seen A Beautiful Mind, John Nash studies topological sociology).

After this social event with said ascendancies, I began to think about validation. Generally there are four types of validation:

1. Validation we seek and which is appropriate.

2. Validation we seek, but which is not appropriate.

3. Validation we do not seek, but which is appropriate.

4. Validation we do not seek and which is not appropriate.

Here I will define "appropriate" as "validation that promotes a positive and meaningful outcome or existence." I will give examples of these in the following order: 3,2,1,4

My associate Ryan received type 3 validation. He did not seek to move up to a better table, but he was glad to do so.  

Now for #2. When I was a teenager, I was at a formal gathering of sorts. The final person to address us (a woman of about 32 years of age) got up and began her speech with a joke about nuns relieving themselves in a fountain of holy water and a priest drinking it. The joke was inappropriate on multiple levels. (And you know it's bad when a 14 year-old boy recognizes this).  But people laughed. And the joke would not have been funny even if told in a saloon at 2 a.m. Yet somehow people felt obligated to validate the lady for her poorly delivered and inappropriate joke. Type 2 validation.

I think we all get what #1 is talking about. You buy some sort of "cute outfit" and 23 tall dark and handsome men compliment you on it. This is of course an example from the perspective of a girl, albeit an example that probably never happens in real life. Let's face it, most men cannot even remember what they are wearing, let alone deliver a meaningful compliment to a girl on what she is wearing. This is perhaps because most men only know the names of basic items of clothing and stopped learning colors after the first grade. A man might say "Oh, Jennifer, that is a lovely red shirt." But, what the man does not know is that  Jennifer is wearing a "rosso corsa" (that's a color) rujjilerubbledijeridooin, which in some obscure Aborigine dialect  means 'thing made from a squirrel pelt that looks like a shirt, but is in fact also a pair of shoes and a designer Swiss watch that accentuates the eyes.'" This latter example possibly demonstrates #4. Jennifer does not seek validation in regard to her clothing in that manner and the validation was not appropriate.

 I actually have both given and received #4 type validation. I remember one time about 10 years ago when a girl told me she liked my shoes. Trying to be humble (or something), I told her I liked her shoes also. Then I noticed that she was wearing some ratty Reeboks that had probably seen about 20,000 miles. She was not seeking validation for her shoes and my attempt at validation was rather meaningless.

My receipt of #4 type validation occurred once when I was being given a calling at church. I was told that, with my "outgoing personality," I would be a great fit for a certain calling they wanted me to do. The only problem is that I have a corrosive and closed off personality. And admittedly I despise the "social church." So I was validated for being "outgoing," but am in truth about as outgoing as a squirrel pelt. Who knows, maybe they mistook my necktie for a rujjilerubbledijeridooin and thought it meant I actually liked people.



Note: I wrote this in part during a Math 675 seminar while a student was babbling about Puiseux Series Approximations.  Whatever that is. His handwriting was so bad that I could not follow him.