Back in my private practice days, I met a well-known visual artist, who had come in for some medical assistance. He was quite elderly by that time and his cognitive condition tended to make him somewhat taciturn (Latin taciturnus, ‘disposed to be silent’.) By his second visit, I had researched a bit about him and his style of painting, a school of representation known as ‘Magic Realism.’
Magic Realism has been described as ‘what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something too strange to believe’. Related to, but distinct from, Surrealism, it focused on the material object and the actual existence of things in the world, as opposed to the more cerebral, psychological, and subconscious reality of painters such as Salvador Dali. Self-Portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States, 1932, by Frida Kahlo, is a good example, using the Magical Realism technique of juxtaposing unlike objects in an uncanny manner.
In a subsequent conversation, I asked him what that term meant to him. His one-word summary was simple and yet quite profound:
‘Charm.’
From the Latin canere, ‘to sing,’ the word invokes mixed feelings in most of us, especially when applied to those we might consider ‘charming.’ In The Art of Seduction, Robert Greene writes that some people view charmers as slippery and deceitful and don’t appreciate the charmer’s typical self-effacing and pleasing attitude. A lot of psychopaths are very charming people.
However, the act of being ‘charming’ is not an inherently bad thing. Studies show that those individuals considered charming are also almost always thought of as being empathetic (Greek pathos, ‘to suffer’) which makes sense since empathy is based in large part on finding some degree of similarity (Latin semol, ‘together’) between oneself and another. In the distant past being charming would have made you politique, such as the ‘merciful men’ during the religious wars of the times, who were more tolerant of other doctrines and theologies than the heightened emotions of the era.
The Aikido master George Leonard once told a story of how during the question and answer session that followed one of his lectures, he was forced to wait until an audience member could finish what Leonard already knew was a ‘gotcha’ question from the multiple times it had already been asked. Not angry at the questioner or the question, he became sad thinking about the time he was losing waiting until the interlocuter (Latin interlocut, ‘to interrupt’) could finish his diatribe, so Leonard could dispense with him the way he’d done to others.
As he waited, he began to think of the aikido technique of tenkan, a technique involving ‘entering’ the space of your opponent, then pivoting from a face-to-face stance to one where they are standing side by side with you. At that point, Leonard changed his entire approach, and instead of demolishing the skeptic he simply sought out elements in his argument they could both agree upon. Both facing the same direction, they could each see what the other was seeing.
To the outside world, they were partners rather than opponents. The beauty of it all is that only one has to move for things to change for both.
Like Magic Realism, charm helps to suspend disbelief, allowing even fantastical elements to coexist with reality in a way that feels natural, which often treats magic as an ordinary part of life. The biggest misconception about snake charming is that snakes are charmed by the music itself. They are responding to vibrations and visual cues, not the melody. But the music is quite hypnotic to us.
Similarity doesn’t even have to be something deep or serious to have profound effects, and it is extraordinarily powerful when it comes to bonding. Seeking it in others often just involves a bit of small talk, something, despite my introverted nature, I am rather good at, since I typically carry a large amount of arcane, obscure, often pointless, facts in my head.
Effective small talk helped tremendously in the care of my patients. But you have to be genuinely interested in people by nature since fake interest or insincere empathy is very easy to detect. A clear sign that there is authentic similarity, such as with a shared interest, is a burst of enthusiasm and excitement (Latin excitare, ‘to summon forth’). Getting to know the who patient was at least as important as getting to know why they were in my exam room, and I suppose the same was true of me as well: who was I and why was I here?
This ‘principle of disclosure’ was one of the key concepts I always pressed upon my students, which I paraphrased in pseudo-Victorian terms as remember to always show a little ankle.
Lately, I have for the first time in my life been spending time on the other side of the doctor-patient relationship, interacting with people, many for the first time. Almost all of them are wonderfully correct, pleasant, and professional, which says a lot about the changes in healthcare customer service. Most seem to enjoy their job, whether or not they happen to have a moment of similarity with the client they are working with.
But I’ve also found that a moment of similarity can make the encounter so much better. I know this to be true because there’s always that moment of enthusiasm and excitement when we recognize each other on the subsequent visits.