For my “post,” this week I’d like to wish everyone a merry Christmas. I hope you have a great holidays, no matter how or which ones you celebrate.
Merry Christmas
Author: ethnodat
Our City Is a Womb (A Short Story)
What even is this place? I sit drinking my glass of wine on the edge of my window overlooking the drop-off. Before me is a vast forest, and in the horizon, I can make out the nearest city. It looks like another big blob in the sky. Tons of houses facing the edge of a human-made cliff, just like mine.
Our city is a womb. Are we a society that never truly left its home? We are too afraid of what our people did to the world when we did venture out. Maybe it’s better to stay inside.
This endless forest, this is what we created. I can see the trees swaying in the wind. I am a little too high up to see the forest floor, but I see the occasional perched bird in the trees fly away. The forest looks green. I still remember when the trees were an unholy orange. It took us decades to grow it back, and if staying inside the confines of the city is what is necessary to keep safe, then so be it.
I am old, though, so this is much easier for me to say. The youth are the ones who want to venture back out. They feel confined by the city. Yes, we have paths leading to the other cities, but these are not enough. They yearn to explore the world of the trees, birds, and mountains. I can’t blame them. I lived in a time when this was common. I wish we could venture back out without creating the same problems we did before.
They will send scientists and filmmakers into the world, trained in how to leave no trace in the wilderness to take videos and pictures. Our city consumes clips of strange animals and majestic landscapes with the same carnivorous energy we once hunted each other with. Many youth want to be on their crew of adventurers, but only a handful get selected. They become the new celebrities in our cloistered world.
I wish there was a way to send more out without creating the same consumptive craving that plagued humanity for centuries. The Council seems skeptical. Being older, like me, they all saw the perils humanity could unleash. They treat them like a fallen piece of wood to be rehammered back into place. That isn’t fair to them. They are just curious and want adventure. Every generation is like that when they are young. They see beauty and want to live in it up-close. If only we could.
I take another sip of wine.
Haikus as a Three Line Story Part 4: Blurring the Distinction between the Lines
This is the fourth and final chapter in a four part series about my friend and my experience writing a haiku a day for six years. In each part, I outline a different type of haiku we often write. Other parts of the series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
In all the previous types I have discussed, each line is a single, unique thought, but we also wrote haikus that blur the distinction between lines. Here thoughts, phrases, or even words straddle multiple lines. This often gives the haikus a distinct cadence or rhythm, as if the previous line falls or bleeds into the next line.
My words keep hyphen-
Ating. My eyes always dash-
Ing to the next line.
(This poem is about blurring the distinction between lines, intentionally hyphenating between lines. The “ing” verbs give it a feel of rushing around the corner at each line break.)
The moon shed tears of
Happiness. Hours to her-
Self in seclusion
(In this poem, breaking the word “herself” allows the read to simultaneously think about the phrases, “Hours to herself in seclusion”, “Hours to her”, and “Self in seclusion”.)
Swelling patrio-
Tism and pride: cancer in our
Body politic
*In this one, the sudden shift mid-word to the second line helps represent the disorientation when thinking about patriotism in our country.)
Considering the
Strange world we live in, why choose
To stay in one place?
(Originally published here. Here, the phrases in the sentence jump between lines, representing the desire to travel.)
Conclusion
There are many, many more ways to use a three-line haiku structure to tell a story. The four types of haikus discussed over this series are only some of the styles of haikus we have written over the years, but they give a sense of the complexity and adaptability this form can have. Three lines may seem simple, but there are a lot of options.
Haikus as a Three Line Story 3: Connections, Juxtapositions, and Non-Sequiturs
This is the third chapter in a four part series about my friend and my experience writing a haiku a day for six years. In each part, I outline a different type of haiku we often write. Other parts of the series: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 4.
Sometimes we combined several unconnected ideas. Maybe, we drew some kind of parallel or or juxtaposition like some traditional Japanese haikus. Other times, we intentionally merged unrelated ideas to create non-sequiturs. I often even took three phrases from books, articles, ads, or other poems and put them together to see what kind of poem would emerge.
Here are a few examples of each:
Connections and Juxtapositions
Tick tock of the clock
With the faint trickle underneath
Of a gushing stream
(Originally published here. This juxtaposes the noises from the clock and the stream. It was a reference to the noises I heard when visiting a clock store next to a stream in Kyoto, Japan.)
The Hermit
To stand here alone
In the desert that’s my life
In search of a path
(This one establishes a connection between the hermit’s life and the narrator’s life.)
I’m like a glacier:
Slow-moving til you get to
My ice-cracking tip.
(Originally published here.)
The cold wind howls
Blowing leaves off the trees, that
Are my inner soul.
(These use a direct simile, metaphor, or analogy to make its comparison.)
Setting up a Premise
The first line of these haikus establish a premise that the final two lines then define or in some way comment on, another strategy to connect thoughts together:
Joys of sleeplessness:
You get to marinate in
Every useless thought
Shores of Babylon:
While the just weep for Zion
I’m finally home.
Conjure the devil:
You better know what you want
He certainly won’t
Tragedy of life:
Everyone is fighting for
What they think is right.
Non-Sequiturs
I frequently cobbled together interesting five and seven syllable phrases from newspaper articles, billboard ads, books, etc. to see what kind of narratives or meanings would emerge by putting them together into a poem. Normally, when writing a haiku, we have a feeling, idea, or narrative that we are trying to convey, and we figure out how to mold that into the haiku’s stringent “requirements.”
But sometimes, I enjoyed turning that process inside out. I would start with words themselves and see what kinds of meanings could emerge from putting them together in different and interesting ways.
Do more than see. Seek.
The assent to the finite.
Desire to create.
The hustle is real
You will need experience
Ride for free after
(This second one is originally published here. I pulled each line of these haikus from ads I saw on billboards around town. To me, they represent the artificial, consumerist language common in the ads that bombard our daily lives.)
Desire to create
Nothing mattered except life
Self-interest undermines
The forgotten fire
Took almost nothing along
The road not taken
Hello to radiant
You could be solowaving
Get your FYP
(This final one is originally published here. These next two are compilations of phrases from articles and books to see what new narratives emerge when taken out of their original context and put together in this order as a haiku like this.)
Ineffableness
Immeasurability
Deification
(Another form of non-sequitur: three words, two five syllables long and one seven syllables long. I put them together into a haiku poem to see what kinds of narratives emerged in that process.)
Haikus as a Three Line Story Part 2: Twists
This is the second chapter in a four part series about my friend and my experience writing a haiku a day for six years. In each part, I outline a different type of haiku we often write. Other parts of the series: Part 1, Part 3, and Part 4.
The first two lines of these haikus set up an initial pattern and the final line breaks this pattern. This follows the broad Rule of Threes, a common technique used for jokes among many other forms of writing.”My three favorite things are breakfast burritos, listening to vinyl records, and getting a call from a number you don’t recognize.” This last one completely breaks the pattern established by the first two. The twist at the end could be funny, ironic, express the depth of an emotion, or have all sorts of other effects.
Here are a few examples of the types of effects we have used twists for:
For Humor
Cherry blossoms bloom.
Pink pedals cover the ground,
And sneeze out my nose
(In this one, the two lines establish the beautiful cherry blossoms, recalling traditional Japanese haikus, but the final line breaks that poetic pattern completely. On the block in Brooklyn where I lived, people planted cherry blossoms. When they bloomed in the spring they were gorgeous, but they also caused me horrible allergies. This poem describes the contrast of loving to see the flowers but at the same time, being made sick by them.)
Let us venture forth.
Hoist the anchor. Sail into
Abysmal failure.
(The first two lines invite the reader to join the narrator on an adventure with an implied hopeful energy, but the twist at the end negates that. Is the narrator pessimistic about the trip or just prefers to head straight into failure? That’s up to interpretation.)
Rugged pointillism
Imprinted onto my feet.
I must sweep my floor
(In this one, each line adds new meaning to the poem significantly building its meaning. The first line establishes that the poem is about abstract art. The second line puzzlingly indicates that it’s on my feet, and the third line explains what happened: I must sweep my floor because it’s so dirty that it’s caused dirty impressions on the soles of my feet.
For Contemplation
After finally
Catching you here in my trap,
Why do I feel bad?
(The first two lines establish a kind of glee in the victory of catching someone in their trap, but the final line twists this, showing that the narrator finally caught the reader, they feel guilty instead of victorious.)
To have faith is to
Live in the constant fear
That you will lose it.
(Originally published here. The twist at the end establishes a key characteristic of faith: that it is built on its opposite fear that one would lose that faith.)
Healing emulates
Even from what might be the
Most painful venom
(Originally published here. The twist at the end is that venom of all things is the source from which the healing emulates from.)
Haikus as a Three Line Story: One Way to Write a Haiku (Part 1 of a New Series)
This is the first chapter in a four part series about my friend and my experience writing a haiku a day for six years. In each part, I outline a different type of haiku we often write. Other parts of the series: Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
As I have already discussed in a previous article [], my friend and I have written a haiku a day for the last six years. This has been an incredibly transformative experience, and here I will focus on how we use the haiku format to tell stories.
At the end of the day, haikus are a way to use three lines to tell a story. Each new line provides an opportunity to transform the previous line, whether that be a twist or punchline breaking an already established pattern, continuation or intensification of the theme in the previous line, or something else entirely. At the same time, different haikus emphasize the first, second, or third line as the most important line in that story. The opportunities are truly endless.
Over the next few articles, I will discuss different forms of stories we might tell. This article will start with telling a story through the continued revelation of a theme.
Haiku Type 1: Continued Revelation of a Theme
The most obvious style or narrative to tell in a three-line haiku is one of continuation: introduce the theme in the first line and in each subsequent line reveal further details to make the theme clearer. This forms the most basic or bedrock version of a haiku that you compare the other styles against.
Sometimes, the new lines can further reveal the details of the theme or topic being explored. For example, the later lines could abstract the tangible observation in the first line. If the first line is itself abstract, later lines might instead provide specific examples or imagery of that theme. Or, it could provide the context in which the writer (or at least the narrator) was thinking of the items established in the first two lines. Here are a few examples of each:
Going from detailed to Abstract
The lone seagull fades
Into the vast thundercloud’s
Forceful harmony
(Originally published here. These first two lines provide specific imagery, and the final line connects the seagull’s moment with the concept of harmony.)
This winding dirt road
What wonders I must go see
To explore the world
(Originally published here. The first line starts with a vivid image of being on a road, and the second two lines connect it to a theme of exploration.)
All this background noise
Droning all around to sell
Yet another myth
(The second line provides more context for the scene, establishing that the noise is caused by sellers, and the third line connects the theme to the abstract idea advertisement as a form of mythmaking.)
New job, new projects
New toolkits, new people with
New idols they serve
(As a list poem, the final line is a continuation of items on the list, but it also establishes and summarizes the poem’s theme of work as a form of idolatry.)
Drop the heavy box
Shards of glass fly everywhere
Hope is laid to rest.
(The first two lines describe a moment, and the final line connects that imagery to broken hope. This summarizes the key theme of the poem.)
From Abstract to Specific Examples
In this type of poem, the final lines that provide specific examples or imagery of an already abstract initial lines:
I lie in the shade
Of your blistering haiku
No rest from the heat
(Originally published here. This haiku’s final line concludes with a new piece of imagery; this time about the feeling of heat.)
Always bursting through
The cracks of your perspective,
The light will shine through
(Originally published here. The second two lines add visual imagery of what is bursting through from the first line.)
My thoughts could kill me:
The sea of despair tugs me;
They hold me under…
(This final line concludes with the vivid image of despairing thoughts drowning the narrator.)
Emotional case
But I can’t talk about it
A weight inside me
(Originally published here. This final line also concludes with what it feels like to have such intense emotions that one cannot talk about.)
Reflecting on the Experience
In these poems, the later lines that provides the context in which the narrator or author is thinking about the earlier lines:
The half moon window
Betrays the glow of night sky
Comforting my thoughts.
(Here the final line shows the narrator’s perspective on and relationship with the moon they have been looking at.)
A blink of an eye
Everything can change so fast
For the good or bad
(In the final line, the narrator evaluates their stance on the sudden change described in the first two lines.)
Joys of sleeplessness:
You get to marinate in
Every useless thought
(The final two lines demonstrate the narrator’s stance on sleeplessness.)
These are all different techniques where the final lines continue to reveal the theme of the first line or lines, whether that be by broadening or abstracting the theme, narrowing it, providing rich imagery, or providing a type of reflection.
What My Friend and I Have Learned Writing a Haiku a Day for the Last Six Years
Six years ago, my friend and I started writing a haiku a day. We wanted to practice the muscle of writing, and a short poem like a haiku was something we could feasibly do once a day: it really only takes a minute or two to write out a haiku. Little did we know how much this would transform our writing and become one of the most useful meditative habits we did in our lives. We would recommend anyone interested do the same.
We’ve done it for many years. I almost think of us as having different eras. Over the months and years, we each focused on different things or tried different styles. Looking back, it feels like looking through the photo album of different eras in our lives. Here are some the major lessons we learned writing a haiku a day:
How to Write Succinctly
Writing haikus forced us to write succinctly. Haikus are short. They forced us to compress complex points and stories into only a few words and syllables. In the classic form, you have three lines and 19 syllables to get all my thoughts down. An idea or impression that might normally take me one or two paragraphs to describe, we must whittle down into only a few words. So the crucial question becomes, what about our message is most important and how to get that across as succinctly as possible?
Notice the Simple Moments of Life
It also helped us see the world anew. It became a way to notice the little experiences in life that glide by during the day. We would have to pause to reflect on them long enough to form them into a coherent poem. Traditionally, Japanese haiku writers wrote about the subtleties of nature. We did not always do that, but writing haikus still forced us to reflect on the subtle, little moments in life that we normally regulate to the background. A quirky social moment that passed as quickly as it came, a short fleeting feeling that one has before getting up to do something else, etc. We both often live with our head in the clouds, so being in the moment had a meditative effect on us.
How to Be Disciplined about Writing
Writing is a discipline, and like any discipline, practice is the best way to get better. Practicing writing, even if only through a little haiku, we noticed our writing improving significantly over the years. We not only improved our ability to write haikus but also in other forms of poetry and in other forms of writing. Stories, essays, even emails at work, these all got easier and better.
How to Build Other Habits
We wrote a haiku every single day. Our fun days, our awful days when some crisis happens, a day we’re busy at work, it doesn’t matter. We wrote a haiku on that day. This took discipline to do and taught us how to build other habits. I found the best way to build habits personally is to do it a little every day, and the best way to do something every day is to set aside a consistent time in the rhythm of my day to do it. New jobs, the pandemic, traveling the world, and other major life changes might completely change my daily rhythm, but no matter what schedule I had, I would make sure I found time to write a haiku.
Creativity Is Contagious
I noticed that nothing inspired me to write haikus than writing haikus. Especially on a long walk or even a long flight, my mind would wander and think about a nice haiku. This would inspire me to think up even more haikus, sometimes on the same theme, sometimes completely different. This would spur me to write even more haikus, and in a few minutes, I might write several dozen haikus before my inspiration slowed back down. These led to some of my favorite pieces.
Creativity energy is contagious like this. Creating catalyzes more creativity. When I had ideas, I would come up with more, or when I heard my friend’s creative ideas, it would spur more. Being in spaces full of creative energy is most important to creating. This includes being around other creatives but also open spaces where my mind can wander like a long walk, drive, or bike ride through the city.
Helping Ensure People Have a Positive, Non-Judgmental Experience Is the Essential to Whether They Enjoy Creative Writing
I also introduced other haiku activities with many other friends, and I have learned how essential a positive, welcoming environment is to people’s relationship with writing haikus. How much someone enjoys writing a haiku is based pretty much entirely on how validated they feel that their haikus are.
For example, I created a game called “Apples to Haiku”, a variant of the “Apples to Apples” but with haikus. A judge comes up with a topic for a haiku. Everyone else writes a haiku based on that topic, and the judge determines their favorite one. This game can be fun, but something about the game mechanic seems to lead to a few players’ haikus getting routinely chosen and others’ almost never chosen. The former people love the game and often grow to really enjoy writing haikus; whereas, the latter usually hate it and grow to dislike haiku writing. They will almost always be the first to give up on the idea of writing a haiku, internalizing the idea that they are “bad” at it.
Overall, when writing haikus, the external validation of one’s work seems to be the most significant factor in whether they like or dislike the activity. People seem to look to others, especially in the early stages of starting to write haikus, to determine whether they are “any good at them” and use that to construct their self-image of the activity. Thus, I stopped playing competitive haiku games like Apples to Haiku but would focus on cooperative or affirming haiku activities where everyone wrote haikus together, building off each other’s ideas. My cooperative favorite haiku game of one where one person writes the first line of haiku, the next person creates the second line, and so on (hundreds of years ago, Japanese aristocrats may have played a much more specific version of this, but as far as I can tell, their version was competitive). This is positive and affirming, where “the game” is to figure out how to form an interesting haiku together. This leaves people feeling inspired rather than discouraged.
Seeing the Contours of Our Lives
Finally, looking back at our haikus makes me reminisce about our lives over the last several years, kind of like looking through a photo album. Different major life events came and went: the highs of starting a new relationship, then the lows of the breakup, or the promise of a new job slowly turning into the slog we hate, etc. All reflected in the tone of our haikus.
Our approach to writing haikus also fluctuated over time. We might have a few months where one of us really enjoyed a certain style of haiku. For example, my friend went through a phase where each day, he would pick a tarot card, look at the image drawn on it, and write a piece based on it. This gave him inspiration for a couple months.
I went through a phase where I would assemble interesting five and seven syllable phrases from articles, titles of books, or even advertisements I saw during my daily commute into a haiku. I went through another phase where I read poets from around the world (ranging from classical Chinese poets to Syrian modernists to traditional Japanese haikus) and took specific lines in these poems that stood out to me and wrote haikus based on them in my own perspective and style. I even had a programming phase where I wrote poems in a programming language like Python or Java.
Conclusion
Writing daily haikus has been transformative for both of us, and I would recommend any reader try it. It’s not that hard once you get the hang of it. Now, after doing it for many years, we have realized how what we got out of it changed over the years. We made it our own in surprisingly different ways during different times in our lives and strongly recommend anyone develop their own ways to do it. You’ll never know where it will take you.
(Interested in reading the haikus, many of them are here. In my next post, I also plan to go through a number of haiku examples over the years, so you can also stay on the lookout for that.)
Ghosts at the Window (Short Story)
As she was drifting off to sleep, she heard the tap on her window. It jolted her awake. At first she thought it was just a tree swaying against the glass, but then she realized, “No, someone was tapping on her window.”
She knew not to look. The ghost is looking for a soul. If she gets up to examine what it is, it’ll know she was there. The best thing to do is to lay still. Not to even open her eyes. If she could lie perfectly still, it would be able to tell there was a living person in this room.
Tap tap tap. Why did it stay here so long? She remembered. The last resident of this home was fascinated with the world of the ghosts and would talk with them, until eventually getting sucked into their realm forever more. The ghost must have frequently come to visit her at night.
The ghost let out a moan sounding just like the howling wind. It was calling for her friend. The ghost must have done this every night since she left. Did it not know that she was in her world now? Why was it looking for her here? Maybe it was returning to this familiar spot, hoping that she could find another participant there to hang out with.
If so, what was the ghost like as a companion? Some learned a lot from the ghosts, reporting that the ghosts gave them a different perspective on the cosmos around them. Others grew paler and paler from the encounters until they too roamed the streets at night looking for new souls.
She did not care to learn about these ghosts. It was too risky. Instead, she lied there with her eyes closed as other worlds knocked on her window, hoping it would all go away soon.
The Rabbit amidst the Flood (A Short Story)
I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. (Genesis 6:17, NIV Translation)
“We aren’t enough,” the rabbit cried to the others. They all looked equally perplexed and hurt.
“But why?” One stammered.
“I don’t know. God wants to do us all over again. That’s what he said. I was there when he spoke to the human.”
“But how would he expect to do that?”
“A giant flood.”
The statement washed over them. No one knew what to say. The rabbit sat there, but he could tell they couldn’t handle his presence anymore, so he left.
He stared out into the great vast night thinking about what would happen. Was God really going to drown them all? Did he do something wrong to deserve this? Was he or those he loved really so bad to deserve this?
God had said this newest species, the humans, had done something wrong, and he now regretted making them and all the other animals. But why single out all other animals as well? God couldn’t have been giving the whole story to this human. Maybe God only mentioned human wrongdoing to this human. The animals must have been something bad to get lumped in with the humans like this, and that was what he was going to find out.
Over the next several days, the rabbits spread the message of doom among the other animals.
The rabbit tried to work with the other creatures to form an action plan, but at first, the other animals just freaked out. They tried to think of as many ways as they could to pacify the deity and to convince him that their lives were worth continuing. They built altars to self-conflagrate, hoping this would appease God. Some even offered themselves to be sacrificed on the hope that their deaths might save all the other creatures.
Others turned to asceticism, convinced that we all must be too involved in the pleasures of the world. That must be why God is doing this. If they denied these to themselves, they thought they could save themselves or maybe even all the creatures of the world. Some predators even renounced eating their fellow animals entirely, until they withered nearly to the point of starvation.
God remained silent, never seeming to budge or care about how these animals harmed themselves on his behalf, but the rabbit could not get them to sit down and listen. So, he decided he needed to move on.
He went to the ocean, maybe the creatures of the sea had ideas on what to do. He sat at the edge of the water, striking up a conversation with a few sharks. As the rabbit asked for advice, they just laughed.
“There’s nothing you can do,” one shouted back. “Whatever you did wrong; you must accept your fate. Soon enough we will feast on the bounty of your corpses.”
He couldn’t get anything useful from them. The lucky freaks were immune, which they had come to see as a type of ordained privilege, as if they deserved to survive unlike these damned landed creatures. The fish did not see their land as kin but simply as an upcoming harvest.
These fish had given him an idea. They felt fine because they did not think they would be hurt by the danger. With proper hope for survival, his fellow landed creatures would be able to keep going. As a community, if they worked together, they might be able to influence the mind of God.
When he returned to his neighborhood, things had changed drastically. Anger had swept the terrestrial creatures. How could this god smite them for the evil the humans had done? They had each found their own way to curse God and die. Some retreated to their own worlds, where they could be by themselves. Even creatures that usually lived in flocks turned on each other and left for their own wildness.
Others sought to destroy the world around them. It was all going to wash away anyways. Who cares? They attacked other animals without thought or concern, seeming to revel in destruction. A few channeled their anger at the human building the ark, attacking him, his family, and the ark itself. He and his family were always able to hunt down the creatures that went after them, though, like God was protecting them.
Evidently, the other humans did not believe him about what God had said and criticized him for building the ark, but these animals strategically attacking him seemed to convince them that some unforeseen divine initiative was afoot. He thought some supernatural beings were sending him waves of animals to try to prevent him from fulfilling God’s command. This caused the humans to leave him alone and let him face his fate with the divine alone. For them, the gods must be having an argument, and they would wait to decide which side won.
The rabbit developed the idea to try to build his own ark. He organized a group of creatures with different sizes and skills, and they started by watching the human see how to build one. But they were never able to replicate his tools. They had no thumbs to hammer or even form the hammers and nails in the first place.
What they constructed never got off the ground. He could only compare his failure with the providential success of the man’s even more massive boat. He slowly realized all hope was lost. He was going to die. This God had decided to kill them, and there was nothing they could do about it. And for what? For the evils of some humans beyond their control. He really hated these humans.
He sunk into his burrow refusing comfort. As his daughter, I tried to get food for him to keep him going, but there seemed little point. He had already accepted that he was going to die, and nothing would change his mind.
In the process of finding food, the ark-building human found me. I had been chosen, as one of only two rabbits to survive on his boat. I desperately wanted to be with my father, but I guess I had another calling. God himself seemed to pick me, because no matter how much I tried to escape to see my father in his last moments, I could not.
As the waters engulfed the earth and we remained in our protective kiln of ark, I looked at the darkening world. As the waters rose, I could see my father salvaging the last bits of his makeshift boat, trying to keep his raft together on top of the coming storm, only for one extra-large wave to sink him into the depths.
This is the story I tell to you my children. Tell the story of your Great Rabbit Father. Remember the loss that God wrought onto us animals because of the humans. Trust no one. Humanity and their God least of all. Once we hopped in pride, but we must be vigilant. The world is dark and horrifying, and all we can do is try our best to survive.
Seeing People’s Inner Child: De-escalating Adult Conflicts by Addressing Unmet Needs
Many adults still act like children. Some routinely; others only on their bad days. When you see someone lashing out impulsively or defensively when they argue with you, it can be helpful to step back and see their inner child to put their behavior into perspective.
This is not the same as agreeing with them: they still may be wrong. But seeing their tantruming inner child can help you understand what needs they feel are not being met and are causing them to lash out. This can be something you address directly. Figuring out a workable way to acknowledge and maybe address that need within the bounds of your own goals can be a practical way to get through the moment, especially when they are in a position of authority over you. This usually slows them down and helps deescalate the situation.
At the very least, it can help empathize with them. Empathizing is not the same as agreeing, nor is it the same as allowing or enabling any inappropriate behavior they may be doing. It is understanding their behavior enough to see the human inside, often a series of needs screaming to be heard, and confronting it directly. Even if your empathy is not safe to show in the moment or if they reject your empathy, empathetically acknowledging the feelings of another is about maintaining your own humanity and not allowing another’s behavior to curb your ability to acknowledge and address the humanity of others around you.
So, how can this help you respond? Others have spoken at length about how to use understanding to negotiate and reduce conflict (see this for example). One can use empathy to diffuse a situation by acknowledging their side, to demonstrate mutual self-respect, or if necessary, to set proper boundaries for one’s own needs.
Pausing to reflect on the needs the other has can help remove you from the intensity of the situation, which would help you form the nuanced response necessary. It can allow you to understand not only their needs, but your needs and develop an effective strategy for how to meet those needs in the moment. Often, when someone seems to come after us, our bodies move immediately into a reactive, defensive response. The perceived threat puts us into “go mode” and taking an extra second to understand empathetically gives us the space to pull back, assess the situation anew, and use both our emotions and reason to develop a better, strategic response.
Instead of launching, you pause and force yourself to think about it from their perspective, sometimes you realize aspects of your behavior that you do need to address. Worst case scenario, after you reflect for a bit, you still conclude that you are wrong, and in that situation, taking a step back allows you to help confirm that, and you are now in a better mental space to respond appropriately.