How does recognition condition experience?
As social animals, we naturally need to feel as if we belong to a community, even if that community is as small as a family, group of friends, or group of workmates. Part of what it means to be part of a community is to contribute to the maintenance of the community. Mostly this will mean all members of the community contribute in similar ways (and this is how we achieve the general sense of belonging needed at node C: community). At the same time, we don't enjoy being members of communities where everyone is utterly alike. The dynamism between group members with differences breathes life into the community. So, we desire to be members of groups as individuals, and this means we want part of the contributions that we make to the groups to be contributions that only we can uniquely make. And, just as we enjoy the unique contributions made by others, we want the others to enjoy our unique contributions and value them as important for the group's dynamic. These are the tacit concerns regarding recognition that we all carry with us, whether or not we consciously recognize them.
We begin to recognize them when we encounter people who can't, don't, or won't appreciate what we are uniquely capable of contributing to the relationship. At this point the question regarding recognition becomes explicit, and we can either choose to move on, or we can, by subtle ways, try to encourage the others to recognize us. Part of this will involve becoming better listeners ourselves. If we learn to appreciate others for who they are, they will begin to show more of themselves, and as they do this, they'll allow themselves to be vulnerable and so will be particularly interested in knowing to whom they're allowing themselves to be vulnerable. In this way they might come to appreciate us for who we are. But there are many other and overlapping ways.
In the end, to some extent, we can't fully be who we are unless others see it as well, and we want to be who we are, so we care about recognition.
