What we need to believe

[A long and winding post bringing together various things drifting around in my head the last few weeks.  If you make it through, you'll probably wish I would go back to my S side!]

 

Breakfast with Pandora's recent post, A would-be myth , reminds me of a blog post that I didn't have a chance to write a few weeks ago.  BwP writes:

…As long as people believe in a loving God, they will never be able to explain the presence of suffering in the world. The situation can be discussed, but it's pretty incomprehensible.

But there are people who try to explain. Such as the TV preacher Pat Robertson, who argues here that the reason the Haitians suffer so much is because they "swore a pact with the devil" and as a result are "cursed."

It's a great story pattern. Sell your soul to the devil, reap the consequences. This is so widespread, it even has its own number in the famous folk tale story-pattern catalog by Aarne and Thompson.

It has been very popular for a long time to claim that suffering is a punishment meted out for sins, often of one's ancestors: "The sour grapes eaten by the fathers set the sons' teeth on edge." Countless cultures swear by it. It is even somewhat logical: if you engage in dangerous and/or destructive behavior, there can be consequences, not only for yourself but for those near you, even your family.

But just because something happens to you doesn't mean you caused it because you or someone else sinned...

BwP does his usual excellent job describing and analyzing the stories we tell ourselves.  But, why do we need these particular ones?

I really should never read the comment sections under news articles.  They often make me mad, and they almost never provide any interesting insights (I still keep hoping, though…).  Locally, there were two recent terrible car/train accidents that have been prominent in the news.  In the comment sections, along with comments expressing sympathy, there are also always harshly judgmental comments about the drivers.  The commenters, of course, say that they would never drive that way and that the drivers are solely to blame. 

True or not, regardless of blame, these comments always make me angry because they show no empathy – no care for the suffering of a fellow person.  Now, I only read the article about Pat Robertson’s comment because I didn’t have the stomach to watch the video where he made it.  He may have shown empathy also in his TV appearance; I don’t know.  However, I can’t picture blaming an earthquake on people, and I certainly can’t picture having so little care for others so as to say that anywhere, much less on national television. 

I went a step further than anger while thinking about the commenters on the train accidents.  Why do these people always crawl out of the woodwork when these things happen?  Why do they have the need to judge and condemn?

I think that it’s at least partly so that they can convince themselves that it won’t happen to them.  They can’t really feel empathy – put themselves in someone else’s place* - because that would make them vulnerable.  If they just believe that they do everything right, they can be confident that things will turn out the right way.**

We all do this in various ways, though, hopefully, not so harshly.  Get the right degree, get the right job, eat the right foods, get the right amount of sleep, etc. etc., and you’ll be fine. 

This belief is quite apparent in raising children.  If we do everything correctly, they’ll turn out okay.  If we come up with just the right birthing plan… if we nurse long enough… if we co-sleep... put them in their own rooms... wear a sling... dine totally organically... put them in the right schools… enroll them in the right after school activities… get them into the right college… they’ll turn out right. 

I did everything I should have when I was pregnant with younger son – exercised (taught aerobics until 7 months), ate correctly, focused on what the doctors told me to do, etc.  Early in the morning of January 10, 1999, we had a group of concerned physicians and nurses huddled around our blue newborn who had an apgar score of 3 (on a scale of 10 for those of you unfamiliar with this system of evaluating newborns) after the emergency c-section.  Apparently, the one thing I did that was wrong was having people with strong habits in his genetic background.  In utero, he turned the same way – over and over.  His umbilical cord was not only twisted up like an old fashioned phone cord, it was also wrapped around his ankle.  Every time I had a contraction, pushing him further, the cord would tighten, and his heart rate would plummet. 

It still gets me – how I tried to do everything right, and something so bizarre happened.  Everything turned out fine, and his apgar score eventually made it to 8.  He’s a healthy eleven year old now.*** 

We have to believe we have more control than we do.  It’s almost impossible to function otherwise.  After my father passed away, I was very aware of the fragility of life.  Though a car accident was not the cause, I found that I could barely make myself buckle my two small children in the car and drive away from the house because I was so aware of the possibility of not coming back.  Eventually, I got past that – you have to.

We watched Amelie recently – an absolutely enchanting film with a very unusual main character.  At one point, she’s waiting to meet someone, and he’s late.  Her reaction is described by the narrator:  

Nino is late. Amelie can only see two explanations. 1 - he didn't get the photo. 2 - before he could assemble it, a gang of bank robbers took him hostage. The cops gave chase. They got away... but he caused a crash. When he came to, he'd lost his memory. An ex-con picked him up, mistook him for a fugitive, and shipped him to Istanbul. There he met some Afghan raiders who too him to steal some Russian warheads. But their truck hit a mine in Tajikistan. He survived, took to the hills, and became a Mujaheddin. Amelie refuses to get upset for a guy who'll eat borscht all his life in a hat like a tea cozy.

It was so good for me to see her conclude this train of thought with something funny because that type of thought (though not the creativity of the story) is quite familiar to me.  As we were discussing the movie, I mentioned this to dear husband, older son, and daughter, and they just looked questioningly at me.  I said that that’s why I like for them to call if they’re going to be late – otherwise my brain can come up with long, involved stories, often ending with their van, upside down in a ditch, with the rain pouring over a slowly turning car wheel lit by the pale moonlight (which doesn't go with the pouring rain, but I didn't say that any of this made sense).  When they realized that that’s what I do naturally (in fact, I have to keep myself busy and work at not letting my thoughts drift that way),**** they said they’d be even more careful about calling. 

BwP started by explaining the common stories we tell ourselves to make sense of tragedies.  That’s perfectly natural, in a way.  People always try to make sense of the world around them.  We also want to believe that it won’t happen to us.  If we can just pin the tragedy on someone’s behavior, then we can escape tragedy by behaving the right way.  It’s a lot easier to pin blame with a car accident or homelessness than it is with an earthquake.  That’s partly why the news article commenters don’t get well known while Pat Robertson’s horrible remark ends up all over the news.***** 

Oh, and I have plenty of these sorts of beliefs (i.e. if you do this, everything will be okay), though I don’t really have enough.  Without those beliefs, you worry and stress too much, which is bad for your health.  My physical therapist comments on how difficult it is to get me to make my muscles relax…

*  Not that empathy helps any in this case.  Having the imagination to, somewhat, picture what it was like being the driver doesn’t do me or anyone else any good. 

 **  I won’t make this post longer than it already is, but I was struck by the same thing regarding an article years ago in the Independent about the homeless (obviously this article really stayed in my mind).  No, these men didn't do everything right, but they tried (to various degrees).  It’s so much easier to believe that the homeless are totally unlike oneself, and that one could never be in that situation – until you read articles about how their lives played out.

*** Though younger son's health has been quirky.  He had febrile seizures.  Our doctor told me they always damaged the brain (wrong).  A few weeks later, our new pediatrician said that kids just get them, and they get over them by about 6 years.  Younger son got sick very easily his first four years.  He’s the only child of ours who has ridden in an ambulance (asthma attack a year ago), the only child who had a reaction to a vaccine (rash and an extremely high fever from the first MMR), and the only one to get the flu (after sleeping for a week with a fever, Mr. Hates-shots now enthusiastically gets his flu vaccinations).  I’m far more thankful for good health now. 

 **** The first time older son went on a drive by himself with his new driver's license, I cleaned out the freezer to keep myself busy and to keep my thoughts from.  Last summer, when daughter drove solo for the first time, I did some intense blog organization.  Everyone is more aware of fragility when their teen drives alone for the first time.  All of a sudden, Nemo’s father looks more familiar and less neurotic.

***** The rest of the reason is that someone has long outstayed his fifteen minutes of fame.

[Totally irrelevant photo of the view from Rough Ridge on Grandfather Mountain (last October)]

 

Comments

[Steve]

So well put... And that thing about homeless people, and thinking their situation is so different that I could never be there - you know I'm quite the opposite, feeling that, but for the slimmest chance, I could be JUST like them, and I picture myself trying to survive on the streets. I feel like EVERYTHING could be taken away any minute. I have a constant low-grade dread about this. I understand how people could start drinking to suppress that feeling. Of course that would be self-fulfilling... That's a significant reason for me to NOT start drinking...