Interesting Fodder

Freedom? What is it good for?

Why is dance beautiful? Answer: because it is unfree motion, because the whole profound meaning of dance lies precisely in absolute, esthetic subordination, in ideal unfreedom. And if it is true that our forebears abandoned themselves to dance at the most exalted moments of their lives (religious mysteries, military parades), it means only one thing: the instinct of unfreedom is organically inherent in man from time immemorial – Yevgeny Zamyatin in We

The quote above is from the book We which is billed as the first future dystopian novel (though there are actually some other contenders).  The book explores the dichotomy between individual and group; at one end extolling the virtue of what it calls anti-freedom and at the other extreme showing the horror of losing one’s individuality.  The question that occurred to me while reading the book was: Is anti-freedom truly the answer to unhappiness as the main character R extols?

Some recent studies have shown a potentially causal relationship between death of brain cells and depression.  This goes a long way to explain not just the debilitating sadness that is the hallmark of depression but to also explain the decreased senses of smell and taste experienced by depressed persons.  When the brain experiences chronic stress, it shuts down trophic factor proteins.  These proteins are responsible for creating new brain cells.  "The mental illness occurs when these stress mechanisms in the brain spiral out of control," says Dr Duman, professor at Yale.  The brain shuts down new cell creation and begins to atrophy. [1]

There is one theory that says our huge array of choices causes our chronic stress.  (I just made myself nauseated squinting through an old list of links to find the psych study suggesting this and didn’t find it – no links for you lovely people today)  Think about this anecdotally:

• How many people do you know who bounce around careers?  One moment they’re in IT; the next year they’re working in forestry.  Are they happy?  Or is the repeated decision making bringing them down?
• How long did it take you to pick a major?  Are you sure it was the right choice?  How much anguish did you go through or are you going through now over that choice?
• What about those people you know in your life who have plans for what they’re going to be doing for the next 10 years?  Are they happier because all of their choices are easily made?

The BBC posted a webpage last week inviting visitors to relate their most expensive mistake:  What is your costliest mistake?  There is a lot of sadness expressed in these entries over wrong choices.  There are quite a few entries of “my first marriage.” If all of those people didn’t have a choice, would they have been so unhappy?  Or would they accept life as it is presented to them?

Love choices seem to exact the highest emotional toll on people.  But the concept of romantic love in Western culture is relatively new.  It wasn’t until the 12^th century in Europe that romantic love was seen as anything other than a weakness and character flaw.  Today, romantic love is the basis of relationships and marriages.  Instead of marrying for compatibility or stability, most marry because they are in love (the exception being those who still have their marriages arranged but these numbers are dwindling).  The choice involved in marriage, therefore, is emotionally trying.

There is more information available now than one person can digest.  Numerous scientific studies exist on health and diet, mental health and happiness.  Imagine, now, a world in which scientific knowledge instead of personal choice governed our lives.  Imagine never feeling regret over doing the wrong thing.  In the book quoted above, We, R sees one of the secret police closely watching him and feels relief - feels that the man is his guardian angel keeping him from doing wrong.

Ten years ago, I took one of those career tests that said I would be good at/happiest doing investigative work.  I actually pursued schooling in Criminal Justice, thinking I would become a detective.  The tech boom happened and I realized I could make more money immediately than I would after 10 years as a detective so I jumped at the chance and quit school. I am currently doing investigative type work after 10 years of bouncing around careers.  Imagine if we lived in a society that had placed me in the correct schooling and career to begin with based on good testing.  (In this instance, the test should have also made note of my love of huge amounts of data and my ability to distinguish differences based on minute details to place me where I am today)

Imagine also a world that makes our marriage choices for us based on what would actually make a good marriage.  Instead of determining when you are ready for children on your own, a system for determining this based on your physical and emotional states.  A society that tested your body and determined the best diet and exercise for you rather than having to chase down studies and books only to test through trial and error.  What about a world that knows when your body and brain are ready for retirement, whether it is sooner or later than others around you.

But who would control the control system?  We’ve already seen the failure of a single-party system.  Our technology is not yet at a level that could handle such a large system of anti-freedom. I guess we'll just have to muddle through, doing the best we can.  Alas.

[1] http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/06/head_fake

Bullies

I didn't realize until I adulthood that my brothers and I had been the bullies of our neighborhood.  Actually, it was when I was retelling the following story that I realized we were bullies. *Some names changed to protect the guilty.

My step-dad built a go-cart for my brothers and me.  It had no motor or anything.  It was wood board with a wood box on the back to support your back and a wooden hand break but no real steering to speak of.  The nice bit was the carpet samples glued down that made it a comfy ride.  It was powered by either pushing or going down the big hill to our neighborhood.  My oldest brother being the king of us all and usually the leader in any of our mischief was the one who got pushed around in it mostly.  The rest of us got to use it sometimes but no one would want to push so we'd mostly just speed downhill.

Well, my brother Bill came up with what I thought was the coolest weapon (at least cooler than the home-made ninja stars we had tried to make).  You took a straw and taped a rubber band halfway up on it.  Insert a shish-kabob stick and use the rubber band to launch it through the straw.  Bill attached one to the hand break of the go-cart.  Yes, not only was the go-cart the coolest thing on the block, it was now armed!

Donna's little sister, Kelly, had a defiant streak in her. Not a good thing to have around the neighborhood bullies. I don't remember what prompted it, but I think she may have been trying to get David to let her on the go-cart.  He threatened her in some way with the shish-kabob launcher and she dared him to shoot her with it, thinking that he wouldn't for fear of getting in trouble.  I guess she didn't know how much our parents didn't care about us kids beating each other up (though we hadn't branched out into beating up neighborhood kids so we had no idea how they'd respond to that).  Bill really wasn't at all worried about using the weapon.

He loaded a wooden shish-kabob stick into the launcher and Kelly just sat there, sure he would stop.  He gave her one more chance; asking "Are you sure?" and raising a single eyebrow which made him look cool and adult-like.  "Yeah!" he said.  He let the stick go.

People talk about time slowing down when something stupid is about to happen but in this instance, it seemed to speed up.  One second the stick was vaulting from its drinking-straw chamber; the next second it had embedded itself into Kelly's forehead.  It stuck out at an angle like a unicorn horn.  It took a second before she realized what had happened and she started to bawl.

It was decided it would be best not to remove the stick, lest there be a serious hole it was plugging up - who knew, her brains might come out!  We sent my youngest brother, Kurt, to walk her home (who Kelly had a crush on anyhow).  Once he was around the corner, about a house away from their house, I became racked with fear that I would never see Donna, my best friend, ever again.  I feared her mom would hate us so much I'd never get to spend time with her.  So I sprinted to catch up.  When I got there, Donna was sitting on the grass with her sister and Jason standing above the both of them.  Kelly was crying into Donna's arms without the stick in her forehead.  Just a tiny red dot where the stick had been (it fell out as she walked home - it hadn't been in nearly as deep as our childish minds led us to believe).

I tried to tell Donna it hadn't been my fault but she just glared at me.  I slouched my way back home, thankful Donna's mom hadn't been home but figuring I'd lost my best friend anyhow.

Donna, Donna, Donna!

When I was a young lass growing up, I lived on the same block as a wonder of a girl, Donna.  She was my best friend in the whole world.  Like all girls we competed with each other - over grades, and skills, though not looks (she won that one hands down).  Our families couldn't have been more different.  Her biological father was always buying her things to make sure she still liked him more than her step-dad.  My bio-dad was not in my life.  She had a single sister and I had three brothers.  I was dirty from all of the rough-housing with my brothers and she always had the best hair and cutest clothes; and she smelled like soap.

In the beginning of our friendship, we spent all of our time together - at school, at home.  I spent the night at her house but she never spent the night at mine.   I learned to play Chinese jump-rope from Donna and the "Miss Susie had a steamboat" rhyme with the appropriately difficult hand clapping gestures that went along with it.

We were never in the same grade class though (there were multiple classes for each grade since we were at a bigger school).  So, when after a while, we stopped seeing each other all that much at school, I thought it was just a coincidence and she was making new friends in her classes.  We still walked home from the bus together. 

One day, I wore this horrible outfit my mother had bought me to school.  I knew it was a mistake the second I showed up to school.  Everyone else looked normal in jeans and t-shirts.  I had on, essentially, a cowgirl outfit. My mom always bought me silly clothes like that and I was socially awkward enough to not notice they weren’t what the other kids were wearing.  The kids made fun of me mercilessly.  I didn't care too much.  Most of them weren't people I even liked.  What killed me, though, was when Donna joined in.  My best friend.  I hid in the bathroom - which was a feat as the teachers would come in all recess long and try to shoo us out.

The following season was the time when little girls gave each other those stupid best friend necklaces.  They were two necklaces with pendants that represented two halves of a heart with one saying "best" and the other one saying "friends".  I saved up two weeks allowance to buy a set for Donna and myself.  I walked to the store that had them early on a Saturday and was back before noon.  I went straight to Donna’s and knocked on the door.  She came out onto the porch to talk to me.  Sitting on the porch with her, I excitedly told her I got us necklaces and reached into my little plastic bag and held them out to her.  I asked her which half she wanted.  She pulled a necklace out from under her t-shirt that was one half of a "best friends" necklace.  I didn't even know the girl she said had the other half. 

My ears filled with the whooshing sound of my own blood.  I couldn't hear much of anything else. The birds and the cars of the busy road behind her house seemed to have been replaced by a white noise - it was like I had shoved cotton in my ears.  I told her I thought we were best friends and she didn't seem to care, just said the other girl asked her first.  I ran home in tears.  I later gave the necklace to someone else who I didn't even like just so I wouldn't be the only one not wearing one. 

Donna and her family moved away to Oregon a year or two after the big quake.  We sent each other a few letters but I had no heart for it.  She finally came to visit and she apologized to me for teasing me with the other kids saying "you just looked so dumb and I didn't want anyone to know I was your friend."  I told her I was a witch and a lesbian and I never heard from her again.