On Unavoidable Uncertainty
Why It’s Impossible To Be Certain Of Our Motivations
It’s 3 AM, and my brain has ‘forced’ me to get out of bed to write (or at least start) this essay. Earlier today, I posted a comment about a video of a dog who was thriving, despite having both of his hind legs amputated. The video showed him happily trotting along a road.
My ‘message’ was that some of my other posts/comments sounded like ‘poor, poor, pitiful me’ crap, but they were nothing of the sort. And the resilient pup was demonstrating the point I often try to make; ‘privilege’ or ‘comfort’ are not all they’re cracked up to be.
Tonight, I began by remembering a student I had in my self-contained SPED classroom for students who were officially labeled as ‘emotionally disturbed.’ That story is worth another essay. Short version: I, as a neophyte SPED teacher, stumbled on the root cause of one of my student’s ‘disturbances,’ something all the other experienced experts in the district had missed. But I digress.
From there, I recalled a story I recently posted on FB about a man who helped out a stranger, a guy he found lying on the pavement in 100 degree heat at a bus stop. I won’t repeat the details, but the ‘man’ who helped was me. And here’s what got me out of bed. I lied about who the helper was because I wasn’t 100% sure that saying it was me would mean I was patting myself on the back for what a wonderful person I am.
We have all read stories about famous people doing incredibly wonderful things for folks but not tooting their own horns. Keanu Reeves, Jon Bon Jovi, Dolly Parton, Shaq, and many others. And when we read about what they are doing or have done, we are as impressed by the anonymity as we are by the acts themselves.
But wait. Can they be 100% certain that their motivations were as pure as they seem? They know they’re famous. They know people pay attention to what they do. So is there at least a tiny part of them that knows and is happy that someone will tell the story?
I don’t ask the question to diminish what they have done. I ask the question to show how our society always introduces that kind of doubt. On one level, it doesn’t matter. Why shouldn’t we want to be recognized for our good deeds? But on another level, the judgmental level on which we are involuntarily thrust every day, it has to at least cause a twinge of doubt.
That’s not a bad thing, but I believe it’s always better to be as clear as we can be, even though that clarity shouldn’t stop us from acting. The help given is real and makes a difference; in some cases between life and death. But there is a flip side to the issue.
Jean and I are watching a Netflix series, ‘Pulse,’ about the ‘office politics’ in a crisis ward of a hospital involving the choice of its next Chief Resident. The overlapping conflicts, confusion, and motivations are mind boggling and worse than any similar situation I have experienced, and I was caught up in several during my career in education.
In the middle of all the mayhem, the Director, who often seems officious, shows incredible empathy for a patient who has destroyed the two lungs she received by continuing to smoke, an ‘offense’ the story’s protagonist finds hard to ‘forgive.’ Her bedside manner stunned both Jean and me.
Her message to the protagonist, a leading candidate for the Chief Resident position, was simple. The people who come into their unit are experiencing what is probably the worst day of their lives, a day they never saw coming. So yes, the woman was ‘wrong,’ ‘foolish,’ whatever, but holding that against her wasn’t going to resurrect the destroyed lungs. She ended with, ‘Our job is to make people feel better.’
And so, as we look around us during these stressful times, and we see plenty of folks who seem oblivious to the dangers we face, who does it help to shame them. There was a final twist to the director’s admonition. The resident has a father who also ignores medical advice and doesn’t take kindly to being scolded or even urged to follow prescribed behaviors by his daughters, both doctors.
So was her knee-jerk reaction to the patient not being able to quit smoking provoked by her battles with her dad? Likewise, are our negative reactions to equally ‘bad’ behaviors from our fellow citizens brought on by general frustrations we have?
My feelings of being powerless to help change a situation undoubtedly fuel my anger and frustration. It’s not just the situation itself. Let’s be honest. I can’t even begin to truly feel the anguish of the Palestinians in Gaza or the people whose houses are being stormed by ICE agents.
When my pulse rate goes up thinking about such atrocities, that can only be caused by the powerlessness I feel, and I hope I never have to experience either of those realities. However, I think it’s important to acknowledge the difference. Not doing so unintentionally diminishes or misidentifies the tragedies being played out.
Pretending to ‘understand’ is not empathy. (Of course, if one has had a similar experience, some true understanding is likely.) When possible, being a quiet source of support - emotional, physical, financial, medical, whatever - is. Choosing the latter approach brings one closer to exhibiting the pure, selfless motivation we all seek.
11:00 AM - I asked my editor/wife to read the above. She thought the essay would flow better if I moved the two paragraphs about my SPED student and the man at the bus stop after my comments about famous people. She also pointed out that putting myself ‘ahead’ of those folks was, in itself, an example of patting myself on the back.
Since moving them would have involved other changes beyond my capacity to do smoothly, I decided to add this addendum, instead. We laughed about how her suggestion was an illustration of the very uncertainty the essay discussed.
Finally, I even mentioned to her that my 3:30 AM brain, when thinking of famous people to list, came up with two White men, a White woman, and one Black man, and only using Mr. O’Neal’s first name.
There you have it. So in the midst of all the shite going on in both my personal and the greater world, the advice I will try to follow comes from the Director: “Our job is to make people feel better.” I urge you to do the same. Peace.