When I first started work in my department, there was a secretary who worked with us briefly who had a boat. She wanted us all to come on board for a "cruise". The boat was big, but not big enough for all of the faculty and their spouses. So there were two cruises, on successive Saturdays. The first cruise included all of the "cool" faculty and I, of course, was on the second cruise. This wouldn't have been a big deal; I was, after all, a newby, except that my friend, who was hired at the same time that I was, went on the cool cruise.
How many times does this happen across the course of our lives? How many times are we picked last for the athletic team, or left off the invitation list to a party that we really want to go to? And what is the impact on us of that? Last night I had a dream that jolted me awake. I wasn't quite sure why I was awake and was concerned that I would not be able to get back to sleep - that I was disturbed by something I couldn't quite name. I searched around in my memory and discovered the dream.
In the dream, I was at a gathering of "the best and the brightest". One of the students (I was also a student) complained that he (or maybe she?) hadn't gotten into two or three programs that they had applied to. I responded quickly and with a great deal of feeling that anyone who was a member of this group could have gotten into any program that they really wanted to. Others joined in and said much the same thing. I wanted to clarify what I meant, but ended up saying, "If you didn't get in, it was your own fault, and quit whining."
I think this propelled me into a state of wakefulness for at least two reasons. First of all I was being more forceful than I generally prefer to be. I was not being nuanced and taking into account all the other considerations that might have led to the person not being accepted. But also, I think I was speaking a kind of cold truth. In a group of people who have what it takes to do something - whether that is smarts or athletic ability or charm or whatever it might be - some of them will "make it" and some of them won't, and that will be, in large part, because of choices they make along the way.
Now this is a sword that definitely cuts both ways. We were watching Wimbledon on vacation, and the commentators were describing Novak Djokovic's typical day - he is the world's number one ranked tennis player and his daily regimen - he starts by drinking a warm glass of water first thing in the morning every morning - then spending a day avoiding anything that might taste good and working out in a variety of set and invariable ways - sounded horrifyingly self - renouncing; and a necessary sacrifice to achieve his desired goal of being the best among a group of very talented and hardworking individuals (Andre Agassi, see my review of his book Open, may be the last world class tennis player who could afford to be a rebel - not that he didn't work very hard...). If you want to achieve something badly enough, you need to be disciplined enough to put up with the sacrifices that it takes to achieve it. If you aren't, don't whine about it. If you decide to care for your dying mother, or dance in the streets instead of taking those extra practice shots, well, that's your business...
So, yes, achieving a goal involves self renunciation (without a guarantee that the other guy won't work harder and/or be more talented or lucky and get there before you). And, on the other side, you have warped yourself - you have lost something to achieve the goal. You have chosen to ignore significant aspects of yourself. Becoming "cool" involves renouncing significant components of ourselves. We decided to do what others like in order to be accepted. We listen to the criticisms they offer and choose to lose various "uncool" habits. Some of these, like burping where and however loudly we like, seem to most of us like relatively reasonable things to do. When we are devoting ourselves to a clear goal - becoming the number one tennis player in the world - it is clear what we are trading our selves in for. When the goal is to be cool - to be accepted - it can be much more insidious. I think that part of what propelled me awake is the realization that I pay all the time, in little ways, for the acceptance of others. I can do it. I can make myself conform. I can do what is needed for acceptance. And, as I do this, I lose something essential about who it is that I am.
Perhaps this is a big part of why we admire rebels. They don't compromise. They don't care what others think. And this, ironically, is "cool". "I did it my way." In fact, to do it my way takes a lot of moxy. And it takes a lot of self knowledge, something that can be very hard to come by. One way of thinking about the dream is that the group of individuals represented aspects of myself. That I was remonstrating a part of me for complaining that I have not achieved acceptance in important areas - areas that were achievable. And I think I am ambivalent about that. On the one hand, I am critical that I haven't worked harder to achieve the acceptance, in whatever form, was available to me. On the other hand, I think I was saying to myself, "Quit whining. You can't be all things to all people. You need to choose what is important and get to work on that." And, as much as I need to hear that, it brings me up short and contributes to my sleeplessness, because I would like to be all things, and try to convince myself that I can be, even thought I can't.
While I think this conflict is one that fuels our interactions with the world all the time, I think this dream calls it to my attention because of the convergence of at least three forces: one is my dismay at the continuing revelations of the mess that the American Psychological Association apparently has made of our relationship with the CIA around torture - we were trying to be "cool" and curry favor - or profits, and compromised ourselves to do that; second is that I am watching my children make tough choices as they make the transition from high school to college and work to realize their dreams, and also figure out which ones to put aside; and third, I think that my initial association to the question of my being cool in the context of my department indicates that there are issues of my integrity with my roles in the department that need to be attended to.
Waking up and recalling the dream and beginning to think about what it was about actually allowed me to get back to sleep - a deep sleep in which I worked on some of the things that I needed to address with my department, and I woke this morning refreshed and ready to tackle that work. Addressing the 500 page document that the APA has released, and the news stories that are taking a very different tack from the official APA position will take more time. Please bear with me.
Post Script: I did, indeed, finally get to work on the APA issue. I have written three posts on that here, here, and here.
To access a narrative description of other posts on this site, link here. For a subject based index, link here.
To subscribe to posts (which occur 2-3 times per month), if you are on a computer, hit the X button on the upper right of this screen and, on the subsequent screen, hover your cursor over the black line in the upper right area and choose the pop out box that says subscribe and then enter the information. I'm sorry but I don't currently know how you can subscribe from a mobile device - hopefully you have a computer as well...
No comments:
Post a Comment