Long, Rambling and Probably Not Worth Reading

I haven't posted in a while, and I'll try to get back to regular posting (for all none of you who notice or care), but for now I just wanted to put down a couple of things that have been in my head for a while.¹

Not long ago, a coworker was telling me about how her feelings on the financial crisis² had changed and had done so practically overnight. One day, she was watching the news and discussions of government bailouts of various financial organizations and was vehemently opposed to it. They made the bad choices, not her. They should foot the bill, not her. It's hard to fault the logic at that level. Why should she, or anyone else, pay for the mistakes of others? The next day, things turned around. One of the organizations that was failing was hers. She's almost ready to retire and much of her retirement money was invested through this organization. Now it was time to panic. The government needed to do something to protect people like her. It wasn't her fault. She wasn't the person who made bad choices, but now she was going to be punished as if she had. It's remarkable how much things change in such a short period of time. We all make snap judgements all the time on every subject--This person is wrong, that person is right--but we rarely stop to consider why it is that the other person has an opposing viewpoint, only how their viewpoint would impact us or how it differs from our own. Sometimes, a little time taken to understand what someone else is dealing with is all it takes to make a big difference in our perception. The point is that empathy, for lack of a better word, is good. Empathy is right, empathy works. I'm not saying it's the answer to all of life's problems, but I am saying that it can make it a lot easier to deal with each other as we deal with those problems.

A few days before I had that conversation with my coworker, reports came out about the death of author David Foster Wallace. Among the many articles and tributes, I found an article that referenced (and linked to a copy of) a commencement address he had given in 2005. Like the earlier conversation, the things said in that address have stuck in my head ever since. He pointed out that we choose what we think and what we think about (including our refusal to acknowledge that anyone else could have reasons for not doing exactly what we want), and that perhaps by choosing to consider that our assumptions about other people are not the only reality that we set ourselves free³. That's exactly what was demonstrated in the conversation I'd had with my coworker. Initially, her decisions were based on what she saw as reality. The problem was that it wasn't everything. It took putting her in the place of someone else to see that reality is much bigger than she realized--much bigger than any of us realize.

I am not the center of the universe. Maybe if my thought process reflected that and was not simply how does this affect me or how will this person's actions inconvenience me, I could be a little happier, a little more free, a little more understanding. Maybe. I don't know. All I do know is that it can't hurt⁴.



¹ And this might end up sounding soapboxy, but it's not intended to (and hopefully it's not too soapboxy).

² I'm not about to try to tackle the issue itself, for several reasons. First, it's not the point of this post. Second, it's entirely too complex to try to discuss here. Finally, this is a silly blog full of pop culture, trivia, ill-advised attempts at humor and the occasional trite observation (like today). To discuss something this important here would trivialize it, be insulting and not solve anything anyway (also why you will never see a grand discussion of religion, politics or other things people hold dear...it's absolutely the wrong forum).

³ I'm not going to try to explain or quote the entire thing here, but here is a remarkable passage: "It just depends what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is, and you are operating on your default setting, then you, like me, probably won't consider possibilities that aren't annoying and miserable. But if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options. " The rest you can read for yourself and let his words say things far better than I ever could. Typing David Foster Wallace Commencement into google returns almost a hundred thousand hits, so it's not hard to find: Here is a link to one transcript.

⁴I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I can change, and you can change...sorry got a little carried away there, but you get the point⁵.

⁵ That "If I can change, and you can change" thing is from Rocky IV, by the way. Just thought I'd help you figure out where you'd heard it before.