My Mental Deterioration posted 10/19/2008 9:21:35 PM | 8 kudos what's this?     report abuse

Martin666

I’ve always been proud of my ability to keep an open mind. No matter how full my brain may be, I’ve always managed to make room for new ideas and new perspectives. Usually I feel pretty smug about this, but just now I realized that the reason I always have room in my brain for new things is because I have a leak.

Where does all that stuff go? I mean, it’s still in there, right? Everything I’ve ever learned, smelled, hated, fought over, loved? I know it’s still there because it pops up at odd times when I don’t need it, yet is nowhere to be found when I do.

I’m writing this because I just (finally) found my wallet right where I (apparently) left it last night: in the refrigerator. What’s up with that? I must have had a reason for setting it there, but what the heck reason was it?

I’m noting this more out of curiosity than consternation, even though some people do worry about this stuff. My mother, for example, keeps a list of all her senior moments on a pad in her purse—when she can find her purse. And I admit that if I focused on my own occasional lapses I might find a reason to be anxious as well. But I’ve never been accused of being focused, so why start now? You have to look at the big picture and not get bogged down with the occasional concern.

For example, someone (crap! I can’t remember his name) once said that if we were all brutally honest with ourselves, we would have to admit that we don’t have the faintest idea why we do the things we do in life. The explanations we give ourselves for our behavior—and especially the explanations we give others – are never truthful. The actual truth is entangled in such a yarn ball of conflicting and mysterious motivations that we can’t unknot the thing no matter how hard we try. And what’s really problematic is that, as adults, we’ve lost sight of this limitation and actually fall into the trap of believing our own excuses.

But not kids. Kids are still pretty much in tune with the limitation. When mine were younger, they would sometimes engage in behavior that left them holding the bag of a natural consequence. When that teachable moment was at hand, I would ask them, “Why did you do it?” and they would answer “I dunno.” And I believed them: they really didn’t understand what motivated them to do whatever it was that had blown up in their face. What’s even more important is that they weren’t willing to guess. They simply accepted the ultimate mysteriousness of the attribution process.

As we get older, we’re much more willing to guess about motivations because we’ve learned to attach a range of accepted explanations to our behavior. In our culture, the outer limits of that range tend to be pegged by theories about the subconscious mind and how it inspires surface behavior. But what if psychiatry’s contribution was actually just another layer of dead end “explanations” superimposed above a bottomless pit of motivations? Have you ever tried to fully dissect the motives behind any piece of behavior? Science has yet to invent a Perpetual Motion Machine, but we all come hard-wired with our own Perpetual Motive Machine. Let’s flip one on and see what happens...

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Why did Mary hit Sally? Because she was mad at her. Why was she mad at here? Because she stole her lunch money. Why does that make Mary angry? Because now she’ll have to eat a free lunch. Why is that bad? Because only poor kids eat free lunches. Why is that bad? Because she thinks she’s cooler than poor kids. Why is that important to her? Because she feels better about herself that way. Why does she feel better about herself… etc

So Mary hit Sally because poor kids get free lunches? Yes…and no…and yes! When you pull on a chain you get the whole chain, not just the next link. So can we ever get to the bottom of anything, or do we just have to agree amongst ourselves to stop pulling up the chain at a certain point? Our justice system is famous for looking neither our far nor in deep: they deal only with the truth or non-truth of the first link, whether Mary hit Sally or not, period. They aren’t much interested in what comes next. To be honest, not many people are.

Anyhow, the next time a two year old says to you: “Why…?” just look at them and say,” I dunno. Why do you think?” Chances are they’ll again say “I dunno.” Well, sit there with them for a second and smiling conspiratorially. It’s possible that they’re seeing the issue more clearly than you, despite all your sophisticated adult explanations for behavior. Maybe some of their wisdom will rub off on you.

So why did I put my wallet in the refrigerator last night? I dunno. But I’m glad I did it. Why? Because each senior moment offers a glimpse into the truly mysterious reality of human motivation. It sloughs off all the bullshit.

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Blogs by Martin666: The Invisible Hand - Part 3 The Invisible Hand - Part 2 The Invisible Hand - Part 1 My Mental Deterioration Dancing Naked Around The Bonfire