Nothing will get you more in touch with the inherent fragility of life than paying a visit to a cemetery. A few years ago, while visiting my hometown in Spain, I decided to go pay my respects to my uncle that had recently passed away. I remembered the general location of the family plot, but I had to actually look at landmarks and graves to find my way around.
As I walked the quarter mile or so to get to my destination, I couldn't avoid seeing the dates of birth and the pictures of some of the deceased. The old, the very old, the middle aged, the young and the very, very young. Recent and not so recent events. Hundreds of personal stories. No longer.
I found my way eventually. By the time I got to the family plot, I was mentally and emotionally in another place. My heart was full of compassion for all the tragedy, specially for the families of the young children that had passed away.
Moments like this make you wonder about the fragility of life and how uncertain things can be. But our daily lives are so filled with our more urgent thoughts about the mechanics of life itself, the daily grind, if you would, to pay attention to anything else. All these repetitive tasks and routines, busy schedules and multiple events fill our lives for as far as we can see.
All these routines and habits create the illusion of predictability and certainty in our lives at a physical level. The pursuit of material things is the other buffer against chaos. Money and status are the brightest lights that blind us to the fact that we have limited control in our lives. At an intellectual, emotional level, beliefs are it. Religious beliefs have traditionally given us the certainty that there is an ultimate order behind the apparent randomness of life.
As the role of religion diminishes in our culture, money and power become more important and politics replaces religion as the intellectual source of certainty for many. Political fights become the perfect setting for a good vs evil drama that unfolds with more and more fury every year.
Through the art of over simplification and repetition, taking advantage of our basic mistrust for one another, a party can give its followers a solid way to interpret reality, validated by millions of other like minded people. The combination of the feeling of certainty and clarity in a chaotic world, plus the sense of belonging to a larger group, standing for the good, opposing others that are different or don't share the same mindset, is an incredibly powerful source of emotional comfort in uncertain times. A psychologically addictive mixture as potent as any drug.
Drugs of the mind may not be seen as dangerous as their material counterparts. Nevertheless, all drugs impair judgement. Problem solving requires a scientific mindset. We need to obtain good data to understand the issue well, find the root cause, test our assumptions. It is a well grounded, progressive approach to finding the truth with no initial preconceived notions. Medicine took a quantum leap when the scientific method was introduced.
The problem with the scientific method is that, psychologically, is not as satisfying, at least not initially. It replaces certainty with skepticism. It produces results, but it requires the courage to test our assumptions. This forces us to face the unclear and chaotic nature of the world without crutches or the aid of formulas. This direct contact with reality can be a source of wonder or cause terrible fear and uncertainty.
When we approach problem solving using the comforting mindset of political certainty, we are acting like drug addicts, we pay the price of an impaired judgement just to feel good for a minute.
Remember the old commercial from the eighties?:
This is your brain. (you see an egg )
This is your brain on drugs ( you see an egg being fried in a pan ).
Any questions?
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