Dependent on Running Gags

Hi Patricia,

Sorry for my delays of late. On Monday of this week, I took Anna to a children's playroom while Elsa was in school.  That night, I fell victim to one of the most horrendous and debilitating stomach bugs I have ever had.  

I would like to start by discussing the complete unfairness of this.  While at the play place, Anna took to licking the walls, the floor, other people, testing the flavor of the paint, and generally experiencing the place through her face. She was fine.
I was the one doubled over in stomach cramps and peeing out my butt.

Sorry about that.  As it is unbelievably unpleasant to think about, much less read about, I will use a topical and somewhat more acceptable euphemism to replace that last bit, as it will come up again.  "Peeing out your butt" will hereinafter be termed "Ted Cruz".

Ted Cruz gave me a lot of opportunity to think this week.  Sure, there is the putrid smell and the vile feeling in the gut, but that comes naturally with Ted Cruz.  My thinking was about dependence, particularly on people who might let us down. 

Dependence is a bad word these days.  We are supposed to be rugged individualists.  We are supposed to depend only on ourselves, building everything we need and earning a living for ourselves from our land and our two hands.  I mean, isn't that the cornerstone of bootstrap welfare reform, the sequester, and nouveau Libertarianism?  I don't need no help, so why should you?

But there I was, again rushing to avoid Ted Cruz causing a mess all over the house.  Before waddling distended into the bathroom, I had to get the girls into a state of security.  They depend on me, and I was very very close to letting them down quite a bit.   Without someone depending on me, it could be Ted Cruz time at my house all day long.  But with two little ones that I couldn't risk making sick or letting fend for themselves while I was off doubled over, well, we have to restrain Ted Cruz sometimes, as uncomfortable as it may be.

I am terrified of letting the girls down.  But I put myself in this position of being depended upon.  And in turn, of course, I also depend on The Breadwinner.  Not only did she win the bread this week, she also came home early two nights to relieve me of daddy daycare duties.  Our work-life arrangement does not guarantee that she do such things, but she would have felt that she was letting down me and the girls if she skipped out.

Maybe the individualist ethos is only superficially about keeping other folks' hands off your stuff.  That's the bluster, not letting "them" be dependent on you.  But could it overlay a deeper disconnection from the network of society. Is it a feeling of having no one else to depend on, or not being wholly dependable oneself? I don't know.

Anyway, that's out of my system. No more Ted Cruz!  Hopefully.

Cheers,

Ray

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Hi Ray,

I'm so sorry to hear of your unpleasant week.  It is always a nightmare when Ted Cruz comes to visit.  He never calls ahead, always arriving unannounced; he makes you drop everything because he wants everything to be all about HIM; and he inevitably overstays his welcome.  As if he was ever welcome in the first place.  If I never saw Ted Cruz again, it would be too soon.

You bring up some interesting thoughts about dependence.  As coincidence would have it, the very day I read your post, I had watched a documentary that dealt a great deal with that subject or, more accurately, the subjects of connection and interdependence. The documentary is called "I Am." It’s on Netflix for streaming at the mo.

Rather surprisingly, the film was made by Tom Shadyac – the same guy who wrote/directed Ace Ventura: Pet Detective; Liar Liar; Bruce Almighty; Patch Adams; and several more… shall we say… "less than cerebral" movies.  He experienced a near death kind of experience and it made him question his life and the world in general – how he could have this tremendous success, with tons of money and houses in Beverly Hills and other swank spots, yet not really be any happier than he was before he had it all. In search of answers, Shadyac conducts interviews with the likes of Desmond Tutu, Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and a bunch of other philosophical types and scientists, asking each 2 questions:  (1) What’s wrong with our world and (2) what can we do about it? Being philosophical types and scientists, they don't really come out and answer the questions directly, but it prompts really thought-provoking conversations.

There was an interesting bit of the movie about how humans are the only creatures that consume more resources than we need to survive.  Lions don't kill ALL the gazelles, just the ones they eat; trees don’t suck up ALL the nutrients in the soil, just enough to grow; etc.  I found it fascinating that in cultures like that of the people who lived in this country when all the Europeans swooshed in with smallpox blankets and inflated senses of greed, conquering behaviors and the acquisition of surplus when there are those in the global tribe with not enough are considered mental illness.  There’s even a word for it in Bantu: "Wétiko."  It literally means cannibal.

The rest of the film dealt more directly with the concept of connection and interdependence.  There was a lot of science in it – some with more "established" proponents than others – that showed that on a very literal level, all of humanity is connected; in fact, all of everything is.  Humans, other animals, trees… everything.  And this interconnectedness is demonstrable.  In one slightly questionable experiment, Shadyac is made to feel some strong emotions while in close proximity with a petrie dish of yogurt.  When his energy becomes more intense or anxious, there are changes in the readings on the measuring device showing the electrical level of the yogurt.  Wow, I don't know if I could have explained that less comprehensibly.  Oversimplified, I guess would be like how when someone is staring at you, you can feel it. 

The point is that humans (all matter, I suppose) is really just energy and energy affects those things it encounters.  There was also a really cool Einstein bit about a concept called Quantum Entanglement.  Einstein called it "spooky" because the result of the entanglement is that particles that have become entangled with each other by contact, remain that way indefinitely and at great distance.  So if you do something to one of the particles (change its rotation, for example), the same action will occur to the other half of the pair (changes its rotation) even if it's hundreds of miles away.  And it happens instantly.

The upshot from all the sciencey stuff is that humans are connected like everything else is connected and, in being so, are interdependent on each other.  It is demonstrated as both a function of quantum mechanics and as a biological construct.  We are, it is proferred, hardwired to empathize with other humans, which fosters and encourages the interdependence and connection.  It's why we get that sick feeling and wince when we see footage of someone getting their eyeball sliced open or getting kicked in their soft squibbly bits.  Also why we get that warm fuzzy tingling, chest tightening, throat burning sensation when we see the videos of little kids being reunited with their servicemen dads who have been deployed for ages. 

We are all connected.  We necessarily rely and depend on each other because everything we do affects others. It fits in perfectly with the Buddhist notion that decreasing the suffering of just one person increases the happiness of the whole world.

As for the kneejerk denial we have to admitting our dependence, I'm thinking it's part of the Wétiko Psychosis.  We've allowed ourselves to become convinced that we actually are separate.  Putting all our eggs in the Darwinian 'Survival of the Fittest' basket instead of the equally Darwinian 'Cooperative Beings Connected by Love' basket.  I didn't even know that basket existed, never actually having read any primary source Darwin.  Apparently he spent a lot more time talking about love and compassionate cooperation than the Highlander "There Can Be Only One" business.

Sorry for rambling on and poorly explaining this documentary when my reply could have been a mere 5 words long:  Watch "I Am." It's interesting.

Best,
Patricia

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STANDBY.  I have added the movie to my queue.

(Now a certain three-year-old someone has to actually GO TO BED so I can watch it.  I anticipate this occurring by, say, Easter.)