Dear Friends, Family, Neighbors, and Those of You I Don’t Yet Know —
Welcome back to Odd Company. In the part of the world where I live, the songs of returning birds are already filling the air. We’re seeing the sun more regularly. The wildflower seeds I scattered after Thanksgiving have sprouted and are getting their second leaves. This week I hope to start some vegetable seeds, and can safely plant a few cool-weather things directly in the garden as well. I love this quotation from E.B. White’s book, Charlotte’s Web. “Life is always a rich and steady time when you are waiting for something to happen or to hatch.” I think of it often this time of year. Spring will arrive. That is our expectation.
I say this not to make readers in less clement climates jealous, but to remind us all that if spring is not quite here yet, it will be soon. If you are sniffling your way through Omicron, or are walking around with a face mask and foggy glasses, hang in there. There is definitely light at the end of this long, long tunnel now. Things will be more normal soon. That’s the expectation, anyway.
Which brings me to this week’s musical interlude. It’s a little different from most. The performance is by Bobby McFerrin, whose voice and improvisations are like no other on the planet. So of course it’s different. But also, it’s not exactly a performance. It takes place in a lecture hall, during the 2014 World Science Festival in New York. It’s an illustration of how deeply certain expectations are wired into us. In this case, it’s expectations surrounding the pentatonic scale. Rather than try to explain what the pentatonic scale is, I’ll just say it’s ancient and global. No one knows exactly how long human beings have been humming tunes based on this scale. We only know it’s been so long that by now it seems to be part of the normal human brain’s default settings. This is true no matter where in the world we look, which McFerrin illustrates in this funny, delightful video.
The video also answers, or maybe partly answers, a personal question I’ve had all my life. Since childhood, when I hear a tune for the first time, I can often hum along with it — and even harmonize — with very few mistakes. It’s almost as if some part of me already knows the music. How is that possible? Now I know. :-)
I’ve mentioned the idea of expectations before in these pages (if I may use a word as old-fashioned as “pages” in this digital age). McFerrin’s exercise works because people have expectations about what the next note will be. And I can hum along with a new tune for the same reason.
Expectations are important because they have a lot to do with our happiness. When our expectations match up well with what’s most likely to happen, we make better decisions and have fewer disappointments. When they’re based on dreams and wishes…well…there was that time I made a wind wagon out of plywood, roller skates, and an old sheet. It was a thing of beauty (in my eyes, anyway). I expected to be the envy of all my friends. Unfortunately, it was so heavy that the wind tore the sail right off the mast before the wagon moved an inch. To be fair, I was only ten at the time.
Expectations are formed by all sorts of things. We are probably born with some expectations. We seem to have some innate expectations surrounding facial expressions, for example. We expect the bearer of a smiling face to treat us with kindness. Likewise, sneers or frowns can set a heart racing, because they come with expectations of anger or aggression to follow. Sometimes expectations come from experience. We expect the sun to rise in the east because we’ve seen it happen a thousand times before, never fail. As a child, I learned to expect our tomcat, Ralph Snavely, to scratch and snarl if I tried to touch him when his tail was twitching. That never failed, either. Reliable as the sunrise.
But some expectations develop from sources that are less reliable than experience. Rumors, for example, or claims we’ve heard repeated so often that we begin to accept them as settled facts, whether they are or not. Not to be Debbie Downer, but we live in an age of rumor, innuendo, and shameless lies, aided and abetted by entire industries whose mission is to influence our thoughts and dreams, and ultimately our behavior. There it is. A sad fact of our times.
We used to have a large and varied social institution whose mission was to make sure we had enough facts to form realistic expectations and the opinions that come from realistic expectations. Back in the day, we called that institution “the press.” Now we call it “the media,” because press is inaccurate in an age in which ink on paper seems quaint, most information is delivered as a digital stream, and news and entertainment have become hard to tell apart.
If I sound a little upset about all this, it’s because I am. If we don’t have solid information, then we can’t form reasonable expectations or informed opinions. If our expectations are dashed too often, we become frightened. Here’s Sapolsky again, pointing out that a frightened brain makes terrible decisions. If our opinions come out of fear and baseless claims, then we can’t make good decisions. If we can’t make good decisions, then we can’t govern ourselves and democracy goes the way of Thomas Jefferson’s pantograph.
But the problem goes deeper than that, because it affects all of our interactions with each other. Want to know how we’ve become so polarized? How it is that our differences seem more important than the million things we have in common as human beings? It’s mainly about the fear and anger that our new world has become so good at kindling in us. It’s hard to be generous and open-minded when you’re frightened. Fear is about circling the wagons and repelling everyone who’s not part of the group…whatever the group is.
I suppose I’ve been thinking about this because the subject keeps coming up. Over meals, during walks and cups of tea, even during acupuncture and Tai Chi. I hope it means we’re beginning to wake up. The old organizations we used to trust and rely on for solid information have been blasted to pieces by the digital revolution and by fresh young employees who have real doubts about whether there is such a thing as the truth (doesn’t everyone have their own?), and who honestly believe they shouldn’t have to hear or read things they disagree with. Nyada nyada. I’ll stop here, because I’m probably in danger of losing you at this point. Odd Company usually offers lighter fare.
So what can we do about all this? First and foremost, we can make conscious decisions about the information we expose ourselves to. It’s important to find trustworthy sources of facts and a wide range of reasonable, well-founded opinions. Finding those sources is not as hard as it sounds. The largest of the old newspapers are still among the best. The New York Times and The Washington Post, for example, still value facts. But they have both gotten facts mixed up with social missions. So for reasonable counter-views, read The Wall Street Journal as well. Read your local newspaper. I should add that newspapers have always needed subscriptions to supplement their ad revenues. So if you read these newspapers, please support them by subscribing if you can.
If you watch TV news, it’s a good idea to stick to the news and take the commentators with a grain of salt. Their main business is to shock you, and they’ll do whatever they have to in order to do that, including making false claims. Think twice about talk radio. I say this because talk radio is a powerful tool for manipulating public opinion, and that is what it’s most often used for. It’s no surprise that it was one of the main causes of the Rwandan genocide. If you listen to news podcasts, the same cautions apply. Do what you can to make sure your podcasters care about facts and the truth and are engaging in actual journalism and are not just saying whatever suits their cause.
Don’t get your news from Facebook or Twitter. Did I say that?
The best indicator of the quality of your news sources is your mood. If you are enraged after partaking, maybe it’s best to avoid that one. As we already know, an enraged person can’t make good decisions. Rage is physically and psychically terrible for us. Plus, it is possible, and actually desirable, to present unpleasant facts without enraging people.
So, bringing things down from the stratosphere of media manipulation to the everyday level, what should we do when we’re faced with people whose expectations and opinions seem to be based on faulty information? First, humility is vital. It’s important to keep in mind that our information might be faulty, too. So we begin with the tried and true. We listen. Listen with sincere interest, curiosity, and as open a mind as we can muster. If we say that a viewpoint makes us uncomfortable, we explain why. We ask questions. We try hard to understand how the other person feels and why they feel that way. What do they need? And how does their viewpoint help address those needs? For example, many people who want border walls need to feel safe. They fear that immigrants will take their jobs or commit violent crimes or transform their communities for the worse. A wall would help make them safe. That’s what they’ve heard, anyway. If you are afraid and someone tells you you’re silly for being afraid, how does it make you feel? Does it help matters? It’s worth considering.
I’ve gone on a bit too long. It’s almost tomorrow! Time to sign off, before I have to change the date of this issue. I’ll say good-bye for now with a poem I wrote last year that seems fitting for tonight. See you in two weeks!
AN OFFER
I recognize darkness
in the changed lines
of your face,
in the earthbound way
you move, in the starless
night of your eyes.
I know this labyrinth,
this beast, this fear.
I went to a forest,
sat in the duff, back
against a grandmother
tree who saw me
wounded, not weak,
who held me gently in
the shared falling of
all leaves, all trees,
all bodies, heavenly
and human, who whispered
as I wept.
I have no map for you,
but I can come along,
and I can hold
your hand.