Small Talk 15 - Perspective

Well, we Americans have got ourselves into quite a pickle. If you consider our nation as a whole—its wealth, its arts and entertainment, its promise of human liberty—you'd think we'd be the happiest people in history. But, needless to say, we are not. Especially these days. Now don’t worry, we’re not going to talk politics here—that’s the first rule of small talk. Instead I thought it might be useful to talk about how we get through this pickle we're in. With that in mind, I’ve been thinking a lot about perspective.  

First, to be clear—the decisions we face now are extraordinarily important. I mean that word specifically: extra-ordinary, as in not ordinary. A poor choice, collectively, could lead to great suffering and a setback of so many things we Americans have accomplished and hold dear. So please do your civic duty and don't screw it up. 

That said, let's talk about Shakespeare. Like so many expressions, the earliest record of 'in a pickle,' appears in his writing. In The Tempest, King Alonso asks Trinculo, "How camest thou in this pickle?" The king is apparently suggesting that the jester is drunk, because pickling involves fermentation which produces alcohol. But the text also suggests that Trinculo has got himself into a problematic situation. Am I suggesting that Americans seem drunk and also in a bad spot? Well.

Why talk about Shakespeare? Because it raises one way of employing perspective—the perspective of human history. Shakespeare wrote a lot about the past, especially political leaders—Danish princes, Scottish kings, Roman emperors, Moorish commanders. But the specific events in these plays aren't what make their stories last. What's important is Shakespeare's exploration of the human condition. He tells stories about people facing difficulties that we've always faced, and are just as profound now as they were 400 years ago. When Hamlet's uncle murders his father and marries his mother, the young prince is overwhelmed with despair and struggles with what to do. He wrestles with the ultimate existential questions: To be or not to be? Is it better to just suffer misfortune, or to fight against it? There is something of Hamlet in all of us. 

When we study history, we see that humanity has been in many pickles before. Plagues, oppression, dictators, poverty. But sometimes—a lot of times—we overcome these struggles. Even during our short time on Earth. Think about the moments in your life when something unexpectedly wonderful has happened, when you woke up to realize that goodness prevailed, despite all predictions. It may take longer than we'd like, but it happens. We only need to look at human history to see this is true. Back to The Tempest, Shakespeare summed it up, saying "What's past is prologue."

Last week I hiked in the Grand Canyon. It's a strange place to hike, because all the trails into the canyon go down, and they descend fast. If you hike the Bright Angel Trail eight miles to the bottom of the canyon, you descend almost a mile in elevation! There are a lot of warnings posted, because of course it's much harder to come out. There's even a sign with a cartoon person vomiting profusely—I'm not making this up. Is this a metaphor for our present pickle? Are we on a dizzying descent? Do we feel like throwing up? Well, maybe. But my point is that there's another perspective to consider—geologic time. 

Hiking into the Grand Canyon offers a tour of Earth's geologic history. That's because over the past five or six million years, the Colorado River has sliced into layers of rock that accumulated over two billion years. What makes the canyon trails amazing is that they are not gradual. Every meter you descend, you witness a million years of geologic time. If you're lucky, you see fossils from this vast history. A few minutes down, you might see fossils of shells and coral from an ancient sea 250 million years ago. More than halfway down, you might find trilobites, those charming marine arthropods from 500 million years ago. By the time you get to the river, you are approaching a layer of rock called the Vishnu Schist, about two billion years ago, the base of an ancient mountain range. No fossils here—at that time life on Earth was only the first multicellular organisms. Almost all the species that have existed since then—an estimated 99%—have since gone extinct. 

So here we are, at the top of the canyon, wringing our hands. If the canyon could speak, it might say, 'Bless your hearts, little humans,' and let out a grand tectonic chuckle. Geologic perspective doesn't make our worries any less important. But perhaps it offers us a moment of humility, where we consider the scale of all that exists. Maybe this is what Hamlet meant when he said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." 

The third perspective I've been considering is our own—psychological perspective. This is a topic I should reserve for another small talk, maybe after the dust settles. I'll share just one observation: We make our own reality, based on the formations of our minds. Consider a cloud. You see it on the horizon, and your senses perceive that the cloud is dark and tall and carried by a wind that's approaching. That's all you know—there is a cloud. But you might think, 'Oh man that cloud is going to bring a thunderstorm with lightning that will strike my house and everyone in it dead!' Well, it might. But it also might not. Your worry is just a mental formation. One of the fundamental purposes of meditation is to learn to recognize these mental formations—our thoughts and emotions—and put them in the right perspective. We learn that the only real thing is this moment. 

So where does this leave us? Well, we're still poised at an extraordinary moment in American history. We're still pretty anxious. But I think perspective can bring a certain lightness to our outlook. When we consider our place in the universe, it unburdens our soul. I think of the old proverb, 'The Old Man Lost His Horse.' With each of life's events—successes and misfortunes—the old man simply said, "Who knows?" Or, to quote the band Rush, paraphrasing Shakespeare: "All the world's a stage and we are merely players."

I wish you peace, and thank you for doing your part.

Have a good one,

Kipling Knox