fredericks

It's just uncanny how it usually ends up happening that way. We're moved by this need to "fix things", to make everything all better, that if we're confronted by something that isn't an easy fix we get uncomfortable or frustrate and shy away. Alan made what I thought to be an excellent analogy about us as humans and our perceived stability and happiness: we're all walking a mental tight rope, and when things are good (or tolerable) it just means that we've avoided looking down and seeing how damned high up and in danger we are. Being around people that are distressed in some intangible way causes those downward glances that make *us* uncomfortable. And so it's easier to try the trite fix and then move on, whether that's a conscious or unconscious reaction on our part. I do think that's a somewhat harsh and cynical assessment of it all (fitting in very well with his "tough love" approach), but it seems to make sense.

During our first group role-play of a call into the hotline (Samaritans is billed as a suicide prevention center), it was embarrassing how quickly the class turned the focus of the call from the depressed and suicidal caller's emotional state to his external environmental influences. It's just easier to do that when you have someone that's unresponsive and despondent. Easier on you as an empathizing listener and easier on you as in individual trying to maintain some semblance of conversation.

It's like it takes an enlightened mind to be able to connect what looks like, on the surface, to be common knowledge about human nature.