Wild Ride
Last week I looked at some of the decay in the way our society views our elected officials as evidenced by the way the media often omits proper titles of respect when referring to them. During the ensuing week, there has been talk of shifts in the voting style of the public. While this column focuses on mental hygiene and spiritual health as they are related to each other and not politics, I am about to comment on some of these changes in our political landscape.
Many Jews in our circles are expressing concern, even fear, about the haunting echoes of pre-Holocaust Europe and the rapid collapse of our comfortable place in society. So often, we hear the term, “Medina shel Chessed” (country of kindness) when referring to the United States, an encouraging assertion that our people in this part of the Diaspora can breathe easily for the time being. But there are new terms surfacing that were once relegated to history books: socialism, deregulation, wealth taxing, and there are new faces on the government map, faces with biographies and profiles that are frightening to some of us.
And with these new faces come new policies—condemning law enforcement, withdrawing of alliances, removal of measures once aimed to promote and to protect the welfare of all. What can mental hygiene science offer to support and guide the perplexed during this time in history?
As a child during my first visit to a newly opened Disneyland, I went on my first carousel-type ride. It was fast and dizzying, and the world around me whirled past as I looked at the surrounding area. People passed by in a haze as I revolved at a dizzying pace, and the objects out there: trees, trashcans, vending machines, and buildings, rushed past my line of vision in a blur. I remember trying to see my parents, who were waiting for me to finish the ride. I spotted my father and realized that about every 7 seconds he would reappear, smiling and waving. He became my stable object. I would anticipate my father coming into view, and although everything else sped past me in a haze of colors and shapes, I would soon see my father until he disappeared from view until the next time around.
Thus, my father became my focal point. He was both my starting point and my ending point. All else in between his pleasant presence didn’t matter; it was a blur. He was my focal point and gave me my bearings.
But there were others on that ride. Others who were oblivious to my father, me, and each other as they tried to find a point of focus in order to calm themselves and feel in control as the scenery flew by. Each one of us was sure that what or who we saw was what mattered. Little did we know that this was an exercise in the vestibulo-ocular reflex, an automatic eye movement that keeps your vision steady and focused on an object while your head or body is in motion. It is little more than an illusion, of course, but it serves to keep us feeling in control. To any bystander watching the ride in motion, there was only a random chaotic passing of shapes on the carousel. To anyone focused on any particular rider, they would perceive the ride as orderly and following a predictable sequence. Thus, what a person saw and how they understood it depended on their perception.
In the world of mathematics, chaos theory attempts to explain how randomness is also an illusion. From our limited vantage point, when we see or experience something, if it seems good, we consider it good and if it seems negative, we deem it bad. But our perceptual experience is limited to our moment and our position in time and place. Like my father standing there as the merry-go-round revolved, he spotted me as I passed and I spotted him as he stood in place. But so much else was happening! We were experiencing what statistical science sometimes calls a “product moment,” a perceived correlation between two independent variables while everything around them is really in motion, which makes that fixed or focal spot a part of a much more complex process.
Events have preceded this moment and events will follow it. In chaos theory, we posit that there is no randomness to the series of changes that will occur. With time, we might begin to spot patterns, to perceive linkages and connections between a present moment and a subsequent event, that what takes place right now is a precursor of what takes place later. There is no chaos, no randomness. Cause and effect may not be linear or discernable, but they exist. The human brain works with apophenia, a desire to see connections, and the belief that there are indeed connections between events. A psychological, almost theological premise is that of synchronicity, wherein events which have no linear connection may still have a connection and there is a reason that a person experiences each life event, and we have the challenge to find either the connection, or the personal meaning and relevance, so that happenstance becomes purposeful.
It is true that watching the unfolding changes in our country and our world conjures up apprehension that we have been here before. Indeed, we have. There is no randomness in Hashem’s modus operandi on this planet or any plane of reality. Something looks negative and we deem it bad when the moment in time and space is our sole focal point. Yet our belief in Divine hashgachah, our knowledge that only Hashem is operating world events, reminds us that the chaos is an illusion. There is more to come. The present gives way to the future and while we cannot predict what sequence or pattern will emerge, we trust that each frame in the chaos is purposeful and that as the bigger picture emerges, we will see holiness and stability from Above. May that happen very soon. n
Rabbi Dr. Dovid Fox is a forensic and clinical psychologist, and director of Chai Lifeline Crisis Services. To contact Chai Lifeline’s 24-hour crisis helpline, call 855-3-CRISIS or email [email protected]. Learn more at ChaiLifeline.org/crisis.
