Why do we need answers, by which I mean the correct
answers?
Let me quote the close-to-exact words from Neil Simon’s The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975):
“They took out all my top teeth. Then they found out it was kidney stones.”
That’s why we need answers.
If you don’t have them, you could unnecessarily lose all your top teeth.
That’s the “utilitarian” response to the question. There is a paralleling interpretation coming
up. Probably. I’m telling you, I am flying by the seat of
my pants here!
From a practical standpoint, answers indicate directions to
ameliorating solutions.
Wrong answers – to misquote “Amazing Grace”:
“You once were lost, and that was it.”
Going seriously awry, following mistaken directions. Explorers, looking for India and discovering
Massachusetts. (Those people were not
“lost” exactly, but they were sure red-faced when they were asked, “What
happened to the spices?”)
Moving on…
Consider the following alternatives:
Did you fall and break your hip? Or did your hip break and you fell?
(I am referencing this example in case a misfortune of that
nature occurs to me down the line and I am no longer writing this blog. I not only do not waste things from the past. I do not waste things from the future as
well.)
You might say concerning this example, “What difference does
it make? Either way, you’ve got a broken
hip.”
True. But the rival
perceptions engenders disparate consequences.
The consequence of “I fell and I broke you hip”?
You immediately look for somebody to sue.
“The Department Store’s floor was too slippery?”
“There was an icy sidewalk in front of their house.”
“I slipped on some dog poop and they’ll be hearing from my
lawyer! And I am not talking about the dog!”
The consequences of “I broke my hip and I fell”?
Nothing.
I mean, who are you going to sue, the hip maker?
An unfortunate happenstance, is what it is. Your aging hip exceeded its “Expiration Date”
and down you went. Maybe if you’d taken
calcium supplements, who knows? You
could sue your doctor for not instructing you to, I suppose. But your attorney would most likely say, “Go
home and enjoy your new hip.”
There you have it.
The same situation. But, based on
your choice of perspective, two diametrically different responses. One, involving vituperative legal wrangling,
the other, “I guess it just happened.”
On the other hand, there is another way of evaluating the
story.
And that is…
As a story.
Let me tell you what I mean.
You know what’s an awful story – and by “awful” I mean
unsatisfying? This one happened to me.
“How did you get ‘Legionnaires’ Disease’”?
“I have no idea.”
Two sentences. No
excitement. I have literally seen
yawns. And I understand why. It’s a terrible story. (Not to mention it offers no direction for
avoiding “Legionnaires’ Disease” in the future.)
You can sense when a story – in the following case a
visually delineated story – lacks an
obligatory payoff.
In First Grade at the Toronto
Hebrew Day School, we were asked to draw a picture involving a sporting
activity. I was incapable of drawing
people. So when Miss Sternberg, our art
teacher, looked at my picture, what she saw on my drawing paper was this:
A badminton net slung between two poles, and two rackets and
the “birdie” lying on the ground. “Where
are the people?” inquired Miss Sternberg.
“It’s raining,” I replied. “They
went inside.”
Good answer. Terrible
drawing.
Although we definitely need answers as directions for
amelioration, we also need answers for a sense of completion, or as they say in
support of capital punishment, “closure.”
It seems natural to want that. Without completion – an outcome, a
conclusion, an explanation – it’s like that joke I once heard involving the traditional
song during the “Seventh Inning Stretch”.
Try singing this:
Take me out to the
ballgame take me
Out with the crowd buy me
Some peanuts and Cra-acker
Jacks I don’t
Care if I ever get
back for it's
Root root root for
the home team if they
Don’t win it’s a
shame for it’s
One two three
Strikes
You’re out
At the old ball game.
It feels weird, doesn’t it?
The song’s finished, but it isn’t.
There is this visceral requirement, I am arguing. Events in our lives need to have satisfying resolutions. Even if they’re wrong. Or transparently fabricated.
I return to Neil Simon for another pretty-close-to-a-direct-quote,
this time from the TV incarnation of The
Sunshine Boys (1972), which could possibly have been a pilot.
Willy Clark is railing at the hotel desk clerk about some egregious
grievance – the elevator door closed on his foot, or something, promising indisputable
evidence of that occurrence:
“I have witnesses!”
he angrily proclaims. “They’re not here
yet, but I have them.”
Funny but preposterous?
Perhaps.
But consider,
“The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
It’s the same thing, isn’t it? “There’s an answer. It’s just not here yet.”
And people believe
that.
That’s how much we need answers.
Tomorrow – having found my “tomorrow” – we shall examine how
it feels living are without answers.
2 comments:
The amazing part of today's post is that you have distinct memories of Grade 1. This type of recollection reminds me of my envy for autobiographers - how the hell do they remember all that stuff? Especially Keith Richards!
I learned recently that one of the most common ways people get Legionnaire's Disease is by drinking water from a long-disused tap without letting the water run for a bit - say, 10 minutes - to flush the pipes. I don't suppose you arrived at your summer house in Michigan and had some water without letting it run first...?
wg
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