Since my east coast visit, my blogging has been more sporadic, mostly because of my frantic job search. Employers, if you’re out there, GIVE ME A JOB. Yesterday I spent the better half of the day trying to “put a face to the resume” at one of the University job’s I applied to. It didn’t go well: without an appointment, I was treated like a security risk. Live and learn!
On vacation, I began reading Dan Ariely’s book The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home. An Israeli behavioral economist and professor at Duke, much of what Ariely talks about touches on the issues I studied in organizational theory as part of my Economics major. Most importantly, both behavioral economics and organizational theory dismiss the assumption of traditional economics that all people behave rationally.
Ariely is a burn victim—as a youth, an accidental magnesium flare inflicted third degree burns on over 70 percent of his body. In one of his passages, he described an experience that bore a striking resemblance to one of my own:
“During one session at a conference in Florida, three colleagues and I were going to present our recent work on adaptation, the process through which people become accustomed to new circumstances…I had carried out some studies in this area, but instead of talking about my research findings, I planned to give a fifteen-minute talk about my personal experience in adapting to my physical injuries and present some of the lessons I had learned. I practiced this talk a few times, so I knew what I was going to say. Aside from the fact that the topic was more personal than usual in an academic presentation, I did not feel that the talk was that much different form others I have given over the years. As it turned out, the plan did not match the reality in the slightest.
I started the lecture very calmly by describing my talk’s objective, but, to my horror, the moment I started describing my experience in the hospital, I teared up. Then I found myself unable to speak. Avoiding eye contact with the audience, I tried to compose myself as I walked from one side of the room to the other for a minute or so. I tried again but I could not talk. After some more pacing and another attempt to talk, I was still unable to talk without crying.
I was clear to me that the presence of the audience had amplified my emotional memory. So I decided to switch to an impersonal discussion of my research. That approach worked fine, and I finished my presentation. But it left me with a very strong impression about my own inability to predict the effects of my own emotions, when combined with stress, on my ability to perform.”
In a freewrite piece called The Night My House Burned Down (spoiler alert: it’s a downer), I wrote about the shock of getting extremely emotional after reading a story about the house fire:
“The first time that I lost control of my emotions when talking about the fire was not until two years afterwards, when I chose to read a short story I’d written aloud in class. I had woken up early to write it, behind on my schoolwork as always, and decided to write about walking through my house after the fire. I thought I was being clever: what teacher would give anyone less than an A when they’re talking about their house burning down? One of my friends told me that for the essay section of the SAT, he’d written a [made-up] story about his mom getting cancer and credited his high score to the sympathy of the readers. This was my strategy-- manipulating my teacher into giving me a grade that I didn’t feel I deserved. I felt so confident as I began to read in class, proud of the inevitable regard my classmates would hold me in after learning I’d gone through such a poignant event. Imagine my surprise as my voice began to falter half-way through the reading and my hands shook uncontrollably as I put down the paper. Never mind the absolute stupor and embarrassment at my reaction to my professor saying tentatively, “This was obviously upsetting for you...” I began to respond, “Well, it’s obviously shocking when you see your house burning down...” and absolutely collapsed, losing control and crying hysterically, almost hyperventilating before excusing myself and weeping in the bathroom for the remainder of the class. I had accidentally gone too deep, not thinking when I sleepily wrote lines like, “some of the pictures were still on the wall, water-logged and distorted by crusading hoses, but some lay shattered on the floor, choosing to go down with the ship”. I had tapped my emotional reserves which pooled unseen and undisturbed in my subconscious.”
I chalked it up to “going too deep”, but Ariely’s passage gave me a strange comfort, normalizing the experience: the audience (my classmates) had amplified my emotional memory. At the same time, the act of talking about—announcing, even—these emotionally poignant moments is like exposing them to the air—breathing life into them and forcing us to realize just how devastating these events were.
I’ll end this post with Ariely’s thoughts on blogging and the reasons behind it. In a passage called “Blogging for Treats” he writes:
“Now think about blogging. The number of blog out there is astounding, and it seems that almost everyone has a blog or is thinking about starting one. Why are blogs so popular? Not only is it because so many people have the desire to write; after all, people wrote before blogs were invented. It is also because blog have two features that distinguish them from other forms of writing. First, they provide the hope or the illusion that someone will read one’s writing. After all, the moment a blogger presses the “publish” button, the blog can be consumed by anybody in the world, and with so many people connected, somebody, or at least a few people, should stumble upon the blog. Indeed, the “number of views” statistic is a highly motivating feature in the blogosphere because it lets the blogger known exactly how many people have at least seen the posting. Blogs also provide readers with the ability to leave their reactions and comments—gratifying for both the blogger, who now has a verifiable audience, and the reader-cum-writer (editor's note: I LOVE COMMENTS). Most blogs have very low readership—perhaps only the blogger’s mother or best friend reads them—but even writing for one person, compared to writing for nobody, seems to be enough to compel millions to blog."
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