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I was in the T-stop yesterday when I heard shouting. Loud voices, young, and I couldn't tell whether they were shouting in play or in anger, so I decided to go investigate (there were a fair number of people on the platform, and one man was already moving that direction). I found a girl sitting on a bench, bent over in obvious exasperation, and swearing at two disembodied voices. I looked around, confused-- they weren't next to her on the bench, they weren't on the lower platform... and then with a cry of "Oh shit! Oh shit!" two kids ran out of the subway tunnel, just seconds ahead of the train. They were sixteen or seventeen years old, tall, Black, baggy-clothed and laughing their heads off. The girl glared at them, relieved. I was already right there, so, laughing friendliness, I yelled at them. "Do you know," I shouted over the roar of the train, "how much it would suck if you'd gotten hit?" One boy blinked at me. "What? Police?" I shook my head. "Don't get hit by the train!" He shrugged, smiling. "Don't worry," he reassured me. "We won't get hit by the train."
And what I find myself wondering is-- how does he know that? I mean, I'm sure part of it is bravado (can't admit you were scared, after all, not when you're seventeen...), and maybe part of it is the same sense of foreshortened future some of the kids I worked with last year had. But I imagine that a big part of it was simply the belief that no, of course they wouldn't get hit by the train. They were too lucky for that, too smart, too quick-- too, very simply, themselves.
The thing is, most people do that. I don't have to be a stupid teenager to believe, when I get up in the morning, that I'll get through the day just fine. I won't be hit by a car, I won't be knifed by a crazy person in the subway, I won't have a heart attack or a seizure, no meteorite will fall on my head. I wake up in the morning with a sense of safety.
This is, according to some psych theories, because we all carry the illusions of our specialness and our invulnerability, all the time. Even though these illusions go against all rational sense. We know, intellectually, that we'll all die. We know we're vulnerable to illness and accident and other people and plain bad luck. But somehow, we're able to put it out of our heads. We're able to trust that we can walk out the door and face the world, and be fine.
So my question is, how? How do we do that? What gives us the belief in safety in such an unsafe world? Is it faith in God? Our loved ones? Ourselves? Is it just that we've never died before, so why would we now? Where do these illusions come from?
And if we lose them, can we get them back?
--R
Reading: Hellspark, Janet Kagan. An Empty Spoon, Sunny Decker.
And what I find myself wondering is-- how does he know that? I mean, I'm sure part of it is bravado (can't admit you were scared, after all, not when you're seventeen...), and maybe part of it is the same sense of foreshortened future some of the kids I worked with last year had. But I imagine that a big part of it was simply the belief that no, of course they wouldn't get hit by the train. They were too lucky for that, too smart, too quick-- too, very simply, themselves.
The thing is, most people do that. I don't have to be a stupid teenager to believe, when I get up in the morning, that I'll get through the day just fine. I won't be hit by a car, I won't be knifed by a crazy person in the subway, I won't have a heart attack or a seizure, no meteorite will fall on my head. I wake up in the morning with a sense of safety.
This is, according to some psych theories, because we all carry the illusions of our specialness and our invulnerability, all the time. Even though these illusions go against all rational sense. We know, intellectually, that we'll all die. We know we're vulnerable to illness and accident and other people and plain bad luck. But somehow, we're able to put it out of our heads. We're able to trust that we can walk out the door and face the world, and be fine.
So my question is, how? How do we do that? What gives us the belief in safety in such an unsafe world? Is it faith in God? Our loved ones? Ourselves? Is it just that we've never died before, so why would we now? Where do these illusions come from?
And if we lose them, can we get them back?
--R
Reading: Hellspark, Janet Kagan. An Empty Spoon, Sunny Decker.
