On Safety

[gaudior]

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.

Comments

[breadandroses.livejournal.com]

Wow. good for you for talking to them, and especially not in an adult-like way that would be easy to ignore.

I don't think I've ever had that sense of invulnerability, when I think about it. When the train comes into the station, I always envision myself on the tracks, or hit by a car, or crashing in an airplane. It's not something I want to happen, just a possibility that I'm aware of all the time.

[kohakutenshi.livejournal.com]

I must be weird then. My first thought of the day is, "God, please let something happen to me today so I can stay away from work." or "Is this going to be the day that I finally collapse and someone takes me to the hospital, therefore finding out what is trully wrong with me at long last?"

Of course, the last thought of night is, "When I wake up -if I do- will I still be able to walk?"

I've never really held any illusions of safety. In fact, sometimes I hope not to be, because to me my life sucks so bad that I wouldn't mind getting hit by something. Of course, I'm also one to say, "Don't worry, I won't die. I'm not that lucky." Seeing as I've had many spots in life where I should have, but didn't, so this makes me think there must be a reason I'm alive. Something that makes me special enough to not have died at birth like I should have...

But I'm also someone who leans on her angels, spirit guides, other divinities, and God almost consistantly through the day. I know they won't let anything happen to me unless God wills it, so I know I'm safe because of this strange inner knowledge that I have at least two good years left in me. Past that...I'm not so sure.

You know, I was never reckless enough to jump in front of a subway. There's not any around here for one, and for two, think of the people who'd have to clean you up. Or the child who's on the subway looking out, and suddenly gets a window covered in bits of human. That's got to be highly traumatic. I couldn't do that to someone. Also, they'd have to stop service to investigate and scrape you off the walls and that would make everyone's life hell that day.

Gaudior-san, you have to stop making me think. I ramble too much when you do that. Tsk tsk. :)

[occurrednancy.livejournal.com]

And if we lose them, can we get them back?

For a passing moment.

[tanatoes.livejournal.com]

I have a theory that this is a relatively recent social phenomenon. Historically most cultures have an acceptance of loss and pain that doesn't seem to exist today. Look at the art and sculpture of the middle ages or the un-sullied Grimm fairy tales. Life is cruel, capricious and uncaring and you are doomed to a nasty fate.

I think the sense of invulnerability is a result of CONSTANT exposure to games, television, movies and literature that features heroes escaping from impossible situations. No matter how dire the heroe's predicament we know that they will escape intact by the end of the show/movie/book. Since we are naturally the heroes of our own stories the unconcious feeling that the same situation applies to us.

I know that for myself I frequently have moments where I think "What if my life is a game or interactive fiction of some sort? That must mean that TODAY has some significance and events will take a strange turn sometime soon, because no being would pay to play my life. Everything I remember must be the pre-amble: the prolog that sets up the alien contact or inter-dimensional rift. I recognise that this is a result of my upbringing, but it also feels, on a deep and personal level, true. We expect our lives to repeat the experiences we have had time and time again every day since we were children, and then we are shocked when the world ignores what we expect and goes on being its completely uncaring self.

two notes:

1) Since the wolrd is uncaring it is important to surround yourself with people who are not. The only love and assistance you will get will be from people (well, and pets) who love you. Don't expect miracles or devine intervention, but do encourage, foster and reciprocate that love. (Which I think I need hardly tell you who has done such a fine job so far at that.)

2) What does it say that these teens are more affraid of police than being crushed by a speeding train?

[navrins]

Hmm.

I have that feeling of safety because, let's face it, most people get through each day without suffering major injury or death. But I certainly know that I can do foolish things like jump in front of a train that would seriously raise my odds of serious injury or death. Even when I speed on the Saw Mill Parkway I know I'm risking serious injury or death, and I've occasionally done it anyway because I wanted that thrill and accepted the risk. Doing something like that and still feeling assured of your own invulnerability just sounds somewhere between bravado and foolishness to me.

Of course, I also know that lots of people have medical procedures involving sticking tubes in blood vessels and it causes no trouble, but *that* knowledge doesn't seem to affect my hindbrain at all.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure where the illusion comes from, but not from religious faith, because I'm an atheist, and I have the same thing. For me, I think it's a matter of necessity. When I think about all the things that could so easily happen to me or my loved ones, I get so frightened that I become paralyzed, unable to live my life. The only way I can leave the house, go to sleep at night, etc., is to force myself not to think about all the horrible things that might happen. I have my moments of fear, of course, but if I let these concerns stay with me all the time, I think the fear itself would destroy me.