Expectations

Expectations

    Quite a number of posts back, I wrote a bit about expectations.  We all have them, I said.  And here the moment arrives where this becomes my 300th post, at least on this form of media.  Yet I can probably count on one hand the number of close friends and family members who read this blog or its postings.  Usually this becomes evident during a discussion, say a show they've watched on the high usage of prescription narcotics or the crisis in the food production industry; and I'll nod politely and quietly mention that I had written about that subject in a post some months earlier.  Hmm, they'll say, I'll have to take a look, and generally that's where it ends (not sure if they really follow-up or not).  Even my wife and brother rarely (and that means perhaps once a year) peek at my blog unless I mention that there's something relevant about our immediate family or something about a trip or adventure we'd experienced.  None of this bothers me.  They have other interests, much as we all do.  They and other educated friends I consider quite close are just into other things...and what I write about on my blog does little to stir them, at least not nearly as much as a good book of fiction would do.  That is simply the way of the world.

    Think of the times a good friend has recommended a book or a movie or a song to you and after you read or saw or listened to it, well, it just wasn't what you expected.  It doesn't change your friendship, even if you discover that your tastes might not be quite as similar as you thought.  When they recommend something else, you might find yourself a bit more hesitant to go find that title; and likely the reverse is true.  This can also happen with critics and reviews, even articles that you read.  The slant or preferences of the writer sometimes fits in nicely with your way of thinking, and sometimes not.   Scientific American Mind made mention of this from a study done on social cognition back in 1977, a study called False Consensus. As the magazine's article summed up: "Always remember that you are absolutely unique," quipped cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead.  "Just like everyone else."  She was spot on.  Don't we all assume that we're "normal"?  This classic study examined how susceptible we are to the delusion that our choices, judgements, feelings and beliefs reflect what others think as well.

    The study by Stanford's Lee Ross, David Greene and Pamela House (the clinical results do grow interesting on the 3rd and 4th studies which start on page 11 of the published results on the MIT site) basically said that whatever our decision to give in or not when being asked to do something (in this case, to carry a walking sign for research purposes, the message of which changed with each study as did the manner in which the research was being presented), the result was that each person felt that he or she was not only correct in that decision but was mirroring the beliefs of the majority of his or her peers.  Again summed up by the magazine: This experiment provided incontrovertible evidence that when it comes to "being ourselves," we humans like to have our cake and eat it, too.  We revel in the idea of being our own person, but our brain is hardwired for group living.  So natural selection came up with a nifty little app that affords us the illusion of being just like everyone else.  It tells us that our behavioral choices are rational and appropriate while offering us the sociocognitive autonomy we crave.

    This is always evident to me when my friends talk about a novel from the bestseller's list (on a technical note, this wording always irritated my sense of grammar, having always been taught that the word "best" equals one item, thus the true best seller would be only one title...the worst misuse of this wording, at least to me, is the annual banner "one of the best movies of the year!"); of course, the majority of them are fiction readers and even when given an elaborate description of the book's contents, my mind is already drifting elsewhere (the same reaction comes from them when I talk about a good non-fiction read).  I don't mind fictional stories at all (obvious with my interest in movies and their often creative  plots)...it's just that for me, reading such works is just not that interesting.  But then judging by sales, fiction usually far outsells non-fiction, thus putting me solidly in the minority...but admittedly I would view someone reading say, a nonfiction textbook on chemical analysis and its resulting applications (likely fascinating to some) in the same boat.  So even within our own worlds and preferences, we might be formulating our own "majority" and deem our own group of peers --no matter how small-- as allies standing behind us.  False Consensus.

    Still, one's expectations are always there.  That special meal you've prepared, that song your band just finished performing, that project you've worked on so diligently, that tiny bit of writing you've finished.  And when the reception that follows is perhaps not as enthusiastic as you anticipated, there is usually a bit of a letdown.  But as Annie LaMott wrote in Bird By Bird, her writing-advice-ridden missive (in response to the near-unanimous response from her students that their goal in writing was to get published), perhaps it's important to look elsewhere as well.  Carol Muske Dukes summed it up nicely in her NY Times review of the book: Publishing, many writing students are dismayed to discover, is not what writing is all about.  And when it happens it is certainly not a panacea.   "Publication is not going to change your life or solve your problems," Ms. Lamott tells them.  "Publication will not make you more confident or more beautiful, and it will probably not make you any richer."...Writing, she makes clear, is not for the fainthearted, the easily bored, the fame-seeking.  It is not for individuals who cannot face up to their own madness.  "Then your mental illnesses arrive at the desk like your sickest, most secretive relatives," she writes.  "And they pull up chairs in a semicircle around the computer, and they try to be quiet but you know they are there with their weird coppery breath, leering at you behind your back."...Writers are outsiders, observers, recorders of weird coppery breath.   They generally do not find success as celebrities, cult leaders (or followers), third-wave politicians, "Hard Copy" fodder or people who talk about and wear crystals.

    Sometimes, Lamott seems to be saying, the looking elsewhere has to be inward to yourself.  Are you happy with what you've done?  Third place, last place, the missed promotion, the lack of applause, the cake that came out dry.  Does any of that matter?  Who did you really do it for?  You tried, and within yourself, do you think that you tried your best, and isn't that enough, that you even tried?  It's tough to think this way consistently, for sometimes life is simply unfair or seems that way.  But eventually, you'll reach a point where that contentment inside you just spills over to those around you.  In an audience you can often feel the difference, the band "connecting with the crowd" as they say.  And bad meal or no, the evening soon moves on to the real heart of the matter, the friendship.  Maybe next time your meal will be spectacular, maybe not, but you're trying and the bottom line, it's what makes you, well, you.  So for me, the big fireworks that should come with reaching my 300th post, ehhh, this could have been my tenth or my thousandth post.  Does it really matter?  It's me and  it's also you who read it...maybe by accident, maybe by false consensus.  But one thing is certain, as much as I do it for me (the writing part), I am 100% appreciative of you...so to you, I extend one big and heartfelt thank you!  Now onward...