I know one thing for sure: Stress makes me stupid… As I write this, it is past three a.m., “the hour of the wolf” and I can’t sleep.
Here’s the thing: A few years ago, for a week or two, I found myself under great stress. Self imposed, really, but stress nonetheless. And when the stress was over I decided to give myself amnesia, to forget the various stupid mistakes I kept making during that brief time. Except for a single bizarre one to serve as a reminder: That stress period—and the resulting stupidity—really happened.
For me to forget on purpose is a big deal. In my teens I had followed the advice of Bertrand Russell who said that if you admit one unpleasant truth per day then it will be as useful as the Boy Scout’s daily good turn. At the time I hadn’t grasped that he meant truths about history and the modern world: So I went in for having less denial, more truth about me. Back then, I blamed myself for being noticeably stupider than other people…
Many years later, at the time of my days of stress, I was a successful middle aged man: With my own home, paid off; my own car, bought new; a white collar job, and—at long last—a university degree. In other words, I was “functional.” But once my days of stress were behind me—safe once more—I screamed a silent scream. Because something I had forgotten was now clear: This was how I had lived as a child, teenager and young man. Stressed and stupid.
Too bad I tried to be a hero. To avoid wimping out, I avoided my past: “No blaming,” I thought, “just move along, be like everyone in society.” That was then. Now, looking back with fresh eyes: Of course I was stupid. Stress does that. But if that’s true, then why doesn’t society know?
To my relief, I found a passage in a memoir where a wife is on her second husband. Her first one, deceased, had been abusive. I can’t remember the words, but she describes her blessed new hubby and her riding on bikes together, their minds clear at last of gauzy fog, because they gently cherish each other along with permission to make mistakes.
If society doesn’t know then it’s partly because it is so hard to research and measure. How does one measure the stress inside? Or the stupidity inside? I think scientists just don’t try. But maybe the poets do.
I remember the TV series Angel, and the character arc of Wesley. At first: a British nattily dressed fool; later: a serious, stubbled competent executive… until the episode where his judgemental father comes to visit. The camera shows Wesley bumping into a pillar, and into a person, and dropping his papers… The father is revealed to be one of the bad guys—Wesley takes decisive irrevocable action. With no time to grieve, he instantly returns to being his crisp executive self… Yes, poets know what folks in lab coats cannot. Scientists would do well to study the Bard.
My brother once tried to list ways in which I had been abused and I cut him off. Now I’ll never know.
As part of putting responsibility onto myself, besides leaving home as a minor, I did all those personal growth things that affectionate alumni and job recruiters like. I did hobbies and clubs and volunteering and committees and leadership… and yes I achieved skills and common sense and learned the ways of the world… and one day a young man at work said, “You’re the most interesting man I know.”
I’m grateful for the enrichment of my life, but to what avail? Because many of those activities were during a background of stress, like having a background low-grade depression: My mind just wasn’t as sharp as it could be. …Come to think off it, if that blond Paris Howell III doesn’t, for example, do a community garden or a scrapbooking club, maybe it’s because she’s already confident. Nothing left to do but “party hearty.”
Even as I type this I keep re-e-ally minimizing how my early life was different. Yes, I know, that’s denial, but I’m trying to be tough and normal.
I agree with society about getting medals and diplomas, achieving skills and self confidence. Of course these things are intrinsically good in themselves, and I would go further, adding that these things serve to reduce ongoing stress, thereby producing an increase in functioning. There’s more than one road to Rome: I’m still chuckling over a cynical self-help business writer’s advice: Buying expensive clothing is just as good as doing affirmations.
As I write this I have no vodka, my coffee is cold. (Someone’s blog explains “hour of the wolf”) Before I toss on extra blankets for returning to bed, let me say one thing I know for sure: I still have ancient ongoing stress for a specific something. Surely it’s time to reframe, rethink… or take heroically impossible action… I just don’t know.
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Sean Crawford
East of Eden
February 2021
“Home is where I hang my hat” some guy I knew
From Station Eleven an international best seller by Emily St. John Mandel, (page 48) explaining how after civilization’s collapse, some survivors are in a traveling symphony:
“… The Symphony was insufferable, hell was other flutes or other people or whoever used the last of the rosin or whoever missed the most rehearsals, but the truth was that the Symphony was their only home.”
