Left or right. Liar or truth-teller. Lovely or ugly. Greedy or giving. As time seems to be speeding up for me, I find myself relying on heuristics to form quick assessments so I can do a task quickly and get on to the next thing. A sociology term, heuristics is a way of creating snapshots in the mind to identify an ideology, a stereotype. You see a person driving a gas-guzzler monster truck with a pit bull riding gunshot, and you think, redneck.
I recently spent an afternoon with a 50-something man wearing a toupee. His squeaky clean shoes and neatly pressed pants, his cologne and $300 watch suggested money and afternoons playing tennis. But as we spoke he told me that he used to be a "fryhead" - when he was younger, he loved to take LSD and if he weren't fearful of further damage to his aging neurons, he'd still be taking LSD on a regular basis. And, he added, he volunteers as a counselor at a local homeless shelter. Well. So much for assumptions.
The use of heuristics is sometimes necessary if I want to manage my time and my world and get everything done. And it's invaluable in situations where there is danger. I want to rely on my quick judgement if I'm confronted with a man holding a gun. But it has also become a habit of intellectual laziness. Easier to make a quick judgement about someone, either embrace or dismiss them, and then move on. Much more difficult to stop and listen carefully, ask questions, explore and consider. I once worked as a therapist with sex offenders and initially wanted to judge them all as sick, selfish men. But as I got to know some of them, I discovered a compassion, a generosity, and even a gentleness and remorse that astounded me.
So, as the folks of my generation begin to age, to succumb to tooth and hair loss, to suffer incontinence and prostate problems, I'm forced to re-examine my own internal judgements about people. And I need to challenge myself to rise above a certain shallowness that is tempted to dismiss any man as a sheltered neo-con just because he wears a toupee.
by Erin Valdez
No comments:
Post a Comment