everytime i close the gate i wonder…
Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Have you ever had a really shitty week? The kind that knocks you off your feet and just winds the life out of you? That week happened two weeks ago, and I am still trying to find my bearings.
It was insufferable for a few reasons. We had a heat wave of epic, record setting proportions and the simplest of tasks would leave you feeling like the most viable option would be to melt to the floor right there –next to the old lady with her shopping cart waiting for the four o’clock bus. On top of the heat, life decided to grace me with a few overwhelming incidents that left me sobbing on the phone to R. and vowing to do something that ultimately –I suppose I’m glad I didn’t see through.
Confession: I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I ended up at home one night in an ice-cold bath reading Donna Tarrt’s The Secret History and drinking an entire bottle of the cheapest Canadian red wine I could find (As an aside, Thanks 20 Bees! I figured that for the price I paid, I would be drinking rancid garbage, but it was actually pretty great).
Then fast forward to today. Besides the fact that I haven’t done laundry in two weeks, and the house needs a thorough scrubbing, I have somewhat buried these incidents and the ensuing realizations deep into the recesses of my mind. Anyone with Psych 101 under their belt should know that this should come as no surprise. But, useful as this coping mechanism might be, this is not how I want to live my life.
Today I read an article about facial perception. Facial perception (unlike its borderline frightening, tech-savvy police state cousin facial recognition) is a process that begins in early infancy, when children learn to distinguish facial features. This is the same skill that leads us to find faces in places where there really aren’t any – inanimate objects for example.
This article outlined a study whereby groups of people were shown actual video surveillance from an on-campus camera in the Psychology department. After viewing the low-quality footage, the subjects were then shown pictures of people who were and weren’t shown on camera. They were then asked to match up the photos of the people who they thought were in the video. The researchers picked three groups of subjects. The first group was a set of Psychology students who were often in the building where the camera was set up. As a result they would likely have prior encounters with the on-camera subjects. The second group was a set of students who never visited the Psychology department, and subsequently would not have any familiarity with the on-camera subjects. The third group was a set of experienced police officers.
Not surprisingly, the first group – the psychology students who likely had previous encounters with the people on the security camera –scored the highest in terms of accuracy associating the people in the video with their photos. The second and third group scored equally poorly. So then why is this a big deal? Well as the authors allude to throughout the article, video surveillance is often used in legal settings, sometimes to convict or clear an accused of crime. That’s a big effing deal. That’s life changing.
So essentially, a platitude like conclusion could be something along the lines of “Familiarity leads to accuracy”. We can make accurate decisions when we are most familiar with the subject at hand. I know this isn’t the best analogy, and certainly not the most exact conclusion. But bear with me… Burying experiences deep down inside and washing them down with a bottle of wine might help in the moment, but they won’t lead to any kind of well crafted life.
In the end, I decided that my initial response to this week, if not a bit drastic and overly reactive, had a certain sense of legitimacy to it. This was a painful realization because it potentially means two things I’m not great at – change and letting go. I’m still battling with this decision, mulling it over in my mind… It isn’t absolute. And I feel a little bit lost, (but at the very least) more resolute than I have been in the past.
