StreetLight Effect

The spate of terrorist attacks and senseless killings in the news media makes one feel like the world is really upside down. It brought to my mind the story of the 'streetlight key'.

The story goes that a man was looking for his car keys under a street lamp. An officer helped him but after a fruitless search asked him whether he was sure he dropped it at that spot where they were searching. The man replied he actually dropped it at the lot opposite the street. The officer was aghast and asked for an explanation to which the man replied "No but the light is much better here". This is now termed the "streetlight effect" where people search for whatever they are searching in the easiest way possible. Of course there are many versions of this story amended to suit different cultures or context and open to many interpretations.

Last week I met up with 2 sets of friends and I somewhat walk away with this feeling which I shared with my family "I think as we become older we become more opinionated". This is after seeing how some of my friends spoke so vehemently against LGBT and and even calling Obama a devil reincarnate. I don't support the pink dot movement either but I do not want to hold judgement if I do not know enough of their side of the story.

It seems to me Muslims who are advocating for a Caliphate maybe under the 'streetlight effect' to achieve their Utopia devoid of western decadence. But so is everyone who grasps onto their doctrines or religious teachings rigidly and is judgmental about other beliefs or systems without first trying to explore and understand a bit more. It is of course easier to hold onto the belief you have embraced all your life and cling onto them rigidly to fence off whatever doubts that may rear their ugly heads.

Alas I find the world is getting more and more polarized.

Now onto another version of the streetlight parable:
 One day a neighbor passing the Mullah's house saw him in his yard on his hands and knees searching for something.
"What is wrong? What are you looking for?"
"I have lost my keys!" Said the Mullah.
"Let me help you look." Offered the neighbor.
Nasrudin gladly accepted the neighbor's assistance.
Soon other helpful neighbors joined the search, and although the yard was rather small the search went on for nearly an hour. Finally the first neighbor to arrive said "Mullah, we have combed the yard thoroughly. Are you sure you lost the keys here?"
"No," replied the Mullah. "I lost them in the house."
Astonished and a little angry the helpful neighbor asked "Why on earth are we looking for them in the yard?"
The Mullah replied in exasperation, "Because you fool, there is more light here."

An interpretation I like about this version is that the key is inside our very own house; yet we search outside because it is dark and very difficult to search inside.

The 84th problem

Have you heard of the parable of the 84th problem. Once a farmer approached the Buddha to get some advice to address a host of problems he had to face. There was the problem with the weather affecting his crops, being either too wet or too dry. His wife though a good woman was constantly nagging him. On top of that his children seemed ungrateful and his neighbours were spreading rumours about him He looked up expectantly for solutions only to be told by the Buddha that he couldn't help him because life itself is filled with 83 problems. The farmer in dismay asked of what good then was Buddha's teachings. Buddha said he could however solve the farmer's 84th problem? The farmer asked what that was to which the Buddha replied, "the 84th problem is: You don't want to have any problem".

Today I visited my aunt who is 97 years of age. After a month's illness she was reduced to an unrecognizable half of her normal self. Extremely frail and unable to eat she seems to be near the end of her very long journey. I reflected on her lifetime of almost a century from what I know and what I had heard from my deceased mum. Life has thrown various challenges at her as a child and as a mother, only settling somewhat towards old age. I saw all the things happening in her life like the reeling of a motion picture. Yet I have always remembered her taking things in her stride. Even now lying at home in the hospital bed which seem large for her thin and feeble body, her face does not have the slightest semblance of any struggle.

The image of her shifting slightly in discomfort and half conscious of our presence lingers and it seems to me my aunt has always known Buddha's parable of the 84th problem instinctively all her life.

The Toxic Child Within.

Today's Sunday Times carries an article about damages toxic stress causes in children. It describes how a mother's affectionate attention can shoot electrical impulses to the developing neural circuits of an infant, strengthening their neural pathways and inciting new synapses to grow. This process develops the child's capacity to think, learn and process emotions. On the contrary constant neglect or  abuse results in toxic stress which not only impedes the child's learning capacity but may also affect his/her long term physical and mental health. Research has found that infants are very responsive to the emotions and social interaction around them. Chronic neglect or abuse or home violence impairs the child's social-emotional development whilst the child's constant feeling of helplessness can cause him to be depressed, withdrawn, apathetic, hyper-vigilant or angry well into adulthood.

Angry or withdrawn is the more noticeable character trait in some of the children I interact with at the children's home (mainly from dysfunctional families) . I wonder about those who do not have behavioral issues and are thus not presented for therapy. Could they also harbour long term anxieties or hyper vigilance or apathetic dispirit within them? Thus I am extremely patient with children from toxic background.

But then again even amongst us, the adults, how much of peoples' behaviour which we find difficult to tolerate are caused by toxic stress plaguing them since childhood? How many amongst us are so fortunate to grow up almost scar-less? Yet we don't empathize an adult with behvioural problems as much as a child. I remember on one occasion I was trying to deal with a complaint one subordinate lodged against another. I appealed to the complainant's empathy by remarking that his colleague came from a poor and frictional family, to which the complainant retorted that he too came from an impoverished family.

I have thought about why I find it difficult to tolerate bad or irrational adult behaviour even if I know the person has some emotional baggage; whilst my threshold for children misbehaviour is quite high. I guess when one looks at a child, one sees one's own inner child within oneself, feels the other child's pain as one's own pain carried silently over the years. Hence sympathy and the urge to comfort the child arise.

To forgive an adult on the other hand needs the abandoning of an egoistic self and the cultivation of true compassion. Perhaps it may help if we begin by imagining how we would have turned out if we have been born in his circumstances. Alternatively for me I can try to see the inner child within the adult, the child whose cries have been ignored and suppressed.

Geriatric Guts

Found this piece of news in UK very interesting. 7 men were arrested in London for raiding safe-deposit boxes and running away with valuables worth 60m pounds. They accessed the vault by climbing down a lift shaft and boring a hole in the concrete wall. Nothing unusual except that the gang comprised of mainly senior citizens ranging from 48 to 76 years of age, with 5 above 58 yrs.
What the police once conjured as a sophisticated job turned out to be carried out by a group of elderly amateurs. British press has nicknamed them 'Dad's Army'.

One CCTV footage showed 2 of the old guys struggling to cart away their loot in a bin, often resting against it to catch their breadth. At the preliminary court hearing, the 74 year old suspect complained he could not hear the clerk's questions because he was hard of hearing. Another 59 year old suspect walked with a pronounced limp. Police in some countries like UK and South Korea have noticed an increase in 'geriatric crime', attributing it to poverty and loneliness. In the case of the famous 'Grandpa gang' (3 members in their 60s and 70s) who staged several bank robberies in Germany, one member had told how they had to stop constantly to wait for their senior member to pee and how he almost blotched one job when he slipped on the ice during the getaway.

Now I find these people quite inspiring, not that I am thinking of committing a crime for the thrill of it. Rather I admire their can-do spirit and geriatric guts, never letting their age and physique limit their plans. Very often I will deliberate whether to go for a certain hike whilst touring a foreign country, fearing I will be stuck somewhere when my body can't take it. At other times when visiting a place that is snowing, the fear of slipping will make me forgo venturing a bit further to catch a better view.What a far cry from the man with a limp in the London heist and the senior grandpa gang who never fear their unfitness will impede their getaway. Those of us who think of skipping a place of interest for fear of toilet inconvenience must remember the grandpa gang member who robbed a bank despite constant visits to the toilet.

Occasionally we would regret not having done this or that when we were younger. Perhaps we should review these regrets with fresh eyes.

As the saying goes "There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward" ~John Mortimer