(2010 Contemporary Spiritual Experience--theme: "Resilience")
When I learned the theme of this year’s services, I looked up “resilience” in the dictionary just to make sure it was a quality I, for the most part, lacked.
Resilience: "the ability to recover readily from illness, depression, adversity, or the like; buoyancy"
Yup, I was right. Nobody would ever describe me as buoyant, in the water or out. If you asked Hildy to write a song about me, it would be “Stuck in the Muck”, not “Pop to the Top”.
So, the best I can offer is an outsider’s view of resilience. And if, as a result of my negativity (or is it realism), Rabbi Don decides I can never speak at these services again, I can assure you I’ll ruminate about the rejection for weeks.
I want to talk briefly about three studies—well, actually, two studies and a survey—that reflect on those who are resilient and those who are not. The first is a classic study of the philosophy known as "depressive realism". In this study subjects sat in front of a panel that had a green light, a yellow light, and a button. The object of the “game” was to turn the green light on as many times as possible by pushing the button at the right moment. Of course, this being a psychology experiment, the subjects were left to discover what the right moment to push the green button was. Two groups were tested: normal/ resilient people and depressed/non-resilient people. At the end people in both groups were asked how much control over the green light they had during the experiment. The normal people, when they were succeeding thought they had considerable control—in other words, when the green light was flashing they said to themselves, boy, am I good at this! During the periods the green light failed to flash, however, they believed they had virtually no control at all—in other words, it’s not my fault, it’s the machine. The depressed, non-resilient people saw things quite differently: whether succeeding or failing, they quickly realized they had no control over the green light at all. And in fact they were right—throughout all trials for both groups the green light had flashed randomly.
This study suggests that non-resilient people are, in fact, more realistic—while resilient people “pop to the top” through the use of soothing distortions. Still, one might argue that all this study proves is that non-resilient people are better than resilient people at spotting hopeless situations. In other words, if non-resilient people actually had control over the green light, they would never have recognized it. So, let’s take a look at study number 2, one I’ll call the “alien slaughter”. Quite simply, two groups of people, depressed and non-depressed were asked to play a computer game in which the goal was to shoot down as many alien spaceships as they could. Neither group was shown their scores, but after the game everyone was asked to estimate how many spaceships they had destroyed. Who got it right? Results showed that normal resilient people vastly over-estimated the number of ships they had destroyed. Given that finding, one might think that depressed, non-resilient people would actually underestimate their “kills”. But this didn’t happen. Instead they were accurate within 5 or 10 percent. In other words, the depressed/non-resilient people simply saw the truth as it really was.
If you still doubt that resilience involves “soothing distortions”, I’ll bet a certain half of the people in this room will reconsider after I tell you about the third study. A little over a year ago, Boston Globe columnist Bella English reported the results of a startling survey: when asked whether they considered themselves sexy, 60% of American men said yes. Now, not counting the men in this room--for we all know that 100% of us are, in fact, sexy, and this may skew the data--I would like to ask the women here: do you consider 60% of American men sexy? By the way, according to men, the most important factor in being attractive is that you “carry yourself with confidence.” (change my posture: stand up straight) Ooops.
So, what does one do with the painful events of life if one lacks normal human resilience? Here’s what I’ve come up with: cry, complain but don’t overdo it, talk to other people who lack resilience because they’re the only people who will understand, read books on the Holocaust and the Civil War, cry—did I say that already, make love with your spouse or partner, find a therapist who lacks resilience (definitely not one of those sexy male analysts), take your dog for long walks, and finally fight with an obnoxious neighbor because it’s a good distraction, and it always helps to have an enemy. These are some of the things that I’ve found to help, and if you can do all of them, and stick with them, then perhaps it might be said, on a good day, that you have real resilience.
Have a good year!
