Eleven Seconds of Conversation on the Rock
This is adapted from an e-mail I wrote to some friends more than three years ago, which I've been thinking about turning into an LJ entry for a while. I make no representations as to the insightfulness/length ratio.
At the time I was pretty unhappy due to a personal situation, and (not for that reason) I had just started reading Eleven Seconds, by Travis Roy. For those who may not know, Travis Roy was 11 seconds into his first shift of a promising college hockey career when he tried to deliver a legal check, didn't quite connect, and went awkwardly into the boards, shattering his C4 and leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.
It's a great book, and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. A lot of the themes are to be expected: count your blessings, life could always be worse, there but for the grace of God, etc. He mentions how a lot of times he felt depressed and came to realize you can't dwell on the negatives in life, you have to concentrate on the positives.
And yet... Soon after I began to read Eleven Seconds (not immediately, but soon after) I thought of the fan-favorite X-Files episode "Quagmire" in which there's a large recreational area centered around a lake, but something is killing all the small fauna, and then attacking and eating swimmers, boaters, etc. The locals can't decide if it's a lake monster or a big alligator or whatever, and at some point Mulder and Scully end up stranded on a big rock in the middle of the lake at night because their boat hit something and they're screwed until daylight comes and someone can rescue them.
While stranded there, they have one of the best conversations in the history of the series, widely known to aficionados as the Conversation on the Rock, or COTR. (If you weren't an X-Files fan, it may help to know that Mulder, while basically level-headed, was open to the idea that aliens existed and were being covered up by a massive government conspiracy etc. and susceptible to being led on wild goose chases after little green men and other sorts of paranormal phenomena, while Scully was the more scientific voice of reason.)
Mulder: Why did you name your dog Queequeg?
Scully: It was the name of the harpoonist in Moby Dick. My father used to read to me from Moby Dick when I was a little girl, and I called him Ahab and he called me Starbuck, so I named my dog Queequeg. It's funny, I just realized something.
Mulder: It's a bizarre name for a dog, huh?
Scully: No, how much you're like Ahab. You're so consumed by your personal vengence against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology.
Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?
Scully: It's just... the truth, or a white whale, what difference does it make? I mean, both obsessions are impossible to capture and trying to do so will only leave you dead along with everyone else you bring with you.
You know, Mulder, you *are* Ahab.
Mulder: You know, it's interesting you should say that, because I've always wanted a peg leg. It's a boyhood thing I never grew out of. [Scully looks at him incredulously.] No, I'm not being flippant, I mean, I've given this a lot of thought. If you have a peg leg, or hooks for hands, you know, maybe it's enough to simply carry on living, you know, bravely facing life with your disability -- it's heroic just to survive. But without these things, you're actually expected to make something of your life, achieve something, earn a raise, wear a necktie. So if anything, I'm actually the antithesis of Ahab because if I did have a peg leg I'd quite possibly be more happy, more content and not feel the need to chase after these creatures of the unknown.
Scully: And that's not flippant?
Mulder: (laughs) No, flippant is my favorite line from Moby Dick: [Scully mouths along as Mulder says:] "Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple dumpling."
A post on alt.tv.x-files said that Mulder's peg leg fantasy parallels almost word-for-word "the description of The Game of Wooden Leg from Dr. Berne's Games People Play, a pop-psychology classic of the early 1970s."
"Wooden Leg" is the neurotic condition whereby a healthy person assumes a handicap in life with the aim of reducing personal responsibility or the expectations of others in regard to his or her performance. The operative transaction Berne describes in this life "game" is, "Well, what do you expect of me? Can't you see that i have a wooden leg?" Mulder describes this neurosis perfectly, saying that if he had a wooden leg, no one would expect him to be successful.
To me, this all underscores how the "be thankful for what you have" or "it could be worse, you could have ___/be ___/get ___" homily seems hollow, or fatuous, or vapid. I mean yes, most people take things like walking, playing hockey, feeding yourself, whatever, for granted, but I don't think they're not thankful for it -- they are, even though they maybe wouldn't realize it until it got taken away from them. So the thankfuless is sort of taken for granted too, if you see what I mean.
Or another way to put it: Roy's ability to get to the point where he is now is astounding -- I don't know if I would have the mental toughness to do the same thing he did if I were in that situation -- except that's just it: I'm not in his situation. And I don't think anyone really knows what they'd be capable of until they're put in that situation.
Mulder: Hey, Scully, do you think you could ever cannibalize someone? I mean, if you really had to.
Scully: Well, as much as the very idea is abhorrent to me, I suppose under certain conditions a living entity is practically conditioned to perform whatever extreme measures are necessary to ensure its survival. I suppose I'm no different.
Mulder: You've lost some weight recently, haven't you?
Scully: Yeah, actually, I have, thanks for... [she trails off, giving him a dirty look]
I do take for granted certain basic functionality I have that quadriplegics don't. I believe that I do at some level (maybe barely above subconscious) appreciate these skills, perhaps only in some trivially abstract or theoretical sense, but I'm not sure that people *are* capable of appreciating these things, really, fully, until they're taken away from them.
So, if you haven't had something like that taken away from you, then you can't help but take these things for granted. You're naturally going to concentrate on other, bigger (in this context) problems. So advice to "look on the bright side, sure you have problems, but you also have your health/friends/a job/a roof over your head" is well-intentioned but basically useless.
[I closed my e-mail by saying:] Anyway do not let my cynicism prevent you from going out and acquiring your own copy of "Eleven Seconds" which I am actually reading avidly and getting lots out of, above dissent notwithstanding.
At the time I was pretty unhappy due to a personal situation, and (not for that reason) I had just started reading Eleven Seconds, by Travis Roy. For those who may not know, Travis Roy was 11 seconds into his first shift of a promising college hockey career when he tried to deliver a legal check, didn't quite connect, and went awkwardly into the boards, shattering his C4 and leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.
It's a great book, and if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. A lot of the themes are to be expected: count your blessings, life could always be worse, there but for the grace of God, etc. He mentions how a lot of times he felt depressed and came to realize you can't dwell on the negatives in life, you have to concentrate on the positives.
And yet... Soon after I began to read Eleven Seconds (not immediately, but soon after) I thought of the fan-favorite X-Files episode "Quagmire" in which there's a large recreational area centered around a lake, but something is killing all the small fauna, and then attacking and eating swimmers, boaters, etc. The locals can't decide if it's a lake monster or a big alligator or whatever, and at some point Mulder and Scully end up stranded on a big rock in the middle of the lake at night because their boat hit something and they're screwed until daylight comes and someone can rescue them.
While stranded there, they have one of the best conversations in the history of the series, widely known to aficionados as the Conversation on the Rock, or COTR. (If you weren't an X-Files fan, it may help to know that Mulder, while basically level-headed, was open to the idea that aliens existed and were being covered up by a massive government conspiracy etc. and susceptible to being led on wild goose chases after little green men and other sorts of paranormal phenomena, while Scully was the more scientific voice of reason.)
Mulder: Why did you name your dog Queequeg?
Scully: It was the name of the harpoonist in Moby Dick. My father used to read to me from Moby Dick when I was a little girl, and I called him Ahab and he called me Starbuck, so I named my dog Queequeg. It's funny, I just realized something.
Mulder: It's a bizarre name for a dog, huh?
Scully: No, how much you're like Ahab. You're so consumed by your personal vengence against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to fit your megalomaniacal cosmology.
Mulder: Scully, are you coming on to me?
Scully: It's just... the truth, or a white whale, what difference does it make? I mean, both obsessions are impossible to capture and trying to do so will only leave you dead along with everyone else you bring with you.
You know, Mulder, you *are* Ahab.
Mulder: You know, it's interesting you should say that, because I've always wanted a peg leg. It's a boyhood thing I never grew out of. [Scully looks at him incredulously.] No, I'm not being flippant, I mean, I've given this a lot of thought. If you have a peg leg, or hooks for hands, you know, maybe it's enough to simply carry on living, you know, bravely facing life with your disability -- it's heroic just to survive. But without these things, you're actually expected to make something of your life, achieve something, earn a raise, wear a necktie. So if anything, I'm actually the antithesis of Ahab because if I did have a peg leg I'd quite possibly be more happy, more content and not feel the need to chase after these creatures of the unknown.
Scully: And that's not flippant?
Mulder: (laughs) No, flippant is my favorite line from Moby Dick: [Scully mouths along as Mulder says:] "Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple dumpling."
A post on alt.tv.x-files said that Mulder's peg leg fantasy parallels almost word-for-word "the description of The Game of Wooden Leg from Dr. Berne's Games People Play, a pop-psychology classic of the early 1970s."
"Wooden Leg" is the neurotic condition whereby a healthy person assumes a handicap in life with the aim of reducing personal responsibility or the expectations of others in regard to his or her performance. The operative transaction Berne describes in this life "game" is, "Well, what do you expect of me? Can't you see that i have a wooden leg?" Mulder describes this neurosis perfectly, saying that if he had a wooden leg, no one would expect him to be successful.
To me, this all underscores how the "be thankful for what you have" or "it could be worse, you could have ___/be ___/get ___" homily seems hollow, or fatuous, or vapid. I mean yes, most people take things like walking, playing hockey, feeding yourself, whatever, for granted, but I don't think they're not thankful for it -- they are, even though they maybe wouldn't realize it until it got taken away from them. So the thankfuless is sort of taken for granted too, if you see what I mean.
Or another way to put it: Roy's ability to get to the point where he is now is astounding -- I don't know if I would have the mental toughness to do the same thing he did if I were in that situation -- except that's just it: I'm not in his situation. And I don't think anyone really knows what they'd be capable of until they're put in that situation.
Mulder: Hey, Scully, do you think you could ever cannibalize someone? I mean, if you really had to.
Scully: Well, as much as the very idea is abhorrent to me, I suppose under certain conditions a living entity is practically conditioned to perform whatever extreme measures are necessary to ensure its survival. I suppose I'm no different.
Mulder: You've lost some weight recently, haven't you?
Scully: Yeah, actually, I have, thanks for... [she trails off, giving him a dirty look]
I do take for granted certain basic functionality I have that quadriplegics don't. I believe that I do at some level (maybe barely above subconscious) appreciate these skills, perhaps only in some trivially abstract or theoretical sense, but I'm not sure that people *are* capable of appreciating these things, really, fully, until they're taken away from them.
So, if you haven't had something like that taken away from you, then you can't help but take these things for granted. You're naturally going to concentrate on other, bigger (in this context) problems. So advice to "look on the bright side, sure you have problems, but you also have your health/friends/a job/a roof over your head" is well-intentioned but basically useless.
[I closed my e-mail by saying:] Anyway do not let my cynicism prevent you from going out and acquiring your own copy of "Eleven Seconds" which I am actually reading avidly and getting lots out of, above dissent notwithstanding.