Hiding behind the anonymity of facelessness

Recently both Cheryl Strayed, the author of “Wild,” and David Brooks, of The New York Times, have written to express their surprise at the meanness and anger they see sprinkled in the comments people post on their websites. They are not against people disagreeing with their opinions or disliking their books and editorials, they are just commenting on how hateful and vitriolic many of the posts can be.

I remember experiencing a similar feeling after the “Outside” magazine article came out about my late husband Pete. Most of the comments were kind and sympathetic, but a few were mean-spirited and condemning. For example, one person wrote that my friends and I should be “ashamed” for our lack of forgiveness. Her comment stood out in its harsh judgment and wounded me deeply. It was not the only one that was hurtful although nice comments definitely outnumbered the mean ones. Still the mean ones had more impact.

The editor of “Outside” agreed that the several of the comments were surprisingly harsh, and he lamented people’s willingness to say things anonymously that they’d never say in person. But, he also acknowledged that the controversy these debates created were good for his business. Magazines like to generate heated discussions because they draw readers to their pages.

Society’s increasing dependence on faceless social media as a form of communication has some troubling repercussions like this. In some ways it is fantastic. I love the way I can be in touch with old friends around the country and even the world through the Internet. I love the immediacy of the connection. And yet, I am appalled when I read some of the debates that go back and forth between people who feel free to use profanity in their comments and who are all too ready to belittle their detractors’ intelligence and character regardless of the relevance of those traits to the topic. The idea of civil discourse seems to be lost, especially when you can hammer out your comments on a blank screen detached from the human faces on the other side.

An article in The New York Times entitled “Epidemic of Facelessness” http://www.nytimes.com/pages/opinion/index.html by Stephen Marche published on Feb. 14 explores the neuroscience behind what’s going on in social media. He explains that it should not surprise us that people can be mean when they write comments in the absence of human interaction because so much of our ability to empathize with others depends on actually looking into someone else’s face. The connection between faces and ethical behavior is proven by neuroscience: Research shows that when we don’t actually look at someone during an interaction, we can more easily dismiss his or her humanity. Without being aware of the science behind this fact, I felt it in my initial throes of grief following Pete’s death. I did not want to see a photograph of the man who threw the rock that killed Pete. I wanted that man to remain faceless so I did not have to consider his feelings. I wanted a monster I could blame for my tragedy. Not a pretty emotion, I know, but it was how I felt at the time.

Marche writes, “A world stripped of faces is a world stripped not merely of ethics, but of the biological and cultural foundations of ethics.” That’s a scary concept to consider. I can see its impact in the nature of discourse going on today. There is an incredible amount of hatred and spite in the way different groups (think liberals and conservatives for example) converse about each other and much of that is possible because we are able to ignore our common humanity.

David Brooks wrote in his column about how psychologically damaging it can be for him to read the mean comments people post in response to his work. He basically said he has to ignore them. Cheryl Strayed essentially said the same thing in her response to mean feedback. She wrote, “I send out a little silent non-God-connected prayer to the jackass who felt the need to share his or her jack-assed-ness with me. And then, without comment, I zap them forever from this page.”

Their reactions are natural. I, too, find it hard to hear feedback when it is buried in anger and meanness.  Criticism is helpful, but if it comes cloaked in profanity and full of spite, you cannot glean any of its benefits. Instead we delete the comments. We dismiss the intelligence of the writer. We call them jackasses. We hunker down and surround ourselves with like-minded individuals who only reinforce our beliefs. The opportunity for growth is, therefore, diminished

Social media is not going anywhere, and I am convinced its benefits outweigh the negatives, but I am learning to use caution. Remember the people who read your comments are humans. Remember your words can cause pain. Remember to consider whether you’d say what you are writing to someone else’s face. Let that be your guide.

Marche concluded his article saying, “The new facelessness hides the humanity of monsters and victims both.” That’s a pretty strong statement, and one to bear in mind as we process the flood of material coming at us online.

Why do we love risky activities?

I have sent my manuscript out to a number of friends to get feedback. It’s a scary and exciting experience, though I’ve heard back from only a couple so far. I await news from the others rather anxiously — eager but also nervous about their verdicts.

One person pointed out a section where she got bogged down so I went back to look it over and figure out whether I needed it. It touches on a lot of things: why we climb, denial of danger, helping friends in times of need, talking ourselves into a belief. I get where she’s coming from in terms of the way the section diverts us from the story, it does. I just wonder if those topics need to be in there, and if so, how can I explore them more gracefully?

I am in the process of writing a profile of a longtime climber named Kim Schmitz for the Jackson Hole News&Guide. Kim is about to receive an award from the American Alpine Club for his contributions to the sport of climbing. He climbed everywhere and his list of first ascents and groundbreaking ticks is impressive even today 30 plus years after his heyday. Kim took a fall in the 1980s that shattered his body: two broken wrists, broken vertebrae and pulverized lower legs among other injuries. He has endured, and continues to endure, constant surgeries to keep him moving and help reduce his pain. And yet, Kim still climbs.

He told me that he’d recently asked Jim Bridwell, an old climbing partner of his and another well-known alpinist, if he wanted to go climbing sometime. According to Kim, Bridwell responded by saying, “I don’t have anything to prove anymore.”

That answer dumbfounded Kim. He is way past proving anything when he gets on the rock. That’s not what climbing is about for him. It’s about the places it takes him, the movement, the camaraderie, the mental and physical challenge and the joy he feels in high places. And yet, Kim has lost a great deal to climbing. His body is battered. Many of his old climbing partners are dead. Still he goes. It’s part of his soul. I don’t think he can even really articulate exactly why.

My community has also lost more than our share of men and women to the mountains. Like so many risky activities that we embrace, we talk ourselves into believing we can control the dangers of climbing.  We think we can manage our ropes, make the right choices, protect ourselves until we can’t. The best of us are struck down, and those of us who survive rationalize the accident.

I remember after a friend of ours died climbing near Lander, Pete went to look at photos from the accident and hiked up to the cliff to stare at the climb where our friend fell. 

“I had to see to understand,” he told me.  

 And so we pieced together what our friend had done wrong and figured out how we could avoid that same mistake. When another friend died the following year, we did the same thing. Why? Because we wanted to keep climbing and to do that we needed to convince ourselves it was worthwhile, which can be hard when you see the families of the dead suffering.

 The dangers of rock climbing are many: rockfall, broken holds, botched rope and anchor systems, belaying errors, unarrested falls, weather, avalanches, injuries, mistakes … your own and those of your partners. All these things can kill you. After Pete died, I read one comment posted online that said climbers lived shorter lives because of the risks they willfully accept, even seek out. The commenter seemed to be saying that Pete’s death was tragic, but he should have known that tragedy was possible. It comes with the terrain.

I know rock climbing is risky, but I also believe that people who have never climbed do not understand the calculation that goes into every decision climbers make. People often assume they and other extreme athletes are thrill seekers who push themselves to dangerous limits and engage in risky, life-threatening behavior.

Part of this viewpoint dates back to a report by Marvin Zuckerman, of the University of Delaware, that came out in 1983. Zuckerman said that skydivers, hang gliders and scuba divers were similar to gamblers and drug addicts in their relentless pursuit of a thrill. He claimed this personality trait was driven by a desire to stimulate the brain’s pleasure centers — to release dopamine and get a natural high. His theory captured the public’s imagination.

But I don’t think rock climbers are thrill seekers.

Eric Brymer, from the University of Queensland in Australia, pushed back against Zuckerman’s premise that the attraction of risky activities is simply the dopamine rush of an addict. In 2013, he studied a number of extreme athletes and came to the conclusion that fear, not pleasure, was actually what separated serious extreme athletes from sensation-seeking junkies. Fear, he said, played a role in developing courage and humility. It helped athletes focus. They learned to manage fear, which in turn opened them up to a heightened sense of awareness and calm — the same traits associated with meditation.

That theory made sense to me based on the athletes I know. Pete never viewed climbing as a death-defying, thrill-seeking adventure. Like Kim Schmitz, he climbed for the flow, the meditation, the mental control, the combination of physical and emotional power. He climbed for the beautiful places the sport took him. He climbed for the partnerships, the bond that linked him to the others who tied into a rope with him.

He accepted the risks associated with climbing, but do we really understand what that means until we experience the horror of a climbing accident? Until we actually see someone die?

Pete and I managed to convince ourselves for years — even after friends of ours were killed in the mountains — that we could be safe. Now that seems so stupid, and yet, I see so many parallels to this blindness in my every day life. I guess it’s just human nature to live in the bubble of denial. The alternative seems like it would leave us curled up in our house afraid to even step through the door.

Where are all our heroes?

Americans idolize the renegade hero who stands up for right against all odds. We love movies and books about people who are willing to risk everything to protect the innocent or resist corruption. And yet, it seems as if in real life this character trait is rare.

A friend who recently lost his job received numerous phone calls and emails from colleagues commiserating with him and saying that they, too, had run-ins with his supervisor. But no one has been willing to say these things to my friend’s supervisor or to the head of the company.

I get it. Why would they be willing to risk their jobs and security for someone else? And yet, I find it sad to see this disconnect in our culture. We may idolize the few who take a risk, but the rules and patterns of our corporations and society do not embrace their behavior. People look away when they see something they don’t approve of and pretend they don’t know what is going on. Whistleblowers lose their jobs and find it hard to get new ones. Most people aren’t going to risk that, so they tuck their heads down, ignore what is going on and send sympathetic emails to those who are crushed by the system.

I thought about this a lot over the last week. I just finished rereading the Lord of the Rings series. In the end of “The Return of the King” Frodo and his pals return to the Shire to find it overrun with unsavory humans who are destroying the countryside. The few hobbits who stood up to this onslaught were languishing in jail, the others had been cowed into doing the men’s bidding despite the fact that they did not support what was happening. They were too frightened; they had families to support; it was easier to go along with what was going on than to resist.

In wartime, these people are considered collaborators. If their side loses, they often suffer in the aftermath. I’ve read of women being paraded through the streets of Paris, their heads shaved, carrying signs that read they’d slept with Germans. It’s easy to condemn such behavior. Collaborators appear to be weak and slimy. They abandon all their principles to survive. And yet, who wouldn’t? How many of us truly have what it takes to say, “No,” especially when we are hungry, desperate, frightened and have a family to protect?

I have never really had to face this question when the stakes were high. I quit a job once over a matter of principle. The act made me feel good, but I didn’t have a lot to lose. I wasn’t supporting a family. I could fall back on NOLS fieldwork. I was young and healthy. Plus I took my stance for myself, not for someone else. I could behave in what I considered a highly principled way without losing everything — just a job I no longer wanted. It felt good to take a stance, but my behavior didn’t really change anything.

What gives people the courage to stand up for what they believe in even when they know that act can result in the loss of a job or worse death? You have to be willing to risk everything to take such a chance. You have to be willing to sacrifice yourself for something you believe in, recognizing that your act is likely to go unrewarded and that your sacrifice may affect your loved ones negatively.

Who will do that undoubtedly depends on the individual and the cause. Some people may have very little to lose and so can take a stance without much risk. Like me quitting my job. Others may have been pushed so far, been so appalled by the injustice they observed that they cannot in good conscious ignore it. Some may have resources that allow them to be cavalier about losing pay and benefits or enough confidence in their value that they feel the can speak up without negative consequences. Others may be backed into a corner where the outcome is so bleak regardless of their actions that they find the courage to resist.

I don’t know really know what gives people the courage to be a hero. I do know that there is a disconnect between what we believe in and the way we behave. In movies and books people who are willing to stand up for their principles are applauded, and yet in most of our institutions, this same behavior would not be tolerated. You don’t get thanked for questioning authority, especially by authority.

In school my daughter is learning to value and honor the men and women who made history by standing up for their principles. She really believes our culture is built on the brave acts of these people, and it is. But that doesn’t mean it’s the norm.  I’m not sure how she’ll feel when she begins to recognize the hypocrisy in our society.  Rebellious acts don’t really become heroic until long after the cause is over and the good side won. Most of the time rebels are crushed, forced out, shut up.

So while I find myself feeling as if the people who sent sympathetic emails to my friend are weak, I also understand where they are coming from. I am not sure I’d have what it takes to risk my job for someone else if I could just as easily turn away, pretend nothing happened, avoid the people responsible and bury myself in my work.

A different grief

I'm back after a wonderful holiday break. I've finally finished draft one of a completed manuscript and have sent it off to an editor for feedback. In the meantime, I'll continue to explore the ideas I touch upon in the memoir in this blog. Today's post is about how differences in the way we grieve can lead to misunderstandings. Enjoy.

We all handle grief in our own unique ways. The trick is to respect — not judge — the path of others.

I just finished reading Joyce Carol Oates’ book “Carthage.” It’s not a great book and I almost put it down before I finished, but I plugged away and in the last couple of chapters found an interesting message that was worth my perseverance.

The book is about the disappearance of a young woman. Her family believes she is dead, and her sister’s ex-fiance — an Iraqi vet who returned from the war seriously maimed and suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome — confesses to having murdered her, although there is no body. Ultimately (spoiler alert) it turns out the girl did not die, she just disappeared for seven years.

For her family, however, her disappearance was a death, and they were left grieving and confused.

What I found most interesting about the book was the way the girl’s parents dealt with their tragedy. The mother is forgiving and dedicates her life to battered women issues. She visits the ex-fiance in prison and offers him her support and love. The father, on the other hand, drinks heavily, struggles with his anger and is left isolated and kind of pathetic. He’s angry and unforgiving. The couple divorces, estranged by their different ways of coping with the loss of their daughter.

I remember hearing that as many as 75 percent of couples who lose a child end up divorcing. After reading Oates’ book, I did a little bit of Internet searching to try to find whether that statistic was true. The information I tracked down was scanty, but most of it debunked the notion that the loss of a child doomed couples. Nonetheless the myth persists. We accept it as fact without really questioning where the idea comes from. It seems for most of us, it makes sense that the death of a child would be more than enough to rupture the bond between a couple, regardless of whether there is any supporting evidence for that belief.

Grief is different for all of us. We don’t really know how we’ll respond to the loss of a loved one until it happens. Most deaths are accompanied by sadness, disbelief, fear and anger. How we cope with these emotions is intensely personal, and it can be difficult when you find yourself responding very differently from your partner, friends and family. You may look at someone you have known your whole life and see a person you do not recognize and cannot reach. How can he or she be so forgiving when you are filled with rage? How can he or she find solace in religion when your beliefs have been shattered by the brutality of life? How can you be so different in your response?

It’s hard to get into someone else’s head. Think about pain. You can see someone is suffering, but you cannot feel what they are feeling and that disconnect can make it hard to empathize. There’s a video on YouTube about the "man cold" that I find hilarious because I believe my husband is a bit melodramatic when he gets a sore throat or fever. But the fact is I can’t really feel his cold or know how it makes him feel, so my lack of sympathy is really pretty harsh. Watching someone else grieve is similar. I know people thought I should let go of my anger, but from my perspective their judgment reflected their inability to understand how I felt.

Facing that disconnect can be difficult. It’s hard not to question the choices of someone who has taken a different route from the path you’ve chosen. In “Carthage,” it was easy to be sympathetic toward the mother. She appeared noble, self-sacrificing and forgiving and that looked good, at least on paper. The drunken father, on the other hand, looked pathetic and ridiculous as he clung to his anger. It made me think about my own difficulty letting go. How much more sympathetic I would be if I chose to be noble and forgiving.  But how unnatural that emotion seemed to be for me.

I find myself thinking about this difference in perspective and reflecting on how easy it makes it to judge someone harshly from the outside and how challenging that could be to a relationship if you find yourself on opposites sides. How do you find commonality if one person is angry and bitter and the other forgiving? How do you reach each other if one person finds solace in religion and the other gets angry at the idea of God for the sorrow he or she must endure?

Outside magazine ran an article on Pete’s death in December 2007. The online version of the story was accompanied by a comment section where people could post their reactions to the story. To solicit responses, Outside posed a question about whether Luke Rodolph should have faced charges for his actions. Some of the comments posted on that site shocked me. More than one person judged me harshly for my anger, calling Luke a hero. I can recall vividly one particular comment where an unnamed person wrote: “Absolon and her friends should be ashamed for their failure to forgive.”

Those kinds of remarks blew me away. How, I thought, could anyone feel they had the right to judge me based on one article? How could they judge my community based on one reporter’s interpretation of our response to our loss? And yet people — especially with the protection of anonymity — found it easy to say we needed to forgive.

In the abstract I agree forgiveness is a worthy goal and the more admirable way to respond to a wrong. But I am not sure you can always predict how you or your loved one will react to the same crisis, demanding or expecting forgiveness in another shows, in my mind, a lack of awareness about our basic human differences. And if you want to avoid having that difference rupture a long-lasting relationship you need to step back and accept it without judgment. You need to support each other on your separate journeys and acknowledge with love and respect the fact that all of us react in our own unique ways. 

LIfe Is Not Fair

We’ve all heard and said that statement countless times, and yet, I think deep inside we don’t really believe it. We really want the world to be fair.

The other day as I climbed up the boot pack on Mount Glory to go for a quick ski with a friend, we got into a conversation about the concept of fairness. He said something that I found thought provoking, namely that we all believe the bad guys will get their comeuppance at some point, but the reality is that very few of them ever do.

Why do we believe bad guys will ultimately lose? It doesn’t take much to find at least some of the roots of the conviction. I have a 14-year-old daughter who only recently left behind the world of princesses and Disney movies. In that world, the evil stepmother, witch, queen, monster (you fill in the name) always loses. Even in Studio Ghibli’s movies — which aren’t quite as saccharine as Disney’s — good prevails over evil. Literature, television and film are all full of stories that follow this pattern. To be honest, very few of us want to watch movies or read books where the good guys lose. It’s dissatisfying and disheartening, and if you are like me, you don’t escape into fiction to experience those emotions. We deal with them enough in day-to-day life.

I did not help my daughter steel herself against the unfairness of the world when she was little. I tried to shelter her from pain, tried to protect her from injustice and when things went wrong, tried to figure out how we could make it right. And for most of Avery’s childhood injuries, we found ways to avoid the ultimate truth that life is not fair in most of the cases where the question arose.

Why did I do this? Because of her eyes, her innocence, her sweet trusting nature, her belief in magic and fairies and goodness. I wanted her to hang on to these things as long as she could. I wanted her innocence to remain in tact as long as it could. Why? Because I wanted to protect her from pain. I wanted her to be safe. I wanted her to be happy.

But does this do her a disservice for the rest of her life? Will it leave her, like me, feeling completely unmoored and shocked at the ugliness and unfairness of much of the world? Will she, too, be amazed when truth does not prevail?

One of the things I believe NOLS does better than any other organization I have been a part of is to give kids responsibility for their actions. For many of my students, their NOLS course was the first time they had really faced the consequences of their behavior. If they left their stuff outside the tent over night and it rained, they had to wear wet clothes. If they burned their dinner, they had to eat it anyway.

These lessons were relatively painless and while the consequences were real, what made them safe was the fact that none of the choices we gave our students jeopardized their physical wellbeing. Nonetheless, the impact of learning to live with the consequences of their choices is powerful on kids. Especially for many upper middle class American kids who have been sheltered by their parents, their schools and their friendships.

Years ago I watched the movie, “He’s Just Not That Into You.” In my mind, the best part of the movie took place in the first few minutes of the film when a series of scenes flash by with friends rationalizing to each other why someone’s boyfriend has left. The women came up with incredible excuses, all of which most of us recognize. No one ever said, “He’s just not into you.”  Why, because they didn’t want to hurt their friend’s feelings.

I didn’t want anything to hurt Avery’s feelings. So I protected her every way I could. I would not call myself a helicopter mother. I’ve never done Avery’s homework for her, and I would not write an application and pass it off as hers, but in the areas where I have some control — how she interprets a friend’s behavior, how she handles not being picked for a team or a play — I often work hard to color her interpretation of the decision in a way that protects her feelings.

Now as I struggle to work through the utter unfairness of my friend’s job situation, it comes to me that I truly believe in the fiction of fairness despite my experiences to the contrary. Because of this belief, I am vulnerable to hurt even now as a middle-aged woman. Even now after countless disappointments when the world did not live up to my expectations. When good did not win. That’s an interesting bit of self awareness for me. I’ve set myself up for disappointment and hurt because of my deep-rooted conviction —idealistic and naïve — that things should always be fair.

So as I look at Avery, I wonder if I should step back and allow her to experience unfairness more. Maybe I shouldn’t try to intervene or excuse the cruelty of a friend. Maybe I should worry less about her experiencing disappointment. Maybe if I’d act differently, she’d be better able to navigate the world’s injustices as she grows older.

Avery is actually quite wise. I think having lost a father and being raised by a loving community has made her aware of the pain of loss but also open to the power of love. She trusts the world and people, but unlike me doesn’t seem to expect everything to be perfect. I hope that allows her to better able to withstand disappointment, anger and despair when things fall apart. 

The power of words

Last week a member of my extended family sent a private email to someone that was later forwarded to many more of us. The email contained derogatory words about another family member. The writer quickly apologized, but we were left as a family trying to pick up the pieces and figure out how to move forward. Do you let a family split because of a careless note that was never meant for anyone to see beyond the original recipient? Or do you allow the hurt to overcome the history and blood that unify you with others?

I am quick to react to injustice. Something about me is programmed to respond like the proverbial mother bear with anger and fear when I perceive a wrong being done to myself or my loved ones. I’ve struggled with this propensity to flair up quickly all my life. I was one of those kids who held my breath until I passed out when I wasn’t allowed to wear my tutu to school or when my sister Ann got to drink out of the Pebbles glass at breakfast and I was left with Bam Bam. I am the one who still fights the teeming in my gut triggered by my friend’s unfair firing from his job weeks after the decision was made.

My quick reactions rarely have the outcome I desire. I want others to admit their wrongdoing and apologize, but when I lash out, I only make them defensive and reactive. We don’t get anywhere. Maybe I feel better for a little while because I released my pent-up feelings, but my relationships are never better for the tantrum.

And so I wonder about this email. I wonder what our best action as a family is. We could choose to cut off all contact with this person, but I don’t think any of us want that kind of permanent schism. And yet, the tone and language were incredibly hurtful. I don't think we can simply ignore it.

The divide unveiled by the email exchange is the divide that separates the entire nation: liberal versus conservative, environmentalist versus denier (hmm, maybe I need another word, but what is an anti-environmentalist?), religious versus agnostic or atheist. These divides have proven to be almost impossible to bridge on a national level, how do we do it in our little family circle?

So where do we go from here? My sister seems to have had the most insight into the best course of action. She preaches restraint, kindness. She chooses to accept the apology and to limit any interaction about the email to its effects on the one who was attacked. How did it make him feel? What does he need to feel better?

Her solution brings to mind something called the Awareness Wheel that we taught back when I worked for NOLS. I don’t know if this tool is still in vogue, but there are elements of it that I think could be useful now as we try to figure out how to address this conflict without causing irreversible harm. The point of the wheel is to help you understand the difference between facts and feelings and to figure out how to work through conflicts constructively. At least that’s how I remember it.

So in this story the facts are: 1. The email went beyond its original intended recipient and fell into the hands of people who were never meant to see it.  2. The email used profane language to attack an individual's worldview and intelligence.

The feelings associated with the email are: 1. The language caused hurt and anger, not only to the named person but also to his immediate family with whom he shared the email. 

If I continue to use the awareness wheel, I’d go into “I” statements such as, “When you say that, I feel this…” And ultimately, we’d come around to the basic question of what do we want? What can we do to solve this dispute?

What do I want? I want the hurt and anger triggered by the email to be resolved. I want to ensure that my family is not divided into two factions forever. Ideally I’d want to change the writer’s mind about climate change, but I don’t think that is going to happen. In the absence of that, maybe distilling the issue down to these simple wants will help us reach some kind of resolution without permanently dividing the family.

I think it’s helpful for me observe what is going on with my family and try to relate it to my own issues.I can be a lot cooler and calmeer when I'm on the outside looking in.  It gives me the perspective I need to recognize how reactions can sabotage goals. How anger breeds anger and perpetuates the cycles of miscommunication and conflict.

In the long run, I truly believe we really all just want to get along and live our lives surrounded by love and safety.  I know that email really hurt people, but I also know that hurt was not intentional. I know that and so I think I need to just accept the apology with grace and empathy and move forward trusting the good intentions of all.