JJ Litke

the neural pathways less traveled

Newly published story: When the Planets Left

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My flash story—When the Planets Left—is live at Cast of Wonders!

It’s one of their Little Wonders episodes that combine flash stories together. My story is second, starting at about 9:15. The first story is The There-It-Is Store by Adam Gaylord.

The episode theme is Embracing Change. I knew my story involved a concept of change (I know because I wrote it), but it was eerie to listen to the entire episode and see what an amazing job they did of blending my little story into a deeply meaningful theme.

Enjoy!

We suck at relationships

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I have a fascination with Confucianism. That shows in my writing, though you wouldn’t notice if you aren’t familiar with it yourself. And most people aren’t.

I should clarify that Confucianism is non-theistic. Just so you know, I’m not peddling religion here. It’s an ethical system, primarily concerned with correct behavior, and even more primarily with behavior toward other people. This where that relationships thing comes in. According to Confucianism, there are five basic relationships, which I will list without strict regard for political correctness:

  • Ruler to subject
  • Parent to child
  • Husband to wife
  • Elder sibling to younger sibling
  • Friend to friend

Within these relationships, the person in seniority has a moral obligation to behave with benevolence toward their juniors. That means looking out for their well being and generally taking care of them. The person in the junior position should treat their seniors with respect. As any given person could be in multiple of these relationships at the same time, they would adjust their behavior and expectations toward others depending on those relationships.

A great example of how this thought process works is two brothers with two apples, one large and one small. The elder brother offers the younger brother the large apple because he is still growing. But the younger brother offers the elder brother the larger apple because he is bigger. Aw!

That’s a lovely philosophy, isn’t it? Just a couple of problems, though. While Confucianism is fairly clear that one should know one’s place and stick to it (and that’s a pretty huge problem on its own), it’s a lot less clear about what to do when the other person in the relationship isn’t following the philosophy. But in general I think we can agree that a lot of us really suck at following these general guidelines, at least on a regular basis (certainly the Tea Party doesn’t ascribe to the concept of caring for others). It’s still a good goal, and a good way to think of how we should be acting toward others who depend on us.

Circling back to my writing (you knew I’d do that, didn’t you), all of those relationships are represented in my books. I actually didn’t consciously plan it that way, it just made sense because I deal with a lot of family issues and relationships. Just like in real life, my characters don’t always behave as they should. Yet even the most selfish of my fictional family still see their obligation to look out for their people. They would never deny food or shelter to those who depend on them. If I did write them that way, my story would be foolishly unbelievable.

Funny how real life can be more twisted and absurd than fiction.

Family “support”

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My daughter earned her bachelor’s  degree a couple of years ago. She works in a research position at a hospital, but she has decided that’s not enough. So she’s started taking post-bacc classes with the intent to go to medical school.

This is a text message exchange we had a few weeks ago:

Her: Enrolled in cellular biology!

Me: Yay, I guess!

Her: I’m gonna be a doctor BE ENCOURAGING

Three things here. One, she recognized my snarky sarcasm (to someone who doesn’t know me, my comment might not sound as bad as it actually was). Two, she called me out for my complete lack of support. And three, my daughter has ambitions of becoming A DOCTOR. Which is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.

That last bit is significant. When she talks about medical school, it’s scary to me. It’s big, and challenging, and that makes it frightening. I don’t want her to fail. So what do I do? I discourage her. I pointed out the cost, and the time involved, and the required level of commitment. As if she was going to say, oh, gee, Mom, medical school is expensive? I didn’t think of that because it’s such a well-kept secret! Good thing you clued me in!

As I point it out now, it sounds completely obvious and freaking stupid. But we do this to our families and friends all the time. We’re afraid for them, so we try to hold them back to something safer. Don’t start your own business, it might lose money. Don’t move to a new place, you might not like it. Don’t reach too high, you might fall. And that’s it right there. We don’t want them to fall or to fail, so we attempt to steer them to something safe and easy. We sabotage the people we love most in an effort to protect them. It’s sort of horrible when you realize you’re doing it, or that someone else is doing it to you.

So what to do about it: Well, when you’re the one guilty of it, you can try to realize that your fear is the problem, not their ambition. Maybe they won’t fail. Maybe they will, but they’ll learn something else and still make some gain from it. If you believe your concern is based on genuine issues of not being prepared for the step they want to take, help them find the resources they need. (In the example above, if I thought she seriously didn’t know the cost, I could have tried looking at scholarship-related info and sent that to her.)

If someone is doing this to you, recognize their reaction as fear rather than true lack of faith. (And if it’s true lack of faith, that’s a different problem, and you probably need to quit trying to get support from this person.) Gather the resources you need to achieve your goal, and keep moving toward it.

And when all that falls apart and your family sucks at supporting you anyway, try to realize that this is just how families are.

Don’t call me a good girl

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When something sneaks into your awareness, you start seeing it everywhere. That’s happening to me with the good girl tag in pop songs. And every time I hear it, I hate it a little more.

It seems so innocent. It’s supposed to be a compliment, even. How could good be bad? Because it stratifies women into the Madonna-whore divide. The moment a woman slips from her pedestal, she ceases to be worthy of respect and becomes a filthy whore.

This is actually part of a broader problem in people’s black-and-white view. There are good people, and there are bad people. If you see yourself as good (as virtually everyone does) then the things you do are not bad, no matter how far beyond the bounds of standard behavior. This relates to the concept of bounded ethicality, when “good” people twist the definitions of ethics to justify their own wrongdoing. The really insidious thing about this mindset is how it blinds people from their own behavior–if I am a good person, then nothing I do is actually bad. Nothing.

The other side of this–circling all the way back to where I started–is the idea that if a person does something wrong, I can label them as bad. Now I can freely vilify them. They are bad, they don’t deserve respect. I can treat them however I want. It is, in fact, a just thing for good me to punish bad them.

No one believes they’re bad or evil. I’ve seen this in action over and over. Good students cheating. Good people taking advantage of friends. On a higher level, nations attacking preemptively out of a perceived need for self-preservation. It happens all the time, and it is us. There is no them. We are the ones who control morality by twisting our crimes into need. We are the ones who believe the ends justify the means.

Don’t call me a good girl. Right behind that is the implication that if I falter, even a little, you’re going to cast me in the role of bad. I’m not that simple or one-dimensional. And neither are you, no matter how much you desperately want to believe you are one of the good guys.