In my last post, I wrote about the parable of the wise farmer. He humbly recognizes his own general inability to know what causes what, and so rather than impulsively stake a claim to particular events being good or bad, he shrugs his shoulders and simply waits for the world to reveal outcomes. And in that story we, the readers, learn that "good" events may produce "bad" outcomes and vice versa. The farmer's maybe is what I call, in a therapeutic sense, a practice of inhibition. That is, the farmer's maybe is an orientation towards the future that inhibits his need to anticipate and think and plan and worry... in short, it is a defense against anxiety. The invocation of maybe gives one a break from the need to anticipate and then prepare for the future.
I had an experience last summer that speaks to the same causal issue, but rather than being oriented towards the future, as in the parable of the wise farmer, it produced a reflection about the nature of causality in the present moment. Let me set the scene: it's a warm and clear summer's day, and my girlfriend and I are deciding where to sit down. We walk by a bench we regularly sit on, and I ask, "where do you wanna sit?" She suggests we sit under a nearby tree rather than our regular bench. I agree, and we sit under the tree.
A couple of minutes later, she notices a red stain on her dress. It turns out we sat down on top of whatever this tree scattered on the ground, which were these reddy/orange pods. And whatever was in these pods stained our clothes. We stood up, cleaned ourselves up as best we could, and sat down on the bench. It wasn't a big deal, and though our clothes were a little splotchy, whatever stained them later came out in wash.
In the moment of recognition when I realized that these pods were staining our clothes, I immediately thought some version of "it's her fault that we sat on that spot on the ground. It's her fault that our clothes are messed up. I wanted to sit on the bench. And if we sat on the bench, we wouldn't be in this situation." In this instance, that old saw, "first thought best thought," was precisely wrong.
My first thought was analogous to the impulsive reactions of the wise farmer's neighbours: it was my immediate reflection on what caused us to be in the situation in which we found ourselves. And my immediate reaction was wrong and bad. Why so? Because it assigned all the causal responsibility to my girlfriend. And why was that? Because she was the one who suggested that we sit under the tree. But sitting under the tree was simply her suggestion. That suggestion did not cause us to sit under the tree. She did not physically force me to sit under the tree. She didn't manipulate or blackmail me to sit under the tree.
What I noticed in that moment was my own immediate knee-jerk need to assign a cause. In this instance, we might make the words cause and blame interchangeable. Blame is something like an accusation of causation, and it answers the pointed question, "why did this happen?" But unlike the wildly inflationary why that I discussed in my post Why? vs Why Not?, this was a deflationary why. In other words... "why did this happen to me?" "What caused my pants to be stained?"
It felt satisfying to be able to point to the cause of the problem. I was annoyed that my pants were stained with red splotches. After all, we could have sat on the bench that we regularly sat on. Sitting on the bench had never stained our clothes. And looking to the future, I didn't know whether these stains would wash out. I was annoyed in the present at the stains on my pants, and was I was worried that the stains wouldn't easily come out. So... I was also potentially out a pair of pants—a wise farmer's maybe would have been handy here.
Blaming my girlfriend for the cause of our problem happened in the blink of an eye. And it felt satisfying to be able to point directly to the culprit, the cause of the mishap. But... that whole line of thinking is bad and simple and corrupt. After all, I was the one who asked the original question, "where do you wanna sit?" She would not have suggested that we sit under the tree if I hadn't asked my question first. How can I blame her answer to a question I posed? And if that was true, shouldn't I shoulder at least as much responsibility as her?
What I realized in that moment is that my causal lens was focussed far too narrowly. I was every bit as much to blame for our situation as her. Not only that, but when she said that she would like to sit under the tree, I agreed. So... again... I was a participant in the ultimate decision. If I had said, "I'd rather sit on the bench," she would have likely agreed. Neither of us had any particularly strong position about where we sat. She made a suggestion. I agreed. We sat.
And we could go back further: who was the one who suggested we go for a walk? Who suggested we walk in that direction? Those suggestions and decisions were all necessary for us to have been in the position in that moment to choose to sit on that ground under that tree. But in my moment of accusation, none of that was immediately available to me. Like the wise farmer's neighbours, I felt the strong impulse to say with certainty why things happened in the ways they did and whether they were good or bad.
Upon reflection, I realized my causal account for our problem was completely unfair. I was every bit as much to blame, I was every bit as much the cause, of our problem as was she. But my thinking was myopic—that is, it was only focussed on the immediately proximal and left out all the other causal forces that produced our situation.
In the end, it seemed clear to me that we made our decision together. If I asked the question, and she offered a suggestion, and I then agreed with her suggestion... it seemed unfair to then saddle her with the sole responsibility for the outcome. And though it is less immediately satisfying to have broadened my causal perspective—meaning I would share responsibility—it did ultimately feel like the most appropriate perspective.
Thankfully, all of this reflecting was done internally. I realized my shortsightedness and was appreciative for the exchange of stained pants for the opportunity to notice my own automatic thinking . We brushed ourselves off, got as much of the stains out as we could, and continued on our way.
