But it ate my brain, Mom.
Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy?---Gerald Jampolsky, MD
Sometimes the right thing is a luxury. It can have profoundly dangerous consequences. ---Laura Roslin, Battlestar Galactica
An incredibly long post about the singular and collective ego and the need to be right OR how Battlestar Galactica ate my brain…
I have this friend that has to be right. No matter what’s going on, no matter what the issue, she has to be right. If she can prove herself right about something, she is all over it. She doesn’t care that sometimes it hurts other people’s feelings or makes people think of her as arrogant when she is marching in and proving herself to be right. All that matters is that she has the answer, she’s right, she knows. It’s almost like something bad will happen to her if she’s not right…like it endangers her well being to be wrong or, god forbid, be caught doing wrong.
Though I love her, this behavior, frankly, drives me INSANE.
I suspect one of the reasons it drives me so crazy is because I recognize this same tendency in myself. I don’t think I’ll go to the lengths she’ll go to to prove myself right, but I know I like being right (whether it’s knowledge based or intuitive) and being wrong is hard for me to take (or admit) sometimes.
It is only the grace of “getting” the Jampolsky quote above that has kept me from ruining some of my relationships over the intense need I have to be right. A lot of times if I am having a disagreement with someone, it isn’t really whatever we are arguing about…it’s really about who is right, it’s about winning. So when I am able to let go of my need/desire to be right, I am usually able to let go of the argument altogether. Most times I can choose being happy over being right (though sometimes I am hard headed enough to not be happy unless I am right).
This, I am well aware, is ego. As I wrote not long ago, I know I have a lot of ego to breakdown and let go of to continue to grow. I know I’ll never be totally without it as long as I am alive, but I also know I can’t grow if I continue to cling to the attachments and illusions of my ego.
Just as ego is what causes a good deal of my suffering, ego is what keeps all of us holding on to the illusion we are separate, when we are, in fact, all one. Ego is what keeps us invested in being right. How many political or religious arguments on a national and international scale result from one or more groups need to be right? Get enough invested individuals in two opposing groups and well…yeah…some pretty ugly things can happen.
This humanity thing, this thing that makes us all simultaneously saints and demons, has always seemed to me to be a conflict of our higher natures wanting to do right and our separate egos wanting to be right.
I had shared awhile ago that thanks to misscam and phdelicious I started watching Battlestar Galactica. (SPOILER ALERT: What follows contains general spoilers for aired episodes of Battlestar Galactica and one specific spoiler for Sine Qua Non)
It has devoured my brain like a T-rex munching on cocktail weenies at a dry fundraiser…toothpick with the colorful little thing on the end and all.
I thought I was watching a sci-fi show, a remake of the cheesy show I used to watch back in high school (yes, I’m old…shut up). Of course, from the first ten minutes I see that it is so much more…so, it’s not just a sci-fi show, it’s a drama. Through the mini-series and into the first season I revised my opinion…it’s more than just a drama…it’s a gritty, dark drama with flawed characters.
I am not sure when it finally hit, what it actually is. It IS a remake of cheese, it is sci-fi, it is gritty drama…but it is, more than anything, about morality. It is about both our collective and singular need to be right. There is religious intolerance, racism, prejudice, deception, infidelity, political machinations and attempted genocide…and that’s from the good guys.
Some of the bad guys are really better than the good guys and all of the good guys are flawed beyond measure.
The driving forces behind this show have taken the basic religious and political constructs of our society and shifted them in such a way as to make concepts I previously would have called untenable, into, not just acceptable but, sometimes, preferable form. We are forced to face our own hypocrisy when we see a character declare, “They just don’t value life the way we do,” as she prepares to blow another character’s brains out…the same sentiment is echoed by another character responsible for the deaths of countless people.
Somewhere in the middle of season two it suddenly dawns on me, morality is…fluid. Right is not carved in stone. There is being right and there is doing right. There is survival and there is honor. There are times when it is important to have a belief we would die for and there are times when it is important to preserve life no matter what the cost to our ethics or civil liberties.
And what distinguishes those times? That is where the tide of morality shifts within each one of us.
I have been relatively comfortable in my adult life labeling one thing “right” and another thing “wrong.” Let’s start with an easy one…murder. I can say murder belongs most definitely in the “wrong” column. I don’t even kill bugs, so it’s pretty solidly there.
But then I watch this show and I have to ask myself…would I kill someone to protect my own life? I don’t know. Would I kill someone to protect Savannah or Keith? In a New York minute. But would I kill to protect someone else? Would I kill one person to save an entire race? Would I kill someone on suspicion that they could be a danger to those I love, the cause I support? Would I kill for vengeance, for justice? Would I kill to make it all alright, to even the score, to move forward? Is murder ever not wrong? I don’t know.
Nothing is immune. NOTHING. Torture of prisoners. Religion. Freedom of speech. Stem cell research. Freedom to assemble. The justice system. A woman’s right to choose. Take a hard stand on any moral high ground and when you watch this show you are likely to find yourself riding a wave of moral fluidity instead.
The fact is, every story has two sides and what is right in one instance can be wrong in another. Bad guys can be right, good guys can be wrong. Bad guys can be good and good guys can be bad.
There are two opposing sides. The only thing that has ever changed that, shifted the balance, is love. Sadly, in this series, the shift is on a small scale… a woman’s love for a man, a man’s love for a woman, a friend’s love for a friend. On a larger scale, an uneasy truce can be reached when each side acknowledges the other wants essentially the same thing they want…security, safety, love, faith.
What is wrong with us that we can’t allow this for all of our fellow men? Yes, I believe the greater answer is love…but if I find myself unable to love someone, what prevents me from tolerating their beliefs? Why must I try to be right, to prove them wrong?
And ultimately, how do I know? How do I know I’m right and they’re wrong? Especially when they are equally as convinced they’re right and I am wrong? And what does it matter, anyway? Does my being right or wrong prevent me or anyone else truly moving on with their life? Does my being a Buddhist prevent you from being a Christian? Does my being a Libertarian prevent you from being a Democrat? Does anything I do/feel/believe prevent you from living a full life embracing all of your beliefs?
But more than that, does anything you believe rob me of my peace? And more even than that, does it stop me from loving you? It shouldn’t…it really, really shouldn’t.
In the fourth season there is an episode entitled Sine Qua Non which they translate as “that without which not” and a character expounds on the phrase by saying: “Those things we deem essential, without which we cannot bear living, without which life in general loses its specific value…becomes abstract.”
The writers use this for some major squee worthy purposes, but the deeper meaning, the truer meaning reaches out and touches us all. What is it that makes my life more than an abstraction? What is it that gives my life any meaning? My family, certainly. But this endless journey of being and becoming, recognizing how very flawed I am and moving through my life experiences to expand my heart, to learn to love fully and completely, to try everyday to become better at thinking, praying and acting with compassion…sine qua non.
It is a gift when something as accessible as a television show gives us all a fresh perspective, makes us stop, look, reevaluate. When a show that is ostensibly about war can show us a way to peace…that is remarkable.
In case you haven’t guessed, I highly recommend this show.
But be careful. It will eat your brain.
Probably with cocktail sauce.
So say we all.
Peace.
Sometimes the right thing is a luxury. It can have profoundly dangerous consequences. ---Laura Roslin, Battlestar Galactica
An incredibly long post about the singular and collective ego and the need to be right OR how Battlestar Galactica ate my brain…
I have this friend that has to be right. No matter what’s going on, no matter what the issue, she has to be right. If she can prove herself right about something, she is all over it. She doesn’t care that sometimes it hurts other people’s feelings or makes people think of her as arrogant when she is marching in and proving herself to be right. All that matters is that she has the answer, she’s right, she knows. It’s almost like something bad will happen to her if she’s not right…like it endangers her well being to be wrong or, god forbid, be caught doing wrong.
Though I love her, this behavior, frankly, drives me INSANE.
I suspect one of the reasons it drives me so crazy is because I recognize this same tendency in myself. I don’t think I’ll go to the lengths she’ll go to to prove myself right, but I know I like being right (whether it’s knowledge based or intuitive) and being wrong is hard for me to take (or admit) sometimes.
It is only the grace of “getting” the Jampolsky quote above that has kept me from ruining some of my relationships over the intense need I have to be right. A lot of times if I am having a disagreement with someone, it isn’t really whatever we are arguing about…it’s really about who is right, it’s about winning. So when I am able to let go of my need/desire to be right, I am usually able to let go of the argument altogether. Most times I can choose being happy over being right (though sometimes I am hard headed enough to not be happy unless I am right).
This, I am well aware, is ego. As I wrote not long ago, I know I have a lot of ego to breakdown and let go of to continue to grow. I know I’ll never be totally without it as long as I am alive, but I also know I can’t grow if I continue to cling to the attachments and illusions of my ego.
Just as ego is what causes a good deal of my suffering, ego is what keeps all of us holding on to the illusion we are separate, when we are, in fact, all one. Ego is what keeps us invested in being right. How many political or religious arguments on a national and international scale result from one or more groups need to be right? Get enough invested individuals in two opposing groups and well…yeah…some pretty ugly things can happen.
This humanity thing, this thing that makes us all simultaneously saints and demons, has always seemed to me to be a conflict of our higher natures wanting to do right and our separate egos wanting to be right.
I had shared awhile ago that thanks to misscam and phdelicious I started watching Battlestar Galactica. (SPOILER ALERT: What follows contains general spoilers for aired episodes of Battlestar Galactica and one specific spoiler for Sine Qua Non)
It has devoured my brain like a T-rex munching on cocktail weenies at a dry fundraiser…toothpick with the colorful little thing on the end and all.
I thought I was watching a sci-fi show, a remake of the cheesy show I used to watch back in high school (yes, I’m old…shut up). Of course, from the first ten minutes I see that it is so much more…so, it’s not just a sci-fi show, it’s a drama. Through the mini-series and into the first season I revised my opinion…it’s more than just a drama…it’s a gritty, dark drama with flawed characters.
I am not sure when it finally hit, what it actually is. It IS a remake of cheese, it is sci-fi, it is gritty drama…but it is, more than anything, about morality. It is about both our collective and singular need to be right. There is religious intolerance, racism, prejudice, deception, infidelity, political machinations and attempted genocide…and that’s from the good guys.
Some of the bad guys are really better than the good guys and all of the good guys are flawed beyond measure.
The driving forces behind this show have taken the basic religious and political constructs of our society and shifted them in such a way as to make concepts I previously would have called untenable, into, not just acceptable but, sometimes, preferable form. We are forced to face our own hypocrisy when we see a character declare, “They just don’t value life the way we do,” as she prepares to blow another character’s brains out…the same sentiment is echoed by another character responsible for the deaths of countless people.
Somewhere in the middle of season two it suddenly dawns on me, morality is…fluid. Right is not carved in stone. There is being right and there is doing right. There is survival and there is honor. There are times when it is important to have a belief we would die for and there are times when it is important to preserve life no matter what the cost to our ethics or civil liberties.
And what distinguishes those times? That is where the tide of morality shifts within each one of us.
I have been relatively comfortable in my adult life labeling one thing “right” and another thing “wrong.” Let’s start with an easy one…murder. I can say murder belongs most definitely in the “wrong” column. I don’t even kill bugs, so it’s pretty solidly there.
But then I watch this show and I have to ask myself…would I kill someone to protect my own life? I don’t know. Would I kill someone to protect Savannah or Keith? In a New York minute. But would I kill to protect someone else? Would I kill one person to save an entire race? Would I kill someone on suspicion that they could be a danger to those I love, the cause I support? Would I kill for vengeance, for justice? Would I kill to make it all alright, to even the score, to move forward? Is murder ever not wrong? I don’t know.
Nothing is immune. NOTHING. Torture of prisoners. Religion. Freedom of speech. Stem cell research. Freedom to assemble. The justice system. A woman’s right to choose. Take a hard stand on any moral high ground and when you watch this show you are likely to find yourself riding a wave of moral fluidity instead.
The fact is, every story has two sides and what is right in one instance can be wrong in another. Bad guys can be right, good guys can be wrong. Bad guys can be good and good guys can be bad.
There are two opposing sides. The only thing that has ever changed that, shifted the balance, is love. Sadly, in this series, the shift is on a small scale… a woman’s love for a man, a man’s love for a woman, a friend’s love for a friend. On a larger scale, an uneasy truce can be reached when each side acknowledges the other wants essentially the same thing they want…security, safety, love, faith.
What is wrong with us that we can’t allow this for all of our fellow men? Yes, I believe the greater answer is love…but if I find myself unable to love someone, what prevents me from tolerating their beliefs? Why must I try to be right, to prove them wrong?
And ultimately, how do I know? How do I know I’m right and they’re wrong? Especially when they are equally as convinced they’re right and I am wrong? And what does it matter, anyway? Does my being right or wrong prevent me or anyone else truly moving on with their life? Does my being a Buddhist prevent you from being a Christian? Does my being a Libertarian prevent you from being a Democrat? Does anything I do/feel/believe prevent you from living a full life embracing all of your beliefs?
But more than that, does anything you believe rob me of my peace? And more even than that, does it stop me from loving you? It shouldn’t…it really, really shouldn’t.
In the fourth season there is an episode entitled Sine Qua Non which they translate as “that without which not” and a character expounds on the phrase by saying: “Those things we deem essential, without which we cannot bear living, without which life in general loses its specific value…becomes abstract.”
The writers use this for some major squee worthy purposes, but the deeper meaning, the truer meaning reaches out and touches us all. What is it that makes my life more than an abstraction? What is it that gives my life any meaning? My family, certainly. But this endless journey of being and becoming, recognizing how very flawed I am and moving through my life experiences to expand my heart, to learn to love fully and completely, to try everyday to become better at thinking, praying and acting with compassion…sine qua non.
It is a gift when something as accessible as a television show gives us all a fresh perspective, makes us stop, look, reevaluate. When a show that is ostensibly about war can show us a way to peace…that is remarkable.
In case you haven’t guessed, I highly recommend this show.
But be careful. It will eat your brain.
Probably with cocktail sauce.
So say we all.
Peace.