Right train, wrong track

Yep, the picture is upside down. The train I am meant to catch is late and so is the one going the other way on the same stretch of track. This implies that it isn't a mechanical problem but it isn't uncommon in Finland to suicide via train.

One of my students a few years ago told me she lost her teenage son and said that he was walking along the tracks with headphones on and didn't hear the train. These trains are fast trains that do about 180km an hour, not the place for a leisurely stroll but, the story protects her from the much more likely scenario.

Just about everyone in Finland knows someone quite close who has suicided and I see the drinking culture as symptomatic of the emotional issues they refuse to admit. I had a student from a group class many years ago take his own life and, I had a student tell me I saved hers after a conversation we had.

I knew she was struggling, I just didn't know how much and it wasn't until 2 months after our last class that she came to the office late knowing I was the only one there, and told me. She never told her husband and vowed never to tell her young children. It is interesting the impact strangers can have, and the trust we can put in them.

*The train arrival has changed track. The message over the PA said, exceptionally on track 3.

Perhaps it is a sign.

Have you ever considered the conversations that have changed your life? Most people think that is the exceptional events and people who change their personal track in life but, I tend to think it is the myriad micro events that we barely perceive at the time and do not remember later that have the most profound effects on our future.

While out memories like to remember the things that impact on our physical and emotional senses, the little nudges and gentle shunts are the things that slowly guide us along, weaving a path through the jungle without the machete.

Of course, because we do not hold these influences in our memories, we have a confirmation bias from what we can recall, and often the things we recall are the pains and struggles, not the good times. When we collect them all together, a negative weighs more heavily than a positive and a life can seem more painful than perhaps it was.

People are increasingly told to feel their emotions and let them out but without recognising the bias in positive and negative, their is an unbalanced distribution of release. Factor in the feedback loop of internet silos and emotional reward from those who feel similar, there is no wonder there is so much outrage and polarization of people and groups.

People get emotional but because they are so blind to themselves, they can believe that they are still thinking rationally, that they can clearly see the path ahead, even though they have no recall of the little nudges that put them there.

The train is going very slowly and when I look out the window, I cannot place our location. I know where we left from and I know where we are meant to be going but, without a known point of reference, I have to trust we are on the right track.

Do you know where you have come from, where you are and which destination you expect to reach? How come so much of our life comes as a surprise if we all feel that we know these things, we all feel that what we are doing is getting us to where we want to be?

People feel right more often than they feel wrong yet, most do not get to where they are aiming. Often, it is a good thing not to get what we wish for but we don't recognise how poor our original wishes may have been. More memory bias justified and explained that we knew what we were doing all along.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
_{(posted from phone)}