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Crisis Center.
Sep. 3rd, 2002 03:40 amRecently, I've been thinking about the Northridge Earthquake. It's not because there was a very minor tremor just a few hours ago, it's because of another LiveJournaler, whom I am reluctant to name directly.
This person has a major crisis going on in her life, leading to much angst, quite a lot of it centering around whether or not she's doing the best thing or acting in the appropriate way. I don't know her very well (for values of "very well" equal to "at all other than what I've read, really"), so I'm reluctant to say anything directly, but I'm still thinking about it.
I can relate to a lot of what she writes about, not so much the specifics, as the instincts and reactions to crisis. Whenever a major crisis happens, my instinct is usually to get out of the way. Whenever an argument arose in the house, I just walked out and into my room, letting the others sort it out. The first time I consciously noticed was when my mother had a cancer scare, and I spent days and days in my room reconstructing every jigsaw puzzle I had.
But it's one thing to say, "Everyone reacts differently to a crisis," and quite another to see it in action.
( January 17, 1994 )
The fact is that people don't always bind together in a crisis. They do if they need to, of course. Sometimes immediate survival depends on it, but most of the time, people bind together because that's what they feel they need to do, instinctively. They try to connect with everyone, and quite a number of people also say, "no thanks, I'm fine, thank you for asking," and just move them along. Major crises don't bring people together, they just make everyone crazy at the same time instead of spread out randomly.
When a crisis is only happening to yourself, and all of your friends are in a non-crisis mode, it's easy to feel like an aberration. And when someone else is responding to an entirely different crisis, it sometimes seems even more alienating. But when everyone is acting like a temporary lunatic and everyone knows the reason why, it's simpler to see that your own personal insanity is, if not normal, expected.
On the day of the quake, I saw a couple try to bribe the man at the 7-11 to get extra bottled water. Everyone was lined up outside the store and the manager stood at the door taking the orders and keeping the money while to helpers searched the aisles and back rooms to find supplies. Certain things were limited, though, water, ice, batteries and food to a certain extent. (I assume the magazines had no limit.) But really, no one in line was upset at this couple. That's just how these people react.
So whenever something really awful happens, I try to just let it happen. Trying to change the way I react just leads to inaction. And locking myself in a room and mastering Tetris eventually helps more than trying to be out and about while also being absolutely miserable in addition to everything else.
Addendum: While trying to find photographs of the damage to Topanga Plaza, I found "Twenty-One, Counting Up" by Harry Turtledove. Three months between me and the protagonist made this an eerie read.
This person has a major crisis going on in her life, leading to much angst, quite a lot of it centering around whether or not she's doing the best thing or acting in the appropriate way. I don't know her very well (for values of "very well" equal to "at all other than what I've read, really"), so I'm reluctant to say anything directly, but I'm still thinking about it.
I can relate to a lot of what she writes about, not so much the specifics, as the instincts and reactions to crisis. Whenever a major crisis happens, my instinct is usually to get out of the way. Whenever an argument arose in the house, I just walked out and into my room, letting the others sort it out. The first time I consciously noticed was when my mother had a cancer scare, and I spent days and days in my room reconstructing every jigsaw puzzle I had.
But it's one thing to say, "Everyone reacts differently to a crisis," and quite another to see it in action.
( January 17, 1994 )
The fact is that people don't always bind together in a crisis. They do if they need to, of course. Sometimes immediate survival depends on it, but most of the time, people bind together because that's what they feel they need to do, instinctively. They try to connect with everyone, and quite a number of people also say, "no thanks, I'm fine, thank you for asking," and just move them along. Major crises don't bring people together, they just make everyone crazy at the same time instead of spread out randomly.
When a crisis is only happening to yourself, and all of your friends are in a non-crisis mode, it's easy to feel like an aberration. And when someone else is responding to an entirely different crisis, it sometimes seems even more alienating. But when everyone is acting like a temporary lunatic and everyone knows the reason why, it's simpler to see that your own personal insanity is, if not normal, expected.
On the day of the quake, I saw a couple try to bribe the man at the 7-11 to get extra bottled water. Everyone was lined up outside the store and the manager stood at the door taking the orders and keeping the money while to helpers searched the aisles and back rooms to find supplies. Certain things were limited, though, water, ice, batteries and food to a certain extent. (I assume the magazines had no limit.) But really, no one in line was upset at this couple. That's just how these people react.
So whenever something really awful happens, I try to just let it happen. Trying to change the way I react just leads to inaction. And locking myself in a room and mastering Tetris eventually helps more than trying to be out and about while also being absolutely miserable in addition to everything else.
Addendum: While trying to find photographs of the damage to Topanga Plaza, I found "Twenty-One, Counting Up" by Harry Turtledove. Three months between me and the protagonist made this an eerie read.