Navigating a Whackadoodle World: Episode 58, or A Simple Reminder That Cause and Effect Affects Everything
A Whackadoodle talk over cupcakes in which my student and I discuss how Cause and Effect isn't just about solving problems, it also about reminding oneself how amazingly interconnected everything is.
She arrived for our usual tutoring session with an unusually bright smile, her outstretched hands proffering a platter of five carefully arranged cupcakes. The four on the outside were festooned with frosting and fruit. The center cupcake, featuring the same fruity frosting, was crowned with a single lit candle shaped like the letter five. I accepted her offering somewhat startled, as she sang out merrily, “Happy 58!”
I stared at the lone five on the center cupcake, “Couldn’t find an eight?”
“Oh shut up, and blow out the candle before wax get all over the frosting.”
“But what are we celebrating? I haven’t been fifty-eight in years.”
“It’s our anniversary,” she informed me sternly. “Fifty-eight episodes, and four times round the guidepost. Today marks the first day of our fifth time around.”
“So that’s why you’re honoring the number five,” I nodded my understanding.
“Are you going to blow or what?”
“I’ll blow. I’ll blow,” I assured her. “Do I get a wish?”
“Whatever, just blow already.”
I shut my eyes, made the same wish I always make, opened my eyes and blew. A satisfying trail of smoke rose from the now quenched candle.
“Let’s have some,” she said, and pushed past me towards her usual spot at the table. She was already emptying her backpack by the time I joined her.
I placed the cupcakes before her, along with a few napkins that I had snagged on my way through the kitchen. “So has it been worth it?” I asked as casually as I could.
“Sure, cupcakes are always worth it,” she said, grabbing one.
I looked down at the platter. This was not the time to tell her that I much preferred muffins to cupcakes, and that brownies ruled the world. I picked up one of the offerings, grabbed a napkin, and place it untouched before me. She was already half way through licking the frosting off of hers by the time I sat down. “No,” I tried again. “I wasn’t asking about your surprise. I was asking about the guideposts. Has it been worth it? Cycling through them? Have they lived up to their promise?”
“Promise?” she echoed with a finger full of frosting in her mouth.
“Back when we started, I believe we talked about how the guideposts could transform a person. Make them feel stronger, more confident, more organized, more focused, more understanding, more everything. Do you remember?”
“Vaguely,” she replied, sucking a sweetened finger. “I mean it was like over a year ago.”
“Well, has it lived up to it’s hype? Have the guideposts helped you become stronger, more confident, more organized, more focused, more understanding, more everything?”
“I haven’t really thought about it.”
“Well think about it now.”
She paused long enough to scrape another finger full of frosting off her now nearly denuded cupcake. “I don’t know that it has changed me so much as it has changed how I think about things. You know, how I approach things,” she concluded eventually.
“How so?”
“Well,” another pause, another lick. “I know that I treat problems differently. I used to worry too much about what other people were doing, now I try to focus more on what I can do about things. And I’ve gotten better at problem solving—more creative. I think I understand people better. At least I don’t expect them to all be the same or want the same things any more.”
She looked at me as if hoping that she had said enough. I decided to let her off the hook and looked down at the cupcake before me. I broke off a piece from the bottom and popped it into my mouth. It tasted of vanilla and lemon.
“Now that I think about it,” she added unexpectedly. “I suppose it has changed me. After all, it’s changed the way I think about things, so it has to have changed me, right?”
I found myself softly smiling. “Right.”
Having finished her frosting, she pulled off the top her cupcake and popped it into her mouth. “I even get why you want to people to repeat the cycle every fourteen weeks,” she managed to add through a full mouth.
“Why do I want that?”
She took a moment to swallow. “So we don’t forget to practice them, or start thinking we have already mastered them. I mean, it’s like with listening. A lot of people don’t even know how really bad they are at it. How much they miss because they just talk and talk and talk. I sometimes think that the very people who could use the guideposts the most are the ones who never realize how off course they are. It’s really kind of sad.”
She didn’t need me to answer, so I plucked another morsel from the cake and popped it in my mouth. Pointing towards her unopened books, I asked, “So what do we have today?” Within minutes we were discussing the paper she was working on for her psychology class. Topic? Emotion Intelligence: A Real Thing, or Just a Way of Describing Interpersonal Skills?
We were nearing the end of our session when she brought the guideposts up again, “You will be pleased to know that I’ve been focusing on Guidepost One this week, like I’m supposed to,” she began with pride. “It occurred to me that I usually focus on what causes problems, you know, so I can get to the root causes and not just whack away at effects, but then I realized that because of Guidepost Four, I was only seeing problems, and maybe I wanted to get away from that for once. Anyway, I decided to focus on just what causes things in general, and I’ve gotta say, it’s been pretty cool.”
“How so?”
“Well I started to notice how amazing everything is. Stuff I normally don’t notice started taking on new meaning. Like when I went to the school blood drive. Just the idea that we can give blood and that our blood can save a life. What it takes to organize that stuff. How the process was discovered. It’s kind of mind blowing when you really think about it. And the blood itself. Think about what it does. It brings us oxygen and feeds our cells. It takes away our waste. And it’s this amazing color. More than red, it’s blood red. Thicker than water. Nothing else is like it. I just had never noticed it before. I was like amazed by how many things I have been taking for granted because I never bothered to think about them.”
“That does sound pretty cool.”
“So anyway, I was thinking that for this week, when we write the article on Guidepost One, we can recommend that other people try it. Instead of just using Cause and Effect to help diagnose problems, for this week they should use it to get at the wonder of things. How beautifully complex it all is. Everything connected. What do you think?”
“I think you should write the article,” I grinned. “You could tell people it’s like keeping a gratitude journal but instead they should keep an amazement journal.”
“Nah,” she grunted. “Nothing so formal. They don’t need to write stuff down unless they want to, but they should consider how amazing stuff like writing is. How a few lines on paper can be scribbled down and used to communicate through time and space. I mean when you really consider how writing came about. How words came about. How both are used, as well as misused.” She spread her arms wide as if encompassing the world. “Amazing!”
“Yes, you are amazing.”
Ignoring me, she rushed on, “And I know that some people will be tempted to say it’s all part of God’s great design, and be happy with that answer. But that’s not enough. They have to think about the intricacies of the design. What it takes to make it work. All the causes and all of their effects working together. How love works. How hate works. Heck, how emotions work. Why do we even have them? And friendships, and money, and governments, and ecosystems, and oh well everything.” Having run out of gas, she looked at me expectantly. At a loss for words, I stared back, until she added with a huff, “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Well, what do you think? Would it be a good exercise for people to try for Guide Post One? Do you think it would help them understand Cause and Effect better?”
“Might help them appreciate Cause and Effect more,” I managed to acknowledge. “Do I think it’s a good exercise? Yes. I’m not too sure how many people will actually try it. I mean, it’s kind of an abstract exercise to ask people to try, but I think it would be marvelous if they did. It would also be great if people practiced being self aware more.” Her brows furrowed with an unasked question, so I tried to be clearer. “You know, self aware. Aware of self. Aware of how your actions effect the mood of a room. Do they bring light, or do they bring darkness? Confusion, or confidence? Calm, or chaos? You get the idea?”
“Yeah, I suppose that’d be good too.” She started packing up her things. “So it’s settled. For practice this week, we will ask people to simply focus on self awareness, and how amazingly connected everything is because of cause and effect. It should make for some intriguing comments.” She zipped up her pack and hefted it over her shoulder. Glancing down at my picked at cupcake, she added, “You don’t want the frosting?”
For answer, I got up to fetch a knife. Turning the cupcake on it’s side, I sliced off it’s sweet top and place it carefully on a napkin. I raise it up to her like an offering and said, “With my compliments.”
She took it with a small bow of thanks and headed towards the door. Her finger was already in her mouth, having stolen a swipe of the sugary surface as soon as I had handed it to her. I followed her out, as was my custom. She was about to reach the street when I called after her. “Next week, we’ll talk more about that Emotional Intelligence paper you’re working on. I think people will find it interesting.”
“Careful what you wish for,” she called back. “My teacher told me we were gonna take a test to see how Emotionally Intelligent we are. I might make you take it as well. Then we’ll know how maladjusted you are.”
“I’m not afraid,” I laughed. “See you next week.”
With a flickering wave, she was gone.