Here's one thing I always thought I was addicted to: not shutting my pie hole. "Could you possibly refrain," I'll ask myself, "from informing Eddie that his scheme to save the mountain gorilla armed only with a sappy video and an email petition is just plain hog slop?" And then I come right out and tell him anyway.
Worse, when I resolve to drop it (hoping he'll forget how awful I was), the very next time I see Eddie I blurt out an apology for having been so critical. And of course he doesn't remember at first. . . What was it I said, exactly?
Then back it comes: Oh yeah: Hog slop!
I did this twice? Nice. To a guy who just wants to save endangered wildlife.
And there's more.
Not only will my mouth not stay shut as requested; my mind won't obey me, either. That evening, I resolve to put my gaucherie out of mind. Think only happy, happy thoughts, I command myself: like of Eddie coming down with amnesia, or of winning a six-week trip to Mogadishu. But when I try to mentally sail away from my disgrace, the words "hog slop" come hurtling at me.
There I am; envisioning inventive little cocktails served up on my yacht by well-toned, admiring Somali pirates, when memories of my words to Eddie break over me, and I'm awash in stinging jellyfish of shame.
Why am I addicted to tactlessness, I wonder. Why won't my mind follow orders? Am I chasing some bygone teenage thrill of disobeying myself? Helplessly imitating Mother, a famous planter of faux pas? I can't possibly be dependent on the shot of self-generated downers I get every time I act like something out of Mommie Dearest Wears Prada? I try so hard to stop, but. . .
You can quibble that wanton wrong-speaking -- the fleeting high of uncensored speech followed by the painful self-hatred of withdrawal -- is not an addiction; but for me it might as well be. I'm convinced that over the years my missteps and their train of regrets have cost me millions.
Okay: Thousands. But whatever the price tag, these tiny black-outs of volition bother me. Where am I, exactly, while devils are running my mouth?
Not, evidently, alone.
In a recent review article in Science, delightfully entitled, How To Think, Say Or Do Precisely The Wrong Thing For Any Occasion, Daniel M. Wegner of Harvard's Department of Psychology explains that my perverse lapses, what he calls "counterintentional errors" while often beyond my control, are not true addictive behaviors. "The ironic return of suppressed thoughts" as he calls them in Harvardspeak, is a common consequence of the way our minds process attention and intent.
To start with, the human mind is not a great multi-tasker. As the New York Times reminds us frequently these days, it has trouble staying focused on the road while it's helping you speak on your cell phone. It can miss seeing a gorilla walk through the room if it's focused on some fussy task; and it's especially difficult for it to multi-task while processing life's many other stresses and distractions.
Wegner's theory is that when you try to suppress a thought like "hog slop," or a feeling -- like "I'm such an idiot!" two mental processes kick into gear. One processor, the squelcher, runs the instructions, like, "Do NOT say "hog slop;" or, "You're not a TOTAL idiot," over and over. The other processor, the hunter, is almost as busily looking for the hog slop, or the self-flagellating label to be suppressed.
Throw in a little distraction or stress -- like the hideous violins in Eddie's video, or the fearsome clatter of possible criminals unpacking next door -- and your squelcher slips its grip, letting the thing-to-be-avoided pop up like a jack-in-the-box (or like the boner that drunken homophobes tend to get when watching gay porn and desperately trying not to be queer).
So I'm not an addicted rebel, mom's evil spawn or hooked on stinging jellyfish. I'm distractable: Perhaps a bit more than normal. Or a lot more.
In any case, there are some moves one can make towards reducing failures of kindness and tact. Hypnotism might help. And, paradoxically, if you don't push your brain to help you avoid something, it is less likely to cough up that dreaded thing if and when its attention is hijacked. Tell yourself to make Eddie laugh instead of trying to avoid saying you-know-what. Noise-canceling earphones might help a yacht fantasy glide serenely past a new neighbors' worrisome racket.
In other words, work the odds. But no matter what I do, I have to face up to my real disease: fallibility. I'd prefer to call my tactlessness an addiction because I'm happier imagining I'm in some vise-like grip -- a victim of domamine imbalances, drug lords and big pharma -- rather than facing the fact that my will, like yours, like everyone's, flickers on and off all day like a firefly. The crazier you make yourself about this, the worse it gets. So, in spite of my instinct to tighten my grip on myself, I'm going to cut myself more slack.
My new mantra: Hog slop happens.
Articles cited and linked to above:
How To Think, Say or Do The Wrong Thing etc.
M. Wegner,
Science Vol 325 3 p 48-50, Jul 2009
Ironic process theory
M. Wegner, et. al.
Psychol. Rev. 101, 34, 1994.
Drivers and Legislators Dismiss Cellphone Risks
New York Times, July 18, 2009
Ironic effects of trying to relax under stress,
Wegner DM, Broome A, Blumberg SJ.
Behav Res Ther. ;35(1):11-21, Jan 2997
Is homophobia associated with homosexual arousal?
Adams HE, Wright LW, Lohr BA
Journal of Abnormal Psychology
105, #3, 440-445, Aug 1996
Gorillas in Our Midst - Sustained Inattentional Blindness for Dynamic Events
Simons
Perception 1999, vol 28 pages 1059-1074, 1999
