Applause is a celebration not only of the actors but also of the audience. It constitutes a shared moment of delight. - John Charles Polanyi
Like many of you, I have been watching television news reports on the events in Tripoli. At the time of this writing (08/24/11), those who oppose the regime of Gadhafi have reportedly taken control of much of Libya's capitol city, and they are celebrating in what has become a familiar way: shooting guns into the air.
I worry about things, including guns being fired into the air. What happens when these bullets fall to the earth, as they surely must? One might think that falling bullets are dangerous and put at risk the lives of those with whom the shooters are celebrating as well as others who are simply sitting things out.
I probably have too much time on my hands, and I searched on the Internet this morning for information about bullets falling to the earth. There is even a Wikipedia entry on "Celebratory Gunfire" that reports it to be a culturally-accepted practice in many parts of the world, including the Balkans, the Middle East, Northern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico, and some regions of the United States.
I claim no expertise myself, but what I learned was certainly interesting: The jury is out on how dangerous these falling bullets might be, although it seems to be leaning toward the verdict that these bullets can be lethal - not always but occasionally.
According to one point of view, buttressed by research evidence, a bullet fired straight up slows down, stops altogether, and then returns to the ground because of gravity at a speed insufficient to penetrate skin. So, falling bullets are not lethal or even harmful.
That said, a bullet fired more-or-less horizontally does not lose as much speed and thus can be more dangerous if and when it hits someone on the way down. I doubt that those who celebrate by shooting a gun into the air take the time to aim straight up.
According to another point of view, a falling bullet delivers a wallop similar to a brick dropped from a height of four feet: That would hurt and indeed could be fatal, whether or not skin is penetrated.
Indeed, according to one research report I discovered, physicians at a Los Angeles trauma center treated more than one hundred individuals between 1985 and 1992 who were struck by falling bullets, and about one third of these individuals died. These data have been contested, and the critics point out that overly "liberal" criteria were used to identify falling bullets (e.g., no gunshot was heard).
But in conclusion, cautious soul that I may be, I opt to avoid celebrations where guns are fired into the air. I think most of the data are on my side.
Folks in Ann Arbor, where I live, do not celebrate by firing guns into the air, which is a good thing. But we do celebrate the occasional football victory, the last day of university classes, spring graduation in the Big House, New Year's Eve, the Fourth of July, and road repairs that are finally completed.
The real point of this essay is to observe that celebrations, with or without gunfire, are typically noisy. We clap, cheer, and chant. We beat drums and stamp our feet. We blare our music and honk our car horns.
When I give a talk on savoring, I often make the point that we can and should savor the good things that happen softly and privately, lest other people think we are egomaniacs. But this advice flies in the face of the way that many people actually celebrate, and I now think I am wrong in what I usually say about savoring.
Perhaps there is a difference between individual savoring and group savoring. Group savoring necessarily involves the group, and noise attracts everyone's attention, regularizes activity, and is exhilarating. No one is thought an egomaniac because the group celebrates as one, and the group is happy. Group celebration should be done with a bang, not in a literal sense like gunfire but in a metaphorical sense that is loud and long, proud and strong.
I gave a talk yesterday to the University of Michigan Housing Division. Almost a thousand staff members were present. They appreciated what I had to say - the perspective of positive psychology after all provides a good message - but I did not receive the loudest applause. That was reserved for a well-designed slide show set to Motown music that featured photos of hundreds of staff members - those in the audience - going about their business in the university's eighteen residence halls.
It was very uplifting to see people celebrating their work and those with whom they worked, and I learned something important about savoring.
CHEERS!
