Last week, I experienced concerns that I suspect I shared with many Americans who follow the news. The cumulative effect, for me, was a reminder of the precarious position each of us occupies in the world.
On Sunday, September 14th, two venerable financial firms ceased to exist: Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch voluntarily sold itself to the Bank of America. This was after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) characterized the banks’ mortgage difficulties as “the largest financial shock since the Great Depression.”
Leading up to the week was an anniversary remembrance of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001 – a reminder of how a perfectly fine day in September could end in despair, fear, and shock.
On Tuesday, September 16th, various government officials proclaimed that the bailout of failing banking institutions was over. I breathed a tentative sigh of relief, hoping the worst must now be over.
Upon awaking Wednesday the 17th, however, we learned that the government would bail out an even larger firm, the re-insurer AIG. How did the government get from "no more bailouts" to this bailout in just a few hours? Was "no more bailouts" a temporary position to calm the markets, or had the policy been reversed over a few hours when the scope of the crisis enlarged? Neither possibility was especially comforting.
This was still a couple days before the terrorist bombings of the US embassy in Yemen and of the popular Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. It was before, still, the government’s announced plans on Friday the 19th, for a three-quarters-of-a-trillion-dollars bailout of bad mortgage loans.
Personality, in order to function, must interact with an ongoing rush of situations: one’s alarm clock, getting dressed, greeting one’s family, feeding one’s children, getting to work, navigating meetings, and, yes, the news.
One’s personality emerges from the brain and body. It operates within a given social setting – a bedroom, an apartment, the streets of one’s community, a classroom or an office. Such settings serve as the stage upon which personality faces onrushing situations. Finally, one’s personality is embedded in broader systems: one’s family, the neighborhood, community, and the nation, including its war against terrorism and its economic crises.
The fragility of personality – of our existence, really – comes from the idea that we are connected to all those systems: the body, social settings, ongoing situations, and broader groups. Even when the connections between personality and those systems are strong, they can be weakened or severed at any time.
Like most Americans, I was fortunate enough to maintain my routines last week. But I took in the fragility of my existence from the news: the message was just at the right volume: the sadness of remembrance, the shocks of government financial intervention. From where I watched, the news was not so painful that I needed to block it out, but it was too worrisome to ignore.
For me, last week’s stories were at just the right volume to echo and resonate…they reminded me of the limits-to-power that ultimately characterize personality: how reliant each of us is on the confluence of good health, stable settings, manageable situations, and supportive groups: those fragile but welcome set of conditions that can sustain our well-being.
Notes and Comments: The basis for the positioning of personality is outlined in two articles on the systems framework for personality (Mayer, 1995 and 2005).
© Copyright 2008 John D. Mayer
