Imps of Pervisity: A Sequel
Mar. 25th, 2024 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
evening_tsarI have written at length before on Edgar Allen Poe's great thesis ("Story" just doesn't cut it) "The Imp of the Perverse", which sheds light on humanity's tendency towards self destruction. I'm no psychologist, but I believe there's more wisdom in the story than the entire body of self-help literature released between 1817 and 2024.
To whit, Poe says that we often do things for no other reason than that we should not. That we often actively work against our best interests precisely because they are our best interests. This is what he labelled "the perverse", using by way of illumination, vertigo, procrastination, and a criminal blowing his cover after he'd gotten away with it. If he were writing today, he doubtless would have included things like drunk driving, office romances, and storing porn on work laptops. On a society-wide scale, he'd certainly point to climate-change, vaccine-hesitancy, and our current bovine tendency to bend-over for Mr. Putin.
We all have our own little imps of the Perverse, little monkey-wrenches we throw into our own gearshifts, though none I hope as grave as the one exhibited in Mr. Poe's story. Putting off lesson-planning until the very last minute would probably be mine (the ordeal of THAT is grist for another mill), though any urgent activity can be delayed in my personal world.
I find, in my own case, it is refusing to do what I should, rather than insisting on doing what I should not, that gets me into trouble. Again, minor stuff for the most part, but headache inducing all the same. Like there's a little voice saying, quite insistently, DON'T do that. Don't respond to this text right away. Don't send out the assignment while it's still fresh in the mind. Don't ask the person's name while it's still socially acceptable to do so. Don't wash this dish before the cheese sauce solidifies. Don't RSVP right away (even if the answer highly unlikely to change). Don't ask for the time off while you're still most likely to get it. The list goes on.
"DON'T bring this potentially useful thing," is a frequent one. I will stand at the door with said thing in my hands, and the little voice will insist on putting it aside, or even actively REMOVING it from the bag, ostensibly to lighten it up. Chargers, textbooks, USB sticks, gloves, hats, earplugs, laptops, have all been abandoned in this fashion; I once very consciously left both phone and keys behind before a walk, and, of course, returned to find the house locked.
The funny thing is, on any number of occasions, I did bring these things with me, thinking nothing of it, and may or may not have needed them. But any time that voice speaks up and insists I won't need them, I invariably do.
The worst incidence was years ago, when my parents' house flooded. I could see the waters approaching, and had just enough time to remove some of my valuables, including my childhood stuffed toys - life long friends each. But, to my eternal shame, I left one of them behind. The voice said quite forcefully "DON'T bring him. He'll be fine." That part of me insisted the waters wouldn't go much higher than the bottom shelf - they would eventually go the ceiling.
I couldn't have really believed it - why bother with all the other ones, if I really thought things would be fine? Why muck about with instruments and electronics, documents and books, if I wasn't actually that worried?
Why not bring this little guy along, if I'd brought all the others, and it would have taken no effort at all? But the voice insisted. "DON'T. He'll be fine."
Of course he wasn't, and he regularly visits me in the middle of the night to say so.
Fortunately, I have gotten better at resisting the voice, learning that to do the precise opposite is usually the best policy. I wait for the day though, when it exerts its influence on something important.
To whit, Poe says that we often do things for no other reason than that we should not. That we often actively work against our best interests precisely because they are our best interests. This is what he labelled "the perverse", using by way of illumination, vertigo, procrastination, and a criminal blowing his cover after he'd gotten away with it. If he were writing today, he doubtless would have included things like drunk driving, office romances, and storing porn on work laptops. On a society-wide scale, he'd certainly point to climate-change, vaccine-hesitancy, and our current bovine tendency to bend-over for Mr. Putin.
We all have our own little imps of the Perverse, little monkey-wrenches we throw into our own gearshifts, though none I hope as grave as the one exhibited in Mr. Poe's story. Putting off lesson-planning until the very last minute would probably be mine (the ordeal of THAT is grist for another mill), though any urgent activity can be delayed in my personal world.
I find, in my own case, it is refusing to do what I should, rather than insisting on doing what I should not, that gets me into trouble. Again, minor stuff for the most part, but headache inducing all the same. Like there's a little voice saying, quite insistently, DON'T do that. Don't respond to this text right away. Don't send out the assignment while it's still fresh in the mind. Don't ask the person's name while it's still socially acceptable to do so. Don't wash this dish before the cheese sauce solidifies. Don't RSVP right away (even if the answer highly unlikely to change). Don't ask for the time off while you're still most likely to get it. The list goes on.
"DON'T bring this potentially useful thing," is a frequent one. I will stand at the door with said thing in my hands, and the little voice will insist on putting it aside, or even actively REMOVING it from the bag, ostensibly to lighten it up. Chargers, textbooks, USB sticks, gloves, hats, earplugs, laptops, have all been abandoned in this fashion; I once very consciously left both phone and keys behind before a walk, and, of course, returned to find the house locked.
The funny thing is, on any number of occasions, I did bring these things with me, thinking nothing of it, and may or may not have needed them. But any time that voice speaks up and insists I won't need them, I invariably do.
The worst incidence was years ago, when my parents' house flooded. I could see the waters approaching, and had just enough time to remove some of my valuables, including my childhood stuffed toys - life long friends each. But, to my eternal shame, I left one of them behind. The voice said quite forcefully "DON'T bring him. He'll be fine." That part of me insisted the waters wouldn't go much higher than the bottom shelf - they would eventually go the ceiling.
I couldn't have really believed it - why bother with all the other ones, if I really thought things would be fine? Why muck about with instruments and electronics, documents and books, if I wasn't actually that worried?
Why not bring this little guy along, if I'd brought all the others, and it would have taken no effort at all? But the voice insisted. "DON'T. He'll be fine."
Of course he wasn't, and he regularly visits me in the middle of the night to say so.
Fortunately, I have gotten better at resisting the voice, learning that to do the precise opposite is usually the best policy. I wait for the day though, when it exerts its influence on something important.
