Insane Dependence

I remember when our most benighted of Presidents told us, in a State of the Union Address no less, that we were a country "addicted" to oil. When even he recognized our economy, indeed our culture, had an irrational dependence on a substance, well then, surely it must be true. Then we got globally warmed to a point that our relationship with fossil fuels became ambivalent at best. And finally we followed the inconvenient truth far enough to believe that there might actually be alternatives to our crude addiction. We are now in love with "hybrids." Hmmm...

The other day, on NPR, two reports laid bare the dilemma of our alternatives. In one, the limitations of battery-powered personal transportation vehicles was examined. Thomas Edison himself had promised Henry Ford that he would make a battery-powered car for Ford's wife within their lifetimes. He didn't of course-- and cars were a lot lighter then! Now battery powered car technology turns on basically one option: lithium-ion. Alternatives to that option are not being sought-- except by the lead acid folks who've made our car's batteries for a long time.

OK, so what's so dangerous about lithium-ion? Don't they power our cell phones and cameras? Well, yes... And if that isn't fair warning, then maybe we ought to pay attention to where the "stuff" to make such batteries comes from. That "stuff" is cobalt and another element I don't remember (this was radio I heard this on). Turns out, most of cobalt is found in the Congo-- not a very stable place to be mining our futures-- and in "southern China, near Tibet," which is also where most of that "other element" is found. Hmmmmm...

So if our present is about dependence of foreign oil primarily from the middle east, could our future be about dependence on foreign cobalt from China? And haven't we already mortgaged our future to China who owns most of the paper of our national debt anyway? Hmmmmm...

Suddenly, all of Obama's brave pronouncements to the contrary, I was a lot less sanguine about our futures...

But the future is not really mine to see. What struck me more was the insight of a possible analogy: As it is in our fiscal economies, could it be in our emotional economies? That is, is it the case that, no matter how hard we try or how many alternative choices we feel we may have, that each of us finds ourselves perpetually dependent on obtaining something we need from those who are foreign or alien or even hostile to us?

You see, I'm puzzling about my own insane behavior, and looking to rationalize over the wider spread of the human condition...

As anyone in recovery knows, the definition of "insanity" is "doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result." Being in recovery from a recent romantic relationship that could only be described as "insane" on exactly the same terms, I have become a student of my own irrational, self-destructive repetitive behaviors. I'm looking at myself asking, why did I continue to do that?

Well, the answer, my friends, may lie in the stars-- and there would be a certain relief if I could point to "destiny" to exculpate myself. But more likely Shakespeare was right, and it lies in "ourselves"-- and I get some comfort from thinking I may be an idiot but my behavior was not idiosyncratic! In other words, I am not alone in my penchant for insanity.

To be precise, maybe there truly is something built into the human condition where we eventually discover that we actually do need for our own better functioning what another has within them. Like we do with middle eastern oil, or we might with Chinese cobalt. Maybe the world is so structured that we are become aware that each of us have the parts of the other's puzzle. And that to complete ourselves, we need each other. Maybe in the worst way...

Or maybe we are to find out how not to need each other in the worst way, but instead how to deal with this "the way things are" in a manner that does not bring about insanity, but something like vulnerability and cooperation.

The thing about the definition of insanity is not the repetition or the compulsion, but the expectation. Our expectations of ourselves and others is what is so screwy! Maybe we are to deal with this need for what the other has for us that we cannot supply to ourselves-- but change our expectations. Maybe it is our own expectations that drive us insane.

At least that is where I'm going in my own life, and in whatever future romantic relationships I might be blessed to have. But maybe we need to learn that geo-political economic lesson now as well. What we need, those who are foreign to us have. So why should we expect anything different?

I'm thinkin' about this... I'm workin' on it!