JANUARY 18 — Plane and elevator

Topping the list of Most Pointless Practises Ever has to be the airline safety procedures passengers are subjected to before every flight. 

Anyone who’s flown more than a few times would by now be indifferent (and irritated?) each time the inter-com demands our attention prior to take-off. 

Ladies and gentlemen, please focus on the air stewardess demonstrating the use of the (invariably dirty-looking) life-jacket, telling us about the oxygen-mask (which always looks too small), sardonically warning us that if we light up a cigarette in the toilet the smoke alarm will go off, and so on.

Yet, how much sense do these safety announcements make? When, indeed, was the last time an ocean plane-crash produced survivors, let alone survivors who made it because they had their life-jackets on? 

Furthermore, a casual glance at the flight paths around the globe will show that if a plane is going to crash, the chances of it going down in water are slim: it’s far more likely for a plane to hit houses, trees or the desert than splashing into water, in which case it won’t be life-jackets we need but non-expired life insurance.

Then again — and here is the critical part—what if these pre-flight messages were to, all of a sudden, stop? What if safety procedures were made optional and many airlines decided to scrap them? Or what if passengers were told that this aircraft has run out of life-jackets, has no spare oxygen, has only one exit, etc? 

I risk this answer: There would be mayhem. Within a few days (if not hours), airlines would have to revert back to normal and the very idea that such pre-take-off announcements be cancelled would be rendered anathema.

The above illustrates the phenomenon known in psychoanalysis as neurosis i.e. the belief that should a particular habit or ritual stop, the world will come to some kind of end. 

Neurotics have to keep repeating a certain action (say, rubbing their fingers, scratching themselves, checking their locks, turning the doorknobs, etc.) because life to them is tied up with said activities. 

Like pushing the “Close Door” button on the elevator—which for all intents and purposes has little or no impact on the duration of the actual trip—neurotic procedures persist not simply because people are deceived into believing in the efficacy of these actions but because they CANNOT BEAR the idea that these activities are unrelated to the way the world works. 

Like how some girlfriends cannot help linking flowers or birthday gifts to whether or not their boyfriends still care for them (despite the thousand and one things he may have done in the past), neurotics derive a strange kind of pleasure from the fact of repetition, even (or especially) pointless repetition. 

They love the thrill of moving to the edge of personal disappointment or fear, only to have that fear relieved by that deed, whose effect cannot last permanently because without the risk of disappointment, there is no joy of the thrill of overcoming the displeasure ad infinitum.

Traumatic repetition

According to Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, such repetition is also linked with an inability to remember (or symbolise) a past trauma, hence his famous motto: What we can’t remember, we are destined to repeat.

In times of trauma — say, upon discovering shocking news or those few minutes right after a major accident or when Arsenal concedes a last-second goal — the mind may not have had the time to “register” the event. Because the event happened too quickly, the psychological wound may have been inflicted prior to being recognised as a wound. 

Thus, in such a case, our minds may resort to continuous repetition in order to “replay” the event in the hope of fully constituting it as a mental event. Over time, the mind may gradually construct a ritual (or even a life) around such events. 

Like planets circling their star, we may come to “depend on” this repetitious source of virtual cognition. It becomes too painful to break away, because how sure am I that my universe will not fold in on itself should that happen?

So I keep circling, repeating, replaying, and re-living said actions.

Perhaps this helps explain why some folks, despite knowing how much damage Barisan Nasional has visited on the country, continue voting for them at no real gain to themselves? It’s what they’ve been doing all their life, the very thought of change scares them. 

Perhaps this is why Islamic terrorists feel the need to suicide-bomb fellow Islamic countries? Actual peace or even the absence of violence is terrifying to them.

Perhaps this is why some corporate types continue abusing their power and inflicting harm on the less powerful? Because the idea of acting responsibly goes against their neurotic desire to appear macho.

In all such cases, thinking clearly isn’t an option. Repeating a dubious act is a non-negotiable.

Getting personal

How about you? Are these some actions you perform obsessively the reasons for which even you are not so clear about? Worse still, could some of these actions be potentially destructive?

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.