Fight to Stay Alive

*******

"The problem is we don't let people die anymore."

I sat in a steel and fabric chair looking out the fourth story office window and trying to think of a response to what I'd just heard. The speaker was a puffy fifty-ish-looking psychiatrist sitting five feet in front of me in a black p-leather captain's chair. His name was Dr. Hoffman.

"Excuse me?" I said, stalling.

"Die," he said. "You know - croak."

I looked at him more closely. He had a black goatee and a blatant comb-over. He wore a blue oxford shirt, grey slacks, and inexpensive brown loafers. It was my first time seeing him after being referred to his clinic by my family doctor. He hadn't asked me why I thought I was there. He just made a few pleasantries followed by his macabre remark.

Finally, I thought I had a response I thought would show him I wasn't intimidated by his office or credentials: "How can you call compassion - one of our society's fundamental values - a problem?"

"That's a good question." He shifted his weight to the back of his chair and folded his hands on top of his protruding stomach. He tapped a two-count with his foot and continued speaking:

"When we're first born we're helpless. Our parents have to do everything for us. They feed us, clothe us, shelter us. They give us attention without us even having to ask for it. They do everything we need not just to keep us alive, but also in a good mood."

He swallowed and tapped his foot again.

"But then other people come along - siblings at first - and they want some of our stuff too. So what do we do?"

After an extended silence I realized he wasn't being rhetorical. "I don't know," I said.

"That's because you've been taught to forget." Suddenly he lunged forward in his chair and scootered within two feet of my face. "We fight!" he yelled. "We say, 'No!', 'Mine!!'" He flailed his arms and his eyes were as loud as his voice. He stared at me for almost a minute then sat back in his chair and inched back to his starting position.

"But our parents are people too," he continued. "And they don't like to be told what to do. (Plus they're bigger than us, which means they have the power.)"

(Two-count.)

"So we learn to disguise our demands with 'pleases' and 'thank yous', and being good or 'compassionate', as you call it. We don't want to anger the adults because they could cut off all the goodies."

(One-count.)

"But deep down we're still fighting. We're fighting either to suppress our demands or the competing demands of others. We've created a system where nobody is allowed to die, but make no mistake, everyone is fighting to stay alive, to get what we need to survive."

By this point I was dying to interject. I'd majored in anthropology in university and couldn't let someone reduce two-hundred-thousand years of human history to a couple paragraphs of behavioural psychology. "But we don't exist strictly in families..."

"Yes!" he shouted and came charging at me again. "Yes!! You're right! We leave home! And now no one is paying any attention to us the way our parents did. That's why we look to girlfriends, boyfriends, bosses, and friends to give us what we need."

(He inched away again.)

"It's an old story - especially when it comes to our romantic partners, You know it, but you've been taught to forget it, so I'll remind you."

(Two-count.)

"On the first date with our new romantic partner, everyone's on their best behaviour. We show the other person what great things we have to offer and how much they should like us and want to be with us.