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Oct. 5, 2004 Last Thursday afternoon I came home to find the entire contents of my fridge freezer dripping wet and smelling like week-old roadkill. It seemed that, whilst I was working, my refrigerator and freezer decided to do the opposite, thus leaving me with a sopping mess and a loss of about two hundred dollars worth of groceries. I immediately panicked. I was suddenly and quite inexplicably being plunged into an unfamiliar world of refrigerator repairmen, limited warranties, and the prospect of not having milk readily available for my morning java. I didn't know what to do. So, for a few brief minutes, I didn't do anything at all. I was a victim of learned helplessness. Learned helplessness is a construct of behavioral psychology. In a nutshell, during the mid-1960s, one Martin E.P. Seligman and a few of his colleagues were experimenting with Pavlovian conditioning. They wrapped a dog in a hammock from which there was no escape and then proceeded to jolt him with a "harmless" shock every time buzzer sounded. They found that when this same dog was placed into a non-threatening, easily escapable situation, such as needing to jump a very low fence in order to access a food dish, the dog would not move. It had been conditioned by the lack of control it had felt in the hammock. In other words, the canine had learned to be helpless, even when it was perfectly capable of helping itself. As I stared in distress at the stark whiteness of my refrigerator door, I realized that I had much more in common with Seligman's dog than I'd like to admit. Those of us fortunate enough to live in developed, Western nations have become so conditioned and dependent on the conveniences of the twenty-four hour service industry, we've learned to be helpless when faced with a situation that isn't immediately remedied for us by someone else. Forget that hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti and Grenada have been without food and water for weeks; I had to go to Tim Horton's at five-thirty in the morning in my ratty trainers and Von Dutch baseball cap before I could even attempt writing a coherent email to my friends in Amsterdam and London! It has now been four days without refrigeration. Four days during which my diet has consisted of apples, takeaway curries and low-carb, high- protein energy bars. After a particularly bad date on Saturday night, I ordered a large pizza before realizing I had to consume the entire thing due to my lack of refrigeration. The Starbucks' staff at all five locations on my street can now recognize me and immediately make my order. My dishwasher sits strangely empty. My cats are subsisting on a dry food diet. In short, mealtimes have become inconvenient. Yet, despite my desperate cravings for ice cream and homemade sushi, this time has turned out to be strangely liberating. I experienced the same phenomenon when visiting Havana and staying in a Cuban neighborhood. With no other tourists for miles, I was forced to shop at the local supermercado with the natives and had to get by with my limited Spanish. This meant I often left the shops with only black beans, rice and a few beer unless I made very good use of my index finger. At the best of times supplies are extremely limited in the Cuban capital. Yet I developed a greater gratitude for the food I did manage to obtain and took pride in being able to create palatable meals from it. Many of us in the world's wealthier nations could benefit greatly from a bout of roughing it in the bush. Back to the situation with my fridge. The woman at my local Whirlpool repair shop has promised she will do her best to see that my refrigerator is in working condition by this coming Friday, just in time for the Canadian Thanksgiving. Until then I'll continue my early morning excursions to the local coffee shops, cursing my learned helplessness and wondering what restaurants will be open on Thanksgiving Monday. ------------ About the author: Jennifer Payne lives and works in Toronto, Canada. She is the author of numerous short stories, poetry, articles and reviews. Currently she is finishing her second novel. Please visit her website at: www.maryjenniferpayne.com Email: mj_payne00@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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