I’m going to do a couple of posts on the things I’ve
learned by travelling in Phnom Penh traffic.
The first is a lesson on detachment.
Today, riding home, I found myself clinging to the back of a motorcycle,
cruising down a major highway during an afternoon storm in the early part of
the tropical rainy season, with no jacket, being driven down the wrong side of
the highway by a Dutch woman who started this mad escapade with the simple
caution of, "Forgive me."
While my dress shirt and leather shoes became utterly sodden, and I
stared into oncoming traffic and slid along wet pavement, the only thought I
could fixate on was, "If they would just use coins instead of paper bills
for their small currency in this country, I wouldn't have to worry about my
wallet getting wet." Nevermind the
monsoons and imminent collisions, I was worried about my lunch money. Yes, it’s
absurd, but it’s also a typical experience for most people who have travelled
in developing countries. In the
Dominican Republic, myself and the missions team I was with sat in the back of
minivans and watched our driver dodge cows and motorbikes plastered with
pictures of Christ and the Virgin. In
Kenya, I once saw a bus driver lean out the window, while driving in heavy
traffic, and conduct negotiations with the other drivers around him, through
shouting and hand signals, to decide who would go first through the
bottleneck. It’s just part of driving
out here, and you eventually get tired of tensing up at every pothole and
road-rage fiend, so you just go with it.
But just going with it isn’t a pure act of exhaustion. There’s also a strange detachment that comes
on you when you’re sitting in the back seat and someone else is driving. I’ve even experienced it riding in the back
of a taxi in Nashville, where drivers come from developing countries and don’t
bother to adapt their driving styles to a civilized highway system.
My pet theory,
which has no scientific basis, is that the detachment is partially due to the
visual effect of the interposition of another human being between you and the
threats that are ahead of you. I think
the brain interprets that body in front of you as a sort of total wall, as if
to say, "Well, that guy (or lady) is the one who’s going to get
obliterated when that truck hits this motorcycle," totally oblivious to
the fact that his (or her) tiny, squishy body just might not absorb all the
force of the diesel-powered behemoth barreling toward you.
But it’s also a mental choice. If I so chose, I could focus on the traffic
scenarios unfolding around me, and be terrified on every morning and evening
commute. Instead, I choose to focus on
the detachment that arises from the mental illusion I’ve described, and use it
as a mental defense. It preserved my
sanity when my motodup swerved around a stopped dumptruck at the last moment,
and leaned us toward said truck so that my head passed within centimeters of
the bright orange, solid steel corner of the bed at twenty miles per hour, or
the time that another motodup jumped a curb, dodged a fruit cart, and took a
shortcut through the twenty inch gap between a telephone pole and a concrete
wall. And, any motorcycle rider can tell you that you need a certain amount of
detachment and boldness to preserve your safety in a situation where hesitation
can mean getting run over, or dropping your bike doing forty. I would have collapsed into a panicked mess a
dozen times already if not for this aloof response.
That
detachment-as-defense is what I’m driving at (heh) here. Like choosing to ride a motorcycle at all, it
presents certain clear and significant risks.
However, if one must ride in Cambodian traffic, it is necessary. Similarly, it’s easy for people who are
conscious of the world’s problems to get caught up in the sheer magnitude of
the threat surrounding them and their fellow people. That goes double for those of us who are
actively engaged in fighting perpetrators of crimes against children. We could be engaged all the time, and, as one
district attorney postulated to me, we might even be more effective for putting
in all the extra hours and effort. But,
as the social workers in my office constantly remind us, we would also burn out
rapidly and probably pick up mental illnesses along the way. Instead, we have to practice a certain level
of detachment from our work in order to protect ourselves from it. That can come across harsh, or uncaring,
especially considering the nature of what we do. But people in a position to know tell me that
it’s healthy, and everyone has a story about the mental breakdown that happens
when you don’t practice this detachment.
That principle is useful for the non-professionally engaged as well. I’ve heard many people over the years express
guilt when they encounter stories of the global violent abuse that many people
live with every day. That kind of
concern has its place, and can be a healthy motivator, but Phnom Penh traffic
has taught me that you have to eventually draw a line and choose to detach yourself
from the threats and the powerlessness, so that you can keep functioning. After
all, someone who can function can keep fighting; the same cannot be said of
someone who has become consumed with frustration, guilt, and helplessness over
the magnitude of the world’s problems.
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