I was born with a seemingly infinite number of machine parts in my head — springs and sprockets and gears and levers and wires and nuts and bolts. They were mostly unassembled at birth — just random parts jangling around as I rolled and crawled and stumbled through life. But along the way, the parts assembled themselves — without the help of a craftsman as far as I can tell — into an adult human mind. I have no idea how this happened. Somehow, each new experience, observation, mistake, disappointment, triumph – caused a new piece to integrate itself into the whole, or an old piece to reconfigure, or fall off. So that now, this machine is the sum total of my genetic endowment, experiences, values, hopes and dreams — everything I am. As I write this, pieces are still moving. It continues to evolve.
And now, inexplicably, I find myself in a large room with almost everyone I love, and I look around and see that we all have constructed our own unique machines – or they were constructed in us, I don’t really know – but we each have one. In the center of the room is a set of metaphysical propositions, and we find that we enjoy processing these propositions with our machines. We each insert the propositions, one by one into the front of our machine, and after some chugging and whirring – we’re not sure what, exactly, is going on in there – a judgment pops out the back. As it turns out, almost everyone’s judgments (in this particular room) are the same — “True”, or at the very least, “Plausible”. Everyone seems quite pleased at this result. A party ensues, with root beer and sliced Costco muffins and children singing. “True” is best, of course, but “Plausible” will still get you some refreshments and a seat at the table.
But as the party kicks up, I find myself standing alone – reprocessing. You see, my judgments didn’t say “True”, or even “Plausible”. They said “Implausible”, or “False”, and sometimes “WTF?” But not “True”. I’m embarrassed. Am I the only one? I’m sure they said “True” before, didn’t they? What’s wrong with my machine? Is it broken? How do I fix it? — If only I knew how this thing worked.
Eventually a few family members wander over. They want me to join the party. I show them my judgments, and they look distressed. “Run them through again” they say. “You’re doing it wrong”. I do it, with the same result. “Again — try harder! What’s wrong with you? Don’t you want muffins?”
I desperately want muffins — they’re cake actually, and delicious. But I don’t know how to try harder. I’m just feeding the propositions into the slot — I concentrate. Stupid machine — just let me have the @#$&%#* muffins! Ding – “Implausible”, again. The crowd around me grows louder.
It dawns on me that somehow during all of this, *I* have metamorphosed from a person into a proposition. People begin putting *me* through their judgment machines. “Wrong” their judgments say. “Disappointing”. “Bad”. “Threatening”. Everyone edges away, slowly, with smiling lips and crying eyes. I don’t like fake smiles. Or being judged. I edge away too. The space between us grows until individuals become a crowd. Is that a party over there or mob? Is there a difference? Where is my party? I scan the room for an exit.
Don’t You Want Muffins?
– September 19, 2012Posted in: Columns, Knit Together
Thank you for this post.
When St. Paul enumerates the spiritual gifts, he says “to *some* it is given to believe….” It is possible (and maybe even plausible :) ) to understand this to mean that others have the gift to not believe. When we think of the various gifts contributing to the well-being of a body, the voice of a skeptic is absolutely necessary.
Oh how very, very true that story rings to me. The harder I try, the more frustrated I become, and the more looked down upon I feel. Thank you for putting my feelings into words.
I love this image…the worst part is that many people expect you to just “fix” your machine, as if your machine is broken, that you can choose to fix it, and that fixing it wouldn’t make it into something wholly different — in the process making you into someone wholly different.
In the end, I have realized that I didn’t even want muffins…I am much more a chocolate chip cookie person, and I like the ones that I bake myself.
Very well written; this is a topic that I can really relate to. I have heard similar words from others about former friends and loves ones seeing them as somehow broken, because their judgments were also saying ‘implausible’ or ‘not true’. Human nature is intriguing in that it so wants/needs to be right and when you ‘feel’ right you must be. Feelings seem to be the way the religious judge most things; not that feelings are unimportant – they have taken millennia to develop. Unfortunately like our appendix, some of those feelings have become superfluous; redundant in the 21st century.
While we would not dream of using some of the ‘surgical techniques’ used centuries ago, we are not beyond obeying advice written back then. Human beings have evolved just as the writer of the blog has. We evolve as individuals and as a species. We no longer need to be on the watch for a lion to jump out and eat us, but we still are able to experience the fear of that happening as children, and that fear extends to other things as we grow older. We fear things that do not require that reaction. As we boldly go where no man has gone, others look at us with mistrust, confusion, sadness and fear. They do not want to hear the excitement we feel about life outside their paradigm, they can only relate to their own thoughts within the paradigm. Everything else is suspect – everything else is wrong.
The human race has moved forward due to brave people who were able to say, ‘implausible’ or ‘not true’. They are the ones who go off and find other ways of looking at the world and the prevailing ideas – even Joseph Smith did that – may he rest in peace.
I love the imagery here. Thanks for writing this!
Mark, your comment is very much along the lines that I’ve been thinking of. I am seriously thinking of saying something like this at our next fast & testimony meeting. I know that there are other people like me (us) who sit through meeting after meeting, thinking silently that there is no one else who feels this way. But that simply can’t be true. Expressing my (un?)testimony in these terms may be a way to let others know that they aren’t as alone as they might have thought.
This is powerful and true.mthanks for sharing.
Beautifully written; also hits close to home.
When you get older, you will see you can have the muffins and be who you are, too. Seriously.
Wonderful post; great analogy and imagery. And this
“It dawns on me that somehow during all of this, *I* have metamorphosed from a person into a proposition.”
hits far too close to home. I don’t care so much about having the muffins anymore — like Andrew, I’ve become more of a cookie guy myself — but I still yearn for the time in which I was more than a proposition.