Human Soup

I am a highly skilled decision-avoider. I have honed my technique through years and years of practice and experimentation. The results I get are truly amazing, if you can call pretty terrible ‘amazing,’ and despite (or perhaps because of) that, I have continued to improve, skyrocketing to greatness. 

But, you may ask, what happens when you don’t make decisions? Does time stop? Does the right decision magically make itself? You’re getting ahead of yourself, grasshopper. Let me reveal the system’s intricacies, and then we’ll get into the nitty-gritty. 

The key to successfully avoiding decisions is to dull any thought of said decision and to slow the body and mind to a near crawl, all the while maintaining the appearance of being a functional human being. I know this sounds easy, but believe me, it takes practice.

There are many techniques, nearly-patented methods that I’ve developed, but the two that I can truly stand behind are alcohol and so-bad-they’re-good TV shows—bonus points for combining the two. 

Have you seen the show Medium? It’s the one from the mid-aughts where Patricia Arquette plays a psychic who helps the police solve crimes through, you guessed it, psychic powers. I think it’s based on a true story, and I love a real-life medium. I highly recommend it. 

I remember watching her, curled up on the couch under a blanket, lights dim, balancing a fancy stemmed glass of cheap wine, wanting to be more like her. Isn’t it cool how she receives messages from outside herself, shares them, and acts on them to help others? And she’s so brave because people think she’s weird and creepy sometimes, and she does it anyway.

Ironically, when The-Psychic-Played-by-Patricia-Arquette’s psychic thoughts are too much for her to bear or too painful to see, she has a simple solution – she drinks. That’s all it takes to tune out the messages and sever the connection. Easy. 

But if you’ve ever watched twelve back-to-back hours of CSI while avoiding something, you know that this is not the typical way our culture values decision-making. We are to approach everything carefully through observation, science, and evidence. 

Don’t worry, they tell us. The answer will be clear if you collect enough evidence, knowledge, and empirical data. And I get it – it’s comforting to think that despite whatever you’re feeling, you can find ‘the answer’ if you just look closely enough. To many, this is what knowing is. And part of me has wished I could live like this too.

But this morning, I was walking to the lake as I do most mornings, and I saw a sticker on a lamppost that said, “What’s your Cause?” It had been there for a long time, smudged, slightly skewed, and at eye level, but I hadn’t ever seen it before. I have been thinking about that question a lot, and it was as though it appeared to me at the right moment.

And I started thinking about that moment in Stranger Things when the girl from Beetlejuice hangs Christmas lights and paints letters on the wall to communicate with her son, who is in The Upside Down. Remember? (If not, let’s review: The Upside Down is an alternate dimension filled with super scary monsters with a hive mind system).

He uses the electromagnetic field to illuminate the light in front of letters to spell messages. The information and the language she needs are right in front of her; it just needs to light up.

I got to the lake and put my feet in the cold water, and something clicked. There is a language embedded in everything around us. If we pay attention and listen deeply, what we need to know will light up. There is a message in every moment if we tune into it. 

Looking back, I always knew the right answer to the hard decisions, and I had known for a long-ass time. I knew in my gut, in my soul. I knew it from a part of me where there were no words to describe it. 

But I didn’t want to know. Because knowing is hard, and it’s messy. And it usually doesn’t lead down the easy path. It’s so much easier to tune it out. 

So I drank. Or watched Medium, or whatever else. But eventually, the decisions make themselves. 

But I’ve spent too long tuning out. I let myself believe that the way that I understand and the way that I think are wrong. I will no longer be drinking the Kool-Aid that communication means using only words, that feelings require explanation, or that other ways of knowing must be proven or suppressed. I want to be brave, to do what’s right, and to face the truth, even if it is as scary as The Upside Down. I want to develop the courage to tune in now.