Built for Discomfort

Have we gotten too comfortable?

Some comfort is good; here’s proof.

As childhoods go, mine was easy and happy — you know, other than the suffering the Buddha reminds us we all experience. I often wonder how that shaped me.

Reading

Michelle Dowd

’s wonderful memoir, Forager, has me pondering this again. I keep asking myself how I would have responded to the abusive, neglectful environment she was subjected to as part of the apocalyptic cult she was born into. I keep asking myself if my Rebel tendencies would have helped me break free from the cult, or if I would have kept them under wraps. I don’t know. I don’t know.

Why do I not have answers? I only have questions!

Young Michelle, whose grandfather started the religious cult known as the Field in southern California, could never fit into its isolationist, authoritarian culture. But she readily absorbed the survival lessons her mother imparted, learning which local plants she could eat, how to navigate by the stars, and how to manage cold and thirst in the arid mountain climate where she and her siblings were often left to wander alone. She endured and survived these conditions, and she was strong and clever enough to escape the cult, get an education, and become a journalism professor.

If you want to learn about the details of cults, her book isn’t for you. But I got something much more powerful and illuminating from it. I got a view into how an amazingly strong and resilient young person can overcome her harsh upbringing and learn to flourish, despite serious early programming and a rough start.

My family prepared me for the end of the world, but I know how to survive on what the earth yields. — Michelle Dowd, Forager

Here’s a difference between Michelle and me. She was so brilliant and curious that she vowed to read the whole Bible by the time she was nine — and succeeded, taking copious notes about all the contradictions she encountered in it. I once picked it up as a teenager, because I thought I should become familiar with a book so important to Western culture, and couldn’t get past the first few excruciatingly boring pages of “begats.”

Here’s a similarity between Michelle and me. Like her, I’ve never felt like I fit in and I’ve always questioned the status quo. But Michelle’s questioning went against the grain of the blind obedience she was taught. I, on the other hand, grew up in a university town where I was taught to question the status quo, though to be fair, my internal compass has always seemed to point that way on its own. Still, even when it comes to our similarities, I have to concede we’re different.

Would my questioning tendency have sustained me in an environment like hers? I’ll never know, and I have my doubts.

Here’s what I do know:

My childhood, though not perfect, was basically happy and secure. My family life in a safe and affordable Midwestern town was stable; the educational system was solid, and I was expected to go to college — which my parents paid for, supplemented by a very small student loan that was easy for me to pay off. I didn’t have to be brilliant or driven to do fine.

True, I was still a Flower Child, and we Flower Children weren’t like kids in more recent generations. We were allowed to roam free, and like Gen Xers, my sister and I were latchkey kids. Despite the financial support we got for college, when we got there we were expected to figure things out on our own, and once we graduated, we were expected to support ourselves.

Still, it was an easy enough life, and I’m thankful for it.

I also found myself wondering, as I read Forager, if I might have benefited from some training in how to be tough.

I don’t want to minimize for a moment what Michelle went through. I don’t think abuse and neglect are good methods for toughening up children. But what about the middle path of the Buddha? Instead of being taught to seek comfort, as I was — by my parents and by my culture — I wish I’d been taught the value of discomfort. I wish I’d been taught coping strategies and resilience. We could all use those right about now.

Don’t get me wrong. I love comfort. I’m a built-for-comfort type of person. But I’m starting to think that maybe I love it a bit too much. Reading Forager only solidified that feeling — about both myself and the population at large.

Contrast Michelle’s experiences with the “safe spaces” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt scoff at in The Coddling of the American Mind, another recent read: when staging uncomfortable debates or inviting controversial speakers, some college campuses are feeling it’s necessary to provide rooms that students can retreat to “equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets, and a video of frolicking puppies.” We’re treating students, and increasingly, everyone else, too, as if they were extremely delicate vases that might shatter at the slightest touch.

The Coddling authors bemoan this culture of “safetyism” and advocate for an approach that instead teaches us to be strong — what they call “anti-fragility.” Assuming young people are so fragile does a disservice to their education, emotional growth, and resilience. Rather than going to extremes to protect students, we should expose them to different ideas, encourage them to think for themselves, and teach them to argue for their positions.

Of course, this goes beyond colleges. It extends to the ubiquitous trigger warnings and safe spaces in today’s world. Yes, we should be teaching everyone to be sensitive to others, but there’s a difference between sensitivity and coddling; too often, we cross the line. In a Facebook group I was part of for people doing Bright Line Eating, which involves avoiding sugar and flour, you could get attacked for using the word “sugar.” If you have such a hard time with sugar that you can’t handle seeing the word, I don’t know how you’re going to navigate the checkout aisle at any American grocery store or pharmacy. Give me a break.

These people wouldn’t last long in an abusive cult. But let’s face it, neither would I.

So, what do I do with the awe and admiration that Michelle Dowd inspires, and the conviction that I could never do what she did? All I can do is find ways to get tougher in the context of the life I’m actually living.

It’s easier said than done. Even though, despite my love of comfort, I’m a bit of a Kirkian. Rafael, who’s known me for 21 years, was surprised to hear me say this, as he’s seen me mock William Shatner’s exaggerated performances on more than one occasion. But who can forget Captain Kirk’s impassioned speeches, with declarations like, “Man must struggle to survive!” He’s right! I say to myself, nodding in agreement. He’s right! The computers that self-destruct on hearing his proclamations seem to concur.

But my Kirkian tendencies don’t run deep enough. Again and again, the siren call of comfort has proven too powerful for me to resist — because I never did get used to discomfort. The tension is ever-present, keeping me from doing all the stuff I should be doing, like exercising.

All the more reason to read a book like Forager. All the more reason for its reminder of how strong humans can be — with the right training — when we put our minds to it. At least, it gives us something to aspire to.

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I don’t for one minute believe that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger — sometimes it breaks you. At the same time, just like our muscles need to be strained to get stronger, so do our psyches. What experiences have made you stronger?

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