the other other way

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LOOK THE OTHER OTHER WAY

Hello friend, Do you remember the story about Abraham Lincoln seeing a squirrel climb out of the tree above his house? I only remember it vaguely—the kind of limp-wristed American folklore we grew up with. The Greeks had their pantheon of gods, the Norse and the Egyptians have the religious equivalent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and we're stuck sitting around the campfire telling the story of a man with a beard and a hat cutting down a tree.The story goes something like this: Abe leaves his house one day, probably to galavant around his property or do some other Thoreau-worthy task, and sees a squirrel climb out of a tree he believed to be solid. The tree hangs over his picturesque log cabin, and they didn't have insurance back then, so he realized he was going to have to cut down the tree. What I really remember about that tale was how confused I was by honest Abe's reaction: he wishes he hadn't seen the squirrel. He wished for willfull ignorance. He wanted to continue along his day, uninterrupted by new, critical information that required reaction.It's the kind of thing that makes no immediate rational sense, in the sense that if we were strictly rational, we would never do something like walking away from a responsibility we know will bite is in the ass later. Yet we do it. I've done it. I can think of things now that need my attention, that will get so much worse if I leave them... And I can't.There's external pressure: Our plans. Demands. People telling us to just let it slide, look the other way, overtly or subvertly. Don't make a racket. Don't rock the boat.Then there's internal pressure: anxiety. The fear of action. Not having the strength to confront it right now. There's all sorts of reasons to just look the other way.The question is—how do we cultivate the reverse? How do we go from our default setting to intentionally seeking out those things which are most likely to harm us in the future?How do we look the other other way?