GREASE FIRES AND PEEPHOLES

CANDISS:  But you could be setting fire to things while adding fuel.

BARTHALAHMEU:  What do you mean?

C:  Well, you have no information.

B:  Sure I do. And there’s only two options: do something or do nothing.

C:  No.

B:  Don’t tell me what to do.

C:  I’m not. I’m just offering that it feels like you’re going pretty hard. And without knowing what’s happening on the other end.

B:  That’s—

C:  I mean, we all know your intention is good but your intention is actually irrelevant.

B:  You’re trying to tell me what to do.

C:  You’re going to do what you’re going to do. I’m just saying that you don’t know if, on the receiving end, you’re pushing or pulling and how hard. And all that matters here is what’s actually going down on the other end. I would want to know. 

B:  That’s you. And, look, no one else was helping the situation.

C:  Well, consider what you could be missing. Is it a grease fire? Or paper? In the fireplace or the bedroom?

B: I know what's happening.

C: Do you?

B: Yes.

C: She could be driving a motorcycle up the highway. How would knowing that change your desire to immediately respond to every input on her end? What if you knew she was texting out every piece of poetry arising in her consciousness while she weaves through traffic at 80 miles per hour. Would it help, then, to be quickly responding to every offering? Not responding, then, suddenly doesn’t look like the failure to attend to the problem that it might if you believe she’s curled up on the couch with the cat.

B:  Look, don’t tell me what to do.

C:  It’s not you or this situation. Just generally. The impulse to act seems like a kind of illness. And it’s one that everyone has. Everyone. Intending to help has no bearing on anything. At best it will help assuage your guilt if something goes terribly wrong. But that’s at best.

B:  That’s stupid.

C:  What good evidence is there, in your life or anyone else’s, that immediately picking up the phone when it rings or opening the door whenever there’s a knock is the correct action? 

B:  That’s stupid.

C:  I’m not making some kind of religious statement. I didn’t spend a year in a cave in Thailand. 

B:  Maybe you should.

C:  Doesn’t the existence of peepholes and caller ID tell us that we know the answer to this question? 

B:  No.

C:  I mean, entire criminal industries exist because folks will blindly open their door and pick up their phone and respond to their email.

B:  That’s not this.

C:  Entire industries.