Greatest invention

'What is the greatest American invention of the last century, two centuries?' the engineer I sat next to asked me in the midst of our conversation on my flight from Baltimore (having barely caught the plane, deep thanks to the skycap who ran down long corridors with Dulu in wheelchair to the boarding gate).

I asked for a moment to think and came up with--the telephone. Not bad, he conceded, but had something else in mind:  'AA,' Alcoholics Anonymous, he answered. All necessary technology will eventually be developed  by somebody, but only in America would someone start to tackle such a difficult social problem as alcoholism. His answer took me by surprise. I had expected something technological.

All this time, my hearing muffled as my ears popped and fizzed. Am I speaking too loud?

Later on, after discussing the Manhattan Project, I asked him what, given the money and the talent, he would tackle. Mental illness was his reply. Again, huh?

He expressed his commitment to technical rigor in admiration for the life-or-death challenge of engineering projects (that bridge had better not fall), and yet was most interested in what had been done, what could be done to help those helpless to control their thoughts and cravings.

Perhaps he thought: engineers delight in swarming a problem, reducing it from mystery to solution, in pointed contrast to those with cognitive or emotional challenges who feel rather their ideas and intentions swarmed upon and confused.

He went on to say he felt the big obstacle to solution of the problem of mental illness is our ambivalence about the actually succeeding. Technical challenges are straightforward if we have the will, he said, but we're conflicted about even wanting to deal with mental illness, perhaps not willing to forgo the gratifications of judgment and blame.

I think, yes, we do sincerely wish relief for those who suffer, and for ourselves from their (not to be minimized) importunities. At the same time, and I can see it in myself, moral judgment regularly wells up and roils in us (perhaps a response to fear) which causes us to create boundaries beyond which we see such sufferers (and often they see themselves) as Others, not with that free, autonomous and bracing otherness which can be transformative when encountered, but with an otherness we think of as derivative, diminished, fragmented, pitiable when not exasperating, impotent to provoke change or be changed.

He told me a story about a problem he had had with his tennis serve. He consulted his opponent who made a suggestion. Tested, the idea didn't quite work. His opposite tweaked the idea, and the serve became 'ten times better.' Later on, after losing a few matches, his opponent laughed, 'I've created a monster.'

I thought: these two were the kind of Other each needed. If we do make progress toward treating mental illness, this will be option for more of us.

The plane waggled over the lights of the home and we landed with a bump.