Oh Brother, Thwarted Again!

Nothing is certain

It could always go wrong.

Come in when it's raining

Go on out when it's gone. 

          

          ~The Greatful Dead

"Oh brother, not again!"

It had become one of our classroom jokes. I have no idea where it came from, but it's a common enough expression that it's not surprising that it cropped up in a preschool classroom. 

I say it was a joke, and the kids meant it humorously, but there were no belly laughs. They were using it the way adults use expressions like this, as a way to respond when life thwarts us. And there's always lot of thwarting.

When we observe children at play, much of what we witness is thwarting. The block tower topples over. We trip and fall. We want a red one, but all that's left are blue ones. We want to play one game and our friends a different one. 

The old Yiddish expression, "Man plans and God laughs" is another of these expressions.

"If I didn't laugh, I'd cry all day" is yet another.

There isn't nearly as much thwarting as we might think, although it doesn't always seem that way. Our brains are prediction machines. Generally speaking, when our predictions prove correct, it doesn't even rise into our conscious awareness. It's usually only when our predictions prove wrong that our conscious minds are brought to bear. 

Some have even asserted that if nothing ever went wrong we would have no need for consciousness at all.

Linus: "Don't worry, Charlie Brown, you win a few and you lose a few."

Charlie Brown: "(Sigh) Wouldn't that be nice."

And without consciousness, we would have no sense at all of being alive. If we never failed, if everything went according to plan, if life were perfect, we would have no need to know about it. It's the thwarting that brings our attentions to bear on life, it's what calls us to action, even if it sometimes feels like thwarting is all there is. Without thwarting, success means nothing.

Of course, sometimes all the thwarting frustrates or angers us. Sometimes it makes us cry all day. Sometimes the thwarting overwhelms us, but on a day-to-day basis, every mentally healthy person must learn to shrug or laugh or roll their eyes. We might not laugh exactly, but the cosmic joke is that it's the thwarting that ultimately connects all of humanity.

When a child says "Oh brother, not again" I hear a child who is learning to take the thwarting in stride. And when they then return to the task at hand, whatever it is, with a new plan, with corrections, with the wisdom of previous thwarting under their belt, I see a child who is learning. 

Without thwarting, there is no need for thinking. 

Without thinking there is no learning. 

Without learning there is no life.

"Oh brother, not again!"

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