The beauty in the grey
The flight had departed on time. The mid-air voyage had been turbulent free. And the plane hit the ground 15 minutes ahead of schedule. The whole journey had been calm, straightforward and appealingly uneventful. And yet as soon as the flight attendant announced the recent change in protocol - we would need to catch a bus to take us from the tarmac to the terminal (typically unusual at a Melbourne airport) – the atmosphere in the aircraft shifted.
We all disembarked the plane and boarded the crowded bus. At this stage, there was still relative calm. The bus crawled along the quiet tarmac – a concrete desert occupied by lonely planes who were kept idle by border closures. And then our bus suddenly stopped – at least 50m away from the terminal door. The bus driver hurried out of the bus, leaving us alone without a spoken word. He stopped in the middle of the tarmac to talk on his phone. And it was the look of uncertainty splashed across his face that gave life to an impatient energy; steadily infusing the air inside the bus.
“Awesome” shouted one of the passengers – a tall middle-aged man standing towards the front of the bus – his sarcasm as clear as daylight. A few people snickered in response. Seconds turned into minutes, and the driver was still outside the bus. Frustration began to build. “This is a bloody joke”, the same passenger remarked. “If they are going to change things, at least get it bloody right.” Some fellow passengers nodded in agreement. Others kept their eyes awkwardly fixed to the floor.
Minutes passed by and irritation amongst the passengers escalated. The aforementioned man’s daughter then publicly announced that that she needed to go the toilet. It seemed that this disclosure was music to her father’s ears – as though it was the motive he needed to launch an attack. He managed to push open the double-sided doors at the front of the bus whilst righteously announcing to the driver that his daughter needed to be let out… immediately. I was towards the back of the bus, so I could not hear the bus driver’s response. Instead, I heard the more dominant reply; “That’s it. Once I get inside this terminal, they would want to have ten police to hold me back!”
Less than a minute later the man and his daughter were let out. And possibly another minute or so after that, the doors were open to the whole busload. “It makes you proud to be Australian, doesn’t it?” muttered the man standing next to me, his sarcasm also as clear as daylight. We filed into the terminal – eerily empty aside from the COVID-19 border staff who were all ready to check our permits that were required to enter the state of Victoria. The situation was over. The man and his teenage daughter were now nowhere to be seen. I kept walking towards the baggage claim area and walked past a couple of fellow passengers, in tense conversation. ”You think I’m intolerant”, the man sneered at the woman, “Well I’m clearly not the only one who feels this way. And I don’t tolerate stupidity.” The situation was over, but many of us were still carrying it.
And I continued to carry it on my drive home from the airport – my mind hooked on what I had just witnessed. We had been kept waiting less than 15 minutes - which was the same amount of time we had actually gained by the flight arriving early. In the big scheme of things, this was such a tiny inconvenience. And yet, this relatively minor event had highlighted some very typical involuntary qualities of the human condition – to judge, to make assumptions and to react. And to very often overreact.
Most of passengers on the bus had remained quiet and did not present with an overt behavioural reaction. Yet, every single person on that bus would have experienced an internal reaction – automatic thoughts and feelings about the situation evolving around us - whether it be uncomfortable and reactive, or not. Including myself.
For me, my internal reaction was one of sadness. I felt empathy for the bus driver - he doing what he was instructed to do, yet became the involuntary recipient of the father’s wrath. And then came uncomfortable feelings and thoughts that I experienced about the father. My mind drew conclusions about the man – prophesying that he likely has a very low frustration tolerance, driven by a cognitive narrative that possibly centred around other people being incompetent, and a probable automatic belief that people regularly do wrong by him. My mind went further to make predictions from these assumed narratives – picturing how he might typically behave in day-to-day situations.
And then, whilst I was still entangled in the trance of these rolling thoughts, I suddenly caught myself in my ‘thinking’ tracks! Just like the father’s reaction had likely been driven by unhelpful assumptions and judgments about the situation we were in, I had noticed that my mind was doing exactly the same thing - my automatic and reactive thoughts about the father had been just as assumptive!
Our reactive thoughts and judgments about others and events around us can frequently be characterised by a black-and-white or splitting phenomenon that our minds instinctively engage in. This distortion in our thinking is the tendency to think in extremes – the simplistic view of right versus wrong, and good versus bad. It draws upon historical schemas that our minds have developed over time, in an attempt to make sense of a situation (as it loves to do) in the most efficient, quick and energy conserving way possible. And it attempts to achieve this in a way that makes us feel more secure, and likely even superior to other. This has process has a survival function – after all, if I am secure, safe and superior in the wild, I am more likely to survive.
However, when we are able to step back and notice the dangerous simplicity (and often inaccuracy) in this assumptive and generalised thinking, we are able to see that, particularly where humans are concerned, things are very rarely as they seem. We are able to recognise that there are many shades of grey in the context of a person’s behaviour and/or a situation.
The father had no idea what was going on inside the airport terminal and why we had been kept waiting. And there were many possible and rational explanations for this inconvenience. For instance, perhaps there had been some imminent danger, and this delay was necessary to keep us safe?
I too, had no idea what was going on for the father to influence his aggressive and intolerant behaviour. Perhaps he was experiencing (or had experienced) something very difficult and traumatic in his life, or maybe there was an urgent situation waiting for him at home, driving his impatience to get off that bus?
On most occasions, we will never know what is going on for somebody in their lives beyond what we see. And we will often not know all the factors that underpin a situation. What is important though, is not assuming that we do know.
Recognising that there is an unknown context behind a person’s behaviour, or an event, does not mean excusing inappropriate behaviour. We can still deem a person’s behaviour as ‘wrong’ and take a firm (but respectful) stance against this where necessary. But instead, it’s choosing not to see the whole person, or situation, as wrong. And to bring together the dichotomy of both positive and negative qualities of the self, others and the world, into a cohesive and realistic whole.
This allows us to then experience greater tolerance, acceptance and even compassion for other people and situations, that may otherwise create a lot of unnecessary distress and conflict. It allows us to have less rigidity in our thinking and instead gives space to recognise the ‘grey’. Because it is in the grey that we can experience a lot more beauty and peace - both in our fellow humans and in our wondrous world.
* The identifying characteristics in the above story have been modified to maintain anonymity.