Interior Dialogue
We all have to make decisions, so we all have internal
arguments with ourselves. Sometimes, such arguments are open-ended, a process
of iteration towards a choice of various options of action. On other occasions,
they are simple dichotomies with a devil on your left shoulder saying, ‘Go on,
go on,’ and an angel on your right saying, ‘No, Stephen, be a good boy, don’t
make me ashamed of you.’
I don’t know if you have read any of the Don Camillo books,
by Giovanni Guareschi. These are set in a small town in the Po valley in
northern Italy in the nineteen-fifties, and tell stories of the perennial feuding between the parish
priest, Don Camillo, and the communist mayor Peppone. They are very amusing and
each chapter is accompanied by little drawings involving angels and devils.
When the devil-on-the-left-shoulder-angel-on-the-right situation arises, I
always have a mental picture of Guareschi’s charming illustrations.
More of these ethical dichotomies later. At the risk of
boring everyone with yet another traveller’s tale, an example of the first sort
of interior dialogue was on an occasion about fifteen years ago, when I had a
meeting in Uppsala in Sweden, first thing in the morning. The meeting was over
by mid-morning, and my flight home from Arlanda airport (around 40 minutes away
by bus) was not until late afternoon.
DUFFY 1: So what are you going to do now?
DUFFY 2: Don’t know. I could have a look around the shops.
DUFFY 1: You’ve just had a look around the shops. You’ve
bought rather unimpressive presents for Linda and the kids and you’ve pretty
much exhausted the shops.
(I should say here
that the centre of Uppsala is a rectangular grid of cuboid buildings covering a
small area, and with a less than extensive range of shops).
DUFFY 2: Right enough. Uppsala’s an old university town,
there must be some historic stuff to see.
DUFFY 1: Yes, but you’ve no idea where any of it is.
DUFFY 2: All right, so what do you suggest, if you’re so
****ing smart?
DUFFY 1: You could find a café, sit with a cup of coffee,
open up your computer and do some work.
DUFFY 2: Work? To hell with that for a carry-on. Work’s a
washout.
DUFFY 1: So what are you going to do now?
DUFFY 2: I could just get the bus out to the airport.
DUFFY 1: You’ll be ridiculously early for your flight.
DUFFY 2: But I’ve got a gold card, so I can go to the lounge
where there is ad libitum food and booze.
DUFFY 1: You can’t sit in the alcoholics’ enclosure in the airport
for three hours.
DUFFY 2: Just watch me.
And so the long day wears on…
************************
The other example, with the wicked and good spirits on
either shoulder, usually happens in meetings at work, when someone
inadvertently gives me the feed for an off-colour joke. The devil is egging me
on, telling me that I may have to wait another fifteen years to get the same
prompt again, and the angel is urging me to show some gravitas, this is a
meeting about serious health matters, and all that… sort of thing. One such
occasion was a round-the-table meeting of a small committee on some aspect of
bowel cancer screening. A member of the committee, lamenting the low level of
awareness of the members of the public invited to screening, observed, ‘Some
people drink the enema we send them to prepare for the bowelscope test.’
At this point, the two supernatural beings became
hyperactive, the one on my left shoulder telling me I would never get this
opportunity again, and the one on my right telling me I would sound like a foul-mouthed
ignoramus, and isn’t it about time I grew up and made myself useful instead.
Of course, the devil on the left shoulder won, and my
contribution to the discussion was, ‘That’s what I did, and for all the good it
did me, I might as well have stuck it up my arse.’
The bell tolled and the tumbleweed blew across the committee
table.
**********************
A similar incident occurred at another meeting related to
breast cancer screening. There was an item on the agenda which required us to
make a decision as to the most appropriate mammographic surveillance regimen
for women who had had supradiaphragmatic radiation for a previous cancer. When
we reached that item, the chairman said, ‘Julietta, can you fill us in on the…
supradiaphragmatic…’
Once again, the devil and the angel went into overdrive, but
there was no contest. I couldn’t resist it.
I added, ‘Expialidocious.’
This time, I did get a laugh.
Over the years I have watched you do this no fewer than a million times, but what has been equally fun is hearing stories from others of the same sort of moment. I was having lunch with Chris Wild in Lyon and he told me a story about one of your visits--everyone was seated and scanning the menu when someone remarked that it must be very difficult for vegetarians in France, so few options on the menu free of meat or dairy products.....what were they to do? Chris did not know you well, and was surprised at the solution you offered, which was a show stopper, but one he recalled that he very much enjoyed. Me too, but I'm not confident I have your devil's suggestion quite right....you might provide it for us. By the way....those of us who know you well can see this wrestling match going on in your mind, and know that the devil usually wins.
ReplyDeleteI think that was a quote from the comedian Frankie Boyle: 'Yes, there is a vegetarian option: you can fuck off.' Chris was quite tickled by that. There have been times when I kept quiet, honest. My late mother was very 'pass-remarkable' and found it very difficult not to say what was on her mind. And with her too, you could often see on her face the futile attempt to resist the temptation before she came out with it.
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