The fake aha
Even the trash is artfully arranged. (Image credit)
I used to teach a kid who would ask a question and then offer a big, showy “Ahhhhh!” or “Ohhhhhh!” when she heard the answer.
It took me a while to figure out that she was usually faking it. Either she wasn’t truly interested in the answer, or was afraid she would look stupid if she needed more than one quick explanation. Either way, she didn’t really get it. She wasn’t really engaging with me or whatever I was teaching—she just wanted to make it look like she was doing so.
I run the risk of doing the same thing with this blog. I want to write about things I’ve learned or figured out, which means that the stories that I tell will be from that perspective. I always want to make sure, however, that I’m not making it sound like I have everything figured out. I’m learning and growing, which is a nice way of saying that I make messes and screw up. I’m not some sage on a mountaintop.
On the other hand, in this era of fake authenticity and pretend vulnerability, even a posture of growing and learning can come off as contrived. If it’s fashionable to sound like we’re growing and learning all the time, then we’ll make it seem like we are even when we’re not. Our eureka moments, likewise, will be a simulacrum of actual wisdom.
Certain dynamics in group discussions can force fake “ahas” from participants. Asked on the spot what we learned from a given presentation, many of us will dutifully scrounge up a thoughtful-seeming sound bite recycled from what the others have said. The worst part is that we might not even realize that we didn’t have time to reflect on what we learned or even to learn anything in the first place—we just know how it’s supposed to sound when we learned something.
We can reframe any situation to make it sound like we’re on the brink of a breakthrough. Oh, I can’t count how many times I have done this. “I thought I had figured it out before, you guys, but this time I’ve really got it! Ah, how foolish I was two weeks ago when I told you I was on the right track. I’ll be better from now on!” Obviously, it was before, in my younger years, because now I have it all down. Oh, wait…
At best, this forced growth narrative is a bit naive and short-sighted—at worst, it’s harmful and disingenuous. We see it on social media all the time when someone comes clean and tells us that the story they’ve been telling us about how great their life is has been a cover-up for some deep, dark emotions. How do we know that the layer they’re sharing now is who they really are? Does the person sharing even know?
In spaces where people are sharing things that make them feel truly vulnerable, there isn’t always a tidy, positive end to the story. The suffering hasn’t been distilled into a useful insight yet. It might just be a painful thing that’s happening that the person hasn’t made sense of. That is how growth happens, but the process isn’t pretty or Instagrammable. We can try to skip to the end where we learn the lesson and get the likes for it, but that’s no substitute for really experiencing it.
“Aha, I’m having an epiphany!” says the person who is not having an epiphany, because they want to be having an epiphany so bad. It hurts to be confused and frustrated and lost with no resolution in sight. It’s hard to live through that period of time when you aren’t sure whether you’re ever going to get it, especially when you see other people seeming to get it. But what makes the fake aha so tricky is that you can convince yourself that it’s real. And when we blur the lines between what we get and what we don’t, we drive ourselves farther away from true understanding and clarity.
You’re probably not going to find me writing a blog post about something I’m frustrated about or a concept I don’t understand—I have other outlets for that. And yet, I hope my work doesn’t come off like a bunch of phony nonsense that makes it sound like I think I have perfected the art of living. But I also don’t want to be obnoxiously self-deprecating. There’s a pretty fine line to walk, isn’t there?
When I was a volunteer at Bosch Bahá’í School, a lady named Maggie would come around at lunchtime with a little cart and refill people’s drinks. When you asked her how she was, she would offer that old Émile Coué line: “Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better.” She pulled it off because she was ninety-five years old. I believed her.
I want to be like Maggie. And maybe it’s true that I’m getting better every day—although maybe not in every way. I am growing. But I’ve got to leave room for mistakes and missteps and staring off into space trying to make sense of things. I’m open to the aha moments when they arrive, but they’re special because they aren’t all that common. That’s life, and I don’t need to be in a hurry to fix it.
