Being alive in a box

There are several great lines in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard. The one most relevant to this blog post is when Rosencrantz asks Guildenstern if he ever thinks of himself as actually being dead, in a box.

“I mean, one thinks of it like being alive in a box. One keeps forgetting to take into account the fact that one is dead, which should make all the difference, shouldn’t it?”

This conversation continues and leads to another classic line: “I mean, you’d never know you were in a box, would you? It would be just like you were asleep in a box. Not that I’d like to sleep in a box, mind you. Not without any air. You’d wake up dead, for a start, and then where would you be? In a box.”

But this is not a blog post about boxes or life and death or Stoppard’s genius.

It is a blog post about forgetting to take account of things.

It can be very difficult to think of yourself in a position that someone else is in and work out what you would do if you were in their shoes. It is a wonderful, amazing thing to do. Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird) said that to understand someone, you should walk around in their skin. And then several very witty people have said that before you criticise someone you should walk a mile in their shoes, because then when you criticise them, you’re a mile away and you have their shoes!

But, we think of ourselves as alive in the box, we keep forgetting to take account of the fact that we’d be dead, which should make all the difference. We think of ourselves walking in that person’s shoes and we forget to take account of the fact that we wouldn’t be ourselves if we were that person, we would have always walked in their shoes – our life, our experiences, our expectations, our options, our outlook, our priorities, our strengths, our fears, would all be different.

So it is easy to look, for example, at a culture with arranged or forced marriages and high levels of domestic abuse and think “well, if that was me, I’d say no to my parents”; “I’d leave my husband if he beat me”; “I would stand up to my mother in law if she constantly insulted me and my family”; “I would just wear jeans if I wanted to”; “I would stay in school even if my parents wanted me to leave”; “I would have a simple wedding with only the people I wanted to invite”; “I wouldn’t pay / ask for dowry”. But one keeps forgetting to take account of the fact that the me I am inserting into these hypotheticals hasn’t been brought up in this culture, doesn’t need to operate within this culture, isn’t reliant on others from within this culture and frankly doesn’t understand the culture enough to be able to really make informed statements about what is possible. Leaving one’s husband is never easy. But it is much easier in a context where there is some form of social care system that will support you. Leaving an abusive partner is easier when you have access to your own money that your partner doesn’t have control over. Leaving a relationship is easier when you have the self-esteem to recognise the relationship is toxic and that you deserve better and that better exists elsewhere. Being a single parent is easier when childcare exists and is affordable and doesn’t rely on the family you may have just alienated. Not getting married is easier when you live in a culture where it is fine for a woman to be single. Not getting married and having children is easier when you don’t need to rely on them to look after you in your senior years (because there is no functioning pension or elder care system). Etc.

So when you put yourself into someone else’s shoes, don’t forget to also ask who you would be if those shoes were the only shoes you had ever been able to walk in, the only shoes you have ever known. Because taking into account the fact that one is dead, makes all the difference when one thinks about being dead in a box. Though I wouldn’t think about being dead in a box if I were you, you’ll only get depressed.