Luck and Courage

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

The people in Japan who have survived what appeared, for all intents and purposes, to be hell on earth are exhibiting strength in ways that are never known to us unless we are faced with overwhelmingly bad odds. Courage like theirs began with dumb luck:  They were near a pole or railing when the raging waters swept past or were near a path leading to high ground to which they ran and survived.  After luck left them high and dry, courage and strength emerged.  They will have to hang onto that far longer and harder than they did to the post or rail.  For the Japanese people we're watching on TV, life and death is a whole new game they were thrown into, ready or not.  And the rules are being written on a daily basis.  

I think we'd understand if they all had nervous breakdowns or if they fell apart or sat sobbing and inert for days under all that stress.  This is crushing stress, and the behavior we might be witness to on the daily news may seem inexplicable if you are sitting comfortably within the depths of a cushioned sofa or Barcalounger.  Make no mistake though:  The stress of this disaster and disasters on that scale we have seen at other times is literally forming new neural pathways in the minds and bodies of these survivors so that they will be forever impacted by the experience.   

Nearly all former neural paths that gave rise to movements, thoughts and responses to normal life in their villages and towns prior to the tsunami now need to be replaced - nearly instantaneously - by new ones.  All frames of reference, landmarks, routines are gone.  All of it.  

Think about how much you depend on things being where they are in your familiar home.  Keys?  They're right there.  Gas station?  Four blocks away, thank you, and it's always open from 6 AM to 10 PM.  Food? Four supermarkets within a three-mile radius with every possible luxury stocked for your convenience.  Pretty nifty being safe and sound, eh?  

The survivors are left with a few instincts.  That's it.  Drink water, find food, get warm, find your mother, or find your child.  All frames of reference are shattered and strewn far and wide.  You don't have a toilet   or a bed anymore.  Money? bank? car?  Gone.  Pffft.  

People in those circumstances are only able to behave based on instinct and automatic movements.  The rest is dazed, uncertain and uncoordinated, and it often appears to be nonsensical to observers.  A woman, for instance, was seen taking some items to a recycling bin at a shelter and recycling cans and bottles.  All around her for miles and miles were crumpled heaps of splintered trash and she is going through the motions of recycling.  And it's because she is stunned and shocked by her experience, barely able to function because her mind's neural pathways need to rebuild and renew.  She was nearly in ruins herself, but she was functioning, albeit on a very basic level.  After all, she had survived hell.  

Fate is a cruel hunter in Japan these days.  If there is anything that is obvious, it is courage in a quantity that surpasses the wreckage by a thousandfold.  All that pain and all that sorrow surely affects us all in ways we cannot know.  I only hope that, at the very least, our admiration and respect for their courage affects them in a positive way and gives them further strength as they heal.