Being Erica Season 3: Checking Yourself Against Others
The moral case for making sure you are considering what other people think when making decisions.
Author’s Note: The results are in on the poll of what I should cover next. The Flash has won and so that’s the series I’m going to be putting my focus on in the new year.
Also, look out for a special Christmas present on Friday that I’m sending over from another Substack of mine.
We need other people.
No matter how much we might want to go it alone, other people is something we rely on for the things we need most. Whether it's for basic things like food, housing and to protect us from terrible tragedies like crime. But more than that we need them for relationships. Family being the first group of people who we rely on to help us grow and establish deep emotional connections to. The kind we can turn to when things go wrong. Then we rely on them when we build out other relationships like friendships and becoming romantically involved with someone. If things go down badly and we lose either love or friendships, we turn to family members for emotional comfort and safety.
Yet at the same time we can come to rely on these friendships and other relationships for a similar type of emotional support. It's not the type of relationship you have with your family but it can still be deep and meaningful. When it comes to romantic relationships, they can in fact end up becoming family. Friendship can also be as deep as family although that's harder to establish. But that comes with all kinds of problems. These people can always leave you if they don't feel capable of helping you with your problems. They aren't feeling the need to stick by you that a family member would. So you have to be careful what you share with these people. Sometimes even holding these feelings back can be seen as evidence that you're not as good at maintaining these relationships. Which makes it easier to leave.
This is part of what makes building and maintaining relationships so difficult. It's never entirely clear how much you can share with someone before it becomes something they worry about. You worry that people aren't nearly as willing to help you, while at the same time you worry that someone will tell you something about themselves that makes you feel extremely weird. The kind of thing you don't want to have to deal with. Giving you the option to leave them behind and find new relationships. But we still need other people. We still want to know what they think and how they feel about you and the things which you do. Hopefully if they do it well, you can actually improve. Make yourself into a better person.
Previously in this space, we've explored the idea of living in the past and the relationships people have to each other that are long lived. Then we looked at the idea of trying to leave the past behind and focusing on the present so you can have fun with the world around you. However, people don't always get you or want to go along with what you're thinking or doing. Other people have other ideas and finding a way to work with them is incredibly difficult. If you do though, they can be really important friends of yours. The kinds of friends who you can rely on no matter what the circumstance without fear. Doing so is a whole process though, and not everyone can do it.
“Friendship... two people choose each other through some mysterious mix of alchemy and circumstance. On the surface the reason for our choice seems obvious. They should share our interests, they make us laugh, but is there more to it than that? And do we ever really stop and wonder why this person and not another? Friendship, it begins when two people choose each other. But what happens when we outgrow the choice? When little by little, our paths diverge, our needs change, and one day we wake up and we realize we need to choose something different.”
Erica is dealing with this problem in season 3 of the show. She's had trouble communicating with others about who she is and what she wants. While she has improved over the past two seasons, making sure what she wants is clear, she's still lacking in some ways. Despite all her progress, she didn't understand that Ethan wanted something different from her in the relationship department. He wanted to be a very traditional person, working a job and having a girlfriend who would eventually become his wife. Not traditional in the sense of barefoot and pregnant, but something deep and meaningful which doesn't change. Although Erica wanted some of that, she didn't want to be tied down so quickly and easily. She wanted more out of her life. Particularly after she lost her job. She wanted to take a risk and start a business. Ethan couldn't understand that need in her.
They had different experiences in life and that gave them different perspectives on what they want and how they wanted to get there. Something that many people have to deal with when talking with others. Different experiences mean you don't have to think the same way. At the same time however, this insight can be incredibly valuable. You can't know everything or see everything that's happening. You can't know what other people know unless they tell you. Even when you go through the same events, they might take something different from the situation than you do. Getting that feedback from people gives you a broader perspective on the world. It could even change the way you approach people and situations you're not familiar with. You might even find that this experience is better because you didn't limit yourself to what you thought.
“From the first moment we come into this world, we feel... pain and joy and fear and rage. We learn to hide the feelings that frighten us. First from others, then from ourselves. Many of us live our lives distant from our deepest feelings and never stop to wonder, what would happen if we allowed ourselves to feel them fully. To express and share them with the world.”
Because we all know that it could just as easily go the other way. Things could get much worse if we don't make sure that other people think this a good idea too. We could end up running straight into danger and cause many more problems than we solve. Assuming that our intention is to solve them. We could always want to make things worse but in the end most people want things to be better than they are. Very few people in this world are actively working against you and your better interests. So we rely on other people to tell us when we have failed. Either by our own standards or by the standards of someone else. When we have gone off the rails and need to be set back on it. Having someone around who can do that for us is incredibly helpful. We might want to think that we're always right, but rarely does that ever turn out to be the case.
“They say the journey of life is like a trek up a mountain. We spend most of our time putting one foot in front of the other. We get lost, we fall, we circle back and sometimes every step is a struggle. Until the moment comes when we find our footing, when we are able to stop, take a breath and look up and see how far we've come. And understand how beautiful that is. Suddenly, the air sparkles all around us like a jewel and the world cracks open in all its loveliness and we are filled with deep and abiding gratitude. For all that we have and all that we are.”
In order to do that though, they have to be willing to put their own issues aside and focus on what you want. Or at the very least they need to be able to use what they went through as a benchmark for what you're going through. Not only that, but they might need you to trust them with your own experience and understanding before they would be willing to share their own. You have to do this even though you might end up in a situation where you put yourself forward and reveal your deepest regrets but not get any of the same back from those around you. It might take them longer to get to a place where they feel like they can trust you with what hurts them most.
Which is where Adam can be a great example for Erica. He is a very guarded person. Despite being in the same type of therapy that she's in, Adam doesn't necessarily like to trust people all that easily. He prefers to keep to himself and do his own thing. While he can and does help others in seeing through some of the ideas they have about themselves, the place he falls short in is in looking at himself. Knowing where he is falling short and being willing to take advice from people on his own problems. He prefers to keep other people at arms length. Where he feels comfortable having people so that they don't get too close but also doesn't allow him to push back on his problems. He likes to think that he's comfortable.
“They say that we manifest our intentions. That we choose how we live, but if life doesn't turn out the way you hoped, it makes you stop and wonder, did you really ever have a choice? Or is this just the way it was meant to be? How much of our lives can we choose and how much is just who we are? Choices they are life's constant, the choice to be brave and push forward or to turn back in retreat. The choice to stand still and watch the world pass you by. Sometimes we tell ourselves that there is no choice when in fact the exact opposite is true. There is always a choice.”
He reflects Erica's own comfort level with herself in many ways. She thinks she has things figured out given how much progress she's made. But his unwillingness to change allows her to see that she needs to break out of her own boundaries more. Consider that her normal instincts might not necessarily be the best ones. The people she's normally drawn to aren't the ones she needs. Adam is the one that can give her that. Naturally, this leads to an attraction between them. Even if one of them isn't necessarily willing to admit it right away. Sparks fly regardless and it makes them want to act on how they feel. But you still have the problem that they're both closed off in certain ways.
“I woke up yesterday morning to find out that my whole life was gone, Leo. It was worse than gone, it was like, it didn't exist. It was a dream. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I'm just trying to clear my head, figure out what's real and what isn't. Dr Tom would say... in the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity. Even if it's not real, even if everything I've experienced wasn't real, I've been changed by it, and that's real. I remember it all Leo, every lesson, good and bad, every victory, every defeat and I can't just... I can't just throw it away. I can't throw my life away. I would rather live and try and fail then give up.”
So it becomes a balancing act of what they're willing to share with each other and what they keep hidden. Pushed in part by the people around them, Erica and Adam learn to open up while staying focused on their personal needs.
Once you do break down those barriers and you let someone in however, what you run into is the problem of wanting to help them. Wanting so badly to make their pain go away that you'll do anything you have to in order to make things work. Which has its own problems.
But we'll get into that when we examine the final season of Being Erica.
You can check out Being Erica on CBC Gem in Canada as well as Hulu elsewhere and the first episode is available on YouTube.