Being Erica Season 4: Being Functional
The moral case for becoming functional in the world and working with other people.
Most of us wish we could fit in better with society.
We don't like the idea of being on the outside, yet some part of us can't help but feel like we're cut off from others. As if somehow even though so many people do the same things we do and have many of the same experiences, our problems are special. They can't help us along the way towards making ourselves better. Because we're the unique ones and everyone else is just ordinary and has no concept of you and what you feel. Of course, part of us feels this way because we want to cut ourselves off from others. To avoid dealing with what we don't want to see, either in other people or in ourselves. It's easier to believe that we're just too complicated for anyone to help us. But is that in fact actually true? How would we even know that if we wanted to figure it out?
One of the best ways to figure out how to fix yourself is by talking to someone else. By relying on another person that you can tell everything to. In an ideal world, this is just someone who you happen to share a lot with. Yet more often than not, it's a professional, a therapist. Someone who is paid to listen to your problems and help you sort them out in a real sense. If you can get a good one, it has enormous benefits. However, what happens when someone else is relying on you? When you are the therapist who is listening to other people's problems? From the perspective of a patient, it seems like your therapist is a calm and collected person. Of course being people, they can have their own problems. Especially if what you're dealing with is something that they haven't figured out themselves.
Previously in this space, we've explored the idea of living in the past and how your history informs the life you're trying to have. Then we looked at the way in which it's a struggle to focus on the present. More recently we looked at how to work together with other people to know you're better off. But ultimately what that can lead to is wanting to help others. To make people confront their own problems and become the kind of people that you want to be around. Actually doing that is much harder than it seems though. Because in doing so, you are forced to confront what it is about yourself that doesn't quite measure up. Or how you compare yourself to others and make things worse. So how do we do that exactly?
“And that's the distinction is it? That when Josh does it it's on purpose but when you do it, it's by accident right? You place Josh down here, and you place yourself up here... and you say, that... is not me. I could never be like that. That person is... other, is undeserving, a monster. It's an old story. It's how wars begin, it's how people turn on each other, and you know it starts so simply too. I am not you, I am nothing like you... and it is each time, a lie. Because underneath all the layers of fear and protection we are at our core, the same. We have the same needs and we carry with us the same capacity for good and evil. You are every patient you will ever have, and every person you will ever meet. And until you acknowledge that you have the capacity not just for kindness and compassion, but also for heartlessness and cruelty. Until you acknowledge that you will never be able to start, from here. An equal footing.”
This is the main problem that Erica is dealing with in the final season. She's grown as a person and come to terms with so much about herself. Yet at the same time, she feels as though she's gained the insight to really help people. In the process of trying though she's learning things about herself. Things she hadn't considered in the long journey she's been on. The ways in which she has tried to help others isn't going to work in every situation. She can't always know exactly what other people need, but in order to make things better she has to find a way to do so. A way of making herself open to the fact that her own blind spots might be keeping her from understanding the people she wants to help.
For some people, this might seem obvious but are you sure that's not just your own blind spot? How do you check yourself in a way that doesn't cause problems for the people you're trying to help? Despite your best efforts, you're never going to be perfect. You can't solve all of people's problems. But you can help guide them to recognizing these problems in themselves. Give them the tools to function and move past their own assumptions. Rather than trying to impose your own ideas about other people's problems, show them how to solve their own.
“Life works in funny ways. Just when you think you've got things figured out, just when things seem like it's going according to plan, that's when something happens. Something small, something big, something that makes us realize that we're not in control and never were. Something that lands on your feet and you're just speechless, and unsure of where to turn and what to do. Something that blindsides us and leaves us gasping for air. No thought except how can this be happening? And what do we do now? The gift that lies waiting for us is growth, is change, is the possibility that something good will come from pain. And when the crisis hits, when our world is turned upside down and we are afraid, will we have the strength, the wisdom to embrace the gift that's there with open arms?”
Because of course when you impose your own ideas on other people, they're just going to try and get away from you. They don't want to be controlled or manipulated into doing things they don't want to do. Which is a power that most people do have to some extent. The way you say something or look at another person can affect the way they think and feel about you. More concerning is the idea that if you don't react the way someone wants you to, that can have just as much effect. Naturally leading to all kinds of conflict.
“You are not your patient, but at the same time you are your patient. The lessons there are two sides of the same coin. It's about finding the balance.”
Erica has struggled with this problem continually over the course of the series. She's tried to force situations and people to do what she wants. To get the outcome she prefers rather than the one which might happen naturally if given the opportunity. The more she's done that though, the more she's learned that she can't force the issue. Whether it's with Ethan or Adam, Judith, Jenny or Julianne. None of them are entirely under her control. She's had to let go of this idea over time and has managed it in many ways. She still sometimes falls short when it comes right down to it.
“Feelings rarely make any kind of rational sense until we understand why we have them.”
Nowhere is this more obvious than in her becoming a Doctor herself. Given the power she's now about to acquire, Erica is more tempted than ever to try and make things into what she wants. It's even better because she's doing it in the name of trying to help others. She's a doctor after all, or will be in the near future if she can manage it. When you can control things like time and space and how people experience things, it's only natural that anyone would want to use it to her advantage and hopefully to the advantage of others. Most people wouldn't be able to resist the temptation. Even under these circumstances though, Ethan, Josh and other people who become Erica's patients can't be made in Erica's image. They are in some ways reflections of herself and the control she wishes she had. So they end up resisting her.
“Insecurity, it's in all of us. That voice inside that tells us we can't do something. That we're not good enough. That we shouldn't even try, and when we listen to the voice, we hold ourselves back in ways we don't even realize. All because we're scared to take a chance. To face our fears, to see what we're really capable of.”
Having this kind of power over people is incredibly tempting. Most people can't bring themselves to avoid using it if given the opportunity. Though when they do, it doesn't necessarily end well for them thanks to how it impacts the people they're trying to control. Trying to control other people tends to end badly no matter how good the intentions behind it are from the person doing it. People try to justify this action by insisting that they were doing it for good reasons. But if they can find a way to let go of the idea of trying to control others, it can lead somewhere great. You become able to function well in society. Deal with other people on their level rather than on an unrealistic conception of what you think they should be.
“In a world where cities are vast and filled with strangers, our only refuge is in the people we know. Those people in our lives who share our ideals, our values, our sense of humour. How wonderful to be able to count on that familiarity and knowing we're not alone. They say relationships are everything. They're the glue that binds us together, bringing joy and pain in equal measure, and it can be hard to navigate the differences. To be compassionate and forgiving and gentle with each other.”
You can become the kind of person that people want to be around. Not because you're willing to do whatever they ask just because they ask. Not because you're the perfect person without any flaws or uncertainty about yourself and your future. But because you actually are the type of person you want to be. Someone who isn't trapped in the past or obsessed with the present. Who doesn't worry about whether or not other people are going to think they're weird or unworthy of their time. The kind of person people actually like for being themselves. A truly functional person in society who is comfortable with themselves.
“Everything that has a beginning, has an ending. Day turns into night, summer fades into fall, we know in our hearts that as much as we would wish it otherwise, in a world set within time, there can be no beginning, without an end. Everything that has a beginning has an ending just as every ending creates space for something new to begin. The wonder of a second chance, the miracle of new life, the joy of a new love. My name is Erica Strange and today is the end of one chapter and the beginning of the rest of my life.”
It's a long process with a lot of ups and downs along the way. Things to learn from, both successes and failures, but it's worth it if you put in the time and energy to become them. Being the kind of person who isn't trapped in the past or too obsessed with the present and the incredible feelings that can give you. Not for other people or because society believes that you should be it. To being the kind of person you can look at in the mirror and feel an incredible amount of pride in. Be the person you've struggled to be for so long.
Being yourself.
You can check out Being Erica on CBC Gem in Canada as well as Hulu elsewhere and the first episode is available on YouTube.