The breathless television reporter had the microphone in front of the basketball player's nose no more than five seconds after his desperation shot from halfway across the court had won the game by a single point. The crowd was in a frenzy.
"And what were you thinking when you made that shot?" the reporter screamed.
Thinking? How could he be thinking at a moment like that? He was acting with the instincts of an athlete. And triumphing. What more do you want?
As he beamed down at the breathless reporter, the sweating giant evaded her question graciously, to my sorrow. I wanted him to say, “I was thinking that I forgot to pay the electricity bill. My wife will kill me.”
There is a mindlessness to the questions of courtside, or streetside, or bedside television interviewers that must make viewers groan. Even worse than the question “What were you thinking?” when asked of an athlete who has just performed an astonishing feat, is the question “What were you feeling?” when disaster has just struck. In that event, feelings certainly are involved. But should we be called upon to describe our feelings to the world in moments of tragedy? Will that enlighten the viewer?
“Your wife took the children and just ran away from home without giving you any advance notice. She left no note and you haven’t heard from any of them for a week. Now you've heard that they may have been kidnapped! How do you feel about that?”
Not too good, I would think.
It is true that the television interviewer has a problem, which begins with the decision of some deep thinker behind the scenes to have interviews of participants in the midst of major events--big games, personal disasters--at the moment of maximum emotional involvement. The breathless runner who has just won the race is not expected to comment intelligently upon his feat. He is expected to convey his elation. The father who has lost a son in an automobile accident is supposed to display his misery.
It is a brazen attempt to make us feel the sorrow or elation of the participants. I rebel. In grabbing for my feelings, the television interviewer promptly loses my interest, and very soon my attention. Starving children or seriously ill disease victims who are shown on television arouse our pity. But to hold our interest, the commentator must tell us how they got that way and what if anything is being done about it. We do not want to hear from the victims how they feel. The sight of their plight is enough.
The truth is that feelings are notoriously difficult to describe even when one has time to cogitate on them. I am an amateur violinist. What did I “feel” one day years ago when I opened my door to admit a violist I had invited with an unnamed cellist friend to come to play string quintets with me, and instantly recognized her companion to be one of the most distinguished performing cellists in the city? I felt surprise, of course. There was a more powerful sentiment, however, lurking beyond that, some form of thrill mixed with terror, induced by an awesome realization: “I am actually going to play quintets with this guy!”
I did play quintets with the guy, and the feelings that that experience induced are even more difficult to describe. He was too good for an amateur group, but somehow I played over my head for that reason. So a sense of gratification entered into my feelings. So did a sense of embarrassment, and of intimidation. So did a sense of pride. God knows what I would have mumbled to the television reporter if a microphone had been poked in my face just as the final strains of the Schubert cello quintet had died away.
Then there’s the matter of a young man’s feelings when he first kisses a young woman. He feels pleasure, especially in the first moments. But can he be expected to describe his feelings as the kiss lingers on and he thinks, “Is this actually happening to me? Am I doing it right? When should I break it off?”
The English language has a splendid vocabulary of words for feelings. A few that spring to mind are horror, elation, dread, fear, humility, sorrow, glee, wonder, humiliation, awe, boredom, pride, amazement, remorse, bewilderment, relief, anger, delight, pity, contempt, gratitude, disgust. Many of these suffice for sudden reactions, but these vivid feelings usually taper off into others more complex and difficult to describe. It is the difference between primary colors and subtle mixtures. When the colors blend to subtler tones, intelligence comes into play.
Intelligence will warn us not to act rashly on the basis of fleeting emotion. But was it intelligence that came into play in one of my early disasters, when I was in the Coast Guard? I was in Officers Candidate School, and I was standing majestically in the stern of a boat, manning the tiller while a crew of eight facing me–four to starboard, four to port–pulled on their oars at my command. It was an exercise taking place close to an imposing railroad bridge in the Thames River off New London, Connecticut. An officer-instructor sat in a nearby boat trying to keep an eye on officer candidates in a dozen boats scattered about the river as they took turns as coxswain.
“Out oars!” I cried to the crew, as advised earlier in class by an instructor. “Stand by to stroke!” And then, “Stroke!” They pulled on their oars. Once again: “Stroke!” They pulled. “Stroke!” They pulled. And so on. We were really going by then. “Stand by to up oars!” I yelled. They waited. “Up oars!” They straightened their oars and we glided.
Glided, alas, with great speed directly toward one of the immense concrete pillars of the railroad bridge. I perceived this too late to avoid a collision. Taking my instructions to heart, I gave a proper command: “Stand by to crash!”
How can I begin to describe their feelings or my own? A resigned fatalism takes hold of me in such moments and makes me seem indifferent to consequences. Others take this as calmness in the face of adversity, and that's what eventually helped me get my commission as an ensign. Whatever it was that I felt, the crash command aroused a general look of puzzlement in the crew. Before anxiety could take hold, a terrific jolt knocked all of them off their seats and into an ungainly pile on the bottom of the boat. I believe they fell with a dignity they could not have managed had I panicked, although I admit that this interpretation does not explain the jeers and insults immediately thrown at me by one and all, and my subsequent nickname as "Crash" Oser.
Now, suppose a television reporter had observed this crash from a nearby boat that day. Would she have leapt into my boat, thrust a microphone in my face and shouted in my face, “What were you thinking when the boat hit the bridge?”
Knowing myself well, I would probably have replied, “I was thinking I should have joined the Army.”
© Alan S. Oser
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