Dis-Grace Under Pressure

I just saw a movie that got me thinking about the way people react to disasters and life-threatening emergencies.

It was Force Majeure, a Swedish/Norwegian film made in 2014.

A well-to-do couple and their two small children visit an upscale ski lodge in the Alps. They are having lunch at an outdoor patio restaurant next to the mountains when there is an apparent avalanche. Clearly panicked, the father of the family races away, leaving his wife and children helpless at the table as the movie screen turns white. Long seconds pass before the mist of snow settles and we see that there was no damage or injuries. It had been a planned and controlled avalanche. Only the mist of the falling snow had enveloped the patio.

Shortly after the mist dissipated, the man returns to his family at the table. There is nervous laughter from everyone on the patio as they realize there had been no genuine danger. On the surface things seem to have returned to normal. But all four members of the family knew that something profound had been revealed. The man had fled in panic, leaving his wife and children behind to face an apparently deadly avalanche.

The film progresses and the tension mounts among the family. The man denies the obvious reality of his panic and flight. I won’t ruin the movie for you. You get the point.

Facing an apparently deadly threat, the man fled instead of caring for his wife and children. It destroys his image in their eyes. It destroys his image of himself. So much so that he cannot face the reality of what he had done. Even though no one was harmed.

What would you have done? It is easy to say you would have stayed and protected your wife and kids. Or helped them to escape the danger together. But the truth is that not a single person on the planet can know how they would react to such a situation.

Your first answer to this question may have been similar to my own. Please indulge me as I paraphrase my own thoughts.

I have faced dangerous and even life-threatening situations in my life with bravery and calm. There is no way on god’s green earth that I would have panicked and run away from my wife and kids in that situation. I would have gallantly used my body as a human shield to protect them from any danger, including an avalanche.

That was my initial response. And it’s mostly true, but only in the past. But even if I have been “action movie” brave in the past (which I wasn’t), that is absolutely zero indication of how I might face any future emergency.

I am not a military veteran, and I won’t pretend to know how it feels to go into a battle. To me, anyone who serves is brave by definition. Regardless of when and if they have faced battle or how they performed in the face of it.

But even then, past bravery is no indicator of future actions. Every situation is different. Come to think of it, even the same situations can elicit a completely different reaction. Imagine if that same fictional man in the same fictional situation two years later in his fictional life. It’s entirely possible that he would then react completely differently, staying with his family and protecting them to the best of his ability.

The point, if there is one, is this: Reactions to those kinds of situations in life are completely unpredictable and I would argue virtually random. There is little or no rational thought. Our reactions are the result of some random scrambling of chemicals in our brains over which we have no control. That’s why a person of the old west can be in nine gunfights like a complete and total badass and then curl up and cry like a baby at the tenth one.

And yes, experience can be a factor. But I would argue a tiny one. It is still almost that completely random interaction of chemicals. We simply have no control over how we will react to the next threat, no matter how many times we have been threatened.

I doubt this knowledge would be any consolation to the fictional man in the movie or to anyone else who may have panicked and ran during any emergency. It will always be the thing that ruins or reinforces lives, images and self-images, and always will be.

I myself have been tested in this way a handful of times in my life and I would rate myself at about 80%. Your guess is as good as mine as to my objectivity.

This includes a time when I was surrounded by five men outside of a deserted store. One of them had a gun pointed at my chest. It was a solid fifteen seconds of this as the gentlemen took their sweet time before informing me that they were police officers. I was as surprised as anyone at having failed to shit my pants in that situation. And just for the record, they weren’t looking for me. There had been an armed robbery nearby and I vaguely matched a description.

A half hour later there were apologies and laughter all around and life went on. Driving home that night I began to shake and sweat. My blood pressure must have gone through the roof. What if I had twitched? What if one of them had slipped? Because it was actually three of them with guns drawn and pointed at me. In that moment I had only noticed one.

Yet in the moment itself I was completely calm. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as my brain ticked efficiently through numerous calculations about who they might be, why they might want to shoot me and what, if anything, I might do to prevent it.

The other side of this coin is how we respond to pressure situations that are not life threatening. In sports they would call it being “clutch” on one side of the equation and “choke” on the other end.

These situations are chemically comparable and bring on a similar swishing around of chemicals in the brain. But it grows more complicated as you factor in talent, luck, teammates, and experience.

Unlike life threatening emergencies, part of the behavior of athletes can be programmed, practiced, and repeated. So much so that many of their basic movements can be refined to the point that they become endlessly repeatable.

Yet how do we explain that some athletes of very similar skill levels show so many variables when it comes to choking, being clutch or rising to the occasion.

I have been waiting forever to share this theory about quarterbacks and this seems like as good a time as any. Have you ever noticed that certain quarterbacks drop back to pass and somehow have what seems like a preternatural sense of any pressure coming from the on-rushing defense? It’s almost magical the way some of them just seem to “feel” where the pressure is coming from even when they aren’t looking, and their gaze is down the field as they search for an open receiver. The great ones, even when they aren’t fast, just seem to sense the pressure and take a small step one way or the other and somehow buy that extra moment they need. Others, even fast ones, don’t have that sense and get swallowed up by, or even run right into the arms of the defenders.

So here is my theory. It’s not magic. I believe that they have subconscious skills. Some part of their brain is registering the impact of all the footfalls around them. At the same time some other parts of their brain are somehow keeping a count of the bodies within their range of vision and combine it with the knowledge of where those bodies should be based on how they read the defense.

Only a small portion of this can be taught. Yes, a smart quarterback can be taught to read defenses and have a good idea of who is coming and from where. But that extra sense is what gives them the almost supernatural ability to magically avoid the defenders and get the ball downfield.

It’s as good an explanation as any for how a guy like Tom Brady can win twenty-six Superbowls with barely average arm strength and far below average foot speed. Hundreds of quarterbacks have been drafted higher than him in the last two decades. Most, if not all, are better than Brady on paper. But the game is not played on paper.

So, let’s get back to the swishing chemicals. What makes some players choke and others rise to the occasion? Why do some shine under the bright lights while others wilt?

The truth is that I don’t think the difference is as big as it appears. Yes, there are some players that have justly earned the title of “clutch”. And I think we have all seen a 32-yard field goal try sail wide right as time expires.

Luck, skill, practice, talent, wind speed, and the mother fucking dew point play a part along with some three-thousand other factors both tangible and intangible.

But behind it all are those brain chemicals, just swish-swish-swishing around. Combining and recombining into virtually infinite variations.

They then produce a still tiny sample size of results. Even if an athlete has an incredibly long career of twenty seasons or more, he still will only produce a small handful of reputation-making, clutch or choke moments.

Do you see where this has gone? No matter how long an athlete plays they are still facing and experiencing only a tiny fraction of the virtually unlimited number of possible outcomes that circumstances and a human brain might produce.

Life or death? Hero or coward? G.O.A.T. or goat?

Is it really just random?

You tell me.

Or are you not brave enough?