Cognitive dissonance

About 40 years ago, back in high school in New Jersey, I used to play the trumpet. I was in the marching band (that was actually FUN) and I had orchestra practice several times per week (most definitely NOT fun). I sucked at playing the trumpet, mostly because I never practiced. Our band leader/music teacher was a perfectionist (I would think this would be a universal experience among those serious about music education), and as such I was an absolute thorn in his side. Because I sucked at playing the trumpet, the noises emanating from my horn generally were discordant and just plain awful. During band practice, I recall this poor guy up at the podium, grimacing and slamming his directing stick (whatever it’s called) on the stand, looking like a petulant kid forced to eat disgusting vegetables, and he would say: “Ugh. Stop! The dissonance!” Of course, this sort of vitriol was directed at morons like me in the third row of trumpets, the guys who couldn’t remember to play B-flat or F-sharp, while the hotshots in the first row were tooting to perfection. This creates cacophony, discord … dissonance.

That word. Dissonance. Been thinking a lot about it these days. There’s a fancy psychological term called “cognitive dissonance” and I’ve been thinking a lot about THAT these days too. It’s a term that gets bandied about a lot on the boring podcasts that I listen to when I’m out for long walks. Hillman, if you are reading this, feel free to fact check me on this, but cognitive dissonance happens when you believe something to be true but the world around you conspires to prove you wrong. It’s like 2 + 2 = 4; you know it’s true, but there’s evidence out there that maybe it’s not. You get confused. You get stressed. Your mind is saying WTF over and over. The proverbial trumpets in your head are playing jumbled notes. Cognitive dissonance. Did I get that right, Dan?

I woke up this morning to a text from Czop: “Vaccine injections preparing to be administered early next week. Is this the beginning of the end of the pandemic?” The beginning of the end. Vaccines will save us. And yet, we have 9/11 and Pearl Harbor happening every friggin DAY in this country – 3,000ish people dying daily from this virus, nearly a quarter-million new infections a day. It’s raging out of control, the worst that it has been since this thing started in this country nine months ago. Warnings of a “long, dark winter” from smart scientists. And the vaccine is going to be in Americans’ arms next week. The beginning of the end. Like talking about going to the beach to work on your tan today, while you’re preparing to shovel out from a nor’easter next week. I’m not even sure that’s a good analogy. The pandemic is going to end soon! But right now, droves of people are getting infected, more people are dying than ever before. The band’s out of tune. Cognitive dissonance. How do we wrap our brains around this?

Meanwhile, on various Zoom calls this week, there’s planning, planning and more planning for college athletics. Our basketball teams have started their seasons. We are in deep discussions about a winter cross country season, with “regular season” meets in February and a conference championship meet on March 5. It seems to be happening. And yet … The idea of 100-plus athletes gathering out at a freezing cold starting line for a winter cross country championship, while I think twice about clustering errands outside the house with the spread of the virus always on our minds, this creates cognitive dissonance. Coaches asking about non-league games, scrimmages, trips South on big buses … while states are closing restaurants, gyms, nail salons, and funeral homes and ICUs are bulging at the seams in places like El Paso … this creates cognitive dissonance. Yes, Czop is right: The beginning of the end is almost here. But we have a long, dark path to navigate, while we try to carve a path of normalcy at the same time. “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans,” John Lennon once famously said. Where are we going right now? I wish the solutions were as simple as pressing the correct valves on the trumpet, or just quitting band altogether (which I finally, mercifully, did in 11th grade). For now, we have cognitive dissonance.