Joy and Wonder at the Detroit Airport

Posted on December 10, 2012 by zoeweil
Image courtesy random letters via Creative Commons.

I travel on average about a week each month for work, which means I spend a lot of time in airports. Travel has become more and more challenging and unpleasant (crowded planes and tighter seats, delays, hours spent on runways, meager food service even on long trips, etc.), but the airports themselves have become more and more pleasant and accommodating. LaGuardia has a huge salad bar with lots of options for vegans like me; chair massage spas are popping up all over; and free wifi and charging stations are expanding, making it possible to work during layovers and not have my computer run out of battery power.

It’s because of these changes that I don’t mind long layovers. They’re less stressful than short layovers, during which I’m too often running a mile through a terminal with my backpack on and my wheeled suitcase behind me saying, “Excuse me! Excuse me!” as I race to make a tight connection.

Recently, I had a long layover at the Detroit Airport, which is my favorite airport in the U.S. Why? Because of two artistic additions. In the atrium in the very middle of the airport there is a fountain that I could stare at for hours. The plumes of water are like dancers, beautifully and surprisingly choreographed. But it is the tunnel connecting Terminal A to Terminals B and C that often fills me with joy and wonder. Joy and wonder? In an airport?!

As one descends the long escalator to the tunnel, one is greeted by a music and light show. The translucent walls of the tunnel are designed to look like a cross between a seascape, a mountainscape, and a cloudscape, and behind the walls are ever-changing lights in a rainbow of colors. Choreographed to the music, the lights illuminate the walls and ceiling, undulating, moving, dancing. It is a gorgeous work of art.

So when I am not in a rush, I stand still on the moving walkway and just watch. And no matter how far I have traveled, how long or arduous the journey, or whether I have spent a night in an airport hotel because I’ve missed a connection somewhere, I always smile.

I’m aware that the tunnel may be using more electricity than if it were simply lit with fluorescent lights. I’m aware that such extra use of energy takes its toll; but I appreciate that the planners of this airport thought to bring art into our experience, and that this art makes a world of difference.

Yes, I experience joy and wonder in the Detroit airport. Imagine that.

~ Zoe

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDxConejo talk: “Solutionaries”
My TEDxDirigo talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“
My TEDxYouth@BFS “Educating for Freedom”

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Imagine a Different Experiment: Ted Kaczynski and the Murray Experiment at Harvard

Posted on July 19, 2010 by zoeweil

I recently read an article from The Atlantic Monthly online titled “Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber.” The author, Alston Chase, has corresponded with Ted Kaczynski at length and also wrote the book A Mind for Murder: The Education of the Unabomber and the Origins of Modern Terrorism. I first came across Alston Chase’s work when I listened to a Radio Lab podcast about an experiment conducted at Harvard during the 1950s. The experimenter, psychologist Harry Murray, had worked for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, studying (and creating experiments on) stress in interrogations. It’s unclear whether his experiments at Harvard were under the auspices of the OSS or whether they were independently motivated. According to Chase, it’s even unclear what the real purpose of the Harvard experiments were.

The experiments, conducted over a period of 3 years, deceived Harvard students and subjected them to severe stress and cruelty. At one point in the experiments, students were asked to write an autobiography and detail very personal accounts related to their sexuality, toilet training, and other intimate experiences. They were told they’d be meeting with another student, who had also written an autobiography, to discuss their various experiences. Instead, they were placed in brightly lit interrogation rooms, hooked to electrodes to monitor their responses, filmed through a one-way mirror — from which they were being observed — and then ridiculed, humiliated, insulted and victimized by an older stooge, not a peer as they were expecting. They were later required to watch the videos of themselves undergoing this humiliation and trauma.

Ted Kaczynski was one of the students in these experiments, and although he wouldn’t talk about them with Chase, it turns out that he had a huge negative response, according to the monitors of his stress levels. Chase explores whether these experiments influenced Kaczynski such that he became more predisposed to carry out his murders as the Unabomber.

When I heard about these experiments, and after getting over my shock that they were ever conducted, I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened had a different experiment been performed. In one of the experiments Murray did, the students wrote their life philosophies. What if an experimenter asked students to write a combination autobiography, personal philosophy and goals for their lives and a “stooge” validated their ideas and encouraged their interests and supported their goals, and rather than humiliate them, extolled their virtues. What if they went over the top in the other direction? I’m not suggesting that this would be a good thing to do, but I wonder what the result would be. What might the students do with such praise and validation? Who might they become? How might Ted Kaczynski’s life have been different had this been the experimental protocol conducted over three years? And lastly, where are the social psychology experiments that seek to bring out the best in people so that we can learn how better to foster compassion, courage, honesty and integrity for a healthier world?

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

Image courtesy of myguerrilla via Creative Commons.

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Detroit Airport Friday vs. Sunday

Posted on June 18, 2010 by zoeweil

Last Friday night I was traveling to Minneapolis for the Their Lives, Our Voices conference. I had a tight connection in Detroit, and the forecast called for thunderstorms in both Detroit and Minneapolis. I was worried. But it was beautiful in Bangor, so I began to feel more confident about everything staying on schedule. Then a fuel sensor was broken on the plane, and we were delayed out of Bangor for an hour. We arrived in Detroit 25 minutes before my next plane was scheduled to take off.

Carrying my luggage, my props for my talks, and my way-too-heavy computer, I ran from the farthest most gate in terminal C to my connecting gate on the far end of terminal A. I knew that if I didn’t make the flight, chances were that I wouldn’t make it to Minneapolis in time for my keynote address first thing in the morning. There was a pregnant woman on my first flight also trying to make the flight to Minneapolis, and I promised to let them know she was on her way if the doors to the plane were still open, as I knew I’d get there first. Fortunately, when I arrived at the gate, albeit drenched with sweat, they were still boarding, and I was able to get on the plane. However, because they had switched airplanes and the new one was smaller, everyone in rows 42 and higher was bumped off the flight. I was lucky my seat was in row 22, and I felt for the other passengers who wouldn’t be able to make it to Minneapolis that night. Just as I was boarding, I saw the pregnant woman. They’d bumped her off the flight because they assumed she wouldn’t make it due to the delay in the first flight. She pointed me out to them, saying I was on the same flight and they were letting me on. At that point, I decided I couldn’t get involved and risk being bumped off myself. I dashed onto the plane, hoping for the best for this woman, but doing nothing to assist her. When I saw her board the plane, I was relieved. She said that being pregnant had its perks; she used her pregnancy to convince them to let her on.

Thirty-six hours later, I was returning home, and my layover in Detroit was 3.5 hours. I felt stress-free. I took my time finding a place to get a vegan meal and was delighted to find an actual peanut butter and jelly restaurant. Then I stopped at a store to buy a new pair of reading glasses because mine had broken on the first flight. When I paid the cashier he told me he was heartbroken. “Why? I asked. “Because I had my ten minute break, and I went to get a Frappuccino, and the line at Starbucks was too long so I couldn’t get it.” I offered to get it for him, and off I went, still carrying all my luggage, but without any need to hurry. He was very happy when I brought it to him, and he shared that after his shift was over he had to be at another job at midnight. He had really needed that pick-me-up.

I decided to treat myself to a back massage at the Detroit aiport “spa” because my neck and shoulders hurt a lot after the breakneck run with my computer and luggage on Friday. The woman who was giving the massage was so stressed out. Her electricity had gotten turned off at home, and she was unable to reach an actual person at the utility company, and she couldn’t receive calls at work, and she was running behind. She worried that her energy was so stressed it would impact my massage, but I reassured her and just let her vent. At the end of the massage she told me she felt so much better and was really grateful to me because I’d made her feel so much calmer.

On Friday night, I wouldn’t have stopped to help a soul. I might have run right by a person who’d tripped, a child who was lost, or someone having a heart attack, just hoping another would help. On Sunday, I would probably have been available to help anyone I passed at the airport, open as I was in my stress-free state to see the people around me.

This reminds me that often, those people we think are inconsiderate, rude, or unhelpful may simply be very stressed, while those who are kind and compassionate may simply be in a space in which they can let these qualities shine. As Philo of Alexandria once said, “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a great battle.” I think this also means that we can be kind to ourselves when the battle we are fighting eclipses our own kindness and goodness. I was not especially kind to anyone on Friday, but I was kind on Sunday.

Zoe Weil
Author of Above All, Be Kind and Most Good, Least Harm

Image courtesy of indywriter via Creative Commons.

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