Fritz Perls, Adolf Hitler, and COVID-19

I had an interesting intellectual experience tonight. In a single quotation, I was reminded of an important principle of a mature and happy life- and why I am not a libertarian.

The quotation was from Gestalt therapist Fritz Perls. That was all the rage back in the Seventies and adorned the walls of many a college dorm room. It helped get me through a painful breakup back then, and for a while, it became a kind of mantra for me. I hadn't thought of it in years. I was reflecting tonight on how wise it really is. Funny how much wisdom there can be in things we think of as trite. 

It goes like this: "I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I; if we find each other by chance, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped."

Funny how many of those posters on the dorm walls left out that last six words, which are kind of the whole point, transforming a profound observation about life into a sappy one that ought to be accompanied by a smiley face.

Interestingly, a while later, I came across an actual poster of that same quotation somebody was selling. Sure enough, it omitted that last crucial sentence. But the most jarring thing about the picture at the top of the page, No, it wasn't a smiley face.

It was a picture of Adolf Hitler.

I smiled to myself and said, "Bazinga!" in my finest Sheldon Cooper voice. Then it struck me that a great many people these days would probably miss the point of that poster. Or maybe I'm the one missing the point. But either way, there are two possible messages it might be understood as sending.

The one I think most folks these days would take is that it would have been great if Hitler had only lived by those words himself.

The other is what that poster said to me: that as wise as Perls' quotation is in almost all situations, there are a few in which it's not OK  to say that we are not in this world to live up to other people's expectations. There are some expectations of others that civilization depends on our insisting on making damn sure that people fulfill.

We expect parents to care for and provide for their children. We expect employees to show up at work (when that's an option and they're not forced by a virus to work at home) and employers to pay their employees the wages they're due. We expect the fire department to show up if our house catches fire and the police to come to our aid when the bad guys are bad. We expect doctors to have our interests at heart and help us get better when sick. We expect teachers to spell (though not all of them can, it seems) and teach our children to spell, as well. We expect presidents to respect the rule of law and honor their oaths of office. We don't always get what we expect, though, as we're learning at this moment in history.

And we expect world leaders to refrain from overrunning weaker countries, all things considered, and refrain from mass murder. Invading Poland and the Holocaust were violations of our expectation that demanded that the world take an approach other than that Fritz Perls advocated for our interpersonal relations. On a smaller scale, practicing social distancing and wearing masks in 2020 are others. It's reasonable to expect our fellow citizens not to give us COVID through willful negligence. And as healthy and mature and decent as the individualistic, autonomous, "live and let live" approach to life might be, it has its limitations- and we are apt to find ourselves in serious trouble if we don't keep them in mind.