You’re on a Road
When I was 26, I went out to dinner with a highly respected psychologist. Over a glass of wine, while waiting for our table, we discussed conversations people have, when they get to know each other.
He asked my permission to share a “psychological survey,” saying that he would explain what it meant after I gave four descriptions. Being of an age and in my “take any challenge phase,” I agreed. Here are the four “questions” my PhD friend asked.
- You’re walking on a road. It’s your road. Tell me about it.
- As you walk, you pass a body of water, describe it.
- Directly in your path is an empty bottle. What’s your response to it?
- You continue until you find yourself facing a wall that crosses your road perpendicularly. What do you do?
NOTE: If you want to answer for yourself, now is the time. My answers and the interpretation come next.
Roger, Ann, Wendy, Robert, Lisa, and Valeria, if we were out dinner I ask you to play along by describing your road to me. You’ve just been virtually tagged with, what has been, a real-life meme.
I’m Walking on My Road
What follows is the conversation as best I remember. The memory is clear because I’ve shared this story so many times.
PhD: You’re walking on a road. It’s your road. Tell me about it.
ME: It’s a country road — blacktop in parts, dirt in others — with a 2-foot shoulder, but there’s plenty of room to pull off to go exploring, if you want to. On both sides of the road there are trees, but on one side, a break in the trees sometimes lets you see all the way to forever. The grass by the road is populated with colorful wildflowers.
The skies are glorious with clouds and color. The sun shines on the road most days. It only rains when it needs to. Then the sky turns dark, dark gray– a color that turns leaves that bright, special of shade of yellow-green that makes trees seem more than three-dimensional.
PhD: As you walk, you pass a body of water, describe it.
ME: It’s a lake. It’s still. It goes far deeper than people think. There’s a dock with rowboat, and the water is clear and reflective blue-black in the moonlight. It’s the kind of water you would want to go skinny dipping in.
PhD: Directly in your path is an empty bottle. What’s your response to it?
ME: Pick it up and set it gently alongside the edge of the road.
PhD: You continue until you find yourself facing a wall that crosses your road perpendicularly. What do you do?
ME: Climb it, of course.
My PhD friend told me what his answers were the first time that he heard this little test. Then he explained what each part is supposed to tell about. He said it’s a survey of attitudes.
The road is your attitude about life. A man I know described his life as interstate highway with a car wreck. That also described his real life.
The body of water is your attitude toward feelings, intimacy, and sex. The same guy, no kidding, said his body of water was a stagnant pool.
The bottle is your attitude toward other people. The choice is to move it or leave it alone. The man I’ve been talking about walked around the bottle.
The wall is your attitude toward problems. The highway-walking, stagnant-pool, avoid-the-bottle guy said, “Turn around and go back. There could be guys with guns on the other side.” I’m not making this up. He really said that.
Of course, this isn’t a scientific test, and no valid truth can be assumed from it. Yet, I’ve shared this “real-life meme” hundreds of times since that dinner — with people I know well and people I just met. No one has ever said the interpretation didn’t ring true — even the stagnan-pool guy, said it was “on the money.”
I share it here because, it’s a great conversation starter. It works in most any group. Also I’m interested in how you would answer. That’s why I went first, thinking maybe you might go second, or third or . . . twenty-seventh . . .
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Better Than Hi! How Are Ya?
My road goes through a city. There are office buildings, funky stores, and quaint caf̩s. There are tons of people going in every different direction and stopping along the way to spend some time with people they meet, to take in their surroundings, check out a shop, or get a cappuccino (my road, of course, has many coffee options!). The architecture is eclectic Рcentury old ornate buildings and churches and glass towers. There are statues and murals. Wifi is available everywhere.
The water is a tall fountain with a statue in the middle of it. People are sitting around it and eating lunch, talking, taking in the sun, reading, or on their computers (remember the wifi).
I pick up the bottle and throw it away. There are tons of trash cans available. I canââ¬â¢t believe someone just left a bottle on the road!
The wall has a door in it. You canââ¬â¢t see it right away, but itââ¬â¢s there. I walk through.
(that was fun!)
Hi Ann,
I really like your road. It sounds like a vacation to me. No wonder I like to come visit you! 🙂
Hi Liz:
I had heard about this story. In Europe there are many more of these kinds of conversations than here.
1. On the road, which is a tranquil and green path flanked by cypress trees, I am with my mother and we’re talking about life (funny, yes?)
2. It’s a river that runs calm and clear at points, and deeper and faster and others, carving the rocks and stones smooth and splashing on the banks in the twinkle of the sunlight.
3. I pick up the bottle and carry it until I can deliver it to a safe place.
4. The wall is only wide enough to walk around it without losing our path. It has beautiful bricks and some flowers have sprouted from the grout.
Sometimes life is nonlinear, and what may seem a temporary obstacle becomes the defining event what for what comes next.
It’s good to be comfortable walking alone; it’s also a wonderful feeling to know that what you bring with you (mother in my case) contributes to the richness of your experience.
I prefer to leave a place and a person in a better condition than I found them, whatever that ends up being. And often I end up walking in the company of giants who had momentarily forgotten where to go next…
Oh Valeria,
What beautiful road. What a beautiful comment. So much wisdom, thought, and insight. You make me long to visit the town of my grandmother. She and I were walking with you just for a second there. That was my dad who went by on the bike. 🙂
Hi everyone,
Valeria and Ann, such incredible responses. I was walking on the beach today with my son and suddenly I had an idea about this meme. When he was younger, I used to make up little pedagogical tales at bedtime to help him “feel through” the challenges of his day.
Since I’m having trouble figuring out the trackback thing in Squarespace, my response is on my site.
Turn this real life meme into a writing exercise
Thanks for your lovely self, Liz.
Hi Lisa!
I’m coing over to see where you’re going with this. 🙂
Hey, did you do that liz???
Yeah, Lisa, I added the link for you. 🙂
Hi Liz
Maybe you could remove the photo. Because I was looking at it while reading the question I was influenced. I did however bolt over the wall like a marine in boot camp. ;^D
Hi Irishlass,
Good idea. I will. Thank you for telling me. Sorry I influenced you. 🙁
no worries. ;^D
Yeah, Irish lass!
I would suppose you did okay if you bolted over the wall. 🙂
What a day! My wife’s birthday, and 75 degree sunny clear weather. Lunch with the kids. Presents later.
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As to your question:
1. My road: It sure varies a lot. Sometimes I can’t see around the corner, and sometimes I can all the way out to the horizon where the plain meets the sky. Sometimes it’s undulating and sometimes flat. Sometimes there are trees and wheat fields on the sides, and sometimes cheering fans, and sometimes buildings.
2. It’s a big lake, and I take off my clothes and swim around in it. The sun is shining and it’s two in the afternoon with big cumulus clouds.
3. The bottle. There’s note accompanying the bottle that says, “Prick your finger and let a few drops fall into the bottle. Then seal it.” I do so, and keep walking. About a mile later there’s another bottle that says, “You’ve been selected to be a semen donor. . . . ” I keep walking and every few miles there are more and more empty bottles with notes attached to them. Sometimes I follow the instructions, sometimes I improvise, and sometimes I do nothing.
4. A wall. I try going around, and lo and behold, I discover a different route, this time a river. There’s a canoe there so I get in and start paddling.
Fun exercise! Thanks for the virtual tag.
Roger,
Thanks for the virtual answer. I should have know it would have me thinking more than the original questions did. Wow! You have an interesting life. Dont you? 🙂
Liz, what a wonderful story, and what a great way to generate discussion. Thanks so much for sharing it and your response.
Hi CB!
That story is a great way to get to know people. We like to get to know each other around here. 🙂
Thanks for your comment. You’re not a stranger. 😉