Lasso the Counterpoint

The Universe is Conspiring to Help You

This is the perfect counterpoint to: The world is out to get me or another personal favorite, used sparingly by my Poppop: Somebody’s screwin’ me here.

It’s tricky business lassoing counterpoints and takes some training but it’s definitely worth the effort. It is for me, the de-stressing equivalent of an hour of exercise and has saved me on many occasions form crawling into a self-pity hole.

The original quote by Paulo Coelho from the Alchemist goes like this: We warriors of light must be prepared to have patience in difficult times and to know the Universe is conspiring in our favor, even though we may not understand how.

What I love about this quote, is the unlikely complexity of word choice: conspiring to help. If this read, eager to help, or inspired to help, or united to help, I’d want to gag but conspiring? Yes. Sing me up.

Who doesn’t want that?

You can practically see the universe rubbing its’ hands together devising a top secret plan to help you. And thank god they are conspiring because it’s a tough gig. Helping us humans.

And just trying to help the way a good Samaritan might would not even begin to make a difference.

I know in my case alone, gargantuan amounts of conspiring is required.

But the universe is not alone.

Counterpoints can be found anywhere. They are simply the piece of information that provides an alternative point of view. The juxtaposing thought or idea that gives your original perspective a broader context.

For example, if you’ve just scarfed down six brownies after eating half the batter, it provides levity to hear that your dear friend, lets’ call her Lola, sat in bed last night and devoured a quart of Ben & Jerry’s.

It’s not that your elongated oops moment no longer happened or doesn’t count BUT it helps to know there are equally self-composed women who occasionally lose their portion-control minds.

Besides people, cultural biases provide excellent counterpoints.

One of my favorite David Sedaris essays, “Dentists Without Borders”, appeared in The New Yorker a few years ago. In it he highlights the absolute hilarity of the hypochondriac American in light of the much lower-key French when it comes to healthcare.

This is a rather long excerpt, but illustrates the point brilliantly:

I was lying in bed and found a lump on my right side, just below my rib cage. It was like a devilled egg tucked beneath my skin. Cancer, I thought. A phone call and twenty minutes later, I was stretched out on the examining table with my shirt raised.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” the doctor said. “A little fatty tumor. Dogs get them all the time.”

I thought of other things dogs have that I don’t want: Dewclaws, for example. Hookworms. “Can I have it removed?”

“I guess you could, but why would you want to?”

He made me feel vain and frivolous for even thinking about it. “You’re right,” I told him. “I’ll just pull my bathing suit up a little higher.”

When I asked if the tumor would get any bigger, the doctor gave it a gentle squeeze. “Bigger? Sure, probably.”

“Will it get a lot bigger?”

“No.”

“Why not?” I asked 

And he said, sounding suddenly weary, “I don’t know. Why don’t trees touch the sky?”

Médioni works from an apartment on the third floor of a handsome nineteenth-century building, and, on leaving, I always think, Wait a minute. Did I see a diploma on his wall? Could Doctor possibly be the man’s first name? He’s not indifferent. It’s just that I expect a little something more than “It’ll go away.” …I’ve since met dozens of people who have fatty tumors and get along just fine. Maybe, being American, I want bigger names for things. I also expect a bit more gravity. “I’ve run some tests,” I’d like to hear, “and discovered that what you have is called a bilateral ganglial abasement, or, in layman’s terms, a cartoidal rupture of the venal septrumus. Dogs get these things all the time, and most often they die. That’s why I’d like us to proceed with the utmost caution.”

Sedaris is a master of the counterpoint.

His humor thrives on it from as early as being his Santaland Diaries about being a gay Jewish New Yorker working as a Macy’s Christmas elf.

Counterpoints make everything less serious, less fraught with problems, less insurmountable, less alienating– less overwhelmingly paralyzing.

And funny.

They can be hard to find when life gets dark or we get tired or our to do list exceeds human capacity. BUT, it’s when we need it most. And THIS is where the training comes in. Lassoing a counterpoint requires one small act of heroic bravery.

Pick up the phone.

Find your GO-TO people. I have two. They have to be funny, down-to-earth, self-deprecating dearhearts. If no one answers, find a Sedaris essay or an Ellen Degeneres stand-up act or whatever comedian pokes holes in your big ole’ helium doubt balloon.

Remember, the universe is conspiring to help you.