The Most Wanted List 8-21-11

Mt Pleasant, Pennsylvania

Growing up we are taught important life values; who to hate, who to love, groups to exclude from our lives, groups worthy of our membership. Primal needs of humans to belong have been increasingly corrupted by large forces at work in highly competitive fragmented societies. Assurance of belonging has provoked thousands to join street gangs, crime syndicates, Hell’s Angels, white supremacy groups, ad infinitum. The predictability and sense of personal security deriving from childhood in intact extended families have become frightening scarce resources. We become desperate to belong to groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Some offer nothing but illusions.

In Los Angeles County there existed the so-called Blue Book, a social register not unlike the Who’s Who of America. Inclusion in this tome was tantamount to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, assuring readers of the economic, social, and moral integrity of those so included. Throughout my childhood school years, gaining inclusion in this hallowed volume was a driving force for my mother, despite four marriages, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Even from my limited childhood perspective I could not fathom how our shattered little family with closets full of skeletons could gain the Blue Book Seal of Approval, not that it mattered to me. I was too busy just trying to survive and find my own sense of belonging. Half a century later it still eludes me. Alcoholic wandering and moving twenty times by age fifteen does not promote putting down roots, joining groups, learning to build life-long friendships.

Second grade provided my first craving for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Elected Student Council members, class reps, and the like were given color-coded scarves to wear, monikers offering unbounded prestige and status on the grounds of George Ellery Hale Elementary School. Class Safety Officer was considered a bogus job no one wanted but it offered the incumbent one of those sacred scarves, a navy blue one. I was all over it. I had a chance at a Seal of Approval. I proved to be a legend only in my own mind, never gaining any hoped-for social capital from my position.

Even temporary groups offered an illusion of prestige, security, options for personal validation. On February 14 elementary schools conducted fiendish popularity contests. Students had an hour late in the day during which they traded Valentine’s Cards. Intuitive compassionate parents made sure their little darlings took cards for everyone in the class. There must not be too many of them. Some of us ended up with rather small piles of cards, mostly little ones about the size of a business card. Some in the class ended up with piles of large specialty cards, enough to stock a card shop. We all knew who got the Seal of Approval. Still, I hoped even one of those small cards of mine was a willful mindful act on the part of the giver, not just psychic damage control by a benevolent parent.. I never knew. Perhaps it’s why I always keep greetings cards sent to me.

One of the junior high schools I attended afforded great prestige to marching band members. On game days members wore black and orange uniforms all day, an ultimate symbol of status and acceptance. How I craved the opportunity to play in that band and belong, to have prestige, security, options for personal validation. Alas, I never got a chance. Household finances got soaked in alcohol and we ended up in an apartment in another school district.

Perhaps the most challenging group member induction in all childhood was that of picking sides for athletic events. Even knowing in advance the two most popular boys in class would go to every effort to avoid picking me for their team did little to lessen the pain of exclusion. Being a socially marginalized student finding refuge in the library during recess, Physical Education was a dreadful rite of exclusion, especially on rainy days when team picking for indoor games was more likely. Predictably, I was always last.

During the last year of high school millions of us went through expensive and desperate rituals to gain acceptance into a very different kind of club; prestigious universities promising stellar education leading to glamorous high-paying careers. Even forty years later I’ve no idea how it was I was admitted to the most expensive school in America on full scholarship, one offering the world. Strangely, I never felt admitted into the culture of this ultra-competitive school, where classmates were potential enemies who might steal my place in medical school by doing better than me in organic chemistry.

During the last year of university hundreds of thousands of us went through even more expensive and frantic rituals to gain acceptance into a very different kind of club; prestigious medical schools promising stellar education leading to glamorous high-paying careers. Even thirty years later I’ve no idea how it was I was admitted to a prestigious medical school in America on full scholarship, one offering the world. Strangely, I never felt admitted into the culture of this ultra-competitive school, where classmates were potential enemies who might steal my place on top of the class-weighted pass-fail cut-point. Every exam offered opportunity to view a list of my enemies under glass, seeing the weighted scores of those who might cause me to flunk out and default on my scholarships.

Primal needs of humans to belong have been increasingly corrupted by large forces at work in highly competitive fragmented societies. Long past elementary school, junior high school, university, and medical school I still have a craving for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. Gated communities, high rise condominiums with armed guards and valets, board memberships, presidencies; none of these moved me closer to a sense of belonging.

Social Registers, Student Councils, Valentine’s Lists, Marching Band, Team Rosters, The Class of 1975, The Medical Class of 1991, Board Presidencies. Invitation Lists. Important lists. Will they matter when our civilization has been forgotten, when our lists have devolved into dust to be sifted by archeologists yet unborn for a hundred centuries? Do they matter now?

For practitioners of Anglican or Episcopal variants of the Christian faith, a prayer of thanksgiving is often offered after Rite II Holy Eucharist. Included is the possibility for inclusion in groups larger than ourselves, offering prestige, security, options for personal validation. “We thank you for feeding us … and for assuring us in these holy mysteries that we are living members of the Body of your son, and heirs of your eternal kingdom.” I still have a craving. Have I finally found myself wanted on the Most Wanted List after all these years?

“He who overcomes shall thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels.”

I might even get to wear the ultimate white coat.