The Errant Eye

Main Entry: er•rant
Pronunciation: ‘er-&nt, ‘e-r&nt
Function: adjective
1: traveling or given to traveling
2 a: straying outside the proper path or bounds b: moving about aimlessly or irregularly c: behaving wrongly
- Webster.com

         According to Freud, it is the Id which is that part which knows little boundaries, besides those instinctually bred in a person, such as fight or flight instinct, or one’s basic survival instincts for food, water, and sex.  The Id is the first part of the brain that develops in humans; it is selfish and needs immediate gratification of its desires.  In most normal adults the Id is successfully repressed most of the time, and things like social etiquette and other basic standards of human communication are better relegated to those portions of the psyche that can handle such content in a more mature fashion.  I often operate in this part of the psyche, but usually they are like short visits to the store instead of long, sprawling stretches of time, which they should be.  My mature psyche is often, o.k. way too often, interrupted by my less mature nature, the “Beavis and Butthead” of my brain as I like to call it.  That part of the brain that still finds fart jokes funny, that stopped maturing shortly after fourth grade, that part which in this story I will call my Id.  It is my inner thoughts, most of which are better left inner, but often which either come out or cause me to lose perspective on where I am and what I really should be doing at a given moment.

         An example of my overriding Id impulses was at a staff luncheon about 10 years ago.  We were having a luncheon for a staff member who was leaving, and the topic at the table turned into Catholic Priests and the trouble they have were having back then, and still are now, with child molestations.  People talked of course of how horrible it was, and then the topic of why Priests would molest boys in the first place began, and focused around how Catholicism encouraged this due to its strict requirement of abstinence. 

         I tend to avoid volatile topics that would cause problems or arguments between people due to their religious beliefs, because I firmly believe that some core belief systems will surely not be changed in a casual conversation at a Chinese restaurant.  So why even bother engaging in such a topic that could only lead to a discussion that is sure to get as heated as an episode of “Jerry Springer”?  People started talking about their beliefs of Catholicism, of homosexuality, and it was entering into territory that I didn’t want to enter.  It was when this conversation continued despite my desire for it to end, when I reached a critical mass internally and felt the need to interject the only thought that actually came to me during the entire discussion.

         "I don’t have a problem with gay Nuns,” I said as the table fell immediately silent, “It’s the gay Priests that I take issue with.”

         This was a play on the male standard of enjoying watching two women go at it while being absolutely repulsed should the same thing occur between two men.  That put a grinding halt to the conversation, which secretly is what I wished for, but there were other ways of doing so.  For example, I could have said, “hey can we talk about something else that won’t get into an argument or potentially offend somebody?”  I’m sure that is what I would have been counseled to say had I been referred to an EAP (Employee Assistance Professional) by my boss, for making the statement I actually did make.

         What seemed to be minutes, which were only seconds, passed, and finally one member of the group said “Wow, you can take a conversation and bring it to its lowest common denominator, can’t you?”  Of course the answer was yes, but the crucial piece was the laughs from some of the people at that table, those people who actually got the intention of the comment, which was all the positive reinforcement my over-developed Id needed.  One laugh is all I need to view any given comment as a smashing success.  So instead of feeling ashamed by lauding lesbian Nuns while reproving gay Priests, I felt buffeted and proud of another successful bit comedic genius, at least that’s what my Id told me it was.

         Acts of God tend to be a definitive line for me, as I wouldn’t say that line to a Nun.  But I tend to believe that God is a laid back God with a good sense of humor, you know the type that wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen at a live comedy show.  My thinking is He’s created a few funny Nun jokes himself, so he’d be o.k. with my comment.  When Acts of God remain your point of reference, I think you can see where this might just get me in trouble from time to time.  Work, unfortunately, does not insulate me from the inner workings of my mind.  In particular, job interviews for me seem to be an ‘at risk’ situation for my Id to meddle with my ability to be appropriate and professional.  It doesn’t seem to matter whether I am the one who is doing the interviewing, or being interviewed.

         The job interview is important in any field that you work in.  As the interviewee, in my profession, it is important for you to convey that you are both experienced and skilled in theory of psychological and behavioral healthcare issues.  However, sometimes that desire to look knowledgeable can lead people to say things in interviews that they really shouldn’t have.  This is not a problem I have, if I can stay focused enough in the interview.  I usually don’t have a problem staying focused in an interview situation … until he interviewed me.

         This job interview came at a time in my career when I wasn’t happy at my current job.  Due to my unhappiness, I started looking for new jobs.  I ultimately stayed at the job I was at for two more years before moving on, and probably it had to do with this interview.  At the end of this interview I thought to myself as I walked towards my car, 'wow, I’m lucky I’m still employed, go back and be happy.'

         However, during the course of being disgruntled, I searched for greener pastures, and one of my searches landed me an interview at Clean Living Integrated Treatment Services, an outpatient program that dealt with clients who had both substance abuse and mental health issues.  When I first read the ad in the paper, I realized I never heard of this place before, which wasn’t really odd, considering the number of programs throughout the state.  I then read the add again, and it struck me after reading it two more times … Clean Living Integrated Treatment Services, Clean Living Integrated Treatment Services … CLITS!  Now if I had heard of that program before, there’s no way I would have ever forgotten it, and there’s no way I wasn’t putting an application in there!

         What on earth possessed the administration and board of an organization to name their program CLITS?  Did they found this place before turning organizational names into acronyms became popular?  Are the founders just a bunch of dirty old, horny men?  I don’t know, but I really needed to find out.  A simple name reversal would save them so much grief.  Instead of ‘Clean Living’ make it ‘Living Clean’ as you’d get much less grief with LCITS (lickits) than with CLITS. Change ‘Integrated’ into ‘Outpatient’ and turn CLITS into CLOTS, that’d be better.  There are countless other possibilities and I just couldn’t believe that a responsible group of adults would allow such a thing to go on.

         This was a bad omen and I should have taken it as such, but I had to go, I was beyond curious, I was compelled.  I must apply to CLITS, I must enter into CLITS and meet the people in charge of CLITS.  If they don’t hire me, I’ll go across town and open up my own program.  I would be the competition and drive CLITS crazy with my new program Downtown Integrated Counseling Services.

         I shouldn’t have gone to the interview at all with all that was buzzing in my mind.  I wasn’t really interested in the job, just the story and the continuation of bad one liners and sexual innuendo.

         “Yeah I applied to CLITS” I would say to my friends, “But I guess I didn’t stimulate enough interest because they didn’t seem too responsive when I was in.”

         Or, if things went well:

         Well I had a hard time finding it, but once I was in, things got better.  Yeah, they seemed real excited over there, at least it looked like they were.  At the very least, I was excited to be there.”

         So I was going to this interview for all the wrong reasons and the name should have been my warning sign.  On the day of the interview, I arrived early so I had a chance to sit in the waiting area and observe.  I was intrigued at who would work there, why they wouldn’t suggest a name change, and if they realized what their organization’s acronym was.  It was a pleasant establishment with a hospital feel about it.  The walls were painted cinderblock and there was florescent overhead lighting with a rectangular drop ceiling.  Everyone I met (or saw) seemed very nice and surprisingly well adjusted.  I must say I was disappointed after reading some of their marketing materials that they did not specialize in sexual dysfunctions.  The secretary came up to me after 20 minutes and escorted me to the room I would be interviewed in.  It looked like a typical multipurpose room that you could run groups in, have staff meetings, etc.

         Mr. Donovan will be in shortly,” the secretary said as she motioned for me to sit in a chair at the only table in the room.

         Mr. Donovan turned out to be the Deputy Director of the organization.  He was in charge of all the clinical supervisors, a position I was applying for, and he also carried a small caseload of clients.  He was a white male who appeared to be in his early 50’s, he was a little over six feet tall.  He was not overweight, but it was obvious that he didn’t work out either, so he had a doughy type feel about him.  He was dressed in a suit, his receding hair was graying and he wore glasses with thick lenses, the type of lenses that were so thick they enlarged the size of his eyes.

         It was this last feature which made me immediately forget about all things related to the name of the place.  It was an aspect of this last feature that caught my attention and captivated me.  Yes, a magnified set of eyes is interesting, but it becomes infinitely more interesting when one of the eyes just wasn’t doing what it was supposed to do.  As he approached and introduced himself, it became clear that he had an errant eye.

         This quickly became a distraction, because of the nature of this eye.  For the most part, it was stationary, but occasionally it moved without warning and free from what the rest of his body was doing.  In its state of rest, his right eye was looking up and out to the right.  It was almost as if his right eye was transfixed by something on the ceiling to his very right.

         This immediately presented a problem for me, as you need to give people eye contact, especially during an interview.  It’s not like he had a bad hand or a missing leg, this was something I had to continually look at all while trying not to look like I was looking at it.  Since this encounter, I have studied the exact way I make eye contact.  What I discovered is I either look at both eyes simultaneously, or I will go back and forth, focusing on one eye at a time.  I do the latter one less than looking at both eyes simultaneously, but I still do both as my means of making eye contact.  I never realized this was my practice of making eye contact until I met Mr. Donovan and was forced to not only realize it, but chose. 

         My first reaction was to panic, because the simple, unconscious act of making eye contact was now the focus of a good portion of my attention.  Suddenly, I didn’t know how to do it correctly.  When you have to think about something you rarely ever have to think about doing, it makes doing it false and labored and you can become very self-absorbed in the process of doing that thing as you try to do it correctly.  Do I stare at both eyes simultaneously, or do I focus just on the good eye, completely ignoring the errant eye?  If I just focus on the good one, can he tell?  Has he seen me catch a glimpse of his wandering eye?  Is it okay to look at it?  If it is ok to look at it, then for how long are you allowed to look at it? 

         These are the social etiquette questions you never learn on your own; nobody teaches you the correct thing to do in this type of situation.  Has anyone ever had a talk with their father that went like this: “You see son, when you meet somebody with a crazy eye, stare at the good one only”.  No, this never comes up in father/son chats.  The one thing I knew not to do was to address the situation head on.  I wish it were possible to just get it out of the way, you know, in order to put it out there and move on.

         “Hey man, that’s one crazy eye you got there!”

         “Yeah man, I know, that’s some shit huh?”

         “Damn straight it is, how’d that shit happen?”

         “Don’t know, just happened.”

         “Nah, you’re holding out on me.  I bet I know what happened.  I bet you were eyeing up some fine looking piece of ass out of the corner of your eye when your old woman caught on and ‘POW!’ clocked you right in the eye, and made it stay there.”

         “HA HA, I wish, that’d be a great story to tell! Nah, I was just born that way.”

         “Cool, no problem, you can use my story if you want, no charge.”

         Then you move on.  The white elephant in the room is addressed, any uncomfortable situation diffused, and you can peacefully get on with business without the constant and nagging wondering.  However, that is not acceptable in our society, and because it is not allowed it leads to more internal conversations in my head.

         So far the interview is going well … I think.  Ten minutes had passed and I’m not quite sure what transpired.  I hope I answered some, at least one, question correctly.  I then shake it off and do my best to focus on the interview and the questions being asked.  I try hard to put all questions unrelated to my job interview out of my head, to appear natural and relaxed.  Then about four minutes later, my blocking techniques fail me.

         'How does this guy drive?' asks my Id.

         Besides being a potentially inappropriate question, my Id makes a really good point, really how does he drive? The best visual description I can give you regarding Mr. Donovan’s eye is that of a car headlight.  It’s like one of those cars you see at night on a tree-lined suburban road.  One headlight is shining straight ahead, the other is illuminating the trees to its right.  This is the visual I immediately had after I asked myself the driving question.  This then cascaded into a slew of questions; most of which I had no answer for but would love to find out.  Take the first question, how does he drive?  This question led almost immediately to my next question:

         'Can he see out of that eye?'

         While sad, I would not want to be able to see out of my errant eye as I think it would cause substantial confusion.  If you could see well out of your errant eye, which field of vision would you follow?  If he followed the errant eye’s view he’d be continually walking to his right I would think, causing him to only be able to walk in circles.  He successfully made it from the hallway to where I was sitting, so I assume he’s mastered the straight line.

         'If he can see out of that eye, does he have a blind spot in front of him?'
   
         Our eyes overlap giving us a stereo field of vision.  With one eye constantly ‘shining into the trees’ it seems there would be a dead spot somewhere, somewhere in his central vision as opposed to our peripheral blind spots.  This would be interesting because all you’d have to do is find the dead spot and exploit it.  This lead me to wonder where the dead spot would be and what part of my body is in it.  Is he able to see my whole head, or is my left ear cut off?  Since the errant eye wasn’t totally stationary and had some apparent random movement, you could get screwed exploiting the dead spot only to find the eye wander back and see what you’re doing.  That would suck, but would add a sense of danger when trying to exploit the hole because you could get caught at any time.  The randomness of its movement then led me to ask:

         'Can he control the errant eye?'

         Or is it truly errant, mostly stationary with random acts of aimless wandering?

         'If he can control it, can he make it do tricks?'

         If I could control my errant eye, I thought to myself, I’d definitely make it do tricks.  If not do tricks, I’d definitely use it to my advantage.  For example, if I caught somebody staring at it, I’d immediately move it to stare them down, scoping them up and down … keeping a close eye on them, so to speak.  While I was doing that I would act as if nothing was happening and continue the conversation we were having.  This would give the impression that my eye was alive and a separate entity from me, with a separate consciousness, and a separate set of goals and desires.  That should sufficiently freak somebody out and give them the message to cut that shit out.

         'Has he ever done something to freak somebody out?'

         Because of course, I would.  If that same person continued to do stupid crap and piss me off, I’d take a random moment in our conversation and make my left eye mimic my right so that they were both staring out and up in opposite directions.  I’d then mumble incoherently for effect, and then continue my conversation as if nothing happened, picking up right where I left off before the ‘episode’.

         The good news is I became more comfortable in the interview.  I went from feeling panicky, with questions of burgeoning social etiquette issues, to having a childlike inquisitiveness.  The bad news is that this transition from anxiety to curiosity, and all the inner dialogue associated, occurred during the interview.  It was at that point of coming back to the present moment where true panic set in.  Here I was in the middle of an interview having no idea what I had said, or what I didn’t say, but still having to continue on because the interview was still being conducted.  I must continue this interview not knowing if I’m repeating an answer, or asking a question he’s already answered.  By the time I snapped out of it, 25 minutes had passed from the start of the interview.  I often wonder what I said and how I performed during that first 25 minutes, because I have no recollection of what went on in the actual interview, due to my being completely absorbed by ‘other’ matters.  I can figure out it wasn’t my best performance as I was never asked back for a second interview. 

         This was the longest stretch of time my mind ever wandered, as we all can wander from time to time, but will usually come back fairly soon.  Some research states that we tend to stray our attention once every eight minutes or so.  However, this wasn’t a brief wandering of the mind, this was a full vacation.  I felt so bad afterwards that I researched his condition and found out a fair amount of information about it, such as it being called strabismus, which appeared to be an intermittent strabismus, because I saw what I thought was random movement at times.  I also discovered how his condition differs from lazy eye, though they are commonly confused.

         The trick of all this is holding off ones curiosity and gathering ones research questions until later, until you’re home, or at least until its safe.  To paraphrase Kenny Rogers, the trick is also having the ability to know when to hold up, know when to fold up, know when to walk away and know when to run.  I am able to do these basis skills, but I definitely need to continue to work on my consistency.  Mr. Donovan’s errant eye was not something he could control, or something he should feel responsible for, I wish I could say the same for my errant mind.