I had a professor who once defined different types of irony including “pathological irony” in which we arrive at a solution that is worse, far worse, than the original problem. As an example, the professor said a man afflicted with a wart on his foot cuts his foot off. Another example: The classical composer Schumann is said to have been bothered by a weak pinkie finger so that he created these elaborate exercises to strengthen the tiny finger including the use of pulleys. These exercises had the opposite effect. His pinkie became afflicted with severe, depilating arthritis making piano playing nearly impossible.
When I was in college, I was so self-conscious of the rumblings of my stomach in the classrooms, especially those small ones where we all sat in a circle, that I fantasized about inventing a Sound-Proofing Torso Box that would keep any loud stomach noises inside the box and I could enjoy the lecture and discussion regardless of an unruly stomach with an expression of supreme insouciance. Of course, the bulky apparatus would call more attention to one's self than a hungry, noisy stomach.
We have more common sayings to deal with this self-destructive behavior. One that comes to mind, a phrase that my wife uses to describe a lot of my obsessive, over-thinking behavior, is “making a mountain out of a molehill.” This is my condition, my wife explains to me whenever I am obsessing over something so that the obsessing is worse than the problem.
For example, after we had children, we did not frequent our favorite sushi restaurant like we did before (mercury, getting a baby-sitter to go to any restaurant isn't easy) and when we finally returned, the sushi chef, whom I felt connected to almost like a friend, was very cold and seemed unimpressed with my explanation for our long hiatus. When I got home, I talked about the chef’s icy manner for several days until my wife finally said, “He was never your friend. He’s just some dude who works in a restaurant. Get over it!”
My wife’s words helped give me a sense of proportion to the matter and I now realized that “making a mountain out of a molehill” is all about the loss of proportion.
If sanity is defined largely in part by being able to sort things out with a sense of proportion than a man like myself who suffers from compulsive exaggerations and obsessions is most likely not doing so well in the Sanity Department.
Final Note:
If I were to sit down and write a list of things that I blew out of proportion, I would have a very thick book. Remind me one of these days to tell you the infamous burrito story.
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