On Ice Scrapers And Other Solutions

This morning I had to scrape ice off my car's windshield. This statement may appear banal unless I add that it was the first time ever that I experienced such low temperatures in Tel Aviv, a city where  the average temperature during the winter months is 18 °C and it can easily go up to 25°C.

Since I don’t own an ice scraper, I resorted to the old trick of using a credit card, which I learnt during my long stay in cold climates in the US.  My partner was impressed, he has never seen ice on a windshield before, and thought me resourceful.

Since Thursday we have been having a historic winter storm in Israel. In Tel Aviv it has been raining continuously, and we had several hail storms. Also, it was the heaviest snow storm since 1953, Jerusalem is still covered with almost a meter of snow and is disconnected  from the rest of the country.  Snow continued to fall across Israel till Saturday afternoon resulting in major power outages and road closures. At its worst 60,000 houses did not have electricity, now it is down to 18,000.

 Back when my daughters were young we went down from Iowa City to St Louis for Thanksgiving.  At the end of the weekend when we were heading back, we heard a winter storm warning. Still we decided to take a chance and drove back hoping that we would be able to get home on time.

Unfortunately, as we drove north the weather got more and more severe, with a blizzard and zero visibility. We almost made it, but near Fairfield Iowa, a mere  59 Miles / 94 Km south of Iowa City, the highway was blocked and rescue operators  evacuated the stranded passengers  to the homes of the townspeople who offered to put them up for the night. 

The whole operation was swift, efficient and calm, our very young daughters (2 and 3) were not even alarmed.  The four of us spent the night at a home of a very welcoming couple who fed us and put us up.

The generous members of the Fairfield community opened their homes to strangers in need as a matter of fact.  Besides the humanity of the invitation, what impressed me most about this solution was its simplicity. As the weather became increasingly dangerous, the rescue forces  prepared for the eventuality of closing the road and lined up volunteers.

I have been listening to the Israeli radio since Friday, hearing speculations and accusations of who is to blame for the unfortunate outcomes of this winter storm. I am sure that we could find numerous errors and poor judgments, but there was no way to predict something so unfamiliar, which has not happened in Israel for 60 years. Perhaps a simpler  question to ask is who is responsible for the winter storm, and that of course would be God or Nature, thus it could be easy to just pin the blame on Him.

At the end the army was called to the rescue; it has the right equipment and the expertise. As Israel allocates so much money to the needs of our Defense, it is only fair that the army come through at a time of need by clearing the closed roads and helping those who were stranded in their homes without electricity, water or food.

But perhaps  before  the next winter storm it is a good idea to line up a pool of volunteers in other cities who would put up people who are at risk of being stranded in case of a storm. When the storm starts they could be transported to safety before the roads are completely closed.

 The rescue operation in Fairfield was simple and inexpensive, and in the freezing weather it really felt like a heartwarming solution.

The Need for Closure

I don’t like loose ends. The need to understand why, how, or what could be done differently, is part of who I am: an impatient person. It may sound paradoxical, but I would rather know for certain that something, which I look forward to, is not going to happen, than to wait around and see if it might still work out. An example comes to mind: several months after I was widowed, I started going out with a man about my age. At first it was somewhat strained and awkward, as the last time I was out on a date was when I was 19 year old. But it didn't take long until we found that we had a lot in common. Then he told me that we needed to talk, that he wasn’t sure whether our relationship was progressing. He had announced it over the phone and then left town for a couple of days. When he came back he was surprised to discover that we were no longer dating. I preferred to interpret his doubts as a sign that it was time to end the relationship To imagine that he had harbored any reservations regarding my personality, which he kept to himself, was unacceptable to me. And to sit quietly and wait for things to take their natural course was obviously not an option. I wonder if the urge to replace ambiguity with certaintly is connected to my need for closure. This need is defined by Kruglanski and Webster in their article “Motivated Closing of the Mind: "Seizing" and "Freezing'” (1996) as "a desire for definite knowledge on some issue," and it "refers to individuals' desire for a firm answer to a question and an aversion toward ambiguity." Another example: when I wrote my PhD dissertation I enjoyed excellent working relationship with one of my advisors. Then all of a sudden her attitude toward me and my writing changed drmatically, and my chapters became the target of harsh criticism. I didn’t understand what had changed. Because of my "aversion toward ambiguity," I confronted that professor asking for an explanation. She admitted that she felt unsure about my work and worried that it wasn't good enough. I got what I asked for: "a definite knowledge on some issue" but was it closure? For a while this knowledge saitfied me. Then it stopped, and became a source of new ambiguity which, in turn, led to a quest for more answers. Or in other words, what previously seemed like closure--hermetically shut, with time started to unravel. My choice, in both cases was to swiftly get rid of the ambiguity in order to achieve definite results. Kruglanski and Webster argue that "the need for closure has widely ramifying consequences for social-cognitive phenomena" and that "those consequences derive from 2 general tendencies, those of urgency and permanence. The urgency tendency represents an individual's inclination to attain closure as soon as possible” The actions in the two examples stemmed from the "tendency of urgency" within me, I needed to get immediate relief, or in the words of the researchers: " simply could not wait.” But I wonder when, and if, an action, intending to end ambiguity, qualifies as closure, and whether real closure is at all possible. Closure is a ritual which is meant to bring about relief and tranquility following a turmoil, yet it seldom does. Perhaps like in Greek tragedy, closure is the end which, for a short while restores order but underneath we are left with the same stormy and incomprehensible world.