for Griffin, vicarious-living extraordinaire
Vicarious: experienced in the imagination through the feelings or actions of another person
Each afternoon when Griffin gets home from preschool, he grabs his chaps, rodeo vest, spurs and cowboy hat and transforms from Iowa boy to Lane Frost. Lately, he’s even taken to wearing one glove on the hand he uses to hold the bull rope. This is a cool addition, I must admit, and has further authenticated his look. He already wears boots with any and every outfit. Jeans with boots, sweat pants with boots, shorts with boots–hey, even underwear with boots. Boots make the man, you know.
Griff has been living vicariously through Lane Frost (via the movie 8 Seconds) for the better part of a year. If they gave a lifetime achievement award for the one who has watched the most minutes of 8 Seconds, he would win hands down. But he doesn’t just watch the movie; he lives the movie. As Lane Frost is bounced, jerked, and ultimately thrown from the backs of various bulls, Griffin flails himself dramatically from his imaginary bull to the floor or ground. And then–and this is an extremely pregnant pause–he waits for one of us to say, “Lane, are you alright?”
He dusts the imaginary arena dust from his chaps, gives the traditional Lane Frost two-handed wave to the crowd, and says, “Yeah, I’m alright.” And then he repeats the entire scene again. And again and again. . .
If I were to bet today, I’d bet that Griffin will never see the back of a real bull. He talks a mean game and certainly has the rodeo garb to look the part, but in his words, “I’m afraid of getting stung” (his word for gored). Still, the tenacity of his vicarious bull-riding experiences moves me.
Author and humorist David Rakoff claims that there is nothing more cleansing or reassuring as a vicarious sadness. As a child, when the first notes of the television program Lassie filled our living room, I teared up. I loved Lassie, the beloved collie, Timmy, Ruth and Paul Martin, Doc Weaver, and Ranger Bob. And through the poignancy and sadness of each episode (which was resolved in the final moments, of course), I cried those cleansing tears of one who felt herself a genuine member of the Martin family. For those precious minutes of each weekly episode, I was emotionally transported into the Martins’ lives. And I loved it.
Canadian American businessman and engineer Elon Musk writes:
I think life on Earth must be about more than just solving problems. . . It’s got to be something inspiring, even if it is vicarious.
I’m all for inspiration through vicarious living. When I returned home from breaks during college, I was once again enveloped in an inspiring story that starred larger-than-life characters. The author and director? My brother, Chad. There was the Gilligan’s Island saga, starring Chad as Gilligan (naturally), my father as the Skipper, my mom as Lovey, and two of my sisters as Mary Ann and Ginger. Because there were no more “girl parts” for me, I was relegated as the Professor (I also was assigned the part of Sulu in the Star Trek days; I never scored a female role.) I watched my brother live vicariously through a host of characters, often dressing the part. One of my personal favorite roles was when he was Dr. David Banner/the Incredible Hulk. He wore a button-down shirt which he would quickly remove to reveal a T-shirt my mother had artfully ripped for him to simulate the effects of bursting chest muscles. This was vicarious living at its finest, and even with bit parts, I was blessed to be a part of it.
There may be a darker side to vicarious experience. Steven Pinker, a popular science author, writes:
We can make fun of hockey fans, but someone who enjoys Homer is indulging the same kind of vicarious bloodlust.
Hockey fights, spectacular car crashes, ski runs gone wrong, Greek battles, Texas Chainsaw-type massacre scenes–there is vicarious bloodlust in these and so many other events. We love to live vicariously through disaster and horror. From the safety of the bleachers or our arm chairs, we gasp, we cover our faces (and peer out from our parted fingers), we shudder and utter the obligatory, “That’s so terrible!” And then, when the moment has passed or a commercial has interrupted the programming, we return to our popcorn and check our text messages. Such is the nature of vicarious bloodlust: these things are truly awful for others but, thankfully, not for us.
In his poem, “Out, out–“, Robert Frost tells the story of a young boy who is cutting wood with a group of men. Just as his sister arrives to call him home for supper, he cuts his hand so badly that the doctor is called to the scene. Frost concludes the poem here:
And consider the ultimate vicarious act. German theologian and Holocaust victim Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:
A love that left people alone in their guilt would not have real people as its object. So, in vicarious responsibility for people, and in His love for real human beings, Jesus becomes the one burdened by guilt.
Christ acts with vicarious responsibility for us, taking on our guilt, our sin and sorrow. I might have lived vicariously through Mary in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, but when the film ended and the lights came up, I could begin the transition from Golgotha to my comfortable home in rural Iowa. Not so for Christ whose vicarious responsibility for his children and their sin is, indeed, the consummate vicarious act.
There is much to be said for vicarious experience. As for Griffin’s rodeo alter-ego, I’ll all for it for as long as it lasts. And when he grows weary of Lane Frost, I’m hoping there is another adventure waiting in the wings.
