el crispito

Shawn is upset because Independence Day falls on a Sunday this year, and unlike in the United States, it is not the custom for employers to give an adjacent day off when the national holiday lands on the weekend. He has to go to work on Monday just like every other week, but if the 16th fell on a weekday, he would get a paid day off.

Juan José, a co-worker of his, said that not getting a day off does not bother Mexicans. He explained that the partying always happens on Friday and Saturday night anyway, no matter on what day of the week the holiday falls. Since nobody parties on the actual 16th (except when the 16th happens to fall on one of those days), getting the day off does not really matter.

I think this illustrates quite nicely a difference between the Mexican and American states of mind. Of course, they are both talking about different things, really. Yet what each focuses on is very telling.

Americans maintain a certain sense of entitlement to justice of which Mexicans have been disabused through years of systematic injustice and living a little closer to reality. That is, there are a lot of things that probably should be different than they are in Mexico, and while Mexicans might agree, they do not waste too much energy getting upset about those things. Gringos can go on and on about how and why things should be different - at least 40% of this blog consists of that very exercise - often imploring our Mexican hosts to see the logic behind our reasoning. This probably just seems pointless to them; they do not understand why we allow what is already an annoyance to drive up our blood pressure and cause us greater frustration. We, on the other hand, wonder at times why they do not stand up for what is right and enact changes that would improve their lives.

This indifference is popularly known as valemadrismo, or in a rough translation to English, "just not giving a damn." The idea is that by dismissing the importance of an issue or an event (through not caring about it), one can circumvent the pain of heavy emotions or avoid pointless worrying about things beyond their control. In The Labyrinth of Solitude, poet Octavio Paz wrote about it, attributing the phenomenon to Mexico's indigenous heritage, but one sees it throughout la vida mexicana.

From an outsider's perspective, I understand this attitude by different terminology. To me, it seems like a kind of mass learned helplessness, or perhaps even an expression of depressive realism. Both of these terms are used to describe cognitive biases generally considered to be dysfunctional, at least by academics and therapists. Can it be that Mexicans are less troubled by negative outcomes because they share a national mental illness?

One sees an indifference that exists here toward all kinds of annoyances, from the merely uncomfortable to the life threatening. At times it is like waking up as Yossarian in your own private Pega veintidós, where everyone seems to be just fine with circular logic, repeated ad nauseum like a mantra, but nobody can explain what it means nor how they got there.

I often find myself in a discussion about something breaking, going wrong, or not coming together as expected.

"Why is the traffic so heavy on La Ermita?"

"Oh, you know the construction that they just finished a few months ago?"

"On López Mateos?"

"Yes. When they built the tunnel. They pipes they needed to put in to service this entire neighborhood properly are this size." Alberto makes a gesture with both his arms that is not unlike the body gesture for the "Y," when properly dancing to the song Y.M.C.A. by The Village people. "The pipes they put in were like this." He does a perfect performance of the ASL sign for ashtray.

At this point in such a conversation, I usually ask how such a ridiculous thing could have happened. Mexicans are often surprised that I ask this and rarely know the exact answer. The information about that does not pass down the grapevine like it does in the United States. I suspect this is because people here focus on the problem less.

At this point in such a conversation, a Mexican will often state a conclusion that is at once accurate and concise, sublime in its zen-like simplicity.

"So we are going to have a lot more traffic."

Since knowing the cause does not change the fact that mistakes were made, there is truly no point in knowing who to blame and why it was allowed to happen. I automatically think, "There must be a punishment!" I do not believe that I think that out of a simple thirst for revenge. I at least think that it should be prevented from happening again, and that the people responsible will held accountable for their mistake in some way. Is that not the way justice works? Are we not all in agreement that justice is a good thing?

Yet when I think about it, who am I kidding? I am a guest in a foreign land and I contribute very little to things that go on here. There might be a time where I have been here long enough to effect positive change in Mexican society, but at the moment, I barely understand the culture. What good does my indignation do anyone? Does anyone really want it? It seems like it just is not done here.

I let it go. And I feel a strange sense of freedom in just not caring any further about it.

Time and time again in worldwide surveys of happiness, Mexicans are some of the happiest people on earth, and they are consistently more happy than Americans. Of course, it could be argued that happiness is inextricably intertwined with expectations, and maybe Mexicans are only happier than Americans because they have lower expectations. Yet the bottom line is that happiness is a relative thing, and if one feels happy, how can anyone else argue that she is in fact, actually unhappy and merely does not realize it?

Is life truly that much more enjoyable here in Mexico? For me, it has been so far, but it might not always be. Life in Mexico can be hardcore. Some people here live in a state of poverty that is simply unknown in the United States. While there is great variation betweeen various parts of the country, it is part of the third world. Guadalajara is a major city with all the modern conveniences, but still, things come up from time to time that are very difficult to deal with mentally. For example, one of our friends here was driving along on the periferico, the freeway that circles the city, when all of a sudden, he saw a severed arm fly past his window.

Valemadrismo is a defense mechanism that helps Mexicans deal with things that are so horrible that it is unbearable to think about them, and a surprising number of those things happen. You wake up one day and your your savings account is worth half of what it was the night before. You are enjoying a night out with friends at a bar when soldiers from a local drug cartel come in with guns, force everyone to the ground, and toss a bunch of decapitated heads on the dance floor. The network of sewer pipes running through your neighborhood fill up with gasoline and explode, killing hundreds of your neighbors. It is difficult to get your head around such things, and a bit of denial can help people continue on with their lives in the face of such events.

It is easier to understand why people invoke valemadrismo with such extreme cases, but as an outsider, I see the same effect at work in all kinds of lesser situations, like employees not worrying that they get one less paid vacation day because what they insist is the important thing - going out to party - is not disrupted. The practice of valemadrismo still seems a little nutty to me when I witness it, because I am not used to accepting injustice or irrationality so gracefully. Still, I can see some value in valemadrismo. Chances are, next Monday morning, Juan José will be looking back fondly on the fun he had Saturday night, while Shawn will still be in a bad mood about being cheated.