MOMENT’S NOTICE Demogorgons? Suspending your disbelief

disbelief (n): Refusal or reluctance to believe. 2. Positive unbelief; the conviction that a proposition or statement for which credence is demanded is not true. 3. A negation or denial of the truth of some particular thing.

T his past weekend, as we caught up on the wonderfully bingeworthy series “Stranger Things,” I found myself getting distracted by thoughts of, “That doesn’t make any sense,” or “Wouldn’t that monster react differently to that situation?”

The world has changed a bit in the last 205 years since Coleridge proposed his approach to enjoying literature and theater. Social scientists say that the suspension of disbelief has become the general expectation for all entertainment, and now entertainment has expanded to include all types of media, including the news. They refer to something called the “entertainment function” of interpersonal and mass communication, where the person communicating is knowingly presenting information that is not necessarily true but will please the intended receiver.

BY MARIA MONTALVO momentsnotice@gmail com

Clearly I was not letting go of reality long enough to get into the story, that was, until they started playing “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush, and then just like the character, I delved deep into the upside-down, as they say. When humans suspend our disbelief, supposedly consciously, it is typically an innocuous decision. We suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy a really exciting sci-fi movie or series, like “Stranger Things,” or get lost in an enthralling novel.

We go along with a good story, even identify and agonize with a character who never existed. The suspension of disbelief helps us relax or escape the challenges of daily life, to overcome the discomfort, or even pain, of circumstances beyond our control.

According to the Oxford Reference Dictionary, the concept of “suspension of disbelief” is to become emotionally involved in a narrative that is outside of reality and to react as if the characters are real and the events are happening now, even though we know it is only a story.

The “willing suspension of disbelief for the moment” was how British poet Samuel Coleridge first phrased the concept in 1817, referring to audiences of literary works. (If you have not heard of Coleridge, look him up – a complicated man and brilliant literary and philosophical critic, as well as fascinating individual who influenced the likes of William Wordsworth and Ralph Waldo Emerson.)

As consumers of products and as consumers of information, we are being influenced by how others interpret our beliefs. We all have our own set of beliefs –we believe certain things to be true, and conversely disbelieve others – and also believe ourselves to be in control of when we change our minds or choose to be lost in the moment.

In the past few years, though, I have too often heard the phrase, “There’s no way that will happen,” and then it does. Historians have chronicled this tendency to believe the worst could not be true, especially during times of war like with the Nazi concentration camps in World War II (they cannot actually be killing that many people), or when envisioning democracy in Hong Kong after it reverted to Chinese rule, or women’s rights in Afghanistan just last year (there’s no way we can lose all of our rights).

These days, as forest fires get more intense and water supplies plummet faster than expected, or the right you had yesterday is no longer there today, the unthinkable continues to all of a sudden become reality.

Yet, each time something we never think will happen happens, we tend to move the goal posts, and lower our expectations instead of acknowledging that perhaps we were wrong in our interpretation of how other humans could act.

Suspending disbelief works exceptionally well during the denouement scene of a show or when getting to the end of a chapter, but in reality, it could actually turn a fairytale into a horror film.

Letters To The Editor

Nurse: We are understaffed and overworked

I am a registered nurse at the emergency department at Swedish Edmonds. Our medical center today was so understaffed we had 10 patients to one nurse.

The floors for admitted patients had placed caps on how many patients can go upstairs for beds. We are overworked, understaffed, and these issues have been present for too long. Safety issues are my concern.

Patients are not getting proper care due to this poor management. We have no support from our management, and no plans in place to resolve the problem. The community will hurt terribly if this continues because staff will leave.

The joint commission has done nothing after being notified, the Washington state Department of Health has done nothing, and yet we are having worse and worse working environments.

Most days I’m lucky to get a 30-minute break working a 12½- hour shift. Why is the Edmonds City Council not involved? What can you do? What can the mayor do?

We serve this community and are left with no solution. I’m asking you to step up and do something for us. Get involved.

Make this an agenda for your members.

Jacob Berg Mukilteo