JANUARY 11, THURSDAY

BUYING A CAR BATTERY—JOINING A CULT

I own two cars, a 2003 Kia Spectra with 70,000 miles which I bought from my brother for $500 and a 2007 Honda CRV which I bought for $2000 right after $1000 Michelin tires were installed on it six years ago. The tires are still fine. It has 230,000 miles. I am assuming that some day the Honda will have some huge problem and die. At that point I can drive the Kia Spectra for the rest of my life.

But I know nothing about cars or car batteries. In September the Kia wouldn‘t start. I charged the battery, then I went to Sicily and Greece two months. When returned and I tried to drive the Kia it wouldn‘t start. I didn‘t know what to do so I didn‘t do anything. I was beginning to resent the Kia. Finally in mid December I tried to charge it again and it seemed to not hold a charge at all.

The point of this post isn‘t my ignorance of ineptitude. The point is my frustration at not knowing what to do and how it dispirited me and how I reacted. By January 31 I had to get the Kia to a gas station to get it tested and had several cockamemie ideas about how to do it including trading batteries with the Honda, without knowing if this would work. Most anyone reading this would buy a new battery and solve the problem. But I was somehow immobilized by not knowing if my battery was really dead or how much a battery should cost and afraid of paying much too much. I didn‘t know if the battery was dead or alive. I was about to go on another long trip and didn‘t want a new battery to go dead like the old one. I was at a dead end. I couldn‘t even loosen up the bolts holding the battery. When I thought I had the right socket for the socket wrench to loosen up the bolt I dropped the socket down into the engine. I was cold and wanted to cry.

I heard Jon Scoville across the street and went over and asked him to help me. He helped loosen the battery and advised me to take the battery to Auto Zone to find out if it was really dead. And then he said he would check out on line the prices of the battery I needed and tell me what the options were. It turned out that Walmart was cheapest and Auto Zone found my battery still had no charge. So I bought the Walmart battery, confidently, and came home and relaxed.

But even as I was on my way home I realized that I was demonstrating cult like behavior. I had found a savior who seemed to know what he was talking about. I placed my trust in him, and when I did that I was suddenly relieved. I didn‘t really know if Jon was guiding me in the right direction. But I didn‘t care. I was willing to trust him completely All of a sudden my tentativeness and my confusion and my irritation at being clueless disappeared. If I just did what Jon told me the burden of deciding what to do, of even knowing what to do, would vanish. All I had to do was let Jon lead me and I would feel strong and sure and finally not inept and stupid. Blind faith in Jon was giving my direction.

But I realized even as I was feeling good and in control and sure of myself that I had no idea if buying a battery was right at this point or if I was paying the right price or if I was getting a good battery or one that would die in six months.

I‘m not arguing that I made any poor choices, I didn‘t make any choices at all. What gave me confidence was that I abdicated all of my decision making and trusted Jon completely, and that that suddenly made me feel very good. It was trusting him and letting go of my own confusion and ineptness and uncertainty that made me feel good.

And as I realized that I also had a sense of maybe why people join a cult. You can have the feeling that you are really uncomfortable in a world that seems to be threatening what you believe. You have no idea why this is so or what to do about it. Part of this may come from a changing technology which you don‘t understand but jobs seem to be slipping away. Things just seem to be falling apart. And then a confident strong man says he will take care of things and drain the swamp and make American great again, just follow him. And you do, and as soon as you do you feel better, you let go of your frustration and lack of confidence and put on your red, white and blue and begin to party. A cult has a leader, and you feel so good you don‘t care if he lies a little (or a lot), is caught in all kinds of hanky panty, you don‘t even care when he prescribes hydroxychloroquine For Covid. You‘ve given up your uncertainly and your judgment and you trust him completely to lead you because it feels so good. He is taking on all the people who threaten you or make you feel uncomfortable and that is enough.

Seen from this perspective being a member of a cult is more like a religious experience with faith in the unseen. The more you believe, the more you let go of your own judgment, the better you feel.

All I was doing was buying a car battery and all Jon as a neighbor was doing was helping an old man out. But for a moment I had a feeling that I knew the appeal of a cult and how good it feels and why.