by Leigh Sales
Yet in 2016, only four Australians died on amusement park rides (the group at Dreamworld) while more than a thousand died in car accidents. My sons would be vastly safer on a rollercoaster than letting me drive them around. Still, the way I figured it, rollercoasters were a risk I could avoid. Getting rid of my car would be extremely inconvenient, so I was prepared to chance it.
My thought process about not letting my children go on rollercoasters is so common that there’s a name for it: minimax regret. Mathematicians in a field called decision theory use the term to describe behaviour whereby you make a choice based on an evaluation of what you might regret later. I want to avoid rollercoasters in case I later regret injury to my children: that type of thinking applies minimax regret. Even the brain’s seemingly quirkiest behaviour is more predictable than most of us probably realise.
It’s not only individuals like me who think and act illogically in this regard, governments sometimes do it too. The top three causes of death in Australia each have low dread risk: heart disease, dementia and stroke. In 2014, the year of the Lindt Café siege, around one in a thousand Australians died from heart disease. By contrast, the odds of any single Australian being one of the hostages killed in the Lindt Café was roughly one in 12 million. Put another way, the risk of dying that year from a heart attack was twelve thousand times greater than being killed in the Lindt siege. Even though the risk to Australians from heart disease dramatically outweighs the risk from terrorism, how much does the government spend combating and treating cardiovascular disease? Around 7 billion dollars each year. How much does it spend on national security, law enforcement and counterterrorism efforts? More than five times that, at around 35 billion dollars.
We partly accept such an allocation of resources because of our dread risk: terrorism scares us more than heart disease. We also realise that the gap between deaths from heart disease and deaths from terrorism would probably shrink if we spent fewer dollars on counterterrorism.
Another reason relates to the same thinking that compels many of us to buy home insurance, even if the chance of our house burning to the ground or being destroyed in some other disaster is very slim. We cannot stomach the risk of being the one in the one-in-a-million probability ratio. We prefer to take a gamble that has 100 per cent odds on a small loss (the cost of the premium) over the unknown chance of a ruinous loss (of the entire house). Most insurance policies are taken out on the grounds of consequence, not probability – the same reason I’m now scared about my boys going on theme park rides. I know that it’s highly improbable that something bad will happen and yet my fear of the consequences overrides my logic. My brain is trying to impose certainty and order by ruling out the possibility of my sons being killed in a freak accident.
Yet, as Louisa Hope points out, it’s a delusion to think that we can avoid bad things happening to us. I can’t possibly imagine and pre-empt every tragedy that might befall my sons. They may not die on a rollercoaster, but any number of other catastrophes could head their way, none of which I will see coming.
Experts call those type of blindsides black swans. An American writer, Nassim Taleb, coined the name to refer to a high-impact, rare, and hard-to-imagine event. The term references those British explorers who arrived in Australia and saw black swans for first time, having only ever seen white ones. Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005 and killed more than 1300 people in the most destructive natural disaster in American history, was a black swan. So was 9/11. Not every natural disaster or terrorist attack is a black swan. They have to reach a magnitude so huge that they’re beyond the scale of what anyone has ever imagined or anticipated.
Nobody can predict specific black swans, but every competent business or government knows they are a general threat, and big organisations war-game generic, worst-case scenarios. The difficulty is that the more complex a system, the harder it is to make accurate forecasts and control uncertainty. There is nothing more complex than an individual life, with its large number of social links and countless tiny decisions that ripple through the years, determining its course. All that individuals, businesses and governments can do is hope for the best and try to guard against the worst.
It’s both reassuring and unsettling to learn all of this. Using cold hard logic, I understand that the chance of a random disaster personally ensnaring me is remote. The events in the stories I present on television that most disturb me are the ones least likely to happen to me or my family. And yet that’s not as comforting as it should be, for a simple reason: I’ve met Louisa Hope and she has made me acutely aware that somebody is always the one in the probability ratio, even when the odds are as remote as one in 1.39 billion.
From the reading list Cathy has given me, it quickly becomes obvious that life’s blindsides and what they tell us about ourselves isn’t something that fits neatly into any one field of study. There’s wisdom to be gleaned from almost every discipline – psychology, neurology, mathematics, philosophy, literature, science, religion. Even the law constantly deals with questions of fairness and chance. The journalist in me craves the experience of being able to talk to people about these things. I yearn to speak with somebody whose job cuts across a lot of different areas of expertise, in the hope that there’s a way to survey the entire landscape at once. I need a compass for my navigation.
Many years ago, I attended a dinner at which I sat next to the vice-chancellor of the University of Sydney, Michael Spence. I’ve remembered it for two reasons. One is that I very much enjoyed the company of Michael and his wife, Beth. The second is that I was saddened to read in the newspaper not long afterwards that she had died of cancer, leaving him widowed with five children.
It strikes me now that Michael Spence might be the right person to help me. Losing his wife will have undoubtedly given him personal insight into some of my questions, but his job running a university also means he must have a good grasp of a broad range of subjects. I google Michael and read that he has many academic specialties: English, Italian, law, and theology. He is also an ordained Anglican minister.
He agrees to meet, and so on a slightly chilly, overcast day, I walk through one of the most beautiful spaces in Australia, the University of Sydney’s quadrangle. The green square is surrounded on all sides by ornate buildings that would make an ideal setting for Harry Potter. The vice-chancellor’s office, tucked into the bottom corner of one of these buildings, is a giant, wood-panelled room with high ceilings. On one side, enormous windows look out into the quadrangle. The opposite wall is entirely taken up by a bookshelf that, along with many dozens of books, hosts exquisite Asian art, including vases and tea sets. The thing about the room that most strikes me is that Michael Spence’s wooden desk is empty. There’s not a thing on it, not even a pen or computer. A small table adjacent holds an in-tray and various papers, but the main work space is a blank canvas. The airy office feels like a place where one could think uncluttered thoughts.
Michael, a man in his mid-fifties with a warm smile and a soft voice, gestures to a table and some chairs in front of his desk and we sit. He has a cup of tea and after I ask for a glass of water, he starts to tell me his story.
Michael met Beth at Oxford University in 1988, when he was twenty-six and she was twenty-three. They shared a strong Christian faith and spent nearly two decades living and working in the UK, attending church together and building a family. They were very settled in the Oxford community when an offer came in 2008 for Michael to become vice-chancellor at the University of Sydney. The eldest of their five children was sixteen and the youngest was three. Michael and Beth had no great desire to relocate to Australia – Beth was American in fact – but the job was too interesting to resist.
The first sign that something was wrong came about four years after their arrival, when Beth complained of a sore hip. She had always been extremely fit, skilled at rowing, basketball and volleyball; one of those people who never goes to the doctor. Michael and Beth had recently bought a new b
ed and they blamed that for the hip discomfort. Then, a few weeks later, she became ill with stomach pain as well.
‘She was admitted to hospital on November the twenty-eighth, 2012,’ Michael says very precisely and deliberately. ‘On the third of December she was diagnosed as having cancer in her back, bowel, liver and hips. And by the twenty-second of December, she was dead.’
It is shocking to hear him lay it out like that. It’s very hard to comprehend that a healthy young mother of five can be here one month and gone the next. To my mortification, as Michael keeps talking, I start to weep. It’s the thought of the smallest of the five children.
‘I’m so sorry to cry,’ I apologise. ‘I’m a terrible sook, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s absolutely fine,’ Michael says, ‘don’t worry.’
The reason I’m horrified to cry in front of him is that this is his story and if he can remain composed after enduring such a dreadful thing, then it feels self-indulgent and attention-seeking of me to do otherwise. He’s very kind in his response and so I let go of feeling bad and before long I pull myself back together.
‘When the doctors broke the news to you on the third of December, what did they say?’ I ask.
‘The doctors found it very distressing. I’m not a medical professional, but I think, like any professional, they deal with these situations by having patterns at work, like everyone has patterns at work. They’re used to people dying after a long battle with cancer, or old people dying of cancer. But a young person dying quickly of cancer is challenging. Beth’s oncologist cried when she met Beth,’ Michael says. ‘Afterwards, more than the usual number of medical professionals asked for counselling support, as they do when they’re having trouble at work.’
The other thing that was different for Beth’s doctors was that she didn’t panic or fall apart or rail against her death. Michael and Beth didn’t want what he calls ‘hero’ interventions. They wanted treatment but not measures to prolong life for the sake of it. On the final day of her life, Beth was not frightened and nor was she in pain.
‘When she was about to die, she wanted to take all the tubes off,’ Michael tells me. ‘The nurse said, “She’s very distressed,” and I said, “No, she thinks she’s going home.” Beth opened her eyes and she said three times, “I and the Father are one,” which is a line from John. And then she died. We were very lucky. It wasn’t a horrible experience.’
‘Did you have any sense when you got the diagnosis that it would be over so quickly?’ I ask.
‘This sounds really hokey, but all through this process and afterwards, there were what I would call moments of grace, moments where I was prepared for what was happening. In the shower, nine months before, in some random moment, I had been thinking, What if Beth died? And I thought about her funeral, and this is where we would have it, how we’d have it; it was such a weird thing to think about. But when it came to organising the funeral, I had thought about it.’
I ask Michael whether, before his wife became ill, anything terrible had happened in his life, beyond the normal, anticipated losses such as the death of his parents.
‘No, I had a very benign life,’ he says.
‘Did you ever think afterwards, So this is how my life has turned out, this is who I am, a widowed father of five?’
Michael thinks for a moment. ‘No, you’re just so busy surviving, you don’t think about those things. I think your view of the world changes, though. My eldest son says the difference for him was getting onto escalators. He said he would think about all the people he passed going the other way: What particular moment of grief or tragedy or disappointment are you dealing with at the moment?’
‘And what about for you, how do you think your view changed?’
Again Michael pauses to think. ‘I kept a list on my phone of ways in which I felt looked after. Bizarre coincidences and things that would happen seemed like God saying, “I haven’t altogether forgotten you, I’m still here, we can get through this.” I think it deepened my faith. And I don’t say that glibly, because I know for lots of people, having a sad experience of one kind or another can really decimate their faith. So I don’t say it the slightest bit piously or judgementally. But for me, it did deepen my faith.’
One of the toughest things for Michael and his family was that people were so saddened by the tragedy, they often didn’t know what to say. Astoundingly, when his daughter Lucy returned to school, only one person among all the teachers and students asked about the death of her mother. Lucy was hurt and bewildered. Michael raised the lack of support with Lucy’s form teacher, who said it was up to Lucy to speak to a counsellor if she wanted to talk about her mother.
‘And then we got Lucy’s first school report. And it said, “Lucy is an amazing girl who’s done incredibly well academically and socially, which is remarkable, given that this term she was in a production of West Side Story.” Nobody said anything in this whole report about her dead mum! So I went and saw the then principal about it and she was terrific. Since then, the school has really improved its way of handling these situations.’
The school’s inability to deal sensitively with the death of a child’s parent is undoubtedly partly due to the fact that it’s difficult for anybody – individuals or institutions – to know how to act in the face of such a tragic event. Michael himself was very conscious on his own first day back at work at the university that he would have to be the person to make things okay for everybody else. He started meetings by thanking people for coming to Beth’s funeral or for writing to him. That way the awkwardness quickly dissipated and others didn’t feel the pressure to say or do the ‘right’ thing. Michael’s theory is that people become paralysed because they want to offer something authentic or meaningful and they fear not delivering.
‘I remember meeting this friend of my daughter’s who was a student here. He said, “Dr Spence, I was very sorry to hear about Mrs Spence.” I said, “Thank you very much.” He said, “How are you doing?” And I said, “Well, Rupert, it’s really hard, obviously, but we’re doing okay.” He said, “I probably can’t, but I just want you to know if I can be of help in any way, please let me know.” And I said, “Thanks Rupert, I will.” And then we went on to talk about other things. After he went away I thought, I wish everybody was just taught to say, “I’m really sorry to hear about your dead wife.” Because often people would say things like they didn’t want to bring it up because “I didn’t want to remind you of it.” And you’d think, Oh yeah, I would have forgotten all about it.’
Michael remarried two years after Beth’s death, and has had two more children with his new wife, Jenny. They have had great joy and happiness but it’s also been tough at times. Jenny instantly became the mother of five stepchildren, as well as going on to have two babies to manage. As much as they adore each other, there’s been a huge amount of adjusting to do for everyone.
‘I think what I want to say in your book is that the bad things are hard but sometimes the good things are hard too,’ Michael says. ‘For me, it’s a really important point, that life can be hard in its evidently hard moments, but even things that are really good and really worth doing – and I love my wife to bits, and she me, and we have a strong marriage – they can be hard too.’
‘If I’m understanding you, what you’re saying is that life is both good and bad simultaneously, is that right? So even as Beth was dying you had beautiful moments together in hospital, and even now that you’re happily married again with a wonderful family, there are still moments when things are really tough?’
‘Yes,’ Michael nods. ‘One of the strengths of my tradition is the notion that the world is pretty broken. A lot of the time, life is just hard, and even for people who have a relatively benign life, for a lot of the time, stuff’s just hard. And it’s okay to say stuff’s hard, it doesn’t do anyone dishonour. It’s alright. It’s just giving people space to be human.’
By his ‘tradition’, Michael means his Christian faith. As
with Louisa, I try hard to set aside my judgement about religion when we talk. For some reason, any time somebody tells me that the way they cope with hard times is by trusting that God is in control, I want to follow up with, ‘Well, that’s what you’re supposed to say, but what do you really think?’ But again I try to ignore my scepticism and listen properly. Michael Spence is an extremely intelligent, accomplished, insightful person. If he finds value in Christianity, then surely there are lessons for me to draw from that.
‘I don’t want any of my questions to sound judgemental, I just want to understand,’ I say.
‘It’s okay, ask what you want,’ he encourages me.
‘Do you literally believe that God exists?’ I ask.
‘I literally believe that God exists,’ he replies. ‘Your question is really “Why do I have a faith?” And the answer is external and internal. External because to me, the Christian account of the world makes more sense than any other account of the world. And I suppose internal because it’s true to my lived experience. It makes sense of the world to me not only in the matter of theory, but also as a matter of my heart and spirit.’
When Michael lost Beth, he became more certain in his beliefs about the way the world works, not less certain. As he points out, others can have the exact opposite experience. They can lose faith in whatever they had previously believed. What I need Michael to do for me is not just share his personal history – I need his objective expertise.
‘You run a university,’ I say. ‘It seems to me that so many academic disciplines, whether maths or science or law, are at heart about our desire to impose order on stuff.’
‘Yeah, and that’s an interesting question,’ Michael answers. ‘In science, for example, do we impose order on the universe or do we uncover a particular kind of order in the universe? Why do we talk about the “laws” of physics? It’s because we have a sense that we’re making discoveries, not constructions.’