Toilet Paper Run: is there more than fear at work?

It began in Hong Kong. Then it happened in Singapore. The story then darkened when armed gangs resorted to thievery, no doubt believing that the once humble toilet paper will soon fetch a handsome sum.

Most recently, as the incidence of the Coronavirus infection begin to spot more places in the world, we see the same behaviour. Apocalyptic purchasing has existed for a while in the once CHristian United States, where the Christian narrative of the End Time is woven into the cultural narrative in thick and thin strands.

But Japan surprised us. Orderly, organised, lawful Japan.

Kentaro Takahashi, Bloomberg

Not only did their shelves empty, measures such as this had to be taken even:

https://soranews24.com/2020/03/02/people-in-japan-are-now-stealing-toilet-paper-in-midst-of-coronavirus-crisis/

Everyone wants to know: WHY‌ toilet paper?

The virus’ effects do not include diarrhoea. This prompted Youtuber NileRed to release this
'scientific video', funnily suggesting that it was for moonshine!


What's your theory?

My puzzlement led me back to a theory I read a few years back: Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory. It isn’t too huge a stretch to say that it is the theory that explains everything – psycho-social. Girard's astounding observation is that human behaviour is mostly us copying each other.

Here is a brief video that explains it: The Mimetic Theory in brief

The question is why? At the heart of it ---


We are beings of Desire. But we inevitably get our cues for what is desirable by watching and aping us. Remember the Joneses and the commandment given by smoke and thunder to ‘not covet’? Both the idiom and the command cuts right at the heart of how we desire and what it can drive us to do.

Why toilet paper? Because if someone else is doing it with zeal, we are safer off doing it too, just in case. Yes, herd mentality. But more than herd mentality, it is our desire, to be safe, to be right. So, just -in-case.

For all our loud prognostications about progress and enlightenment, access to information and advancements in technological abilities, we are still basically lost little creatures hoping to get something right.

That’s our pulse. The fear of losing, losing out, and being lost.

Girard is right. I see it in my own life and countless others I observe. We have a deep inward drive to reach for something to slake the thirst of Desire, but we don’t really know how to, because the Desire is lost under layers of parental training, folk wisdom, modern science, personality preferences, and favourable as well as unfavourable life experiences. Our feelings, brains, and circumstances conspire to point us in certain directions. Our agency is severely compromised.

So yes, there is a virus of fear, but its host is our restless, aimless hearts.


The profundity in this little phrase is often missed:

Perfect love casts out all fear*

Fear is resident, it dwells, stalks, lingers… and has to be cast out. The only force strong enough isn’t information - “we assure you there is enough". To cure this primordial, existential fear requires something far stronger. It takes Love.

But O how our views and experiences of Love are so broken, inadequate and tainted.

Who really loves me, we ask in quiet desperation when we are stark honest. Is there a way to be loved without the burden of guilt - that sense that we aren't really measuring up, or worth it?

Is it possible to know such a Love that we can rest and believe that we will make it through another day, even sans toilet paper?

Such a Love cannot be rooted in emotion. It cannot rise from the soil of accomplishments. It certainly isn't found in our wanting it, no matter how mighty we fantasize.

We get glimpses of it in kindness, faithfulness, affirmation, support, and understanding. These are important signposts that such a Love exists, but in the long road of life, we long to walk towards what these signposts point towards: a Being of Love.

So really, the fear is a symptom, of our Desire.

We desire to find out and be found by this Being of Love. 

But who has time to seek, search and scour? So despite the needle of our heart's compass pointing true north, it flings wildly as we throw ourselves into work, relationships, causes and a thousand lesser lodes of magnetism.

What if this Being of Love not only waits for us at journey's end, but is present and involved in our lives now?

Yes, right now, in the middle of it all, of the mess, of the mistakes, of the morose reality of our times.

We need to encounter this Being of Love, and we need an experience that creates a way for us as mimetic beings to fashion our lives after a worthy model.

We need a Whole Love and a Wholesome model.

Perhaps this is why God had to send his son Jesus to live as a fully human being, to suffer hunger, deprivation, disappointment, loneliness, opposition and even betrayal. Even a cursory look at what he lived through leads to an inescapable conclusion: this guy is relatable (even as a woman, I can say that).

More than that, we find Jesus desirable. He is the One we want to be like.

The way he stands his ground, speaks with authority, and act with compassion. The way he can relate to children, authority figures, the old and marginalised. His confidence, composure and convictions. His sense of purpose and passion. The light in his eyes as he tells another parable laced with humour. His gentleness.

The perfect human.


So the great Christian truths that God has made a way to set us free, to restore our agency, to start us on a homeward journey towards Desire is the answer to the toilet paper run, or rather to stop running after metaphorical toilet paper.

And if you are willing, Jesus has made it all possible.



*1 John 4v18

This phrase is found in a larger text:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

In the contemporary Message version :

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.

And this powerful song, which I learnt when I lost my beloved brother, reminds me that my worst fears are swallowed up in Love:

Blessings


Note:
Mimetic Theory has another important dimension: the Scapegoat theory. Again, we find this happening - the blame game. The Chinese, the government, the neighbour - are all convenient scapegoats for us because agency is painful and hard for us who are wandering and wondering. A good summary article: https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/11/16/evolution-rene-girard