Don’t you ever worry?

Bridge of Spies is a 2015 film telling the story of a lawyer, James Donovan, defending Rudolph Abel, a Soviet man caught spying in 1950s America. Donovan succeeds in preventing Abel from facing the death penalty, not only out of a sense of humanity but also because he foresees, quite rightly, that one day he might have value in a spy swap for any American caught doing the same thing in Russia: dead men aren’t worth anything, but live ones can be traded.

Rudolph Abel, played by the implacable Mark Rylance, seems entirely resigned to his fate, whatever that may be, and running through the film like a spine, he repeats, on three separate occasions, what feels like his catchphrase. At each point, James Donovan played by Tom Hanks, asks him essentially the same question: “Don’t you ever worry?”.

“Don’t you ever worry?” he asks, when contemplating with Abel the possibility of being found guilty. “Don’t you ever worry?” he asks again when facing the possibility of receiving a sentence of death. “Don’t you ever worry?” he asks when Abel is swapped back to the Russians at the end of the film amidst the fear that they might execute him for failing the Soviets by being caught. “Don’t you ever worry`?” he asks again and again.  

And again and again Abel, phlegmatic and inscrutable to the last, simply replies every time: “Would it help?”.

It's an obvious question, to which there is an equally obvious answer but, even though worrying never actually makes any practical difference to the outcome of events, most of us seem hard-wired to do it: surely the most pointless piece of advice any of us can ever give another is to tell them not to worry. We don’t worry because we want to, or because it will help, we worry because we can’t stop ourselves.

However, there is, perhaps, an important difference between worrying and caring in that just because we don’t worry about something doesn’t have to mean that we don’t care about it. It’s the opposite the other way round: usually, when we are indifferent as to whether something happens or not, when we don’t care about it, then it's more than likely that we won’t worry about it either. If it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t. We take it or leave it and don’t worry. If we don’t care then we don’t worry.

However, though it’s much more difficult, we don’t, actually, have to worry about something in order to care about it. But not worrying, and yet still caring, is harder because to care about something and not worry about it means facing something that can seem unbearable: it means relinquishing control, it means letting go.  

It's natural for us to want the things which we care about to be OK.  We want our loved ones to be happy, not just because our love for them is altruistic but because our connection to them means that if they suffer then we feel it too. Empathy is a normal reaction for a healthy human being so if the people who mean something to us are struggling then we’ll know something of it with them. It's hard not to want to control this, to put a stop to it for them, and for us.

To care, though, and yet not worry takes us to a difficult place where we are asked to forbear (tolerate, endure) something that is painful or hard. It means accepting the suffering that may take place even if there is nothing that we can do to stop it. When in relation to others it means having compassion (cum - with, passio - suffer: suffering with), bearing the pain, at least in part. Rudolph Abel seemed to have accepted his fate and so made himself free of the effect it might have on him. It didn’t change the consequences but it did change how he experienced them even though I imagine that he cared very deeply about what may or may not happen to him.

I think I’m right in saying that one of the central pillars of Buddhism is to be found in relinquishing attachment. That isn’t quite the same as just “giving things up” but has more to do with how we shape ourselves around things to which we might become attached, whether we can imagine the possibility of life without them even if we are deeply committed to, or entwined with, them.

This clearly takes a lot of work - a lifetime perhaps - and there might be questions about how to be committed to something (anything: a person, a cause, a place) without being attached to it in some way but, maybe, Rudolph Abel’s simple question helps clear a space for stating something obvious that could be helpful for our peace of mind and well-being.