Seeking upstream solutions in a downstream world

I heard a parable not too long ago. It’s been on my mind for a bit, turning itself over and over, wondering why it felt so relevant. It’s about two men who are fishing in a river. They see a boy coming downstream, struggling against the current. One of the men jumps in and saves him, pulling the boy safely ashore.

A short while later, another boy comes floating downstream, struggling against the current. Again, one of the men jumps in and saves him.

Two more times, they must jump in and save kids as they struggle against the current. One of the men finally turns to his friend and says he’ll be back in a bit. He has something to take care of. The other man’s concerned: How could he leave? What if more boys come floating downstream and need to be saved?

The other says not to worry and disappears into the woods.

An hour passes, and the man who stayed near the river didn’t have to save any more boys.

“Maybe that was all of them,” he thought. But then his friend returns, and when asked where he had gone, he answered: “I took care of the man who was throwing all those boys into the river.”

He solved the problem, literally in this case, upstream.

As a whole, we don’t seem to be seeking to solve problems upstream much anymore. This goes for virtually every major issues I see at the moment – Covid, what to do with the police, varying levels of racism, climate change, abortion.

It was especially striking to me when, on September 16, CDC Director Robert Redfield said that “Face masks are the most important, powerful public health tool we have…I might even say a face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against Covid than when I take a vaccine.”  

Now, before I go further, I’d like to clarify: This is not a story about face masks. I don’t care one way or the other about masks. Don’t make it about the masks.

But I had to wonder: What ever happened to “exercise and eating healthy are the most important, powerful public health tool we have”?

Face masks are a downstream deterrent to a current problem, one that seems to be receding. But Covid is not going to be the last pandemic you or I live through. I’m only 30, and I’ve witnessed varied levels of hysteria over SARS, MERS-CoV, Zika, the Swine Flu, and, now Covid, among others.

More strange and novel viruses, with no immediate solution, are likely going to break out, and I’d expect some to be worse than Covid.  

How much more prepared would we be when they do, then, if Redfield, or the World Health Organization, or any of our politicians, or the media, began espousing upstream solutions? What if the messaging and language was more about what we, as individuals, can do to prepare our own bodies to fight off disease in the future? What if we looked at all those stats being shot around the internet like ammunition and identified the groups less likely to feel adverse effects and said: “Ok, what can we do to be safer in the future, like those groups?”

But that has not been the messaging, because, really, it couldn’t be. Not for politicians, anyway. I was having this same discussion with my father-in-law, who is one of the most intelligent, well-reasoned men I know.  

Politicians – and I think most of us can agree that this goes for both sides of the spectrum – need immediate “results” to show the voters all the wonderful things they’ve done in office, so they can be reelected, so they can produce more “results,” forever pushing the actual roots of these problems further and further upstream to the poor guy or gal who inherits them.    

So they pitch downstream solutions that come with immediate gratification but dire longterm prospects.

As an athlete, it’s especially frustrating to witness. We’re wired to perpetually seek ways in which to solve issues upstream. We lift weights and stretch in the off-season to prevent injuries that could come during season – “prehab” as we like to call it.

When we don’t get hurt, we don’t claim to be lucky; we know we prepared for it.

We practice for hundreds of hours for a match that lasts only one. We don’t try to fix our passing in the middle of a set – we took care of that in February and March.

We’re upstream thinkers.

What would happen if we sought similar solutions to our biggest problems?

On a societal level, what if, instead of reacting with “defund the police!” – a downstream “solution” that will inevitably cause far more problems than solve, and already is – we went upstream with it?

What if, instead of defunding the police, we actually devoted more time and resources to the police, so they spend a larger portion of their working hours training, as our military does, and learn how to properly subdue someone, or not get their tasers taken, or lean on someone’s neck for eight minutes?

Andrew Yang, who ran in the democratic primary, argued that every policeman should be a purple belt in Jiu Jitsu.

That’s an upstream solution.

What if we devoted more time and resources to educating the public about the most appropriate way to handle a conversation with the police, so we don’t resist arrest or shoot at them? What if the police did a better job educating the public, whether they want to hear it or not, how to make their lives easier, and thus interactions more peaceable?

On an individual level, what if we determined what we could do upstream in our lives to prevent bad circumstances from ever happening? What if we decide to simply be polite and behave with cops – yes sir, no sir, thank you sir – rather than wrestle with them, resist them, shoot at them?

I have a hard time believing Breonna Taylor would be dead right now had her boyfriend not opened fire, shooting one officer in the leg. It doesn’t make her death any less tragic, or wrong – she didn’t shoot at the cops. But someone in that house did, and a bad thing happened.

Let’s go upstream. Let’s not shoot at the cops.

In the wake of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, many are fearing that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, though if we were upstream thinkers, it wouldn’t be such a monumental event.

Abortions – and arguments over whether birth control should be subsidized – wouldn’t be much of a discussion if we thought upstream: “We’re not ready for a kid, let’s not have unprotected sex, or sex at all.”

It avoids unwanted pregnancies, and abstinence is the cheapest, most effective birth control I know. (Rape is a different case and should be treated as such)

Some upstream thinking is beginning to surface, in certain places, anyway. I’ve read a few stories about ridealongs with police officers increasing in number, showing the next generation what their job looks like – the challenges, the quick and difficult decisions that must be made. Empathy is being created.

Of course, elsewhere, downstream thinking reigns: the police are being defunded; masks are the answer to our waning public health, not exercise and eating healthy; many lament the possibility of Roe v. Wade being overturned rather than pushing a narrative of reducing promiscuity and, by extension, unwanted pregnancies.

You can pick virtually any issue, and you can see society – and the politicians who lead it – pushing for downstream solutions to upstream problems.

It’s the marshmallow test, repeated over and over and over again: Would you rather have one marshmallow now, or wait 15 minutes and have two later?

We go for the immediate one – then point fingers as to why, in 15 minutes, we’re craving another, while certain people have the privilege of two when we have none.

Can there be both upstream and downstream solutions to issues? Of course. In most cases, there must be. We can wear masks while still pushing for exercise and vegetables. We can fire and jail irresponsible police officers while devoting more time to training and public education on police relations.

We can rescue kids floating down a river while taking care of the bad guy upstream.