A Dancing Mind: DISTRACTION DIALOGUES topics as yet unspoken that hide between the lines...

HAPPY INTERDEPENCE DAY

2009-07-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

HAPPY INTERDEPENDENCE DAY....

It was not so long ago that our country came into being...And it seems time that we turn Independence Day into something like Interdependence Day, since well you know independence without connection is awfully lonely.

Independence is great, just as autonomy, the right to dignity and self-determination. But we only have it up to a point as we are all vulnerable, we need supports, sometimes even criticism...and we need empathy for our weaknesses so we can empathize with others around us.

This thing called ecology isn't really a joke or a quaint story about being green (even China knew to call their new anti-freedom computer kick the "Green" Dam Project. So just because it's in doesn't mean we should quaintify it---probably not a word but might make a good one.

So I nominate the thought that we consider Interdependence as American, not uniquely so as in God "bless" America, but big enough to share.

Hmm, are we old enough to share?

DID YOU EVER THINK WE COULD BE THE TORTURERS?

2009-05-29T18:16:00.000-07:00

DID YOU EVER THINK WE COULD BE THE TORTURERS?

THIS IS NOT THE HOLIDAY OF ATONEMENT FOR ANY RELIGION
AND JUST TODAY IN THE SALON THE WOMAN TALKED ABOUT SOMEONE PUSHING A PERSON FROM A BRIDGE IN CHINA
AND THE OTHER WOMAN SAID, "BUT ISN'T THAT MURDER AND ISN'T THAT WRONG?"
AND THE OTHER WOMAN REPLIED WITHOUT A BEAT, "BUT THERE WAS TRAFFIC"...
THAT 'S ENOUGH OF A REASON FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE CATHOLIC AND EVEN GO TO CHURCH...

DID YOU EVER THINK WE COULD BE THE TORTURERS?
DID YOU EVER THINK WE COULD BE IMMUNE TO CARING?
DO YOU THINK SO NOW, AND DO YOU THINK?

Vulnerability, Competition and Life...

2009-05-29T18:11:00.000-07:00

DISTRACTION TIMES

THERE WAS ALWAYS DISTRACTION
FROM RELIGION AND FEARS
AND RAGE, AND TEARS

BUT NOW IT'S SO BIG
IT'S ITS VERY OWN GIG

IT'S CONSTANT AND EASY
AND VERY VERY VERY SLEEZY

THE HOPELESS WILL DO ANYTHING BAD
THEY COMMIT CRIMES AND FORGET TO FEEL SAD

SAD MEANS SOME HOPE AND FEELING SO SAFE
AND I DON'T HAVE A RHYME SO THAT'S HOW IT ENDS....

It's My Birthday and I can Cry if I want to...or Laugh

2009-04-19T12:58:00.000-07:00

Hey there, it's been a long time, too long but I've been mad writing and writing and traveling to China and Santa Fe and writing and crying and laughing and a propos of laughing...

It may surprise some of you that I say "Without laughter it would all be impossible". I'm actually considering a comedy deal with a spoof on my very own profession and the impossible and often mean advice the psychobabbling gurus give to innocent people too vulnerable to say no.

A propos of vulnerability, I hope you know by now that for me it is our most valuable human resource....Happy Searching for yours, and for your tenderness and for your laughter.....

The Blame Game: Whose Fault is it Anyway?

2009-02-11T17:50:00.000-08:00

I am hoping that the country doesn't play the blame game but here goes what George Carlin said about cynics: For the most part they/we are disappointed idealists.

When I was in Italy many people--most who were beyond thrilled by Obama's election said--"Now let's see what he does", and I thought "You know it really doesn't matter, he's up against a great deal, Americans appreciate that".

But maybe not. I feel in my bones and intestines as well, that Barack Obama (he was inaugurated when I was in China; is he really President Obama?????)was and is as calculated a human being as one can be without being completely robotic. As such I trust he knew what he had to expect. He knew the short memory we as Americans have. Yes, he was given a horrendous legacy but day 1 of his Presidential term is day 1 of the opposition's chances for the next election.

So, yo', it's time for the stock market to plunge, the stock market Obama is trying to save and it's time to place blame.

If we stop, for more than minutes, we might have to look at a system of living which keeps each of us in anxiety about appearances, and lonely in our skin unless of course, we happen to believe in the certainty of all conditions in an afterlife which we are avidly awaiting.

Believe me, I saw plenty of brainwashing in China and it was scary but as the young South African man said to me in the programmed chic Propaganda Museum, "Who knows what and who are conditioning us at this very moment? We are all so gullible".

Freedom is something worked at...Iffor one wish Obama, Barack Obama, President Barack Obama the best of luck and the improbably good wishes of his countrymen and women. C'mon you guys, it's the least we can do.

Optimistically, and as the familiar (to me) Jewish joke says, "And who said it's easy to be an optimist?????????" Nite nite....

Dear Oprah

2009-01-10T12:04:00.000-08:00

Beginnings, 2009
Dear Oprah:

The last thing you may feel you need in these stressful days of your confession of the loss of control over your weight, might be a critique of the political implications of your actions. However you are both a public and a political figure, and you would be the first to agree that the personal is political and vice verse.
You present an array of complex difficulties which, sad to say, represent much of the American public.

Firstly your insistence on dwelling on your weight, has for years, been yet another distraction for a public that eats out of anxiety and that diets out of a compulsion for perfection. Real vulnerability has become a taboo, except within the newly sacred halls of rehab programs, and the openly publicized stays, at times recurring ones, of superstars. We have not yet tested out the impact of politicians in high office going into rehab while serving their term, only their significant others (Betty Ford being the most prominent that comes to mind).

You have become, for better and worse, an icon, someone to whom many look for advice, gossip and perhaps the feeding of national combinations of guilt, anxiety and the perennial quick fix. You have brought us guru after guru and the hunt is continuing. As such you bring us the cult of public humiliation in the form of psychologist or spiritual leader giving blithe, facile, and at times assaultive advice and always publically so.

We have become a nation of patriotic fervor in which defeat has become unthinkable, at least on a national level. Senator John McCain, who could well have won the recent Presidential election, maintained that in Iraq, our worst enemy would be defeat. In a society in which parents are constantly competing for the best behaved child who will make it into the neighborhood hall of fame and halls of superior university status, we lose sight of the dignity of human feeling. And in the fray of competition for best degree of acceptance comes conformity to whatever the guru of current priestly status (rabbis included).

The cloak of independence, freedom and individuality comes off quickly to reveal a sheep like readiness to sell one’s soul to the current fad. When you see an infant left crying for hours because it “works” we might consider asking some of the African women to whom we give financial aid to come here to help us know our own needs and those of our children.

This is not strictly a personal matter. When millions of people deny their inner feelings of vulnerability, empathy for ourselves is compromised as is empathy for anyone in our near vicinity. Yes, there are random acts of generosity, but they do not reflect the notion of “Love thy Neighbor as Thyself” in the sense that authentic dignity within us is constantly compromised and disowned.

We may be impulsive and indulgent but we do not take the time to chose interventions which reflect combinations of honesty and empathy, attention to what will work practically in the short run and practically in terms of the efficacy of human resilience.

World peace, world hunger, ecological emergencies cannot be solved without the establishment of what can be called--what I have chosen to call-- human ecology.
This would entail both a connectedness to all things and people on the planet, but in addition, a connection to all the varied parts within us. When we oversimplify ourselves, or oversimplify change, and when we publically or privately submit to the authority of those who have not been shown to know better than we, blindly, we give up our right to be respected based on our pace, and the details of our personal story.

Dear Oprah, you must know that you have done so very much with your life and overcome so many obstacles. But you are hearing rumblings from the world of your shadows, shadows we all have which are the parts of ourselves we tend to disown and deny and often project onto others. If you don’t get in touch with these, you will bow down to those who will play their games on and with you, as you show little respect for the privacy of your own dignity.

If the rest of us don’t find our own ways to seek care for the ailments within— which cannot be solved by pseudo-sage advice with the quickness of any sort of fix—our ode to freedom of choice, and our potential generosity towards our children and neighbors near or far, will remain dubious at best.

Take very good and gentle care, for your own worth and for those who wish you all the best....Please know that even for those of us who have felt you have too much power over literary and other tastes, I venture to say most of us appreciate your passions and the hurdles in your own existence.....All the best in the New Year.

TAKE A LOOK, GUARDATE, TAKE AH LOOK

2008-12-24T15:07:00.000-08:00

JUST AN INVITATION TO TAKE A LOOK ON www.dailykos.com to see my diaries. They are not secret diaries of all kinds of juicy stuff, but hopefully will give some juice to your own thoughts and spirits...so Welcome!

Christmas, Chanukah, the feelings inside waiting for a safe birth

2008-12-24T14:06:00.000-08:00

There is no magic moment for something inside to be born. It's not even a matter of that, but rather for all that is within to feel safe enough so it can be tamed, and then expressed and known as much as possible.

And then we might awaken from our slumber and haze that block out what might be new for us, what is waiting to be discovered.

There is much on the agenda: Why are schools so boring?; Why does Whole Foods collect money for Rwanda and not the Congo or Zimbabwe or New York or Mississippi?; Why are we not discussing racism and how it is a river that still runs through our country?

Why are we not discussing global warming like it matters? And why and why and why? Even the right to ask why out loud has become so quieted in our gratitude for the election of Obama (of course, that would be about some of us) that we dare not bring up the stuff of what he did not dare bring up, the stuff that would have gotten him out before he got in?

Maybe a toast to the birth of the awareness of connection between what is going on inside and outside...If we own and honor the dark and light within, with some help, we might begin to see the connections between poverty and middle class well being....we might begin to think about letting our children think and then education might become exciting...
But if it did, it would make us question our values, why we are doing what we are doing...Perhaps it's too complicated for Christmas Eve...but if you think about the interconnectedness of all things, it is merely part of the day and the night....

Amen in whatever way makes sense to you....

WELCOME TO THE SHADOWS

2008-11-16T16:39:00.000-08:00

WHY NOT START WITH A DEEP PURPLE? THIS IS about the SHADOW, THE CRUX OF ALL THAT MATTERS, THE CRUX OF WHETHER WE WILL ORGANIZE ENOUGH CONSCIOUSNESS TO STUDY OUR INNER LIVES AND HOW WE USE THOSE PARTS TO DEAL WITH ALL THE REST.

OKAY...The "shadow" is a term coined by the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. It refers to the parts within ourselves which we experience as uncomfortable. More than uncomfortable, we often find them unacceptable. The self described peaceful religious meek person, for example, might find inner (or outer) anger unthinkable, even outside possible consideration. Always there are exceptions as when generally empathic people had no problems with American torture in Guantamo. Here again the shadow rears its head as those in Guantanamo, could be "terrorists" and even without proof, became in the mind of many less than human.

The more aggressive cowboy types might find real fear and vulnerability unthinkable. (Notice the notable exception as in rehab or church the same people have no problem with complete surrender) As such we have different but broad tendencies towards ejecting--denying--and projecting those defined weaknesses, ugliness, aspects that seem unacceptable to one's conscious mind.

Nothing about this is new in and of itself; Jung's general interest was about psychological health including an integration of all our sides. What is new, perhaps, is how unpopular this notion, has been in our daily lives. And in addition it has been rare for us to look for the shadow sides in our leaders or in their positions, and certainly religion in general has not been open to study in this regard.

Getting back to Jung, his relevancy couldn't be more compelling. Jung's concern of urgency, stated forcefully in his 1957 book The Undiscovered Self, was that the unintegrated shadow would definitely spell the end of our planet, since it would only intensify the tendency for people to demonize those who own emotions untolerated from within. We already seen many religions be fanatically hateful, judgmental to their own who break the impossible commandmentws of most religions, and threatening over the ages and today, to destroy those who threaten one's (or one's group or nation) sense of superiority. It was already a given, in 1957 that nuclear weapons could express the undigested darker sides of destruction; now we have the additions of environmental dangers, genocide and terrorism.

If one doesn't know a part of himself/herself, it is all the harder to tame that part. As such there are sudden explosions in apparently calm polite people. In the most extreme forms, we find generally respected and respectable people degraded and degrading others, the most recent examples in the Holocaust. However even here we have found Americans who claim patriotism an excuse for widely used torture by American military, in Guantanamo. People who usually don't do bad things can shift, gradually or not, to prejudice which justifies vicious and sadistic behavior which can be rationalized by keeping one's distance from the human aspect of another. In other words, "Of course I hate torture but if it's about terrorists, who cares?"

Once we see behavior as horrific, we tend to judge it, find it repulsive and swear it can never be repeated by any of us, even when we know that victims of torture or abuse tend to repeat the abuse. Most, if not all perpetrators, were once victims. But aside from that Jung said we are all potential criminals, and that we need to process our history as part of nations who have indulged in colonialism and slavery for two.

The promise of the shadow is that it allows us humanity, and love for as he said, perfect people don't need love for they are without need.

I want to devote some energy to promote integrating these insights into a framework for looking at, not only psychotherapy, but also our political lives and global concerns.

I have recently thought a great deal about human ecology, for which my definition includes a connectedness of all beings and things and a connection to all parts of ourselves. If our inner lives are too ugly, how can we get to know those outside us, or the more difficult problems on the earth. We can find the cause du jour and join George Clooney (don't get me wrong, I love George Clooney) in Darfur and then the Sudan wins out over the Congo which has the same and simultaneous genocide and few talk about studying the causes of genocide.

And then there is domestic poverty which is avoided because we judge those less fortunate than us as lazy while those in expensive rehabs are applauded by the 12 Steps that elevate those who admit a lack of control over their own lives. With the right social status and the right addictions, it's all okay and it's all hypocracy.

The point is not to be holier than thou, or to show disdain even for hypocracy....I've been part of it, and he/she who has none, would be above all of us.

I very much love the fact that Barack Obama is our President. I am greatly relieved that the forces of rumor and hate did not win out. But I hope this poses a beginning for our willingness to look within, on personal and national and international levels.

I hope I'm not alone in this one...because it could be about salvation without divine intervention or worship. I hope some will sign up for this work; it is not as exciting as a Presidential campaign but it can't be less important.

Let me just add, not in any way part of a commercial plea, that shadow work can be full or humor as we own up to our lapses in judgment, all the times we started to say one thing and lost touch with our own language, and looking at our flaws with less defense...(Confession, I cannot always sustain humor when the butt of it is me).

For my close people and the rest who wonder why I go on and on about the Shadow I hope it's starting to make a bit of sense....

And in the spirit of rising to the occasion of our lives on this planet and in this nation of America, which would have to include awareness and processing of the difficult parts of our history, which include a past of ownerwship, slavery and abuse of Native Americans, I hope to embrace the good, bad and ugly to have a happy Thanksgiving....
You know ---ecology---it's about connecting to everything....

Man oh Man, what a ride!

2008-11-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

I Hope We Can

It's been awhile, much hope and worry about whether hope and faith---in the most non-sectarian of ways--would win out over rumors. (I am in fact referring to the recent election--wow was it just this very same week!) I want to tell you about another web site. www.thebodypolitic.com that seems cool and its owner was kind enough to publish my piece "The Good Jew", written just before the Jewish holidays.

I am working at helping a shift towards sensitivity as a practical resource which needs to be spotted, protected, and defended.

It's stupid, shameful really to see how we have been seduced to forgetting so much of what we learned about development, you know like that empathy leads to empathy....

But as I write the word "stupid" I mean to say I like the word, I think we need to admit not knowing, being clumsy, forgetting, all the rest....Take good care till soon, Carol

Sarah at the Helm, Calling Marge

2008-10-02T19:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's true, I'm taking the comic route since I am deadly afraid of the fact that after watching the real (I'm just supposing) Sarah Palin with the very real Katie Couric, the former is addressing the nation as she tries to verbally and through intensive rehearsal if not a brain chip addition, whip her Vice Presidential opponent, Joe Bidon.

As I watched her spirited away by Katie Couric's keen intellect and professional presence, I could only wonder what would happen if we went for Marge, the fictional but perhaps viable character from the movie "Fargo" to come into government to either replace or complement Sarah. I think Marge would be perhaps as good and for those who are Fargo fans, Marge did a fair amount of quick problem solving even if her talking was real slow.

Can one call upon a fictional character to run for office? This here is not as silly a question as it might seem, don't ya know. What with all the tricks of Hollywood and politics, what would the difference really be? I suppose another way of putting the question might be: Is Sarah Palin actually real, or is she from some as yet unreleased movie?

I think I'm getting to a wish that this was a dream; it's too crazy to be true. And don't go on telling me that truth is stranger than fiction. And I mean that what she (Sarah Palin) is saying doesn't seem so much like fiction as does Sarah Palin the person seem like a fictional character.

Okay, I heard from my husband that Sarah Palin winked twice during the debate. She winked, and that's what women have been working for, right?

Please tell me it's a nightmare...Okay I know it's a nightmare but tell me it's not a real life one....

Okay we'll deal in the morning...if I can sleep....

CAN WE TALK FEELINGS ABOUT RACISM? AND PATRIOTISM?

2008-09-21T11:39:00.001-07:00

So I was in the parking lot of a local diner and a truck was parked right in the middle of the lot. It had a big American flag on it, and the big bold scary words "LOVE IT OR GET THE HELL OUT".

I am realizing that when people are congested and clogged emotionally, information isn't really going to mean much. I have also been shocked, even unexpectedly, by the meanness of so many comments in my neck of the woods, which is not really known to be redneck perse'.

It's a no-brainer, requiring little thought and little or no reservation of people blurting out statements like, "Obama, don't you think he'll cause a revolution in Africa?", "He's a Hussein!", "He told 39 lies!" Really? Amazing this stuff, and for me, what is coming through is also that as a Jew I am particularly mortified by the lack of concern on the part of so many of the book banning and scornful attitude of Madame Pailin (sorry, Dudette Pailin) about the obvious silliness of cleaning up our environment and such.

Foaming at the mouth won't help, or will it? Better that we start talking on emotional levels about why we think or hate or fear the way we do. Emotional honesty might be a start here.

The National Guard Goes to the Movies

2008-09-06T03:59:00.000-07:00

The National Guard Goes to the Movies

This title is not from a new children's book or a South Park episonde. It is about their visit in amazing mixtures of sounds and team bravado, and smiling little Arab (Iraqi?) children who greet the Americans with gratitude, after seconds of fright.

It was an amazing contrast between the film we were about to see. The film was "Elegy", written by Nicholas Meyer and directed by Isabel Coixet, with Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz, Dennis Hopper, Patricia Clarkson and others. It is a sensual and sad and moving film. "Elegy" is reflective, and at times brutally honest and surprising; at others it's romantically photographed and acted to the sounds of classical music or no music whatsoever.

The National Guard left just in time, the tone of its commercial being filled with sounds of rock, and the beat of insistent pictures of our heroes who come to kick a soccer ball to a scared little boy who is clearly Arab, so he can smile. It is the old military giving out candy to children and freeing the world.

Of course it's the Guard of today, but it's about yesterday and about nostalgia. And it is mainly about drilling into the heads of the less than convinced and feeding the adrenalin of those already there, that if there's one thing about Americans, we fight to win, and to accept defeat is to die, and worse.
The rhyming has an end in sight but it what I woke up with today.

We Fight to Win (We will never be defeated)

We are Americans, say it again,
And Americans fight and fight and fight,
We fight because God says we're right
We fight where we are needed

Our motto is, bring freedom home
And we can never ever accept defeat
We give and give and give and give
And we will never be defeated

And if we find the war is wrong
Why we can never be defeated
And if we see the war is wrong, why
We can never be defeated

We learn at school to win and lose
And we can never be defeated
To share and pray and love our neighbor
And we will never be defeated

We use our words and not our fists
And we will never be defeated
Until the day our boys enlist
And we can never be defeated.

When we're at war we have to win
Accept defeat and you will sin
Accept defeat and you will lose
All the freedom we can choose
Accept defeat and you will meet
The enemy here upon our streets
Everything from church forget
Everything from school upset
Accept defeat we can't come back
We see the world in white and black
We want a President who knows to fight
And fight way after dawn's early light
We call this patriotism strong out proud
Where doubters are betrayers wowed
By propaganda from enemy lines
Elect the fighter, ignore the whines
The weak or those who cry and cry
They cry for peace but will not die
Like us who proud and wowed and strong, sing
We shall never be defeated

A Distraction Monologue, Dialogue, kind of Poetry in the Motion of Sadness

2008-09-04T11:41:00.000-07:00

Distraction Dialogues can here be the beginning of a hoped for dialogue....
Sometimes it's the only way to start one, and the answers can respect the dialogue but keep it going with a hint of presence or objection, but some kind of accessibility.
It is very hard to think of people listening to everything and only staying suspicious of anything that might imply the need for us to look at ourselves, as perpetrators or as bystanders. Do you know that most Jews of my generation looked at every German and thought or said, "What did you do in the War?", meaning World War II, or the question would be What did your father or your grandfather do or have you paid enough? It's an unfair question since it's not only what they did but what they didn't do, if they stood and observed or fooled themselves into thinking there was no such thing as ecology, as human ecology. Into fooling themselves as we are fooling ourselves that American actions in far away lands don't affect us, better just believe the stongest face of stone and false security...Better believe the one who makes us doubt and fear any signals of non-believing....And better never ponder the evil, the potential evil that lies within us all, and how when it goes untamed, stuffed into the shadows, it will harm us all more than words can say....Distraction as stuffing our difficult parts into the shadows of the basements of our lives and daring to think they won't matter or come back to haunt us....

Distraction Dialogues
The color of love is not vanilla unless, of course, you love vanilla.
Unless someone from above says vanilla is love, and then
We pray...we believe, we hide chocolate up our sleeve

Torture could not be done by Americans ever, never ever.
So elect someone who smiles and speaks with words of style that
Convince you

And do not read the news that might just give you some clues because they give you too much blues and besides
It's just propaganda

Just because we don't see or hear something doesn't mean it's not there.
But if the power says it's so, it's so hard to know, no power to say no
It's too embarrassing.

There is no freedom without responsibility.
I have to not hate the people who rate
the bullies by their bragging, with their minds closed and sagging
It can be so lonely

Unless we know the enemies within us, we won't recognize or be able to fight those outside.
Beware the innocent because their clothing is of sheep, they dare to make no peep about the evil in their sleep
That hides in the daylight

Distraction, at its worst freezes our minds, our intition has blinds
we moan into a zone where questions just postpone
Vanilla

Words used to confuse are using what's left of our minds to consider that one can deal with evil by "defeating it", just like Nike.

Sometimes, I feel like I am dialing 911 and no one is responding.
I study distraction and know the affliction is mine as well.

LAUNCHING THE NEW PROGRAM "FREEDOM CORPS" WELCOME PATRIOTS

2008-08-31T21:41:00.000-07:00

ATTENTION LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, BOYS AND GIRLS AND SINNERS AND PREACHERS: THE FOLLOWING REPRESENTS MY FANTASY SOLUTION TO A CRISIS OF CARING, MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND ITS HUMAN PRICE, THE NOTION THAT TORTURE AND LACK OF INFORMATION ARE NOT COST-EFFECTIVE AND REPRESENT A SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC EMERGENCY....

It's not particularly strange to hear from Democrats these days, that the Iraq war is costing way too much, and that with all the money going there we could be fighting global warming and building new schools., and on and on. Of course it't not right, soldiers are being killed and maimed and ....on and on again.

And just wait till the Republicans start with their Marlboro Man image so thick it's sickening, going on about their patriotism and the chickens and traitors who dare insinuate there should be freedom of speech and a right to information. Preposterous, they will say, what's this nonsense about free speech and a free country, stop your whining, ya hear...and anyway shut up and vote for the lady, none of this torture talk, it's not good for our reputation....

What is the cost analysis on that one? How much does rehabilitation of knowing what freedom is and about rights to information, cost exactly? And what would happened if we started, like now?

OKAY, THEN, LET'S GET STARTED WITH THIS CAMPAIGN!

Do you think if our government is denying us the truth, hyping us up with fear

and wild tales about who has weapons and who doesn't and where the Taliban has gone now, that perhaps they are the ones bullying us, perhaps being disloyal to the principle of free speech based on facts ?

If this is the case and I think it is, they are in really bad need of a therapeutic endeavor fused with team mentoring. The cost of the mentoring can be cut down if it is performed and run by kids, students and nonstudents alike. It would probably work better that way since most kids have at least some of their spunk and curiosity in tact; besides they often love to put bullying adults in their place and don't get the chance often enough.

Sorry to say this mentoring program will cost a lot of money but it may be worth it if truth becomes more popular. In the meantime remember these guys (you know, our present "leaders") have some serious problems; they've been lying a lot for a long time and they probably have a guilty conscience even if they act tough.

SOME THINGS TO REMEMBER:
If they bully you, you don't have to anser back; better leave them hanging in their own worries so they start to feel something.

It's very important in any dealings with bullies to remember: they are bullies. Just because a bully talks louder and faster than you and acts big and bad, you know...like a bully, doesn't mean he/she's right.

These guys may say you're a traitor for wanting the truth. Remember: they are traitors and sinners for lying and trying to keep the truth away from you.

You can always tell them you have the right to the facts, to free speech, and you can always remind them that this is a free country. Remind them you're in America.

After all the lying they've done, they are very very confused. PLEASE REMEMBER THAT PEOPLE WHO LIE FOR LENGTHS OF TIME WITHOUT STOPPING, ARE KNOWN AS LIARS. You don't have to call them liars because at first they might get defensive. They tend to be tough on the outside and mush on the inside. GOOD LUCK!

IMPORTANT ADVICE FOR COLLEGE APPLICANTS: REHABILITATION OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO ARE CAUGHT IN WEBS OF LIES AND OBSTRUCTING JUSTICE BY DEPRIVING THE PUBLIC OF THE TRUTH, ARE CONCEIVABLY PUNISHABLE BY LAW. SINCE THAT HASN'T BEEN IN VOGUE, WE ARE GIVING YOU A CHANCE TO GET SUBSTANTIAL REDUCTIONS ON YOUR COLLEGE FEES OR ANY TRAINING OF YOUR CHOICE SHOULD YOU PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROGRAM.
GOOD LUCK, PATRIOTS!

Thank you, Bill Maher, for your "REAL" ity re: John Edwards

2008-08-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Happy Early Morning Labor Day, time to be-LABOR a crucial point. I already wrote a personal communication on the blog a couple of spaces down, but I'd like to thank Bill Maher whose comments on John Edwards revealed more political sanity than I've heard ANYWHERE for a long time.

Bill Maher said it's a pity that because John Edwards did the popular thing in Washington and had an affair and then the unpopular thing by getting caught, Senator Edwards and the country have been sadly and pathetically punished by his non-presence at the Democratic Convention.

John Edwards was in fact my favorite candidate because, as I've stated before, he seemed the only one among members of any party, to appreciate issues of really poor people whether or not they had jobs or kids on their way to college. Bill Maher said he was the first politician since Bobby Kennedy to exhibit such passionate concern; I would agree. I hope I'm quoting him correctly and assume he wouldn't find fault with a minor error. He (Bill Maher that is) said: "THE DEMOCRATS ARE SO FRIGHTENED OF BEING THE ADULTERY PARTY, THAT THEY MISSED YET ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY TO BE THE ADULT PARTY."

Bill, Sir! Thanks for the smart humor, and sensitivity.... Please moderate a debate...if they're not to scared to invite you.

PS I know there are people criticizing you for talking out of both sides of your mouth, supporting the Democratic ticket and then criticizing them, wanting more from them. But they are wrong...It's your job, as it is ours, to want more. And there is time left, at least conceivable, for our voices to be heard....I said "conceivably........"

So Many Reasons to Tell the Truth

2008-08-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

There are so many reasons we need the truth--to save the beauty to which we are exposed when we are lucky, to romp in the nature that can at times be our friend, to refresh our spirits that are more tired of the lies than we know

We need the truth as we do oxygen, as the plants need water and the climate needs protection.

We need a climate in which the truth is safe
In which the truth can be made safe since we
Will be able to create the structures we need

Because there is so much that we know
And so much we can learn
From science, from our hearts, from the beatings of the hearts, of nature and each other...

DEAR JOHN EDWARDS, CAN WE TALK?

2008-08-31T05:33:00.000-07:00

Good Morning, Sir.
I come to speak to you in a public forum as a clinical practioner of psychotherapy and as a person, you know a human being with flaws like all of us.

I hate (am I breaking a Commandment already?) the political forces that have driven you into shame and hiding for their own selfish and personal whims, no doubt. I also hate the fact that you and so many others have belonged to the belief that all of a politician's life should or could be put on a table for dissection. In the same vein of hate, I also hate the hyper -religiously framed hypocricy by which Christianity in particular is used as a spear to maim the chances of people like yourself who have had something so special to offer.

I started my career doing strictly social work and I cherished your being the first candidate in so very long to talk about class inequality and "One America". We needed you then and still do.

I hope you resolve your issues with your wife and understand that perhaps in an atmosphere where human flaws are hidden, there is little room for the honesty that might stop a dependency on sneaking. But I know nothing and don't judge. Whatever you did is not part of the grounds for crucifiction or excommunication from the human community.

You had to stay away from the Convention in which the pledge of allegiance to the white bread--very stale may I add--of moral self-righteousness hits the ceiling and beyond.

I hope I have not offended you. I know you have claimed to be a deeply religious man. I hope that you deal with your issues with self-respect and not merely through a repentence and self-loathing that almost guarantee another escapade. Unless of course the lady is the one you love, but I know too much about love addiction to think that is the case in the light of day.

I wish you luck, and hope to see your face and hear your words soon enough. Pleases learn from Chelsea Clinton, and repeat slowly with head held high,
" IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS" You may be surprised to find a group of grateful supporters who defend privacy as being as sacred as anything else. YOU DIDN'T COMMIT TREASON: YOU EMBARRASSED YOUR PARTY IN ONE OF THE MOST BRUTALLY HYPER-MORALISTIC HYPOCRITICAL TIMES IN HISTORY.

I wish you and your wife and all your supporters and friends well. I hope that if you have lost yourself respect you quickly regain it. It goes something like this, right: "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone". That was Jesus, yes? I hope these words give you comfort.

Dear Hillary, why I miss you...

2008-08-31T05:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Hillary,
I am writing to tell you how I am missing you and that I'm sorry I never got to know you. I think you made some serious errors and I need to mention them first. You campaigned on more experience and on being the safer bet in case of an emergency. And of course NOW took up your candidacy like a hammer and evoked the resentment of women like me whom they said would be traitors if we didn't vote for you. You know that kind of thing can incite oppositionalism even in the best of us.

You said he didn't have the experience and you did. But the human part didn't come through enough, only the competetive part. You didn't show us the clips of you in the years you made deep personal contact with those for whom you fought. I apologize for my own distractin--exactly the theme on which I am writing--and for my being sucked in to the hole into which you were placed, and from which it was hard for you to emerge.

You brought one specific thing to the campaign which perhaps would not be your favorite subject but added in any case, to your being less than avidly excessive in your moral/religious superiority. You, as your daughter Chelsea, as well as your husband, President Bill Clinton, had been through a personal tragedy in the arena of sex and the city and sex and the President. While most of us now know that JFK (whom many of us will never stop idealizing), ran a constant stream of flesh back and forth to the White House, the press wasn't of that mind then, to persecute a President for anything other than lies or acts of treason. Helen Thomas, the acclaimed journalist and member of the White House Press Corps for 40 years, talked, when she did her HBO documentary (and her wonderful 2006 book Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and how it has Failed the Public) about this change of climate from which you and your family suffered.

But you, unlike many others, did learn to tell people when it's none of their business, and you helped your daughter do the same or perhaps she helped you or perhaps you helped each other. You set an invaluable example regarding the dignity of our personal lives, histories and actions. You do and did us a favor with your integrity at a time when candidates answer to anything and the words "It's none of your business" are usually considered impossibly politically correct. Witness the cruel annihilation of reputation of John Edwards, about whom I'll speak shortly.

Best of luck and hope to meet you in person, and to see and feel your strength and presence on the political scene and horizon. We need you, we need your spunk. We need to be refreshed--not by the self-mockery that late night hosts and Maureen Dowd have been craving--but of simple forthrightness, even when it's a one word answer that you give.

Thank you and Happy Labor Day Weekend.

MUSH OVER MATTER AND PERFORMING MONKEYS

2008-08-31T04:44:00.000-07:00

I'm just sharing the fantasy of running for President. Hey...you never know.

I'm just saying...I wouldn't make anyone wait to announce my Vice Presidential candidate; I would do so immediately. Suspense is not necessary here, so let me be perfectly clear that I would choose Chelsea Clinton as Vice President, because I feel she has real integrity and in additon she has had the capability to utter the precious words: "It's none of your business".

Y'all may like these speeches in which every fact of a personal tragedy or the benediction of the perfect American life as well as a perfect history ("perfect" has to include hardships, some poverty, some OVERCOMING to prove one's character). It's "mush over matter", culminated by perfect background music while the sentimental reaches the level of my own inner screams but the apparent luxuriating in tears for most in the audience.

Don't get me wrong, my vote is with Obama, and it has been almost all along. However I feel nostalgia for Hillary Clinton, and I'll let you know why soon.

For now let me just see that this is not editing out the freedom of speech. It's rather making speeches more factual and open to question, and it's about quitting the moral superiority refrain. I would like to see an atheist or at least an agnostic who stops talking about God, as if He/She exists, and as if there is only one, and as if we are not witnessing the heating up of the globe and the Apocalypse fans right here at home let alone abroad.

I'm using this as my personal political Craig's List: I am available for editing but flowers are not my specialty. There's a lot to cry about other than the prolonged personal tragedies of one man's life. And DAMMIT, WHAT ABOUT THOSE POOR KIDS???? CAN YOU IMAGINE IF ONE OF THEM MESSES UP AND THE WOULD BE PRESIDENT CAN'T SAY, " LOOKEE HERE NOW, LOOK AT THIS SPECIMEN I PRODUCED" INSTEAD OF "Well my kid's on crack but we're doing the best we can, after all folks there but for fortune go...you know you and I".

And just what about biology and luck? Not everyone is born equal either...Setting up kids to be performing monkeys so they can be shown off perennially by parents who need them to function magnificently is an abuse of a chid's privacy and right to develop in his own time/rhythms. We are not making space for kids who are cranky or gawky or even autistic--one never knows. These kids are not poster children, or wait...they are...

The Sanity of the Next President

2008-08-24T11:31:00.000-07:00

THE SANITY OF THE NEXT PRESIDENT, WHAT A CONCEPT....

What follows is a concern made even greater by the upcoming extravaganzas of the Democratic and GOP Conventions, where spectacle, adrenalin and showmanship (showpersonship?) may become too distracting for consideration of the issue of sanity of the next President, and perhaps too distracting for words. Here goes:

It is not news for anyone to express concerns about the mental stability of Senator John McCain. I confess sharing this worry, a worry made greater by the awareness of how many Americans perceive him to be the more reliable candidate in terms of national safety and defense. I was spurred to write this now after reading the provocative front page piece in August 10th’s Sunday’s New York Times, by Adam Nagourney and Jim Rutenberg, entitled “Embracing a Free-Form Style, McCain Leads a Camp Divided”.

Nagourney and Rutenberg begin their article with the words: “Senator John McCain is so quick to pick up his gold-colored cellphone to solicit advice—from senators, campaign consultants, even the stray former deputy press secretary—that aides, concerned about his tendency to adopt the last opinion he has, have tried to cut back on the time he has to make calls.” Consider, please, whether the last sentence might be more than a bit frightening.

Since I have devoted this blog to including the stuff between the lines that often goes unsaid, I am putting some imaginings together about a possible future President that needs his aides to hold back a cell phone from him. Hum, let’s see, can you imagine “President” McCain on one of the very big life or death phone calls from a foreign chief of state in one of those global life or death decisions? As he keeps his options open while consulting with present and former aides, his current most intimate assistants are counting the seconds of the call. They might even have to resort to a double, not double talking, but an impersonator in voice only. How about that for bizarre?

While many of us have seen President George W. Bush as surrounded in his own bubble by insidious liars and other officials who have seduced him into believing the sanity of his adventures, misadventures, torture and alienation of much of the world in his very own romp in Iraq and elsewhere, we now have a candidate who is purposefully duping us. He is parading as the soundest and most experienced, the safer of the two candidates, in peace or war. He is touting his heroism as one who was tortured while he undoubtedly agrees with the present Administration that Iraqi soldiers who have been torture victims have not been tortured but rather abused and that they are not soldiers but rather detainees. Someone should ask him soon about his take on this, while he still has a cell phone.

McCain poses a national (and international) threat, not because he changes his mind. Actually thinking about something and having a change of heart or waiting seconds rather than issuing a pat answer, would be most refreshing if one’s finger is not on a nuclear reactor’s button. Besides we could use flexibility of opinion after years of hearing the predictable twists of the predictable responses calculated to arouse fear and terror in our hearts and minds (if it gets that far) after more and more military engagement in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and oops Georgia! However the shift would need to imply and require something akin to thought as opposed to mere impulse.

McCain is the bad ass who embraced more torture than he had to endure and he is capitalizing on the patriotic frenzy during which many Americans have had to display flags to remember where they live, and to announce to all their undying (and perhaps dying) love for their country. As a non-Christian (I swear I pray to Jesus anyway!) I too have heard the phrase “Love thy Neighbor as Thyself”, also attributed to the great Jewish philosopher Hillel. Whoever spoke it first, it’s common enough in our lexicon to arouse at least peripheral attention. And while there are egotists enough to fill many countries, there seem to be few people in the fight for victory of the Presidency who understand self-love as including self-protection and care.

I for one, would prefer that the world stays viable for awhile, that global warming be attended to immediately, that we not jump into wars anywhere because something heinous was committed by people not in the country we “invade” (sorry of the use of invasion rather than liberation, but it had to be done). I don’t think that jumping into burning flames and inflaming hatred deserves ribbons or medals, Olympic or otherwise, or elevation to even greater misuse of power.

As someone I love very much might say at this point: It’s still a free country isn’t it? It’s still okay to express the freedom of speech, right?

I’m exercising the right. I am worried; and I feel we all should be. This is not partisanship, it’s caring about ourselves and our lives and our children’s lives so we can care for others. It’s caring enough that the actions our country takes are based not on the gain of a few translated into jingoistic language that is contagious.

It’s caring that “peace is in danger of become a dirty word. And it’s caring about embracing the notion of evil as existing in all of us. Whether it’s “original sin” or the aggression that we watch on television or our fervor and vigor with which we hope to dash and defeat our opponents, it has to be known to be fought, known so it can be integrated.

McCain is dangerous precisely because he admits no weakness, no frailty and as such no humanity.

We think it is time for ???? to regain the regard of the rest of the world

2008-08-14T15:25:00.000-07:00

Like the optimist in the last entry, I know it's not easy to be optimistic and in fact my writing on distraction is teaching me so much about the nuances of unconscious motivations that keep us far away from the complex textures of a more complete reality about our insides and about the world outside.

But it is too hard to be so realistic all the time. And I take a break to scream, if only quietly since the same soothing and meaningful (to me) music is still playing.
DO WE SERIOUSLY THINK WE CAN TELL ANOTHER COUNTRY THEY'D BETTER REGAIN THE TRUST OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Talk about distraction and phantom configurations. Just today another person said the same thing. As representative of a Jewish organization he said we should all take a stand against Iran and put pressure on them so they can feel a responsibility to the international community. This seems to be a fashionable sentence structure because it's being used a lot by a lot of people.
So President Bush (he really is President, isn't he?) is telling Russia to leave Georgia alone, and I--the naive part of me under the sophistication, clinical and worldly knowledge--still can't believe this is happening. It's too surreal.

We are wanting to rescue poor Georgia from the Russians and I think:Wat would happen if they sent their Condolezza Rice to Iraq and started sending insurgents weapons, and told us we should try to gain the respect of the international community? Why is no one in America standing up and saying that we have little right to judge hardly anything since we are committing so much violence in Iraq, and more????? How is a candidate electable without these principles. And yes I will vote for the saner without being pleased that no one is daring to notice difficult truths out loud. Wait, I can send them "The Emperor's New Clothes". Maybe not such a good idea...I don't think they would get the connection between our heads of state and the Emperor.
A question: If President is naked and no one sees it, is he still naked? If we are collectively naked and we all stop noticing, hmmm....quieting the nerves....

Freud said that if we don't work through our history we will repeat it. He was a pretty smart guy, at least about some things...I think this was one of them....
We should be talking about this stuff more......

I Pledge Allegiance to the Fantasy of America

2008-08-14T15:09:00.000-07:00

I pledge allegiance to my integrity, when my mind is not clogged.

I pledge allegiance to love my children with all the integrity I can muster. My devotion to them, thank the heavens, surpasses my selfish needs and desires and jealousies and the more anxious needs to have them near. I know they have to fly and in ways they are not that far away.

I pledge allegiance to listening to the people most important to me who have stopped wanting to pledge absolute allegiance to anything or anyone, because one must have the right and even obligation to make judgments according to the truth of what is or what seems to be.

I hope there is a movement in this country that moves us towards more freedom of mind and spirit and the willingness to accept our connection to all manner of feelings, all shades and nuances of love and hate and indifference. I hope that we will accept the less than pretty sides of ourselves a bit at a time, so we don't have to be blind and closed and deaf when we confront the people who shall lead or be important in our lives--so we can see the whole of them and not just the parts that appeal or that scare us.

I hope that some people in the coming election will look for harder facts and softer hearts.

The music in the background is piano by Enaudi, an Italian composer and it is without the harsh edges that cover our political atmosphere of distraction and the appearance of pledging when there is not enough integrity with which to pledge.

I hope we are in time and I end this one with a quote from a familiar Jewish joke.."Three men sit at a cafe in Tel Aviv and one declares: 'I'm a pessimist.' The second seconds the emotion and the third declares:'I'm an optimist'. One of the other avowed pessimists asks, 'So tell me if you're an optimist why do you look so worried?' The man answers:
'YOU THINK IT'S EASY TO BE AN OPTIMIST???????????'"

Torture by Psychologists

2008-08-11T05:34:00.000-07:00

True, some of has have felt tortured by bad therapists, at times by psychologists, you know like in hard or in very bad psychotherapy.

This is a different kind of torture, the physical and the mental put together by a field which has sworn to help people. The American Psycholical Association is meeting this weekend in Boston and Stephen Soldz is forging the effort to have a rally. He (himself a psychologist and psychoanalyst) presented to the organization to try to get them to vote to disallow psychologists from participating in torture, with the military in particular but not only. The resolution did not pass. Questions, anyone?

In a day where it is more chic to talk about polar bears than people in some headquarters, and when we have the most brilliant and inspiring of conferences, it doesn't seem okay to me to ignore the fact that not only is there torture going on in the world, but we/we/we-- the American military, psychologists and all of us ignoring this-- (directly or indirectly) are committing torture. We are part of it.

I get into arguments about Darfur, not because I don't think it's important. I just think too many of us are too colonial in spirit and enjoy giving when it feels exotic.

When we are engaged in American acts of torture which are being given fairly little press, and being ignored for the most part, who are we to think of monitoring the world philanthropical causes? Just who do we think we are? It's okay to attend to Darfur, but not to ignore the aspects of Darfur which stain our own hands with the same kind of blood. Atrocity is atrocity, no?

Strolling through the Park one day....

2008-08-11T05:27:00.000-07:00

Somehow the music of "Strolling through the Park" seems to fit the McCain campaign. It has a whimsy and a lack of seriousness or consequence to it. It is an old fashioned meandering, dallying kind of a tune, with words like "the merry, merry month of May" in it.

It's like the inmates have taken over the institution and nobody notices. Or is it that he is the one inmate supposedly with enough experience of being tortured that he gets to change his time, his staff, his language and all over again till he is apologizing once a minute and his stuff is muffling his calls, and appparently trying to muzzle him.
This is not so good. Is anyone concerned that his manner is more like the song than like the Presidency? Ya know, besides the Obama people...

ADHD, Michael Phelps, and that which we all can offer

2008-08-11T05:11:00.000-07:00

So here is a typical story about a boy who fidgeted, couldn't concentrate or sit still and didn't do well in his studies. He was thought to be not very interesting by his teachers, it seems. His mother wanted to know what he could do, if he was bored. She was not only a teacher but a perseverer and she found some good people to help. It turns out that Michael, with his tall body and dangling arms, had a gift, and it was swimming.

I who have a softer kind of ADHD began swimming for the first time this summer in my seventh decade; ouch. I realized for the first time that I could keep my mouth closed until I was ready to open it to breathe, and that I didn't have to scramble for air as the air came out of my nose and mouth and not in. I respect the ease and concentration Michael must have had for so long, along with good coaching.

I'm happy for him, happy for anyone who takes away from this-- not the idea of a gold medal-- but of a potential symbolic medal of belonging to the human race with dignity, and potentially inventing a new thing, having a real gift, and having the space to contribute to the rest of us.
And of course we need so many more people willing to listen/to perceive without so much bias,people willing to look for the creative instead of closing doors to a real live person and all who care for that person.

Man, 2 gold medals, already!

GETTING A PEDICURE AND THINKING ABOUT CHINA

2008-08-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

Okay, it was also a manicure, quite delicious...

And the people--the women--were from Shanghai. And I spoke about the government in China. And one of them said something like "You'd be surprised. It's very hard there to have a free country. We have so many people, it's hard to organize things."

She made it clear that she wasn't all that interested in politics. And then I said something about here, how it's hard to have freedom since it takes work. She looked at me curiously but seemed to get it when I said people really need to think about things to make decisions. She seemed to understand the word "think". Hmmmm.....I'm thinking that you can't think if you can't reflect....Hmmm again...

"You Cheated, You lied...." And don't we all....

2008-08-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

So two things come to mind as the Sunday weather turns to clouds. Coming back from Italy, I was meandering in the chic organic supermarket nearby, with a headline that took me by surprise (not enough for me to buy the paper, yes!) The cover read, "I lied to you and I cheated", or was it "I cheated and I lied to you". The latter makes more sense since it drove my brain into the words and melody of the oldy but goody, "You cheated, You lied, you said that you loved me, You cheated, you lied, you said that you want me...Oh what can I do, etc" It's time for a comeback for the song, that seems a sure hit. Check it out...

And then there is our country, it's sexual hype mixed with all the prudity and prissiness, and how sad. John Edwards was my favorite candidate in the beginning of the race, though the sugar in the stories about the mines or farms and about how hard Daddy worked and all that, had started to get on my nerves.

But really is it not sad that an affair is not only everyone's business, but could ruin a man's candidacy. And not that lying is great, even though it's sometimes necessary, but the question is more: What kind of society are we in, that no one admits defeat, vulnerability, slips, ambivalence, lapses, great experiences on pot and more, and all kinds of juicy and lustful and mean thoughts, etc.

So how's about we're all taught to lie, in really big ways. The "great" American, who can admit no flaws, has to be a liar; even the people passing for honest can't possibly stand the impossible standards.

George Carlin, whom I miss, surprisingly for me, would have done the best routine on this one. My imagination tells me that he would do a great job of making fun of our hypocricy. He would have reminded us that these standards would take all the fun out of life: what with no wickedness of thought or deed, we would be so bored. He might have set us straight. But that's a dream too; we are among oh so many people who are so very precious and pure in their own minds and who stay full of themselves.

Back to the song, however--it's a great one, a least it seemed that way back then. As for John Edwards, I am going to talk directly to him for a moment: I wish, John, that you didn't have to work so hard to prove your purity, and even now that you have been humiliated by someone hired to do a job on you and the Democrats. I wish you could find the guy or woman and point to who really should be apologizing.

Spin doctors, you are all cheating, and have all cheated. And even if you stayed within the closets of your grandiosity, you are cheating us all by doing this creepy stuff of breaking a person's life, marriage, and all the chances of a life. And yo' this is so sick, that even the best of candidates have to say that they pray and to whom and how happy and perfect they are.

Okay, no preaching...I mean no more...later...

JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT WAS SAFE OR WHEN YOU KNEW IT WASN'T

2008-08-02T00:58:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought it was safe or knew it wasn't

All vacations are just that, vacations. So I have been thinking about coming back to the blog as an active decision. I have been writing madly and vacationing in Italy and dealing with issues of age and kids and separation, all stuff of life.

However, or within it all, there is a premise here that needs to be stated out loud. The blogs I have written have tended to be politically oriented. On my other site, www.growingreal.com the essays have more of a general flavor; however
TO MY MIND THIS IS A SERIOUS QUESTION FOR ALL OF US AND FOR PSYCHOTHERAPISTS AS WELL. I FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT THE POLITICAL NATURE OF LIFE, AND THAT WHETHER WE ARE INVOLVED IN THE POLITICAL ARENA OR NOT, WE ARE INVOLVED: THERE IS NO WAY OUT.

NOT TO DECIDE IS TO DECIDE. So I am saying that if this blog is to be authentic it has to include the connection between the personal and political.

From time to time there will be op ed pieces, either designed for right here or originally aimed at the higher powers of big newspapers such as the New York Times. I welcome your input since I have come to feel dialogue is crucial for small or bigger amounts of progress anywhere. It is only dialogue if it doesn't come with character assassination for then it is assault only.

It will come as no surprise that the major focal point will involve the subject of distraction, which I have come to see as the most insidious and creepy and impossibly dangerous plague of our time. I have never claimed to have discovered it or that it is new or even all bad: in fact some of it is the grander work of creation and play which often come as oxygen. It is just that as of now, what with global warming, nuclear weapons, terrorists (within and without) etc, attention away from information towards manipulation of our senses as well as our own avoidance, have become too dangerous.

Parents often want immediate results rather than the cozy developmental orientation of trial and error, empathy and learning from experience and connection. There is peer pressure everwhere, so that it becomes hard to examine whether education bores or inspires, and we have been so overwhelmed in our own lives that there is not that much thought to major institutions such as education.

So onward....and as I have learned "Without laughter it would all be unbearable". It is just that I feel as in "Turn, turn, turn" that laughter when in the midst of tragedy is a tad distracting, if it turns our attention away from saving our lives on the planet.

And if attention comes in the form of humor, so be it. A friend in Italy said yesterday something like "You know, there are so many lies and so much of what we all say are lies, because it is all so subjective. However maybe it's good to look for the pieces of truth within the lies. We might learn alot".

So this is a blog in the spirit of taking the bits of flavor or sense or life that make sense, rather than to carelessly dismiss a potential addition. I've said this before, but I'd love to have comments from younger people whose outlook--angry or not--is often fresh and less tarnished by accomodation.

Ciao...for now, Carol

What in the name of God? Oops, another Distraction

2008-05-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

What in the name of God/ Everything you do transforms you in some way
The sermon this Saturday/Sunday/mid-week is a fantasy one, so be prepared.
I am exercising my freedom of worship, which I take to be a freedom not to worship, a freedom to think as best I can....
Of course I have not yet been hired to give a sermon but for now it would go something like this.
I believe that what we do can change us, and for those of us aware of our frailties much of the time we can learn from our own mistakes.

So some of you know I am Jewish and I take this fact very seriously, seriously enough to know that my intestinal tract is full of Jewish humor, guilt, legends and perhaps even now food or certainly recipes and memories. And even the religious part is a key to understanding who I am, since going to religious training was one of my favorite parts of life. I confess wanting to be Kosher at 12, and if my parents had agreed, I probably would have become Orthodox. That gives you some accent of what the mood in the "home" was, that it felt sane more than any other place, that is being in the synagogue. There was predictability, singing and sometimes food and I was good in languages.

So cutting to the chase, what is this meshugah stuff about Israel taking and welcoming money from raging evangelical Christians who are chomping at the bit for their big day to come, when the Jews are all set as in charge of the Middle East, when Jesus can come (that would be Come) and give the Jews a minute or so to decide upon converting, and then poof! gone are the Jews! Caput with one fell swoop and the believers are prancing and dancing with Jesus forevermore...

I don't understand why some Jews to whom I've spoken of this have shrugged their shoulders and actually said, "So what? We don't believe in that stuff anyway, so why not just take their money?"
Seriously is anyone talking out this madness for real...not only that Israel is accepting so much money (here go the money jokes) from people who want to kill them or convert them--the idea being that giving oneself over to Jesus, going into that sort of "recovery" is really the only way to survival at all. That's it folks; all that Hebrew singing and dancing and yarmulkes in our churches was so much fun but we were only kidding...we just wanted you guys for the biggest celebration/massacre of all.

The sermon is brief; it just has the words: Has anybody thought about the consequences of what we do; has anybody thought about how we are changed for everything we do. Has anybody thought about the idea that everytime we do something with coldness and without empathy and with malice and lies, we help the world become a colder place, and our children and ourselves less caring and more detached.
Life could be a greener one, in the sense of experiencing our connection to each other and to everything on the planet even if there are vast differences. It could be about knowing our demons so we don't hide from them and become presumptious seekers falsely entitled to domination.

The sermon would probably stop around here and then the park or whatever setting might be filled--remember for now it's my fantasy and I can cry if I want to--with some music of Tracy Chapman, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Rufus Wainwright...I am open to the muscial additions and of course to the refreshments...but just for a minute Let us pray in whatever language of thought or mindfulness or meditation, that we are not stuck in this dark place where God is a distraction from humanity and caring and work to make ourselves more present in our universe.
Personally I don't know what I think of the God dilemma...but I cannot conceive of any exclusive God, and certainly not one that would kill all the nonbelievers. I do know I feel it is sacred for all those who disbelieve, or who believe in any one thing to be able to share without conquest or superiority.
If you think about taking all the people who don't surrender to Jesus and killing them, doesn't it sound a little like the Holocaust?...Scary stuff...and it's scary to know that if I were running for President the last line would probably ruin me...Ah well, one job option closed.

I will go back to the wisdom and comfort of music which seems to reach someplace deep...is it a soul and does it matter?

Careless Thought: A Mothers Day Visit with "The Visitor"

2008-05-11T19:28:00.000-07:00

Careless Thought: A Mothers’ Day Visit to “The Visitor”

So today has been Mothers Day all day, and I take it to mean a celebration of all people since we all come from mothers in some shape and form and we all are trying to parent ourselves if not children per se.

And it was a day to see the film “The Visitor”, to truly visit with a transforming experience. “The Visitor” was released on April 18, 2008; it was written and directed by Thomas McCarthy and stars Richard Jenkins (the dead and haunting father in the HBO series “Six Feet Under”) with an exquisite cast of characters and actors. In the film/Mothers Day gift, the professor who “pretends to be busy”, meets the young Syrian drummer and his Senegalese girlfriend who had taken up roots in his own apartment without knowing he existed until he opened the door with is own key. There is the surprise and suspicious meeting of strangers/landlord and fleeting tenants on the run. The smiles and the music give a new heartbeat to the professor’s deadened and mechanical spirit. The stiff and lost professor without conviction about his essence and work, is transfixed by the warm and excited world of friendship and the drumming...the drumming which ignites his dead fingers and heart and begin to make him come to life. The continued surprises consist of love and warmth and connection which perhaps might seem unusual in the world outside the film, in which prejudice runs so much of life.

The professor awakens/is awakened to feeling without which thinking in and of itself takes on a cold and senseless purpose and context. He awakens to the sensual and tender mother of his tenant and the love is true--just that. Thought without caring, as we see so vividly here in this film, becomes demeaning, debasing and faceless. We become reminded that illegal immigrants, the spectre of terrorists in any Arab face, have become to us as people without humanity; the sense of justice and freedom becomes blurred as we see faces we have come to care about within an hour's time, faces and beings that still seem dim and negligible to strangers--the "strangers" withing the film itself.

We find ourselves loving our neighbor...how strange, to see the human part of those who might on any other day and in another context lose their similarity to us. It is not mushy but rather smart and deep and subtle and the direction has a choreography within it that is profound without playing with us. And when one of the main characters "gets it" and says, "Either you belong or you don't belong" we have now come to feel so connected to those who can be treated with dread and disgust, perhaps most of the audience will feel that in both political and personal ways...After all, who among us has never felt the sting of not "belonging". When we see people sent to us to warm our hearts and give us true physical rhythm, we want to jump and stop it, only to leave the theatre with the awareness that this "deportation" of fellow humans on so many levels, is the order of most days.

When we think about ecology, it seems we can use to be reminded that without people and without connection, we never see or experience a resemblance to --and kinship with--ourselves. We only see just other people who are remote; we see “the other” rather than people who may be different but whose touch and touching parts might make us come closer in feeling rather that stay in the distance of distraction from our humanity.

The movie should be seen and felt, as much as talked about. It needs to penetrate our insides so we can be reminded that thought without feeling is truly without caring and is truly careless.

Today, after having seen this movie, I am changed or so I feel; and I sense the audience is changed as well. There is a sense here and now that we are all people and that if our hearts are still beating both in body and feeling, a person--any of us--might be touched and moved to sense a connection between all of us.

The poster outside the theater has a strikingly beautiful picture that depicts an image of the film. It contains some credits, and underneath the image, the words “Connection is everything”.

The words hit me and I am taken.

I am taken because I realize once again that a lack of connection makes thinking a cold act without compassion and without a sense of human ecology. And I am reminded that I really think that ecology without the human part is way too isolated....the humans who are deported, detained, killed or dehumanized are as important as any species of animal or plant. I don't think we should so easily forget that.

I am grateful to the movie--all of it--all who made it and brought it to a theatre near me on a day on which it became so important.

A Visit with “The Visitor”: Just Words for the Beating of the Heart

Heartless
Transforming
Connection
Lonely
Detention
Deportation
Justice
Caring
Careless
Love
Music
Open
Heart
Warm
Smile
Change
Play
Sad

Making the Shadows Part of us and Growing Real

2008-04-12T13:05:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my other web site, the original venture related to my book In the Midst of Parenting. It is www.growingreal.com.

And what a difference a day makes or many days and years. Because I come to the site that emptied out into cyberspace, with a different spirit. The dancing mind has emboldened me to exercise my right to play and be silly, right on the site. I confess a hint of hesitation, as if I still get flustered as I "hear" the rule makers insisting on always being impressive as in "professional" and polished. How else will I impress anyone? But the war is on, and I'm going for the gold of authenticity, since it's the truest and the only one that works for me, even though it is complete only for moments at a time.

And so it it, both alas and for the good, that polished I will never be...funny perhaps, moody often enough, truthful whenever I can-- but polished-- no way. I have eschewed (either with beautiful integrity or because I could never live up to it anyway) the smoother path of trying to follow the advice of all the courses on polishing, as if we are all pieces of furniture trying to look new or "look" distressed, and hiding our real distresses. A news item (news should be in quotation) stressed the need for employees to show their employers how necessary they are by basically sucking up, coming so early that the boss starts to feel he/she could never do without the perfectly behaved and courteous and always volunteering worker. The idea was to come early, stay late, and volunteer for everything in sight.

For now, as I continue on the topsy turvy path of growing real, I aim to have my book published and I'm pretty serious about it, and I aim to teach. But those looking for the neater and smoother plastic will not like me anyway. There is only so much one can polish a given piece of furniture anyway.

A side bar is that recently I decided to let my white hair return to white. Wanting to try on the youth and change of looking younger, I found a close to organic color and many told me I looked ten years younger. And then my son gave me a sideways glance of half wonder, and half pure yuck and the epiphany came. He saw me after a hiatus of some months and his look was honest in its confusion-- for him it wasn't me. And that could be ok and he like others in my life who are fans of the white hair would stop hounding me. But his look brought me back to my own inner mirror image. It came to me that now that I know that to some peopole I can look ten years younger the party's sort of over. My youth ultimately comes from my silliness, and goofiness and play...and the smile and laughter and imagination and dancing mind, that are in me.

So along with the white hair idea, I decided to let a bit looser on www.growingreal.com . I decided that while I wait for publication of my mysterious journey and insights on distraction, since I have the opportunity to publish what and who I am, perhaps I should use that freedom.

There is quite a bit of stuff there about discipline and its implications, stuff I feel is really important.

One more thing: I just realized, I think that there really is no such thing as being predictably consistent if one is alive. I change my mind all the time because I have to be true to what I see. In my work people and their emotions are often moving targets. How can one be consistent when the targets and the moods and the people and circumstances are changing?

Okay then, ba bye for now....

In the Shadows

2008-02-22T18:43:00.000-08:00

My manuscript is ready to be read, to be shared, to be published. And I know it may be hard to get from here to there because what I speak of there, is about the stuff beneath our surfaces. And the way I speak doesn't spare the reader of the mess and chaos of moods and confusion. The writing doesn't even try to hide the confusion and so it's a bit unusual. And the subject includes the parts of all of us which are inconvenient--literally--the varied inconvenient truths inside of us, which we often prefer not to face.

I've said I think distraction is the greatest pollutant because if we are distracted we can't attend to the facts of global warming, the facts of potential resolution of conflict and on and on. But distraction isn't solved only by a surface renewal of hope and good will, even though that can be a thrilling and positive force. For it to be lasting, any change has to go deep and through the center of a person. Change is messy and full of doubts and mixed feelings, and owning this part of it has also not been a popular or even readily admitted part of existence. It's hard for us to live organically even here, admitting the more savage and primal parts of what it means to be part of life and to be a person. It can be hard on a daily and ready basis to admit that we are all connected to each other, even as we are connected to the beautiful and ugly aspects of feeling--feeling which is also part of ecology: there is no humanity without it.

The "shadow" is a term used by the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung, to speak of the parts of ourselves inconvenient and uncomfortable and thus often hidden from sight. We tend to hide the deeper parts which scare us or which seem shameful: the macho Marlboro man hides his tears and the sweet charity worker hides his rage. And in the hiding we need a scapegoat--someone onto whom we project our own uneasy pieces. The way to greater health and intimacy and respectful living is in owning and taming the wilder or more fragile parts so we don't blame each other for those "inconvenient" traits. And yet this idea hasn't quite caught on. It's in the easy fix or the nostalgia for things and glories past that we often place our stock.

It is so very inconvenient to stop blaming someone else for pain and stress that may lie under our surfaces. But it can also be very lonely. It can be a terribly lonely place and space --that land of beginning to stop the hiding, the running, the make believe. It is more sober, more peaceful, even more full of joy since it's more possible to create a life and direction fueled by passion and fullness of spirit rather than be limited by avoiding important parts of ourselves.

The constant pretending makes people shallow and flat and unreceptive.

And yet it seems it wasn't that long ago that I used to yearn to be one of those make believe people if I only could-- I used to wish that I could be one of those simpler people, and "niceness" would make it that much easier. It was never to be. I was always too moody or too in touch with the crankiness inside to pass for solidly sweet, and I was hardly ever accused of over-sweetness.

And now how could I wish for the shallow when everything of beauty in my life and everyone of meaning in my life is ever so complex, and filled with contradiction. And when we have children who show us how very magnificent complexity can be when they do not have to hide as much as I felt I had to for so long.

But there are many people who need to hide in shame the pain, the vulnerability, the rage and fear of lands within as well as the plagues of the outside world. And even though I have devoted so much of my life to embracing my honesty as much as I have been able, the loneliness of my own admissions is sometimes haunting. I know that as I have said before, when a person is hurt by a burst of sensitivity, "it is not only the moment but the memory". It--the loneliness--also comes from my memory of my vision of things not being shared or validated at an age when that validation would have been as important as oxygen.

Nothing can make up for the wounds of a past loneliness. But healing from disappointments happens most readily with the possibility of company, of witnesses, of those willing to share in the experience in some small or big way. I often wish for more company in this place between certainty and doubt. I wish for less isolation even though when sadness isn't there, the company I do have is full and enough.

But there is something about community that has always seemed important, really having more people around who admit flaws and unevenness, who refresh the atmosphere with the freshness of a sudden laugh and the lack of stiff predictability.

My friend said, not long ago, "We all need each other in so many ways". I wish more people knew that. At least I feel that way today.

I guess one might say that as the mind dances, so do the feelings. Unless, of course, they are connected, as the body to the brain. And then the mind dances further, since I have begun to know what needs work is the mind body connection, the living shared by both aspects.

And the beat goes on....

Before goodnight, I admit, confess, share my temptation, my impulse to erase this entry. It is too weak, too vulnerable, too naked. And then I answer myself with the notion that this is what I want to write about and how can I make claims to authenticity if I go back to the hiding and erasing. It's too late for that, and anyway my mission if you will, is to make honesty more viable.

Truthfully all the hiding and lying have become just as inconvenient...and so I don't press the delete button.

Parenting, Pessimism, Passion

2008-02-02T19:54:00.000-08:00

For Adam: I feel that lecturing of any kind can be burdensome and boring; it makes us feel guilty and then tired. What is more interesting is to look at the pollution and the deadness inside of ourselves, and to try to begin to get personal ways to feel connected to particular issues. We have gotten so used to hearing repeated warnings and lectures that we turn off and don't stop to realize: Just because something is communicated a certain way doesn't mean it's the only way. Do you remember when all the anti-smoking ads didn't begin to compete with the image of the Marlboro Man who was a "real" man--a cowboy who had a macho air which contained the smoke that made him a "manly" man? We need to talk about the distraction that lecturing causes...we need more people to talk...over coffee, tea, wine, or cyberspace. You are certainly not alone in wanting to avoid yet another "cause". In fact the sorry thing is that they're all connected anyway so it would make sense not to make it all so separate.

Diane, nice to have you aboard, welcome. What you say resonates with me a great deal. I remember so many times when people would talk about how sad the world is for the "children of today". And even if there is danger and dullness in many places, there is a vastness and passion of a sense of creating one's life and choices--at least for some of our young people and hopefully this will spread.
I have always thought my own kids had so many more choices and a firmer center: their optimism was based on a more solid and impassioned sense of their insides than I had at their age. I hope that we can support them--our kids-- and let them help us get informed; I hope we don't need to stay cynical and critical and completely lose our own passion and optimism.

Is it Obama himself or our hunger for real idealism, ideals and a reason for conviction? I personally plan to do a lot of investigating before the coming Tuesday. I confess to being confused, but then I remember a graduate professor who practically jumped up and down when anyone said he/she was confused. He used to say, "Great, confusion is always a beginning to learning anything". It seems better than deadness or complacency. Best, Carol

adancingmind

2008-01-16T17:47:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the blog of Carol Smaldino, psychotherapist, author and most recently author of a manuscript "A Dancing Mind: Throught the Fog of Distraction to Beginnings of Clarity", and specifically author of the web site, www.adancingmind.com.

Initially I had no intention of doing a blog but there are two specific things for me:1. The thoughts keep coming and some of them dance into a formation that seems important and 2. Communication and collaboration have become more important than ever, at least for me.

I do not know how this all will go but I would like it to include matters overlooked or unspoken, like the fact that Barak Obama is a Black man, that there are racism and poverty in America, that most kids are bored by school and most adults are so pressured that we are becoming desensitized. I would like to include the loneliness of the sensitive spirits among us who are dealing with the numbness and distraction--some of them in noble ways.

I am here because I am driven by passion, inspiration, loneliness, need for community and the freedom and affirmation of speech. I know there are people stuck in the closets of their own congestion, and in the oppression of all the voices internalized by culture and family.

I am old enough (and/or secure enought) to be able to admit that I love and perhaps crave conversation with interesting and deep people who know the depths of both tragedy and wit. At moments I wish it were otherwise, that there were easy and welcoming communities without membership in clans or churches or synagogues (yes, intestinally and biologically I am Jewish), or universities, and that communication on deeper levels was more common.

But so it is...And as an official member of the ADD community and owner of a dancing mind, I will start by letting this blog dance its way into some format or direction. I will invite a variety of people to participate and hopefully we might even form a clan of our own or better yet, an open space where opinions might be created and shifted, and a pledge of allegiance is not a requirement for membership.