All That Matters

Shooting ourselves in the foot is the election year game Democrats are best at. We have an opportunity to do good, to correct the excesses and repair the mistakes of the previous administration and what do we do? Shoot ourselves in the foot -- sabotage all our possibilities -- give the election away to the Republicans and spend the next cycle complaining about the guy in office and blaming each other for it. We're so afraid of getting things right.

Take the 2028 presidential election, for example. I know, that's future tense. But, waiting until 2027 is too late to think about these things. Trust me, Donald Trump has been thinking about them far longer. So let's start thinking about how we can help him. Huh? You read me right: help him. Because if we do what we typically do, that's exactly what we're going to end up doing.

The last time we did the atypical thing was 2008 when we elected Barack Obama. Things were close then, but he was the kind of candidate who survived the best of our foot-shooting efforts and showed us what leadership looks like. This cycle, things aren't so clear. 

The slate of potential candidates, so far as I see them right now, include four governors (J.B. Pritzker, Tim Walz, Gavin Newsom, Andy Beshear),  four congresspersons (Robert Garcia, Jamie Raskin, Joaquin Castro, Pete Aguilar) eight senators (Raphael Warnock, Mark Kelly, Chris Murphy, Ruben Gallego, John W. Hickenlooper, Cory Booker, Andy Kim, Elissa Slotkin), and one former cabinet member (Pete Buttigieg). Agree or not with the names, my point is, here are seventeen persons who could, conceivably, have to crowd onto a debate stage and letting that take place is how we blow the election. 

Instead of the candidates, aided by party wise persons, working out the three or four most likely to win and letting them duke it out, we open the door to everyone and end up looking like fools in the process. Not all the names I've mentioned have the same chance. Not all of them should get microphone time. 2028 isn't about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It's about saving America from becoming the Western version of Putin's playground. We can sort out who gets to become the first ________ (whatever) later. Right now, we need character, selflessness, maturity, wisdom, and the capacity to serve rather than be served. And to achieve that we have to stop aiming at our feet and aim instead at getting the White House back.

And that's all that matters. 

Just Like Cancer

In my life, the dogs I've owned include two Rough Collies, four Black Labrador Retriever mixes, two purebred Yellow Labrador Retrievers, and a miniature Poodle mix I inherited from my late father. The first of the two collies was the companion of my childhood along with an aging Shetland pony, both of whom were precious beyond words. 

The Labradors began to appear after I graduated from seminary and have been a regular fixture ever since. A neighbor's huge Yellow Lab (“Ace”) became acquainted with my parents and adopted them while I was away at school. Coming home for the holidays, I was surprised to find him stretched out on their kitchen floor. My mother explained he liked to spend evenings with her and my father and then go home for bed when his owner called. It quickly became obvious to me he was the kind of dog I wanted: Big, affectionate, companionable, smart, courageous, and loyal.

Since then, some of my Labs have been smaller than Ace, others larger, either Black or Yellow. I have learned to avoid the Lab-Golden Retriever mix because of the inherited potential for cancer in some Golden breeding lines, and where those lines are unknown, the potential for early heartbreak is too much for me. I’ve gone through that once and once was enough for one lifetime. I want my dogs to live long and prosper. 

All that being said, I’ve learned some important things about life from my dogs. To begin with, just as the Founders of our Republic asserted women and men were created equal, so it is with dogs. Differences derive from evolution and genetics, not artificial distinctions invented by humans. Second, neither length nor color nor texture of fur have anything to do with temperament, intelligence, strength, endurance, capacity for loyalty and courage. Black Labs = Yellow Labs at all these points, and I take that to include Browns, Silvers, and Whites, purebreds and mixes when it comes to the dog beneath the fur. 

You can guess, I’m sure, where I'm going with this personal history. For reasons that defy logic, our time has become one in which people can be treated like dogs in an ASPCA commercial -- cold, starving, mistreated, and abandoned, depending on the whims of the powerful. What is worse, those at the top of the political food chain appear to have embraced skin color, economic status, religion, language, and national origin as valid reasons for arresting, imprisoning, and deporting pretty much anyone they like in the name of law and order. 

But none of this is about law and order. It's about national purity and in particular, one group’s idea of preserving national purity, and that spells oligarchy (rule by a few). The few decide who belongs and who doesn’t, who stays and who goes. But America is ruled by us all, excluding none, and concerns about preserving national purity inevitably morph into concerns about preserving racial purity. 

And just like cancer, I hate that.

Photo copyright by the author 2026.

Democracy Rules

Since my knee surgery two weeks ago, I’ve had a really hard time sleeping through the night. It’s either pain, muscle cramping or simply because I can’t get comfortable, but if I start out in bed, I end up in the recliner before morning. Last night, finally, I made it through eight hours with only a single walker-assisted trip to the bathroom. At some point, I managed to lay on the TV remote resulting in MTV being my wake-up call. I was listening to Janet Jackson around 8:15 AM, when minutes later I learned school children in Minneapolis were dodging death and longing for the safety of home.

I know, this occurred at a church, but does it really make any difference? School, church, one isn’t any safer than the other any more. The point is, our children were the target. I don’t know about you, but the thought of the children running for their lives makes me want to take up arms and stand a post. Right or wrong, my reaction is visceral. Put me in harms way, not them. 

And, of course, the public response has become predictable. Thoughts and prayers, ad nauseum. Democrats call for more regulation of assault weapons, Republicans call for arming teachers, both blame the mentally ill because only the mentally ill would “do such a thing.”  When it comes to identifying shooters before they pull the trigger none of us is worth more than a bucket of warm spit. 

Oh, and by the way, today’s shooter used a rifle, shotgun, and pistol, all purchased legally, so there’s no blaming illegal possession or boohooing about illegal aliens. Which brings me to another point: guns that find their way into the hands of those who misuse them generally don’t fire bullets that fly straight. That is to say, they don’t use  weapons designed to preserve the integrity of the target (meat), whether deer, elk, you name it. Instead, they tend to use assault-type weapons that fire bullets that tumble, end on end, once they leave the barrel of the gun. As a result, they don’t simply enter the body, spinning neatly left or right, they’re designed to rip and tear their way through tissues that are helpless to maintain their integrity in the presence of such violence. They’re designed to kill an enemy or render them helpless.

Now, here’s the rub. If we’re hunting for food and we actually know what we’re doing, we’re not going to pack an assault weapon because it does too much damage to valuable venison. If we simply want to take the Ruger or Springfield to the range and work on accuracy, that’s fine. Go for it. My point is, responsible gun ownership does not have anything to do with playing with guns. It entails using gun locks, obtaining professional training, and bending over backwards to ensure our shooting is safe and exemplary of sound common sense. 

So, back to the beginning: what do we do with those among us who seem to think gun ownership can be divorced from thoughtful and mature gun ownership? We begin with education and training involving appeals to those who don’t think, who don’t like complexity or complications, who like to believe problems were simpler way back when. They’ve got to learn sometime.

You see, the circumstances that contrived to make things easier back when, no longer exist. Our populations are larger, we live in bigger spaces and work in more complex situations. All the political blathering in the world can’t change the fact that no single person can know everything and no single concept can encompass all that we know. In other words, like it or not, complexity and diversity are here to stay. The sooner we embrace them, the sooner we can begin to figure out how to prevent one of us from trying to kill too many of the rest of us.

In the meantime, blowhards claiming to have the only answer have no answers. Our problems are too much for any one person. I repeat, they are too much for any one person to understand, solve or otherwise make explicable, and only a huckster or a fool would claim to try. Knowledge is too much of everything for one mind, one school of thought, one anything to have all the answers. If you doubt me, go read the late Karl Rahner on intellectual concupiscence; it’s all there in black and white. 

In the meantime, let’s keep on talking, keep on asking hard questions, keep on refusing to let the blowhards speak for us, and keep on trying to find our truth together. Democracy rules; it’s the only rule.

Life & COVID-19: Ain't No Fairy Tales

I have to feel sorry for Donald Trump. I mean it, he is so wrapped up in himself he'll never know the simple pleasure of people being nice to each other. 

He can't experience the pleasure I felt this afternoon when, idling in line at the recycling center, the person ahead noticed I'd arrived and pulled away. He was done, apparently, and since no one was behind him, was probably texting. I caught his attention as he passed, waved and smiled in thanks, he smiled and waved back. 

Opening the back window on my CRV I reflected on the simple kindness people seem inclined to show each other lately. We smile more easily, we're more considerate, we're more thoughtful. I wondered if it's because we don't know which of us is going to get COVID-19 next. Which one of us will go into the hospital and never go home again.

Not knowing who's next, we want to be kind to everyone, just in case. It's tragic it's taken a pandemic to get our attention, but at least it did. Not that we're all going around thinking about dying and asking, "What's it all about, Alfie?" 

I do think most of us are aware life has become more tenuous the past few months, though. A new microbe has ridden into town, gunning for all of us and the best we can do is try to stay out of its way. You can take my word for it, coronavirus is not one bit intimidated by liberal gun laws. Smith & Wesson can't protect anything from this outlaw.

But we don't need Smith & Wesson, anyway. If we can keep our heads long enough to smile and joke with strangers about being mistaken for robbers because we're wearing masks into Walmart, that's a good sign. If we can batten down the hatches on our pride, use some good sense and wear masks, wash our hands, and practice the pure human decency of social distancing, it's an even better sign we might help each other have half a chance.

It may not seem like a lot but at the moment it's what we've got, so let's use it with impunity. We're not talking about snake oil or something Trump has pulled out of his backside and tried to pass off as a miracle. 

The true fact is, we don't need a miracle. What we need is a healthy dose of reality. Take a spoonful every hour until this is all over and then keep taking it. Don't let some reality TV character sell you a story about a handful of magic beans and a goose and a golden egg. That only works in fairy tales and life and COVID-19 ain't no fairy tales, no matter who says they are.

(Creative Commons Image)

Virus Like Confetti

It is alarming, if not downright frightening, that in the midst of a crisis affecting the nation and the world, listening to the White House is not such a good idea.

I say that because the White House has developed the nasty habit lately of being less than reliable about passing along the best that medical science has to say about COVID-19. As a matter of fact, the daily White House briefs often as not reveal the President and his chief coronavirus expert at odds with one another. Of all the times to make sure you listened to your scientists and followed their advice, now would be the time, but it's not happening. 

I'm a psychiatrist, not an epidemiologist or politician, but I know enough about all three to know it's wise to recognize your limitations. If Dr. Fauci advised me to be cautious when it came to "opening up" the country, you can bet your life I'm going to be cautious. The last thing I'm going to do is play "guess who's smarter" games while your life is on the line.

The coronavirus health crisis is not make believe. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is not the flu. It is a virus-borne illness that has resulted in the deaths of over 40,458 Americans as of this moment. Over 762,690 cases have been confirmed, by the way, as of this moment. To those who dismiss it and insist on going to church or crowding around protesting, when you get sick, when you need an ICU bed, when you're  desperate for a ventilator, when you'd sell your soul for a doctor and nurse, just remember:  You were warned. 

A flattening of the bell curve as we've started seeing in New York doesn't mean we've got coronavirus on the run. It means what we've been doing to try and reduce its extent appears to be working. That's all it means. 

The good news is, we can still screw this up. All we have to do is lie. Close our minds and lie like our lives depended on it because they just might. Distort reality, deny the truth, and brag about being invincible. See? We still have time. We can still screw this up. 

When COVID-19 reruns hit the theaters this fall, tell you what, let's all go. It's all a hoax, right? Nobody at the White House wears a mask (at least in public) why should we? Forget social distancing. Let's cozy up and cough, sneeze in each other's faces, splattering virus like it was confetti at New Year's. Let's all get sick this time. Maybe even die.

Won't that be fun?


(Image by Mark Waugh and www.cartridgesave.co.uk)

Pink Hats 27: Deju Vu

 
Christmas parties in the first two years of medical school tend to be few and far between, or so it was in Jessie's experience. There just wasn't the time. The last week before the holidays was dedicated to exams and if you had time to party, you slept instead. It's tough and everyone knows it.

Actually being able to put on a dress or at least something other than scrubs and spend a social evening -- unless she was on-call -- with her "working family" was one of the perks Jessie loved about Maine Med. She'd gone through residency with several of her classmates and established friendships among the medical staff that she cherished. A rumor circulating about an attending position opening up once her fellowship was complete had been confirmed by the departmental director, and she was considered a shoe-in for the job. Christmas parties at Maine Med promised to be a feature in her life for years to come.

This year was going to be special for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was an occasion to formally announce her engagement to Bob. The truth is, there was scarcely a soul who didn't know already, thanks to the hospital grapevine. Good news travels like wildfire, especially when Halley Henry is the one with a match. Jessie and Bob spent the afternoon following his proposal with the twins and gave Halley the "Go" command she'd been waiting for. By the following Monday, neither one could walk the hospital hallways without running a gauntlet of congratulatory handshakes and hugs.

Fresh powder had fallen in the White Mountains off and on the week before the Saturday evening event, so Bob and Jessie drove up to Pleasant Mountain ski area near Fryeburg. Jessie skied while Bob spent the morning learning the ins and outs of snow boarding. After a few runs alone, she joined him on the beginner's slope.

"Why, if it isn't Shawn White!" she said, teasingly. "Can I have your autograph, pretty please?"

"Baby, you can have my autograph and anything else you want. I am footloose, fancy free, and all yours!"

She laughed and said, winking, "I can think of a lot of ways to take that."

"I'm sure you can, but this is the bunny slope and that means G rated. With the twins around, you better start getting used to that, Dr. and almost Mrs." he said, winking back.

"Only during the early evening hours -- after they're asleep, anything goes." she said, sidling close and raising her eyebrows.

"I think...I've created...a monster," he said, eyes wide.

"You have no idea. Now come on, you hot snow rider you, show me your stuff!"

Yogi Berra said it, this is like deja-vu all over again.

(Creative Commons image of Shawnee Peak by bobtravis via Flickr)

My Last Night in Bethlehem

The following is an unpublished essay from medical school I've always liked. I don't know why I never made it public before, but here it is. I hope you like it.

To my final evening of night shift, I say hasta la vista, baby, with mixed feelings. I'm looking forward to walking my dog at sunset and I'm sure he is, too, but all the same, I'll miss a few things. For one, there's nothing like a hospital at night. I've always loved walking the hallways when lights have dimmed and patients gone to sleep. The entire place feels like a warm blanket. Even the obstetrics unit can be like that, though not so much lately. Certainly not this morning around 4.00 AM when all the unborn babies suddenly woke up in their respective wombs and cried with a single voice, "Let me outta here!"

Yeah. It got kinda busy. Fast. The doctors were in surgery and I was on the unit keeping watch over my flock of one, a shepherd mimicking a memorable night in Bethlehem. I was on my way to her room, checking in once again, when the head nurse raced past, calling back over her shoulder, "20 is giving birth -- now -- and I have no doctors!" I waved the cloud of dust she left behind away from my face and tried to quell the wave of panic rising in my gut. A medical student who's only assisted in vaginal births is more hindrance than help at a time like this, so if s/he has a lick of sense, they attend to their patient. And that's what I did. One of the residents scrubbed out and came to the rescue.

A baby's cry and a few minutes later, she was finished in one birthing suite in time to join us in another. My patient was at ten centimeters and it was time to push. She and I held hands and breathed through the contractions together. When her baby finally slipped out, we smiled wearily and gave each other a thumbs-up. Heading back to the residents' lounge, I had the feeling I imagine all doctors must have at times like this: no matter how numerous are my faults, once in my life I did something good.

Mother and daughter will be gone by the time I show up Monday morning, like all the parents and newborns I've gotten to know this week. It's a privilege -- being allowed to share in a dream come true. The woman with whom I held hands through labor and delivery was a stranger when I walked onto the unit. She was alone with the exception of her mother who was in and out of the room. By the time the night was over, we were much more than strangers.

All on my last night in Bethlehem.

(Public Domain image of Bethlehem, 1882, via Wikipedia)

Paranoia

"Paranoia strikes deep.
into your life it will creep..."
~ Stephen Stills

Of all we could say about paranoia, one thing is pretty clear: it's a symptom of something gone wrong. When we're coping well with life, we aren't generally suspicious or mistrusting without reasonable cause. Even under stress, when we are compensating, as we say in "shrink lingo," we're able to distinguish between real and imagined threats. True, we may not be able to cover every single solitary possibility imaginable -- no one's perfect -- but we do our best. And most days, in most situations, that's good enough.

In extraordinary situations, however, things can change rapidly. With good coping skills and a healthy ego, we're okay, maybe even better than okay. With poor skills or a weak ego, it's not so good. It may even get scary once in a while. Especially to those of us who are on the outside looking in. 

I'm referring specifically to the rash of paranoid ideations that have found their way into video and print in response to the terrorist attack in Paris. Don't let those Syrian refugees into America, they say, you can't tell the good guys from the bad guys. Well, maybe not, but haven't bad guys been able to enter the United States for a long time? What self-respecting, evil, scheming bad guy is so stupid that he'd masquerade as a refugee and expose himself to serious scrutiny, when he could simply walk through customs with a legal passport on any other day?

That's the problem with paranoia, especially the socially-acceptable kind. It checks its brains at the door and starts shouting about the sky falling when the issue is actually much closer to the ground. It becomes irrational even when couching its rhetoric in rational terms. It is true, America has endured terrorist attack before and it only makes sense to be prepared. Once burned, twice cautious. To become obsessed with the possibility to the point we abandon our leadership role on the world stage isn't caution. It's more like crazy.

These are times for brave, sensible people. People like the Parisian father who explained to his young son that memorial flowers and candles were there to protect them from bad people with guns. He's too young to grasp the concept that flowers and candles represent the collective will of good, solid, brave people who refuse to give in to terror. Someday he will, though. When he does I hope he also understands that paranoia is a warning, not a watchman to be heeded.


Creative Commons image by Katlew via Flickr.com.

The White Coat Brigade

Although I wasn't running late, it still felt that way. It was my second day of residency and a meeting with the psychiatry training director had me intent on arriving early. At my hospital, residents have access to a parking garage, unlike lowly medical students. Having been one of them for so long, the garage looks to me like the Taj Mahal. Anyway, after driving round a couple of minutes and coming up empty-handed, I spied an empty space marked, "Physician Parking Only." Wouldn't you know it? I thought, may as well have Dirty Harry guarding it. I started to drive past when the lights came on. 

"Wait a minute, that means me."

If there was a single thing typifying the impact of residency thus far, this incident depicts it. Over and over something happens -- entering the resident's lounge for the first time, hearing my name called with the title "doctor" appended to it, having other residents smile in greeting -- something happens to remind me I'm not in Kansas anymore. Medical school really is finished, I really did graduate, and I really am here, at long last.

It's kind of funny, when you think of it, the way reality creeps up and sinks in. I don't know if it affects other people like this, but I can't help thinking about how everything feels. Maybe that's why I'm in psychiatry: just being here isn't enough; I have to take it in and digest it. And unlike some third year rotations I was glad to bid farewell to, I want these first six months of inpatient psychiatry to poke along at pace that would make a snail impatient.

It's weird, though.  I feel like a buck private who's been given a battlefield commission. Only a few years ago I was an enlisted man, now I'm at the opposite end of the food chain -- or chain of command, as the case may be. Sort of. As a first year resident, I'm little more than a medical student with a title. But the people I work with didn't know me back then or in my life before that, on the front lines of mental health care. They only know me as I am now, a member of the White Coat Brigade. It's up to me to let my behavior spell out what I learned while serving on their side of the coin. 

Nothing is automatic, but it's all as pleasurable as it is satisfying. Especially sitting down with patients for therapy knowing it's partly what I'm getting paid for. I'm here to learn everything I can, but I'm also here to work and at this point, psychotherapy is something I can do quite legitimately. It's one of the tools I've had rattling around in my backpack the past few years, waiting for its time to come.

(Creative Commons image by Kids_Safari2 via Flickr)

His Final Breath

 
The invitation was a Father's Day special that read, "What did your father teach you or how did he inspire you with regard to medicine?"

It would have been much easier had it been, "What did the Old Man have to say about the Big Slab (biker slang for the interstate)?" Then I could respond, in my best gravely ZZ Top growl, "He had me on a Hogg before I could walk. Why, he and mom almost named me 'Harley,' you know, as in Don Henry's song, Harley?"

There was a motorcycle mama and her man
With a wind-burnt tan and a Harley
Roarin' through Bakersfield when her water broke
They pulled into a hospital and for a little joke

They named him Harley
They bought a sidecar
And a small bandanna band
And they loved their Harley

Leaning closer and jutting out my long ZZ Top beard, I'd look at you over the tops of my Ray-Ban sunglasses and whisper with mock menace, "You do know Don Henry --  don'tcha?" 

But, that wasn't the question and my father never owned a Hogg or any other kind of motorcycle, much to my distress as an adventure-seeking teenager. Much to his relief, I might add.

Nope, my father didn't teach me a thing about motorcycles except I could get killed riding one. I came close one Fourth of July weekend, racing my uncle's beat-up Vespa scooter round his property as fast as first gear would take me. A patch of soft soil brought an end to my dirt bike career. They say speed kills, but in my case, it just knocked me out. No, I wasn't wearing a helmet -- in those days we didn't worry about head injuries quite so much and besides, my uncle didn't have one, anyway.

Dad did teach me a great deal about horses, though, mostly how to love them like your best friends. For a tough guy -- not a gruff guy -- he had a soft spot for horses. I remember the night he woke me up and led my mother and I out to the barn where we watched a baby colt being born. It was my first "childbirth." There was poetry in his relationship with horses and he taught me how to write my own over the years.  

He also taught me a lot about hard work, accepting responsibility, taking risks, and following your heart, all of which he exemplified regularly. It's been sad that he didn't live to see me through medical school. I would have dearly loved to share the folly and fun of my daily efforts to become a physician with him. Some of the situations I managed to get myself into would have had him laughing until he cried. Others wishing he could board a plane, despite his illness, to stand alongside his son when he experienced hard times.

If my father taught me anything about medicine, apart from how to "doctor" horse injuries. it was that I never knew as much as I thought I did. People will surprise you. His own life-long struggle with chronic pain resulting from a back injury at age 19, made him a model of endurance that earned the admiration of his physician. He worked through pain that would have laid me out and did it every day. His determination to wave off the beating wings of the death angel until his final heartbeat was a testimony to his disbelief in the word, "quit." 

So, what did he teach me? Where do I start? He taught me everything worth knowing and then some. He taught me about his fallibility, his fears, and to accept and overcome my own. He taught me to tolerate what I couldn't change and change whatever I could. He taught me how to face the worst life has to offer by going through it with me until I was ready to go through it alone. 

And that's when he took his final breath.

Happy Father's Day. 

(Creative Commons image of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top by Filipe Neves via Flickr; "Harley" words and music by Don Henry who owns the copyright)

Warm Days and Woodchucks

I hate moving. I used to think I was good at goodbyes, but you want to know the truth? I
suck at it. It doesn't matter whether there's a really good reason for riding into the sunset, I still find reasons for wanting to stick around long past closing time. Days I couldn't wait to resign my job in Colorado turned into days I loved it, even though I was leaving for medical school at last.

It's the same way now, even though I'm leaving to begin residency, also at long last. Only this time, I don't have to look for reasons, they're all around me. For instance, about ten minutes ago, the dogs and I were making our afternoon rounds along the edge of the hayfield when my big dog pulled up suddenly. I looked down and he was nose to nose with either a big woodchuck or an equally large beaver. They resemble one another and despite my friendly greeting, he didn't seem inclined to introduce himself, so we hurried on.

But things like that make it hard to move.  Cool, quiet, starlit nights, immune to the sounds of the city. and breezes off the freshly mowed hay, later in June, are things I'll miss. Yes, I'll get to see the Detroit Zoo and perhaps hear the Detroit Symphony, but my roots are in the country and I'd gladly trade the zoo for the porcupine that lives under the barn or the woodchuck in the hayfield.

I know this is my "big chance," as they say in show business, and I'll be glad to settle in and get to work. Time passes quickly, I learned in medical school. Residency will, too, and sooner than I imagine, I'll be packing again, to come home. In the meantime, though, warm days and woodchucks make me appreciate the life I've had, here on the farm, that much more.  

(Photo copyright 2014 by the author)
    

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

 
Beauty doesn't ask for attention. ~ Sean O'Connell

My friend and co-author, Dr. Lynn Smith and I used to talk at length about what we called the "Walter Mitty personality type." Risk-aversive, detail-oriented, traditional (though not necessarily conservative), and inclined to play by the rules. Good, solid people like Bilbo Baggins, who aren't likely to rush out their front door in pursuit of adventure. Their secret is, they'd like to. They dream about it, but they can't let go. Until they have to.

This is the story line for the marvelous film, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2014), starring Ben Stiller. By day, Mitty is a quiet, unobtrusive supervisor in the photographic negative department of Life magazine. At any other time, his imagination may have him miraculously rescuing damsels in distress or besting arrogant, narcissistic asses like the one in charge of transitioning Life from a print to online format. In daydreams, he's everything he's not from 9 to 5: creative, brave, articulate, and appealing. In life, he can't even bring himself to speak to the woman who's stolen his heart.

Whatever author James Thurber originally intended, this particular film version depicts a journey of the soul. Mitty is an ordinary guy who's become a worker bee. He contributes, he's efficient, he does his job very well. His life has purpose but no passion. He'd like it to and his daydreams are filled with it, but he's ambivalent. Even his e-Harmony profile is incomplete. He's at a crossroads and needs a guide, a mentor, someone who can show him how to make his own choices and live his own life.

Enter Sean O'Connell, played by Sean Penn. O'Connell is a photographer of the old school. He still uses film and submits his photos for publication by snail mail. He doesn't own a cell phone and would probably misplace it if he did. He's unpredictable and follows his own rules. As it happens, he sends Mitty a roll of film with instructions indicating the last negative on the roll is his preferred photo for the final cover of Life. 

The problem is, Mitty can't find it. It wasn't enclosed in the packet containing the rest of the negatives. Nearly at wit's end, he notices a photograph of O'Connell and imagines him beckoning for him to follow. Without warning, Mitty dashes out the building and boards a plane for Greenland, O'Connell's last known location. No baggage except a briefcase, no clothes except for what he's wearing on his back. 

Unable to hook up in Greenland, he follows O'Connell to Iceland, and on to ungoverned Afghanistan in the high Himalayas, where he stumbles upon him, photographing the elusive snow leopard. O'Connell explains the negative was in a wallet he sent Mitty as a gift. Ironically, the negative was in Mitty's possession all the time, but he was so focused on where it ought to be he couldn't consider where it might be.

O'Connell thought he was being "playful," assuming his partner would get the joke. Mitty saw it differently. Sixteen years and millions of negatives made him good at his job but lousy at spontaneity. In the course of things, he'd forgotten how to play. He's not alone; a lot of us are like that. The pressures of life and work build until we take everything so seriously. We turn to alcohol or drugs to unwind, but they don't help, not really. They disinhibit, that's all. Play is something more basic, more in touch with what makes life worth living.

Observing O'Connell refuse to take a shot of a snow leopard because the moment itself is too precious, Mitty realizes some things are too special to be captured. They can only be experienced. Moments later, playing soccer with a group of young Sherpas, he learns that play and transcendence are linked, and both can find expression in the work we do. Mitty knew all about work. What he needed to learn was how to play once again.

On returning to New York, Mitty confronts the arrogant narcissist in a way that, unlike his earlier fantasies, doesn't involve physical violence. Having rediscovered himself in O'Connell's company, he is able to speak as a mature man with a secure and certain center, to a spoiled and self-centered child. No longer fearful and timid, being with the archetypal "wild man" has changed him. He commands respect and his words carry weight. 

Does Mitty ever get the girl? You have to see the film to find out. Sorry, I'm only willing to leak so much. Besides, you do want to see why that bloody negative was so important, right? Most of all, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is worth seeing for a contemporary glimpse at the ultimately spiritual journey to earn and achieve maturity, to become confident, to feel truly capable as a human being. It's a study in contrasts, too, between Mitty, who is willing to undertake the journey, and an arrogant narcissist who for all his posturing, has not and probably never will. 

(Creative Commons image by Sheng Wang via Flickr)

Narcissist or Antisocial?

 
Following-up on my last post, "Mirror, Mirror," a reader wrote and asked if I might address Antisocial Personality Disorder in contrast to pathological narcissism. There was a time when I thought doing so was pretty straightforward since antisocial personality disorder was usually associated with a criminal history. I've since realized that's too simple because narcissists who become violent can end up with criminal records and antisocial types can be attractive and charismatic in the same way we usually think of narcissists. 

The picture becomes even more complicated when you think about other features they may have in common. For instance, both are well-known for being manipulative, self-centered, and resistant to feelings of guilt and remorse or responsibility for the damage they cause. "Lack of empathy" is how we describe this professionally, but in simpler terms, it means they can't imagine how it feels to be on the receiving end of their behavior. If a person's ability to empathize is impaired, they tend to act without considering the impact of their actions on others. The way this is expressed gives us an idea about how the narcissist and antisocial type differ.

Despite their belief that they are independent and need no one, narcissists really are very dependent upon others. The arrogant type needs admirers and the covert type, someone to use as a resource for self-esteem. As a consequence, in the initial stages of forming relationships, these individuals are seductive, conveying the image of the perfect friend,  colleague, or significant other. What they want is something else. Like the vampire's victim who willingly exposes her neck again and again, they want your trust, availability, and eager compliance. Only when you've been finally worn out, do they toss you aside like a wrinkled, faded newspaper.

Antisocial types can be seductive, too, but their goal is to obtain something specific and move on. Once they have it -- your money, property, virginity -- the relationship is over. You could say the narcissist invests for the long-term and the antisocial for short-term, immediate gains. A classic example is the retirement scheme that drains seniors of their financial resources, operated by the "pleasant young man who was so eager to help" and has skipped town with the money. Antisocial types consider people too much trouble to spend a great deal of time on them -- it's what you have that they find interesting. Narcissists want you and that's why they are so appealing.

Notice how both types can use people freely without the inconvenient interference of Freud's Super-Ego or conscience. Covert narcissists may be vaguely aware that others consider their behavior wrong or hurtful, but ultimately, how others feel doesn't matter to them. Arrogant narcissists and antisocial types simply don't take morality or conscience into account; they are ruled by pure self-interest. 

All three types are inclined to excuse their behavior on various grounds and criticize their victims for any negative consequences. Instead of internalizing blame and feeling guilty or ashamed, like most of us, they externalize these feelings and try to make it sound as though you're the one with the problem.  Techniques like "gaslighting," making up information in order to prompt a victim to doubt their perceptions or sanity, are commonly used to cover their true intentions. The antisocial type doesn't care whether their behavior violates the law; the idea may even be exciting to them. Arrogant narcissists can't imagine being held responsible for their actions since their natural superiority places them above culpability. Covert narcissists are convinced no one would even consider thinking of them as blameworthy in the first place. 

The reason covert narcissists feel immune to blame is due to their adeptness at creating a facade of innocence and using it to conceal their ulterior motives. Many find it hard to believe such a sweet, caring and ethical person could be deliberately deceptive. And, of course, this is precisely what the covert type is counting on. Their carefully-crafted, false persona enables them to operate surreptitiously, sometimes going undetected for years. Publicly, they don't wish to appear bothersome; privately, they are extremely high maintenance, intentionally draining others of their energy and well-being. 

In a sense, antisocial and narcissist exist on a continuum with the antisocial type lying more towards the asocial extreme and arrogant narcissists on the extroverted, social end. More introverted, yet also socially-oriented, the covert narcissist lies somewhere toward the middle. All of them exhibit an absence of regard for the thoughts, feelings, and values of others. All of them find it easy to lie and all of them are predatory to some degree. 

Predatory is a strong word but it gets to the heart of the matter. The individuals we've been describing are serial users. Whether they appear innocently grandiose or intentionally deceptive, they view others as resources, as means to an end. Adulation is just as important to an arrogant narcissist as ill-gotten gain to a criminal antisocial type. A covert narcissist plans his emotional ambush as carefully as a master thief. To them, the rest of us are sheep waiting to be sheared or resources waiting to be tapped. That we might be anything else never crosses their minds.   

(Creative Commons Image of Narcissus by Tiago Costa Nepomuceno via Flickr)

Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

 
Bond:  "You're cleverer than you look."
Q:  "Mm, still, better than looking cleverer than you are." ~ Die Another Day (2002)

As most readers already know, I'm a fan of 007. For several years, Timothy Dalton was my favorite -- he possessed a certain darkness that rendered the "killer" aspect of Bond's character believable. Well, move over, Timothy, Daniel Craig does it even better and with a conscience thrown in for good measure (Skyfall, 2013). I like that best of all: Bond is capable of empathy, he is not a narcissist.

He is brutally honest; he's willing to do pretty much whatever he has to in order to get the job done, but looking clever means nothing to him if it's not real. Were he a narcissist, on the other hand, looking clever would be everything. Furthermore, he would think himself exceedingly clever, even though he was not. It's difficult for me to imagine Bond gazing dreamily at himself in a mirror and saying, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the cleverest of them all?" He hasn't got time for such nonsense; a narcissist has nothing but time for it.

That's one of the many problems with narcissists: they believe their own press. They think they're far more intelligent than the rest of us, true or not. They're wise, we're foolish, they're cosmopolitan or sophisticated, we're naive or impressionable. If a narcissist appears to admire someone, it's because they covet what the other possesses. Admiration is a cover for competition and narcissists are poor losers. 

Ironically, the narcissist's intelligence tends to be less lofty than they'd have us believe. Engage them in a discussion and you'll discover their knowledge base frequently represents a collection of disconnected assumptions and quotes selected from sources they consider influential. Original thinking is not their strong suit. They're like Mockingbirds, whose song is a chaotic repetition of all the other birds in the sky. What matters is not what they think but how impressive they sound, citing statistics and references, and leaving you breathless in their presence. At least this is the case for the arrogant-type narcissist.

Covert narcissists are less willing to risk their fragile self-esteem by trying to impress you with how much they know. Instead, they prefer to listen, treating you like an amazing conversationalist who has them hanging on every word. In the process of winning your trust, they're actually searching for those points at which you are most vulnerable. The time will come when they'll use those points to your detriment, revealing themselves to have been a cunning adversary clad in the guise of a friend. 

It probably sounds terribly unfair, if not unkind, to draw attention to the predatorial aspect of pathological narcissism, but it's necessary in the same way we have to recognize the killer aspect of the James Bond character. The difference lies in the fact that Bond doesn't kill indiscriminately. He's not a cold-blooded murderer despite the numerous notches he might carve into the handle of his Walther PPK. He only shoots (or stabs or drowns or blows up) those who have it coming. There's either justice or necessity in his sights.

Narcissists are rather indiscriminate. Anyone is a good enough target if they're vulnerable and nearly all of us are, to some extent or another. Narcissists wish to demonstrate their self-assumed superiority and doing so is their ultimate value. We are either their privileged audience or an unwitting resource for supporting their self-esteem. We are never individuals worthy of respect and dignity. We are things and for a narcissist, one thing is as good as another, as long as our life blood lasts and we don't realize what's happening to us.

Prevention is the best defense and discovery our key strategy. Learning to recognize the wolf in sheep's clothing is hardly a waste of time. You can't avoid a predator if you don't know what one looks like or how s/he behaves. My four-footed neighbor, Freddy the Porcupine, has only one natural enemy, but you can be certain he knows who that is and how to steer clear of his habitats. In the same way, learning how to identify pathological narcissism and its practitioners is the way we sidestep being reduced to the level of "things" and retain our humanity. Trust me, this is definitely worth the effort.     

(Creative Commons image of Bond and Q by Andrew Becraft via Flickr)
  

The Uncarved Block

 
In your heart, you already know.~ Zen saying

Depending on the space we happen to be in, the heart's knowing can be a curse,  blessing, or one more unanswered question. The hard part is getting our head into alignment with what we already sense, intuitively, to be true. A Zen master would probably suggest meditation might help, but that just puts me to sleep. Besides, I'm more an uncarved block kind of guy.

The uncarved block is a concept expressing naturalness and the oneness with nature embraced by Taoism. You may be familiar with the delightful book, The Tao of Pooh, in which the author, Benjamin Hoff, describes Winnie the Pooh as the uncarved block. Simple, uncomplicated, genuine -- these are words that describe Pooh. A complex bear he'll never be. His most severe problem involves getting his head stuck in a honey jar. Unlike me, unlike most of us.

Getting to the lowest common denominator in my own life has been a challenge and continues to be. Circumstances don't always cooperate with the effort and making a move in any direction can stir up a beehive of complications. The uncarved block, fortunately, isn't a way of living as much as a way of being. It's who we are more than how we live, though right being ought to result in right doing.

Living on this farm the past five years has been an exercise in simplicity and one that I've cherished. I've learned to consolidate errands because "town" is twelve miles away, down a curvaceous country road. Walking my dogs around the hayfield is a pleasure I can scarcely describe and gazing out the front window at a barn dating to the late 1770s is a childhood fantasy come true. I've never gotten past the sense that some late night I'm going to encounter the shimmering remnant of a colonial someone who lived here long before me.

When a person's focus is directed externally, it's difficult to be simple. The world does everything it can to tell us we've got to keep busy lest we be left behind. Complexity isn't the template for the uncarved block. A piece of wood that has yielded to knife and sandpaper no longer depicts its untouched state. The uncarved block must be seen with the mind's eye.

It's like that with people, when we intentionally overlook skin color, clothing, distinctions, differences -- foreignness. When we allow the potential for relatedness to take precedence over presumption. Turn on TCM (Turner Classic Movies) sometime when The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming (1966), is on the schedule, as it was last evening. It's a comedy depicting a Soviet submarine that runs aground in a small, New England harbor. The residents of the town are up in arms because it's the era of the Cold War and instead of the British, the "Russians" have arrived at their doorstep. Townspeople and Russian sailors forget national pride to help rescue a child and suddenly, they're no longer enemies. 

A year ago, when bombs went off in Boston, Islamic-American doctors risked their lives alongside European-American doctors and first-responders to help everyone they could. The uncarved block was all that mattered. Getting simple enough to see that, all the time, is hard, especially when the voices of paranoia crowd the media, warning us one false step is only a single step away. Paranoia isn't a guide; it's psychosis, it's madness. Taking each other as we are is a better one. I'm quite certain, Pooh would agree.


(Creative Commons image "The Uncarved Block" by Beth Hoffman via Flickr)

My "Thing" About Shoes

I've got a "thing" about shoes. I never knew I did, not until a few minutes ago. Someone from a far place on the other side of the world read, "Wearing Mom's Shoes," last night -- though it was really this morning for them -- and that's when it hit me. I've written about my aunt wearing my mother's shoes, me growing into my father's, some that fit and some that don't. I've referred to distance runners and sprinters and they wear shoes of one sort or other, or most do.

In my only reasonably successful track event, I ran in stocking feet because the Converse "tennies" we wore at the time were worthless in a sprint. Once the weather warms up and I get the lawn freshly cut, shoes will get traded for bare feet. It only seems right, living in the country. Once I've traded life on the farm for a sojourn back in the city (residency training), that will seem slightly odd. Bare feet are for country boys, penny loafers for city mice. I know that's not strictly true, but it fits the stereotype.

But back to shoes, I notice them. What people are wearing and when, and I wonder why they've selected the ones they did. The big, block-like, square high-heeled sort that's back in style, pumps, boots, and so many kinds of tennis/hiking shoes an accountant couldn't keep track of them. If clothes make the man, shoes reflect the person. Too out of style and we're nerdy; too "in," and we're overly fashion-conscious. Most of us are in the middle, trying to get around without our feet hurting.

That's why I still love Skechers Shape-Ups, despite all the hype about false advertising. They're comfortable and good for long days on the hospital floors. My only complaint is they're not made anymore and finding the leftovers in my size (big) is a challenge. The company has a new one made with memory foam -- I may have to resort to those, if I can remember, that is. Maybe the shoes will help.

I guess all this came about from spending my youth in my father's retail western store/saddle shop. We stocked Western and English riding boots, in limited styles and quantities. We could special order anything, but customers like to handle what they're buying, so you've got to have at least a few pairs on the shelves. 

English boots are basically made of canvas (for summer), rubber (for barnyards), or leather (for everything else) and come in brown, black, or black with scarlet cuffs around the tops (fox hunting attire). Oh, and there are the little ankle length, jodphurs; can't forget them. Field boots have laces over the instep, dress (formal riding attire) are plain. English boots are like English food: there's not a lot of variety on the table, unless you're talking about pudding and we are definitely not talking about that.

Western boots, on the other hand, thrive on variety. Some have short, shoe-like heels and others the traditional cowboy style with three-four inch under-slung heels that angle downward in the direction of the toes. Tops can range from eight inches to knee length and toes can be rounded or sharp enough to use for a hole punch. And then there's the stitching or patterns cut into the top. They're decorative, sure, but also functional. The more rows of stitching there are, the less likely the tops will wrinkle around your ankles with age and the influence of gravity. If only faces had that advantage.

Colors abound as well as kinds of leather. Cowhide, water buffalo, or waxed calf for work boots; kangaroo, lizard, ostrich, fine calf, for "dressin' up and goin' to town," boots. I have a pair made from shark skin my father ordered for me during my first year in seminary and they still look good. I used to spend hours, when the store was empty and I should have been dusting or sweeping, looking through boot catalogs, wishing and dreaming.

So, yeah, I'm a "shoe guy," as well as a "car guy," and a "horse and dog guy," but I come by it honestly. There's no fetish here. The way to my heart is not through my feet. Invite me over for dinner and my shoes will be polished, but don't expect me to bring along my kit to do yours. A sincere compliment you'll get, but maintenance is up to you. My "thing" about shoes only takes me so far.    


(Creative Commons image by BCR Librarian via Flickr)

Parenting in "Star Trek" and "Man of Steel"

 
I'm a Star Trek and Superman freak. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a "trekkie," though I did see the late James Doohan at the University of Texas a few years ago. I was so accustomed to his Mr. Scott, it was a shock to hear him speaking without an accent. I also saw George Tekei at a science fiction convention, once. Superman and I have yet to meet, but that doesn't rule out the possibility. You never know, he might decide my hayfield looks like a homey place to stop by, en route to an adventure somewhere else. 

I'm especially fond of the reboot versions that have appeared over the past couple of years and watch them every chance I get. As a matter of fact, I was watching Man of Steel (2013) for the umpteenth time this past weekend, when I began noticing similarities between Superman and Captain James T. Kirk, particularly in their relationships with fathers and father figures.

Both characters, for example, experienced the loss of their biological fathers at or near the moment of childbirth and under similar circumstances. Kirk's dies in the process of trying to secure the safety of his wife, newborn son, and crew, while battling the renegade Romulan, Nero (Star Trek, 2009). Superman's father, Jor-El, is killed by General Zod, while sending his son to safety on Earth. Both men are subsequently raised by step-fathers, with somewhat different outcomes.

Technically-speaking, Kirk never has a "step-father" in the sense his mother remarries. In Star Trek (2009), we find him, his mother and brother, living with an uncle with whom their relationships are conflicted. Our introduction to a teenaged Kirk occurs in the scene where he "steals" a vintage Corvette Stingray his uncle claims is "his," and drives it off a cliff. It looks like a typical case of adolescent acting-out, but as the deleted scenes indicate, the car actually belongs to Kirk and his brother, an inheritance from their father. Its destruction, however, reveals how much Kirk resents his uncle and the way he treats his nephews.

Superman is raised by adoptive parents after his spacecraft crash lands on their Kansas farm. In many ways, he has a far more functional family life than Kirk. He is the child his step-parents wanted and never had. He is loved and protected from the misunderstanding that may result from the premature use of his powers and his step-father frequently reminds him his presence here is for a reason. Although Superman ultimately learns the meaning of his potential from a holographic representation of Jor-El, his becoming a man of integrity results from the influence of his step-parents.

Kirk needs an experience like that of Superman, but it doesn't materialize until his early twenties. He's grown up a "genius-level repeat offender," with little concern for his future until he encounters Christopher Pike, an officer in Starfleet, following a bar fight. Pike offers Kirk what he's always lacked: a strong male role model who sees his potential and challenges him to develop it. 

In Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013), we witness Pike reprimanding Kirk for violating the Prime Directive on a recent mission. More importantly, he's angry and clearly disappointed because Kirk lied on his mission report rather than accept responsibility for his actions. Pike has expectations for Kirk that exceed those he might have for any other officer; they're the expectations a father has for his son. Nevertheless, when Kirk is relieved of command of the Enterprise, Pike goes out on a limb and argues he's worthy of a second chance. It reminds me of something I learned from my own father: dads never give up on their children.

Pike does, in essence, what no one has done before, in Kirk's experience. He requires him to live up to higher standards of integrity and behavior. He has confidence in Kirk but he knows his greatest weakness is his ego-centric immaturity. As a father figure, Pike also knows Kirk has yet to realize that mature masculinity must be rooted in something greater than himself. Pike's death is meaningful, not only because it entails losing the only functional father figure Kirk has ever known, but because it represents losing his closest connection with his biological father. His tears aren't for Pike alone, they're for the father he never knew and the life he never had.
  
Superman, in a similar manner, has to come to the place where his life is rooted in something transcendent. His earliest efforts to use his abilities are sporadic and situational. He rescues a crew from a burning oil drilling platform, then finds a job in a bar. He's still bound by his step-father's fears he will be rejected by the people of Earth. Superman's encounter with Jor-El helps him begin integrating who he is as Cal-El, with the life he's been given by his step-parents. In this way he is enabled to create his own vision of himself as one pledged to help humankind.

Death is a key player in the myths of Superman and Captain Kirk. Superman has to risk his life to prevent the destruction of planet Earth. Kirk literally does give his life to save the Enterprise and her crew. Both must also "die" to an immature understanding of themselves in order to become the person they were meant to be. Each received instruction in dying from a father who gave himself for those he loved. They received instruction in living from men who chose to be fathers for their sake. I'm not sure anything we do possesses greater significance than how we raise our children. Kirk and Superman show us why.  

(Creative Commons image of Man of Steel billboard by Victoria Pickering via Flickr)