What I Learned while not on Summer Vacation, about:

PASSOVER, PUBLISHING and PSYCHOTHERAPY

Dedicated to Adam B.; he will know why.

Let’s start with PASSOVER, shall we, since it falls on my birthday this year.

That’s not the real reason.  The real reason is that I have been doing and writing alternative Passover Seder content, for about twenty five years, with a few years of lapsing.  This year is one of re-connection to the event and may well be called “The Uses of Enchantment”.  Passover for me and for us as a family (my present one rather than the one of origin) has been predicated on the notion that we are not free but at best becoming free.  Each year there has been a shifting in text and most of the time it has been relevant to what our struggles and pulls of a given year or some of the larger and more general cultural events.

This year the major theme in my work has been the plague of distraction, apparently not one of the original plagues designed specifically by the G-d of the Jews for the Egyptians, or particularly for the Pharaoh who seemed pre-ordained to change his mind.  Perhaps he too was distracted, thinking he could get away with changing his mind and ignoring the consequence of G-d’s wrath.

Well, mercy be, I almost feel catapulted out of my chair, at least almost.  This hadn’t crossed my mind till this very moment.  But it does seem an awful lot like the Pharaoh acted a great deal like many of us are acting now.  We ignore the warnings about the global warming of our planet, about the lies about our reasons for a country going into war.  We display the sins of arrogance and ignorance and we build idols to our corporations and our more subtle deities of physical beauty and youth.  In fact there are many of these same people who will be seated at a traditional Seder table retelling the story of the Exodus and remembering that “We” were slaves and appreciating that “We” are now free. 

Okay, if you have read anything of mine, you see the many conflicts already—at least for me.  I am not into exclusivity; I am allergic to the notion that any People is chosen by anyone to be better or fit to rule.  And I am fiercely against the notion of the smugness or thinking we are free.  In terms of ecological awareness there would be no such thing as a static freedom.  In fact, THERE IS NO FREEDOM WITHOUT DISCIPLINE, because that would be gross impulsivity and greed and lust for power and nothing more.  In fact in addition one must continually evolve to meet the needs of the changing earth and of our knowledge. 

Bruno Bettelheim spoke of enchantment, specifically the enchantment of fairy tales, in a child’s life.  In his book The Uses of Enchantment , he talked of how small children need to think in strict terms of good or bad since they can’t handle the mixed feelings of ambivalence.  Supposedly if a “hero” with whom the child identifies, is industrious and works hard, there will be some “divine” intervention as in the fairy godmother— some energy and developmental turning point that will facilitate victory.  There is the story of the initially helpless child who prevails. Then wonderfully enough, the child grows up so he/she/we don’t need to think in terms of black or white and good or bad.  We can think of the complexity and the mixtures and textures of it all.  Isn’t that right?

Well, I think this might just be the theme this year…how we get so distracted that we stop paying attention to the lessons of a legend.  We insist on living with violence against the forces we can’t face inside of us, we insist on using hate or fear instead of reason and compassion to solve big and small problems.

Most parents I meet still reject the notion of practicing self-discipline as a key mode of helping children learn about it; most prefer punishment as it gives the temporary feeling of righteous power and the illusion of results.  It gives perhaps an interim result of fearful compliance and no one has to worry about the consequences long term.

Freedom and distraction: This seems like a good theme for Passover this year.  Good food should be a distraction that fills the spirit and brings joy to the appetite for all of life. “Good” distraction is uses here loosely, as meaning filling up on enjoyment or whatever, so that one can choose to come back to facing the conflicts inherent in living a real life.

 The year, by the way, in American numbers, is 2008.  Please use the idea, there is never any patent on these things.

PSYCHOTHERAPY (PROMISING TO BE BRIEF)

Warning, I feel myself channeling Jackie Mason….

So I am going to try to keep this promise, to be brief here.

Briefly (reminding myself) it’s a new field, and no one is such an expert as we might imagine.  And even the experts only think they’re experts because what does a New York Jew really know about a farmer in Indiana?  Has he, let alone she, ever been to Indiana?  And what does either of them know about farming?  Let’s so further, what do they know about China or Egypt; they probably think the Pharaoh still runs Egypt!

What would Sigmund Freud even do with the crazy people of today! Yuchhhh! He would walk the streets trying to hide in doorways, poor guy!  He thought people were afraid of sex; he didn’t know they were afraid to think!  He’d take a look at all the tattoos and the flesh and he might become a tattoo artist instead.

And even if someone knew about something, he/she wouldn’t know about everything about the same person; most of the time it would be based on an opinion.  Let’s face it, do you think Albert Einstein was such a big shot because he really wanted to be an actor, or run a restaurant?  He was interested in all those strange things, like numbers and thinking and besides in today’s world he would probably be spending his time in detention because G-d forbid someone should think, it might be a Federal crime!

You should excuse me, because what do I know, I’m a comedian, I was almost a Rabbi, but I’ve seen a lot of people and I know how sick all of them are.  There are people who look and sound healthy but I see how they eat, and how the ones who aren’t Jewish drink, Yuchhh!

So try to remember it’s a creative thing, don’t put your heart or mind or even your stomach in the hands of anyone who says they know everything.  It means they’re liars.  I know it’s a scary thing to think that therapy is creative but some of my best friends tell me it can be a lot of fun.  And one thing more, please! Don’t leave if something hits you in the kishkas (What does this computer know anyway, it doesn’t know Yiddish a bit!—that means intestines) but it seems right.  Run for the hills (if there are any hills by you) if someone doesn’t make any sense at all.  Look up at the sky or eat something wonderful and try again.  You might just know more than you think you know.

I should let you know that behind the cover of almost Rabbi or psychotherapist, there might be a comedian waiting to be born. And even when you know something, sometimes you just ever know. 

Most good therapists like surprise anyway.  Lots of luck!

PUBLISHING----OY VEY!

Publishing brings up a plethora of pictures.  All signs point to frustration, though I will resist the temptations to overuse the letter “p”.

        I am in the midst of trying to find a publisher for my journey through the fog of distraction to try to find some degree of clarity.  The trouble and the wonderful part (both at the same time, no less) is that part of what makes the book unique is that the essence includes some of the chaos and repetition—some of the stark mess of emotion and mood which accompanies a real change of heart or of mind.  This is especially pertinent when the change is deep and more like a paradigm shift than a switching of materials or ideas within the same thought system.

        It’s a conundrum: to give up the mess and go for the attempt to give a convincing and tight voice to the ideas which I have reached, to go into the genre of memoir which would make the ideas and insights secondary to the confessions of bouts of despair and epiphany, or to stand tight without the tightness of the book defending my viability.

        My choice has been to stick with my figurative guns and stand by my manuscript. (Yes, I am aware that part of that sentence reads “stand by ‘my man’”)  This is no easy matter since where do I run to?  Whom do I reach out to?  What do I do to gain attention in a culture where there is a whole profession, even more than one, geared to a careful and calculated gaining of approbation or at least notoriety?

        My journey taught me once again that the more open and the more clear I can be, the best chance I have of having the “right” coincidences.  Just as I came across the small volume of Carl Jung which grounded and made me leap at the same time, I might come to the openings for my book which feels like a potential gift and jolt to some who might need and even digest its contents.  Till then, I know I will go through the highs and lows of rejection, which I utterly hate.  It used to make me feeble and paralyzed and now the moods do not last for months.  I do wake up to new ideas and new concepts and new plans and the best part is that they are not coming from desperation. This is no self-proclaimed certificate of sanity or confidence in the midst of being ignored or, you know, the “r” word.  Sometimes I wish I weren’t moved to write, but who would that person even be?

        I actually sense the beginning of a whole new essay, so not easy is it for me not to write. The title of the essay might be “Viability in a Distracted Society”.  It would deal with the “whole new field” of attention getting and seeking in a society not paying attention to the most important issues and information of our times.  And in it I would ask the question that I am asking right here: Do I really want to play the games and jump the hoops to cater to the darting attention of those for whom I would have to debase myself?

        All or most of my work lately has emphasized the notion that people can be viable in diverse ways, that there is not only one learning style and one path. I am into therapeutic tutoring and having kids be part of community decisions; so do I just surrender and try to conform to what might make me “viable”?

  What does it mean exactly to be viable in a society so distracted?  I guess I am forced to face the fact that the publishing industry is (duh!) an industry in a corporate society and what sells is what will be seen as viable. What sells will be viable until the next rebel shocks people into either recognition or novelty so that standards change and what was cute or quaint is suddenly fit for the trash.  And who even knows if it will be trash that will be remarketed in a decade when nostalgia hits again, or simply forgotten or marketed under another name.

        I am trying to wake up from distraction and to help others do so.  I am fueled by passion about this.  For now, I’ll hope—with some luck more regularly than not—that the sharing grows in depth and breadth.  And I will try to remember the loyalty that comes with being viable in my own terms.  I am not cut out of the cloth of an easy conformity.  And I will try to keep inspired by what I have written but I don’t want it to be the death of me if it doesn’t get published. 

        As I eat something wonderful and Italian with Lino, I ask him about the Latin and Italian meaning of “viable”.  He reminds me that “via” is the word for road, and that “viabile” means that a road can be travelled on.  It doesn’t have to a paved road or a fancy one, only so vehicles and people can get through, can travel there.

 It makes me think of building new roads but that’s what I’m trying to do anyway in the realm of feelings and ideas about diversity… For the time being it, I, we— are works in progress, published or not…