In a recent New York Times piece, Ben Stein talks about his father, describing how he never thought of the problems that his father suffered while working to give his children opportunities.
O, brilliant kids, you get to put on the garments of the morally righteous and upstanding while your parents work — because mothers work now and always have worked — and your parents must say, ‘Yes, sir,’ or ‘No, sir,’ to those who hire them. O, golden children, you get to talk about how you’ll never ‘sell out,’ and meanwhile your parents stay up late in torment, thinking of how they can pay your tuition. Because, brilliant kids, work (business) involves exhaustion and eating humble pie and going on even when you think you can’t. And you are the beneficiaries of it in your gilded youth.
As we approach Father’s Day (it’s my first as a dad), it’s good to reflect on these things. Working is hard and requires effort and compromise. The middle years, where you realize your real chances at getting what you used to want, have always been hard, hence psychoanalyst Elliott Jaques’s conception of the “mid-life crisis”.
(This is a reply to Marcy’s last comment that got out of hand. I guess I’m working through some of these ideas in the non-work environment.)
Nah, I never delete anything unless it’s known spam or using some really abusive language. (Well, my most popular post I took down, along with the comments, because it was attracting WAY too much foul language.) I just hadn’t gotten to approving comments. You should be whitelisted as a previously approved commenter, but I’m not yet up on this new MT version.
Totally agree with acknowledging your unmet needs. I’m just saying that if you can see why they are not being met, you can reframe your situation and the reframing may lead to less stress. It’s not going to make it all better but it can help to have realistic expectations of others.
The Brave New World feeling comes from some core unspoken values that permeate (esp.) American thought. Because many of beliefs, including those we have integrated into our beliefs in the Church, reject any idea of Nature and embrace only Nurture, things that say that we have a Nature inherent in our creation must be rejected.
Looking at Marcy’s comment on my last post, yeah, it’s almost unreadable. But I’m trying to say something big without having to get into all the ins and outs that I talk about for work.
The point is that if you are what I call in one of the “higher modes” and others generally call “gifted”, it can be hard to develop the deeply affirming relationships. You need someone who is like-minded for that.
This creates psychological stress.
- If you are really healthy mentally, you can survive this for awhile. Even several years. Then you start collapsing.
- If you do not have strong mental health, suffering this loneliness in the crowd can make your symptoms even more severe.
- If you live in a place with little chance of interaction with others who are “like-minded” in this way, you do not get this very important food for your psyche and spirit.
- If you grew up not having it, you have a deficit that needs filling. It’s like missing out on nutrients as a kid.
The good news is that the brain is a lot more resilient than people used to think. Get some of what I call “Modal Recognition” and you can reclaim a lot of lost ground.
Marcy recently wrote about attempting to find a new psychotherapist in Northern Indiana, and talked about some judgments that she had about some of her previous therapists who didn’t fit with her. (One of her old therapists, with whom she did good work, wrote a book with Warren Rule. I think this says a lot about her.)
I wrote a comment and she replied in a comment. This post examines my extended answers to her questions.
My comment:
It doesn’t have to be true, because there are always exceptions, but I think that having a therapist who is generally at least in your league, mental-process-wise, works better. You don’t want a therapist who cannot understand the cognitive processes that you use. Personality is important, but if they can’t understand what you are saying when you feel you are speaking plainly (and there are some real reasons why this happens that are no one’s “fault”) it’s probably going to be a waste of your time. Degree is irrelevant to this, of course.
Does raise an issue, though. There’s a pretty good chance that you are mentally overwhelming the natives over there. (I say this as a Hoosier.) That can make social relations very difficult for the best of us. If you already feel uncomfortable with people, this can cause debilitating affective disorders. Therapy is of little value in this, except to help with coping skills. Personally, I’ve gotten to the point where I reckon it’s better to fix the broken leg rather than learn to cope with it. If the locals aren’t “getting” you, that could be a really nasty addition to the other stresses.
Marcy’s reply:
To prove that her Aunt was not a genetic fluke (she’s a cellist in Germany), Alice has moved her “let’s dance to this!” attitude from Curious George soundtrack by Jack Johnson and friends, to Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. Really. Put on “Blue Rondo a la Turk” and watch her start dancing.
Having always enjoyed playing the mixed time pieces when I played bassoon (I recall “Bedford: An Overture” with particular fondness, along with some experimental Mexican composers), it warms my heart that she loves the funky beats.
On this day in 1973, the marvel of NASA called “Skylab” rocketed to high earth orbit. What a great time that was! I always wanted a Skylab for G.I. Joe, but the only thing I ever got that I requested from Hasbro was the submarine. (It really submerged! Neat!) Still, even at the that tender age I was excited about Skylab. Maybe I thought that my scientist dad would become an astronaut.
Of course, six years later “it entered the atmosphere, broke up, and scattered debris over the southeastern Indian Ocean and Western Australia”, as Encyclopædia Britannica notes, and we had to rely upon those pesky Ruskies.
CB called and mentioned an idea that sounded a lot like the creative collective I had previously bandied about for a novel idea. You’ll like it, Yule. Makes it seem like it is a good idea. Lots of questions still remain:
- How will it be organized?
- Ownership, which isn’t a small issue
- Legal status
- “profit” sharing, and how these things will be distributed
- Divisions and strategy, which may be handled by the strategy expert, making a lot of sense
- Areas of expertise
- Cross-marketing
And a host of others.
The real issue is that the goal can only be to introduce novelty through human freedom. You can’t predict where things will go. You can only disrupt the current stability.
Generally, the collective is a group of high-mode individuals who band together as a company to accomplish individual goals. This mirrors in many ways the formation of companies in the Renaissance. People of a variety of abilities would join together because:
- It spreads risk
- They believe that they can accomplish their goals more readily jointly rather than separately
Encyclopædia Britannica reports that today is the birthday of Ṣaddām Ḥussein, executed deposed-President of Iraq, and the anniversary of the execution of Benito Mussolini, dictator and self-styled “Il Duce” of fascist Italy.
Nice juxtaposition, there.
There is still time to pick up the excellent MacUpdate Promo’s Parallels Bundle for Mac OS X for only US$64.99 (less than 42 EUR, thanks to the dollar’s wretched state), complete with the MSRP $79 Parallels virtual machine for when you need to kick open Windows XP. Although I’d rather just boot up and enjoy the full RAM for playing a game now and then, Parallels offers decent performance for those times when I’d rather run Visio in the native OS rather than through Codeweavers Crossover Office.
Nice grab for Mac users.
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Since I got so much grief from some of y’all for failing to mention the last one, here’s the news: a brand new MacUpdate Promo bundle is available. You get some great apps, plus the chance that they will unlock SoundStudio (probable), BannerZest (likely), and Parallels Desktop (possible but don’t hold your breath), all for US$64.99.
In my opinion, the licenses for the core apps make it worth the price.
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