I just finished a science article in Newsweek entitled “Secrets of the Universe” and my brain is still swimming laps in my head. God forbid it was a book or more then 4 pages long. I think my head would have exploded like the Big Bang. I know I have a Ph.D. but that string theory-multiverse stuff goes from thought provoking to brain damaging in one quantum nanosecond, if there even IS such a thing.
I realize most people dont give a shit and would rather watch, “Things Douchebag Guys Say” on You Tube, but still, I want to keep abreast of scientific developments, especially when it comes to little things like the known and unknown universe. The problem is that Cosmology and the so called “new physics” became the NEW NEW NEW PHYSICS while I was going to the bathroom and attempted to create my own whirling galaxy and gravity sucking black hole, Kohler style.
My ADHD and its attendant distractability problem often gets the best of me. For example, while I was pondering Stephen Hawking and his all-in-his-head conclusions about black holes and the “event horizon”, I started wondering how he, with his ALS disease and degenerative condition manages to go to the bathroom and empty his bowels. Can he still poop or pee unassisted and/or does he have his genius Math grad students helping him evacuate? More important, does he sometimes have his remarkable flashes of insight about dark energy, accelerated expansion, and the big bang while he is on the can, and if so, does he have his specially trained assistants write it down immediately on a napkin or a…..nevermind. Now that I think of it, I never saw Mr. Spock excuse himself to take a leak on Star Trek either. Dont brainiacs have to go like the rest of us and what in the world did a toilet look like on the Starship Enterprise?
Bottomline: I cant help wondering how our basic life functions like taking a crap might inspire once in a millennium Nobel prize revelations like E=MC2 or how some more recent brainiac/genius figured out something called “inflationary cosmology”, which is how cosmic “fuel” gets “smeared” clear across space and then replenishes itself to create other Big Bangs and other universes, hence the Multiverse. Maybe I really shouldn’t be reading this kind of stuff in the bathroom. http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/20/brian-greene-welcome-to-the-multiverse.html
A Two-fer. One blog old, one blog new….yet still connected in the quantum universe by One son and One slightly crazy father
The Older One: Remembering to Breathe and Hold Babies by Cliff Mazer, Ph.D. (April,2010)
My youngest son Benjamin recently accused me, a single father of three young men, of not acting “serious” enough for a Clinical Psychologist. He said I make a “joke” out of everything except Auschwitz. He’s probably right. He said I should “act more professional”, which I assume means stroking my beard thoughtfully and portraying a more solemn and professional demeanor. Here’s what I DIDN’T tell him but wrote this morning after he left to go back to college following Spring break:
Dear Ben, Do you really want to know why I joke around and make light of myself, the world and practically everything else? I think its honestly because I feel so much hurt and pain for a world in perpetual conflict rather than in love with life. To survive and NOT lose our minds we often have to purposely not think about all the injustice, the unimaginable cruelty, the children who are starving, the wars, the needless bloodshed, the grief of parents who have lost children to accidents, illness, drug addiction, etc., the unmistakable greed and inhumanity, and especially all the fighting over anything and everything…….over diamonds, over land, over designer jeans, oil rights, human rights, and now the right to quality health care.
I witness (practically on a daily basis) humans arguing over ideas and inventions, personal property, intellectual property, sex, child custody, money, politics, furniture…over being right and god forbid, never being wrong.
The conflict is an endless existential cacophony that would keep any sane person awake all nite and haunted all day until they, like most other people, find some way to harden their hearts and stifle their tears……..a waterfall of human tears that God watches in stunned silence………Some drink too much, or we scheme about how to get rich or buy real estate with no money down….We get excited about Thighmasters and Stairmasters and the Masters Golf Tournament and Ginsu Knife Sets with a Lifetime Warranty. We plan social events and throw elegant dinner parties. We join political parties…..and then argue even more. We create religious myths to explain the wretched silence like Deism and Theism and Atheism and fervently believe in a multiplicity of angry gods and benevolent saints. We analyze and theorize upon the nature of the Universe and pore over mathematical proofs and quantum models to try and make sense of it all, but also just to help us all not go totally bonkers that we understand so little and dont have all that much time to figure it out.
In the meantime, we(I) worry and obsess about our thyroids, adenoids, and hemorrhoids and we take our blood pressure and temperature to make sure we are still “normal”. We create new mental disorders to diagnose and then manufacture expensive psychotropic medicines to treat them and their alarming side effects. We conduct shaky scientific studies to warrant their use and often overuse. Even tho millions of people, including ourselves and our own kids take these medicines every day, a lot of them dont work much better than placebo sugar pills.
Ben, my son, my youngest son the Pre-Med student genius (I had to throw that in). NONE of that really matters as much as simple human kindness and stopping for a second to take a deep breath …to gain clarity and to REMEMBER to care for one another…including all the people we havent even met and who arent in our cellphone, buddy list, Facebook Timeline or Contact file at work. Maybe that’s why so many individuals are profoundly moved by the birth of a new baby and want to hold a soft little newborn and smell its baby fresh head and hair…Because, in that long, sweet, fragrant smell and touch Ben, we sense the RENEWAL of something real and uncomplicated like human love and caring and we get a chance to experience the absolute primacy of something pure, innocent, and yet untouched by the madness. It is something so holy and miraculous that it literally makes us come to our “senses” and remember our true humanity.
Finally Ben, I am so proud of you. Keep up the good work at college and remember to breath. Love, Dad
P.S. Also, dont forget I wouldn’t mind having a grandchild someday (not yet) so that I can remember (for the fourth time) the single sweetest moment of my life…you and your brothers birth.
Cliff Mazer, Ph.D., Atlanta, 404-932-7193, Clinical Psychologist and Pirate Fanatic
One New: Reviewing Augusta/Disgusta (May 2012)
I realize this is not politically correct but….I just spent two days in Augusta, Georgia to get my Med School bound son settled into his temporary summer “dorm” room. Could a city/town and campus be any more disgusta? We looked around for interesting, good, non-chain food establishments. Nada. We attempted to overcome the biases and prejudices we’ve heard about a crumbling downtown and dilapidated housing with outdated plumbing, leaky water fixtures and about zero “green” architecture, restaurants, public works or cultural initiatives. We doubted the place could literally stink to high holy hell like others have reported (see Urban Dictionary under Disgusta/Augusta). Unfortunately, it all appears to be true.
To be fair, some people were nice and friendly, others appeared to be in a strange “Children of the Corn” like mental fog with glazed eyes and fixed stares. There were a lot of cop cars around and security guards intermingled with poverty and suburban blight. I could swear the Pad Thai I had at a Thai-Chinese lunch place had not one ingredient that resembled either the Pad or the Thai. We retreated to known entities including the Mellow Mushroom on Broad Street for dinner, and while the pizza looked familiar, we all got food poisoning later that night. Let’s at least give the town an A for consistency. How about a new Reality TV show where someone like Alton Brown from the Food Network teams up with someone from the US Department of Energy Conservation and Public Works/Redevelopment and they publicly humiliate the politicians and planners of Augusta for allowing a historic town with a Savannah-Charleston like potential to become something ugly and yucky and sterile and depressing? Hey, I know, they could hold such an event at the band shell at the highly touted “Riverwalk” area in front of the Augusta Mariott, which honestly is not a bad looking place, but appears to be mostly a minor diversion for wealthy businessman, drug reps, and confused tourists. Not to be extra picky but we watched the tail end of a Memorial Day Concert at the band shell and 1) they were missing half the requisite instruments in their orchestra and posted a desperate flyer for musicians and 2) the crowd was sparse, elderly and looked, dressed and acted like the non-Jewish middle class citizens of St. Louis….circa 1964. Music Man would have been more appropriate. What does this town do when the Masters is not in town and how do they justify a goy golf fest like that in the midst of rampant decay and economic collapse? Maybe I’m being all Atlanta snooty, but I’m just sayin’….”Ya Got Trouble”…trouble in river city.
Usually I reference my ideas and blog topics with supporting information/websites below. This time the web based graphic IS the idea, and I will only make a few comments. The cartoon (above) is an attempt to put into visual form ALL of the main ideas that Carl Jung found to be most significant over his lifetime. Imagine doing the same thing for Albert Einstein or Michelangelo. A pretty ambitious reduction of a complex universe into a Marvel Comics size frame, yet, why not? Anyway, let’s give the illustrator and the old man, CJ some credit.
I tend to agree with most of it and dont see what I would add to it except maybe chronic indigestion, gas and bloating.
It struck me recently that just about everyone I know has been diagnosed with bipolar. No, I’m not kidding. It seems that with increasing frequency, rivaled only by the period of time around 10 years ago when everyone was being diagnosed as ADD (including everyone in my immediate family including myself) nearly every person I know and love is bipolar or somewhere on the “spectrum” of what we in the business call affective disorders. These are the mental diseases and diagnostic categories that refer to problems managing ones moods and emotions and often accompanied by a certain tendency to become manic or hypomanic, which is characterized by recklessness, racing thoughts, substance use and abuse, insomnia, and/or hyper-irritability. Wait, now that I say that……that really sounds like me too. Seriously. Plus, I’ve got the family history. Trust me. I come from a long line of people who start out pretty normal and end up either killing themselves or swinging from trees completely naked after not sleeping for two weeks in Belize or Costa Rica. They really discourage behavior like that in foreign countries and it can be quite grueling attempting to retrieve someone from the rain forest canopy who believes they are God or the pack leader of a family of Bonobo chimps.
To be fair there is another side to my family. They are the ones who worked on the Manhattan Project, became successful (and primarily sane) engineers, businessmen, scientists and college professors. For some reason they werent diagnosed with autism, ADD, or bipolar and managed to lead productive lives without taking mouthfuls of stimulants, SSRIs, atypical anti-psychotics, Lithium, or hidden flasks of whisky conveniently stashed in bottom desk drawers. As with the ADD epidemic, one becomes suspicious when they see too many soccer moms filling prescriptions for Adderall because their 10 year old, “focuses more and scores more goals when medicated”. Still, as a helping professional and someone from a family with both a lot of brains and a lot of raving lunatics (myself included) I know these diseases are real and often devastating. Somehow, somewhere we have to find a better balance between over-diagnosing, over-prescribing, over pathologizing on the one hand and excessive denial on the other. How bout this? If you think you’re crazy, you’re probably not as crazy as you think, but if you believe you’re completely sane and even the family dog cocks his head to the side when you say that at 3AM while watching Law and Order reruns and binging on Doritos, Tequila, and someone elses Vicodin….you might want to call a shrink for a second opinion. Dont be surprised if he/she (the good doctor) admits to being bipolar or ADD themselves.
In the spirit and memory of Eugene Polley, the inventor of the TV remote control who passed away today, I dedicate this blog.
Did you ever have a tv remote, ceiling fan, or other battery operated appliance type device that started to behave quirky and unreliably, no matter how much you shook it, pointed it, prayed to it or cursed the Gods? Am I the only one who for some reason prefers to frustrate myself for days, weeks, and even months, even tho deep down I really know I just need to go downstairs to the kitchen and get a new battery? What is with us, we ego driven, maniacal yet totally lazy humans that we would rather scream at a ceiling fan for ruining our day and quite possibly our dysregulated body temperature all night then accept that our main source of energy has run its course and is in need of replacement?
Ok, can you see I am using a metaphor here? I am talking about double AAs and triple AAAs and the funny square ones that never plug in easily or correctly, but Im also talking about our health… physical, emotional and psychological. It takes a long time for alot of people, including myself to admit they have gotten worn down from lifes many stress and strains, and might need more then a good vacation (altho never ever say no to a good vacation). Some of us need therapy. Some need a blood test or physical exam, including the kind that involves a doctor, a rubber glove, and a sarcastic comment like, “Now that wasn’t too bad, was it?” We might even need to see a shrink or accept the fact that certain medications are necessary. Worse yet, we might have to exercise and lose weight. The point is we have to, I have to, get better at admitting when I need help and my “internal remote control” is on the blink. In my TV room at home is one of my many self created “Ironic Art” exhibits. It’s really just a large bowl with all the many remote controls I have had over the years that span the many generations of new technology and new fangled ways to avoid getting off my lazy ass. I used to even have one that had a super long wire connected to it and was like a skinny jump rope…which I suppose defeats the purpose of both being lazy or getting exercise. Anyway, the art exhibit is pretty self-explanatory. Even when we feel like we have control, we really dont. We must accept the duality of both the absence of complete control as well as being more responsible and self-correcting. Life is just like that, but as guys, we often just like to pretend anyway. Thank you Mr. Polley. May you rest in peace and merrily keep on clicking the “clicker”…..for all eternity.
The premise is that every individual, no matter how serious their problems could benefit greatly from one highly individualized positive thought, well-timed idea or concept. Everyone is unique and every single life has a different invisible treasure “map” comprised of right and wrong turns, dead-ends and life changing (transformative) personal insights. Sometimes these moments of extreme “clarity” or “truth” can impact us in very powerful ways.
The problem is that most doctors, therapists, and people in general are unable to look at another person’s life as it presents itself in a given moment and in all its complexity and ask, “What single notion would most benefit this person today and especially right now?” Cookie cutter treatments, a physician’s PDR and psychologist’s DSM manual fail to pinpoint the transformative possibilities of the exact right idea at the very best time. Tomorrow it might be different and yesterday is gone. I believe this is more then possible with the right combination of therapeutic skills, intuition and open-mindedness. Nobody is saying that once you get the right idea that everything is automatically perfect or even better. Practice makes perfect. Actually nothing humans do is perfect, but it can be pretty close to a beautiful sunrise on a brand new day with a great cup of good coffee…or a Chai tea, if one so desires. Personally I don’t like that Chai stuff and that’s exactly my point. Either way, if you help others, you begin to help yourself……and visa versa.
Coen Brothers Mental Exercise: What is the rabbi trying to say? From the movie: The Serious Man https://youtu.be/uoetGnTIjWY
As a personal hoarder and professional therapist, I am in a unique position to say something about the phenomena that, thanks to cable TV, we all love to hate. Well, maybe not hate as much as recoil in disgust and disbelief. Someone really saves used cat litter and soiled baby diapers?? Ewww.
Hear me out all Ye Who Judgeth. Most of us who “over collect” and tend toward “clutter” aren’t quite that bad or suffering that degree of abject denial. We dont merrily open our refrigerators in the morning to the sight of gobs of black mold, dead squirrels and missing relatives squeezed into the produce drawer. Ok, we might lag a bit behind in our vigilance about expiration dates, ie. “Dad, are you kidding me? Today is May 20th. This yogurt says sell by January 12th and your 2% milk looks suspiciously like cottage cheese.” Fine. Mea Culpa on that one.
The thing I dont like is how these “reality” shows and even my own profession tend to lump every deranged hoarder into the same fly and rat dung infested category, usually an older middle aged lady or guy who has to crawl over boxes to get to his/her urine soaked mattress and half eaten box of Triscuits. Ok, Mea Culpa on the Triscuits and Sesame Melba Toast by the side of the bed too………..I like some “comfort food” with me while I write. Plus I dont want to trip over my stuffed animal collection at nite when I shuffle down to the kitchen in my limited edition Star Trek slippers.
I dont know where Ramsey, Minnesota is but based on recent news reports, it can get pretty kinky out there. Apparently a man named Alan Petrusson, now known to billions on the Internet as “the guy who tied himself naked to a tree for sex”, did exactly that in a city park. Of course he first blindfolded himself so that the sex could be more “anonymous” and therefore, theoretically more exciting. Wouldn’t you? Many people reading this, such as myself, tend to pause and consider the “what ifs”. What if he did that in Yellowstone Park during Grizzly bear season after first smearing himself with peanut butter and hollandaise sauce? What if he did that in Compton California while proudly flying gang colors at “full mast” in the midst of someone elses turf? There are endless scenarios in which to imagine how Mr. Petrusson could have heightened his own perverse sexual arousal right before having his limbs torn off and/or found himself mated for life with a highly possessive and close-knit family of brown bears, chimpanzees, gorillas, Crips, Bloods, or Central American street gangs. Unfortunately in Ramsey none of the above materialized and he was merely reported to the police and promptly arrested. I dont know what the penalty is for such behavior in a public place, but I doubt his eco-friendly, tree-hugger defense is going to work, especially given his erect state. I know if I was the tree I wouldn’t appreciate it.
When you need information about medicine and your body, who do you turn to? I said WHO, not WHAT. Yes, people use their computers and go to medicine and medical related websites. But when it comes to a person, people often dont go see a doctor first. They ask their pharmacist. Why is this? It’s because pharmacists are knowledgeable, up to date, convenient and approachable. We trust them. They remember us. They look us straight in the eyes, and very often they seem to honestly sympathize with us and with our understandable frustrations. Also doctors are expensive and like cab drivers with the meter running, their time is money. Pharmacists dont charge for what they know.
When it comes to mental disorders like depression, eating disorders, bipolar and anxiety/panic and OCD, who do we trust and who do we turn to for help and understanding? Suddenly the equation is more complicated. While one is tempted to say Psychiatrists, Psychologists and Licensed Psychotherapists…the truth is there is a “split” in peoples thinking and actual experience.
Many (but not all) of these professionals are reasonably knowledgeable. Most are up to date, especially in their areas of expertise. Often they are not convenient, not easily accessible and (more then one likes to admit) not necessarily understanding or sympathetic. The nature of their training and the “busy-ness” of their business sometimes makes them seem either aloof or distant. One sometimes gets the uncomfortable feeling that they are perceiving the world as distinct disorders and psychological classifications or psychiatric diagnoses and not as individual human beings with unique lives and circumstances. Their professional “practices” are so busy and so “procedure” or treatment based that they often dont appear to have the time to look up from their clipboard and/or computers. They are trying to cure complex problems in 45-50 minute intervals. Obviously there are exceptions involving some very rare insightful, even loving therapists. Thank Goodness for that.
My doctoral dissertation on recovery from anorexia nervosa at Stanford Childrens Hospital (quite a few years ago) among other things looked at who the PATIENTS felt were most supportive and helpful in their eventual recovery from this serious and often remittent illness. Much to our chagrin, as clinicians, researchers and therapists, the answer was often NOT the trained helping professionals, but other hospital employees including the custodians, the cafeteria staff and other patients or close friends. I could go into greater detail, but the point is that love, care, faith and sincerity really matters and those are not aspects that are always taught in graduate or medical school. Real social support and personal authenticity as well as enthusiastic positive approaches (with alot of hugs) actually helps people make it through tough times and eventually heal. We need to provide nice places and even nicer people like that for those who struggle with emotional problems. Why nice places? Because hospitals and doctors offices, including many buildings where therapists work are not very inviting or “therapeutic” feeling. Most people including myself dont exactly have positive associations to hospitals. We naturally associate such places with illness, disease and infirmity, and not with health, wellness and vitality. The last time I was in a hospital I spent half the time going from wall mounted liquid sanitation/germicide dispenser to dispenser. Such environments can turn a normal neurotic into a obsessive compulsive germaphobe in a single visit! My conclusion is this: We need health professionals and we need hospitals, but we also need creative, fun and therapeutic alternatives where people with real problems can talk, laugh, eat, relate and release their pent up frustrations, feelings and maybe, just maybe, give each other love and lots of free hugs. I also suspect it would be very cost-effective.
I stayed at the Comfort Inn during my son’s recent graduation from Pomona College in Claremont, California. All the local hotels including the posh Casa 425 in the haughty Claremont “village” were fully booked. Baby Boomer parents and attending alumni along with their highly intelligent sons and daughters clogged the many fine dining establishments near campus and talked foodie talk and global economics while waiting for their Belgian microbrews and perfectly rare Back Abbey burgers. The suburban swank of Claremont is a sharp contrast to the ethnic/ Hispanic buzz of Pomona, sort of like the aged gouda cheese on my burger. As I drove to my hotel on South Garey Avenue in Pomona, it was a little like crossing the border into Tijuana. Dont get me wrong, I liked the more authentic environs and lower middle class neighborhoods mixed with Mexican restaurants, bakeries, hair parlors and tire shops. The Comfort Inn Pomona is a bastion of safety, security and working air conditioning. They say they took a 100 year old winery and converted it to the present well kept property. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any barrels or left over bottles of wine. The rooms are very decent, even spacious. The staff is kind. The complimentary breakfast forgettable. Who really need a sausage patty and a stale bagel when you have authentic taquerias and panaderias all around you? To be fair, it gets a little spicier at nite and on weekends, and I did see two guys wearing bandanas spray painting traffic signs with what appeared to be gang symbols on my way to the CVS right next door. I dont think they were Pitzer College students doing an art project or working on their final thesis but I could be wrong. I also dont think they were interested in my large bag of Cheetos and Flaming Doritos, but I would have been willing to share. Regardless, the price was right at the Comfort Inn and I would stay there again. It took me only 10-15 minutes to get to Claremont where the bandanas were conveniently replaced by mortar boards and sad/happy just graduating college kids.
captaincliff 