Holidays - a quck one

This one's gotta be quick because I've only got about 20 minutes left on my battery.

Well, Happy Holidays all. Happy... if you're Jewish - Hanukah, if you're African - Kwanza, if you're any version of Christian or Catholic - Christmas and if you're Muslim - I have no idea. But regardless Happy something. In a time of holiday cheer, or at least the appearance of cheer, we should be looking back at what we've accomplished and what we have not. As my teacher said to me when I was criticizing myself for not having done one little part of whatever, "leave my actor alone." or it might have been "leave my fucking actor alone." The reason I say this is twofold. Why criticize what we no longer have control over. The moment has passed, long gone, so there is no reason to dwell on what I should have done or I could have done or why didn't I do it or what was I thinking or why was I more worried about the cigarette in my hand then stopping the fight? None of these concern matter now. Should we look at them and learn from them? Yes, but to dwell seems asinine and a colossal waste of time and energy. Yet, we do it! Is it a phenomenon brought about with the advent of Psychotherapy? While I have no proof of this, I think so. We now spend a whole lot more time worrying about what we've done here and there than we had in the past.

Imagine, if you will, you are a farmer in the relatively uncharted mid west (read: Pennsylvania) in the mid 1800s. I don't think you were going to have a whole lot of time worrying or wondering or introspecting on the state of your psyche. The concept of "I just don't feel it today" didn't enter in. You got up at 5 and went to the fields or you didn't eat. You got up and went to the fields in the blizzarding snow because if you didn't you didn't eat. If the barn burned down, you rebuilt it as opposed to lamenting its loss or, you guessed it, you didn't eat. And I use the expression "you didn't eat" as an analogy to survival.

Today if you get fired or your car gets smashed or your boss yells at you what happens? You stay in bed until th day has gotten away from you. You go to a bar and drink your self silly. You abandon your daily routine and sit and think. How helpful is that shit? Is it the lack of environmental difficulty that allows us this overindulgence of our problems? Or is it that we think we know the answers because some guy said "the solution is locked deep inside you and the only way to get at it is to talk talk talk talk talk and hope something comes.

I spent many hours in a psychiatrists chair. He was a great guy who didn't believe in medicating. Thank God for that. And while I was definitely better for my time with him and think fondly when he pops in my mind, I don't know what our "work" was leading to. The biggest thing I got from him was an understanding that someone other than me could care about me; that I wasn't alone and I didn't need to fear or hate the great masses of man. In addition, I learned that being a sensitive person is not a bad thing. These lessons were hard won and well worth the time. But after 4 years what else would have happened?

My doctor was a rarity. The majority of psychiatrists are backed my pharmaceutical companies looking for the next big jackpot on the next big drug to give to our kids. They are not interested in really helping. With an increase in the reported cases of ADD in the 90s and the broadening of the psychiatric definition of what ADD is we see the organized and legalized drug pushers now tapping into a whole new market - kids. Right on! Do they know or are they aware or do they even care that the human brain continues to develop until the age of 21 and by putting a 8 year old or 9 year old on a brain chemical altering drug you are changing the way their brain develops. In essence creating a physical, not to mention chemical, dependency that will effect long into the future. How could there have been proper testing to see the long term affects of this kind of mass solution? There couldn't have and I bet in 10 years the Psychiatrists are going to say they were wrong, but too late! An entire generation of kids are hooked and to what end? To make the parents feel better that they tried something other than good parenting and more attention?

The yuppies of the 80s didn't have time to be parents so they medicated their children in the 90s.

How does this tie to holiday cheer? It doesn't. But being one of the kids medicated I have to look back without anger and forcibly stay in present time because the fields need plowing and I want to eat.

So: if you find yourself stuck in the past, realize it is a social construct set up by a group of suppressive people (psychiatrists) to keep you from actively achieving your goals. Feeling good is based on a job well done, not getting to know yourself better. Don't worry, that will come. And in the end, does it really matter what you think? A man should be judged based on his actions and what he does, not how he felt about himself. In 2007 - do the things that will make you a better person. Do them, don't think about doing them and wondering how that will feel.

That's my holiday message. Have a safe one and take care of your fellows out there. While we have more than one life to live, let's make the one we're in now as light and fun and enjoyable as we can.

And one more thing - religion shouldn't be a reason for hate when in the end all religions say, in one form or another, "love thy neighbor" and "do unto others as you'd have done unto you." An eye for an eye is not going to make this place better.

The opening of my new play...

Serial.

The word SERIAL is defined as “consisting of, forming part of, or taking place in a series: a serial publication” The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens were originally published as a serial. In the forties we had the great movie matinee serials like Spy Smasher, The Masked Marvel and Flash Gordon - and I don’t mean the movie - each ending with some cliffhanger to entice the hungry fans to come back next week. Even the TV we watch today falls under this definition. When you think about it, life, if nothing more, is serial in its very nature: “consisting of, forming part of or taking place in a series.”

But TV or forties film strips or Charles Dickens don’t typically spring to mind when we hear the word Serial, do they? You see, in these modern times serial is better defined as “repeatedly committing the same offense and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern.” As in serial killer. A term commonly attributed to Special Agent Robert Ressler - one of the founding memeber’s of the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit.

Jack the Ripper. John Wayne Gacey. The Son of Sam: David Berkowitz. Jeffrey Dahmer. Ted Bundy. Lesser known killers like Charles Cullen or Steven Letter - both know as the Angel of Death, Mary Beth Tinning who in 14 years killed her 9 children. Albert Fish, the Zodiac. You get the picture. Serial killers. They fascinate us. While generalizing behavioral characteristics is difficult, it is safe to say the majority of these killers have a specific, pattern based method to which they operate. Do they deviate - yes, but the deviation is almost always an escalating of atrocity. They are seemingly heartless but appear socially adequate enough to have friends and/or lovers and even be described as “a really nice guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly.” And serial killers are a sensation hungry, media-crazed nation’s soul food. We are horrified and enthralled at the same time. Not unlike a car accident - we hate that it happens but can’t help slowing down to see the gruesome outcome. There is nothing like a little death to arouse human curiosity.

I’ve always wondered if there were no consequences would the average person be willing to kill another human being? Or is there a mechanism within us that actually prevents us from taking a life? To coin a phrase: A consequence of conscience. And if so, are the Dahmer’s of the world born without that consequence of conscience? Something to consider. And while you’re considering... think on this question: what is conscience, really? Webster defines conscience as: “the faculty, power, or inward principle which decides as to the character of one's own actions, purposes, and affections, warning against and condemning that which is wrong, and approving and prompting to that which is right; the moral faculty passing judgment on one's self.” Is that then the nagging Super Ego Freud wrote about? Jung’s collective unconscious? A social hold-over from ancient times screaming don’t piss off the God’s or there’ll be hell to pay? A genetic predisposition to further the human race? One or all, the vast majority of us are at the mercy of something that holds the average, normal person back. Science doesn’t have an answer and psychiatrists, well, we won’t get into their territory since they aren’t too sure of their footing in mental realm - just ask them to define ADHD. And I don’t think it’s what the movies are saying either. The iconic image of the man in black with a dark brow over hanging deep set eyes. Bundy looked like you or me. Gacey was a natural salesman and dressed up like clown for sick kids. Look at the person next to you. He or she is fully capable of the worst that human nature can bring. But are they going to act on it? The realm of the serial killer, or, more specifically, the person lacking the consequence of conscience, is not black and white. It’s gray. Beautifully gray. So... your homework: think about the “gray.” I want you to formulate your theories on why the majority of us can live lives of quiet desperation serialized and qualified by whether McDreamy and Meredith are going to get together and a minority are fully capable of committing the most horrific atrocity without blinking an eye. Remember the look on Dahmer’s face when he sat at the defendant’s table. Stone cold. Nothing. The look of a simple librarian on his lunch break. I expect greatness from you all and anything less is unacceptable. Have a great weekend and may the force be with you.