The Freedman Archives: Part II

Relying on the Kindness of a Friend

2007-12-31T11:45:00.000-08:00

Growing Up Jewish in the South

by Jesse Raben, Founder and President of AllThingsJewish.com.

Mr. Raben and I were friends and coworkers at a local law firm during the Reagan Administration, late in the last century.

Mr. Raben--now a practicing attorney--was intelligent, inner-directed, idealistic, and independent in thought and action.

Twenty years later, I still remember one incident vividly. I was in 8th grade at Aycock Junior High School. A boy named Darryl Massey had been bothering me everyday in class, calling me names, sometimes making reference to the fact that I was Jewish. I asked him to stop, but he continued.

I didn’t know what to do about it. I brought the issue up around the dinner table one night. My older brothers quickly talked of opening up a major can of whoop-ass on Darryl. Unfortunately, they were in high school already and were offering only moral support. In any event, I wasn’t looking for a fight. Aycock was a school that paddled, yes, paddled, kids for fighting. All the same, I warned my parents that there was a chance I was going to get into a fight with Darryl next time he insulted me.

In gym class a few days later, Darryl started in, calling me names, calling me wimpy, that sort of thing. I knew that his taunts were not worth fighting over. A couple of the other guys broke us apart as we circled each other, shoulder to shoulder (this was the common middle school, pre-fight ritual, just to show that you were ready to go at anytime). I picked up my books and started to walk off, angry, but fine with my decision to leave. As I was walking away though, Darryl yelled out to me “He’s just a damn Jew anyway.” I lost control when I heard his words. I turned quickly, dropping my books, adrenaline shooting through my veins, tears welling up in my eyes, and rushed toward him as fast as I could move.

I grabbed his shirt with both of my hands, staring into his surprised eyes. I pushed him hard against the wall and then swung blindly at his face. Three fists seemed to land in the space of two seconds. As I started to launch another blow, a hand caught my fist in mid-air. Coach Medley, the gym teacher, had heard the commotion and ran out of his office. As I looked at him, I heard the rest of the locker room cheering in my favor. I looked at Darryl, who was now being restrained by another coach but struggling to get free to come after me. I struggled as well, but wasn’t going anywhere under Coach Medley’s grip.

I faintly heard Coach Medley tell me to go along my way -- that he would take care of things. I walked out of the locker room, shaking, scared, but so proud of myself. I had done it – I shut Darryl Massey up. For me it did not matter whether he ever called me a name again or not. I had this victory for today and that was what mattered. As I walked along to my next class, he came running after me, yelling and screaming more names. I stood my ground and told him I would fight him anytime. Darryl’s friends laughed at him, came up to me, and told me not to worry about Darryl anymore.

I think about that fight every now and then and wonder whatever happened to Darryl Massey. I remember that his mother died the next year – someone ran out to tell him while he was in the middle of football practice. I saw him when he came back to school after some time off. I approached him and said I was sorry about his mom. He wouldn’t shake my hand, pride, I guess, but I took no offense. He just stared at me.

I was born in Durham, North Carolina, and while my family moved around, we finally settled in Greensboro, North Carolina after brief stops in Miami, Winston-Salem, and Israel. All of this was before my seventh birthday. My dad worked at teaching hospitals in Durham and Winston-Salem. We moved as he found more interesting opportunities.

Living in Washington, D.C. for the past ten years, I can reflect on what it was like to grow up in the South with some perspective. There were not many Jews where I grew up. I was one of five Jewish kids – three of whom were my two brothers and sister – in junior high. There were about 3,000 Jewish families altogether in Greensboro, with a much more significant population in Charlotte. But we had a strong community. We participated heavily in BBYO and USY – two organizations that we could really identify with and find other Jewish kids our age who had the same interests. Greensboro had (and still has) synagogues and youth groups. While larger Jewish populations are much more common in the South now than when I was growing up, there are still nowhere near the numbers of Jews in major cities of the East Coast, Midwest, or West Coast.

Most of my contemporaries’ parents seemed to have moved from the Northeast at some point . Everyone had their own reasons for moving to North Carolina. Growing up Jewish in the South -- to answer the first question you may have on your mind right about now, yes, there are Jews in the South, even in places like Greensboro. And, to answer your second question, we had a real Jewish existence, with matzah, apples and honey, and even a sukkah. No hamhocks, collard greens, or fatback.

To me, growing up Jewish in the South meant putting up with overt anti-Semitism. It wasn’t just being called dirty Jew or Jew boy. It was also a reminder from a 200 pound sweaty fifth grader, chasing me down a hall at camp to tell me that unless I found Jesus, I was going to burn in hell. It was the Ernest Angley Faith Healing Hour and the fifteen Baptist preacher channels (when we finally got cable). I even heard people suggest that we should have to go to school on Christmas because we did not celebrate it. And there were the KKK and even the Nazi party – which, as you can imagine, made life fun.

Anti-Semitism came in two forms –hatred and ignorance. By ignorance, I mean not just a lack of knowledge, but a lack of willingness to learn and understand. It came in the form of always asking about Hanukkah, or why do you have matzah in your lunch box, or how come we don’t get off for the Jewish New Year when you got off for Christmas? Although it could get tiresome, I didn’t mind answering the questions especially if I felt like it might have some positive effect and maybe change a person’s feelings towards Jews.

While I harbor no ill feelings regarding the ignorance, I still feel pangs of resentment and a little fear regarding the hatred, even though I learned that the hatred also stemmed from ignorance. I don’t know what to say about the hatred I experienced. It is what it is. I doubt it will ever disappear. (And this, we all know, does not restrict itself to the South.)

Looking back, I do believe that a lot of the anti-Semitism that came from kids my age was largely a result of ignorance and stupidity, although there certainly were some very smart kids who used anti-Semitic and racist slurs freely. Who knows, maybe they learned from their parents. It would not surprise me given that I constantly heard my friends’ parents using derogatory names for blacks as part of their everyday language.

I remember another boy who used to tease my brothers and me after I got to high school. Walter something or other. I think he was my brothers’ age, but in any event, older than me and bigger and stronger. I remember him not because of the teasing and the anti-Semitic remarks, but for something he said to me one day. I was standing by my locker one morning, getting my books together. This was about the time Walter would typically give me a hard time. This day was different, though. He walked up to me and I looked at him, bracing myself for some remark. He looked back at me and said he was sorry for saying the things he’d been saying. He’d watched the television miniseries “Holocaust” and told me that he never knew about the suffering Jews had had to endure. He apologized again and walked off. I stood there somewhat shocked. I had no idea what to make of what he said.

I don’t think I ever said another word to him after that day, but I know that when I did see him, there was a good feeling in my gut and a smile would usually come over my face.

The Confessions of a Psychoanalyst

2005-04-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

Brian,

Hey, buddy. I haven't seen you in some time. That may change. I'm thinking more and more along the lines of returning to the Cleveland Park Library on the one-year anniversary of "The Catastrophe," that is, the ban you imposed last April 21. I think that would be fitting and proper. I talked to my psychologist, Dr. Bash, about returning as a patron to CPK, and she raised no objections. In fact, for some time, she had been suggesting that I return to my neighborhood library.

I'm taking a new antipsychotic medication, Geodon. It's great. The old antipsychotic I was on, Zyprexa, was a disaster. It had somnolent properties and it raised my serum lipid levels. It also caused weight gain. My cholesterol was off the charts, at 296. My triglycerides were 90 points too high, also. (Of course, I was also eating a lot of yogurt. But it was nonfat.) As I mentioned last week, I was sleeping about 14 hours per day on the Zyprexa. Do you see why I wasn't taking my medication last year? It's really a form of cruel and unusual chemical therapy, so to speak.
But the Geodon is a great med. It does everything Zyprexa does therapeutically, but with none of the side effects. You may wonder why a doctor would prescribe Zyprexa. Well, for one thing, some people can't take Geodon. It's contraindicated for people with heart disease. People with Q-wave problems, and so forth. You know, the sinus node and all that. I guess President Clinton would have to stick to Zyprexa if he were to develop delusions about a vast right-wing conspiracy.

I feel like I've got my groove back. I'm able to work out at almost my old level. Also, I've been considering getting a part-time job to supplement my scam operation on Social Security. Would you believe it? Social Security actually buys that crap that I'm mentally disturbed. Now, really. Just because I have no social life, I believe I'm under surveillance, and I believe I have special mental powers -- like the ability to pick up and interpret social cues that other people can't see.
I saw William at the CVS on Saturday. "Gary!" he called out to me. It's Mr. Freedman to him, by the way. (Not that I have anything against William. At least I don't have any more of a grudge against William than I have against any other DC employee. But that's an entirely different suburb.) I just have a problem with too much familiarity. People lose respect for you when you get too friendly. At least that was President Nixon's belief. (Richard Nixon was apparently oblivious to the possibility that paying no federal income taxes or obstructing justice might impair a public official's ability to garner respect. But he was concerned about the consequences of too much familarity. And they say I have mental problems!)

Tell William that he may address me as Der Freedman (as Craig the Embalmer used to do). Or he may address me as Mr. President. But watch the "Gary" crap. I don't want to lose respect with the masses. William asked me if I was taking any day trips. Yea. Right. I take day trips through my own inner fantasy world. It's great. No frequent flyer miles, but you don't have to take your shoes off at the airports. At least I don't. Actually, I didn't tell William that. I told him I was just hanging out. (I wish I had a buddy to hang out with. A real buddy, that is.) Of course, I did take a day trip last October to the psych ward of DC General, courtesy of the Metro DC Police. And wasn't that a dream come true?

I told William I was on a sabbatical from the library. He said, "I know." I guess he would know. How could he not know?

Be that as it may.

I have another archival document for you to peruse. What you historians call a "primary source document." Back in the year 1991 I saw Dr. Lawrence C. Sack, a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst, for treatment. Dr. Sack was a really great guy -- and supersmart. He had a bachelors degree as well as a medical degree from Harvard University. And he graduated first in his high school class. Really great guy. Unfortunately, he died in 2003 (August 5 or August 6, I can't remember). I saw him three times in May 1991. (The first consult was on May 13, 1991. I remember that because it was the anniversary of Sigmund Freud's circumcision. The "bris," as Jerry Seinfeld would say.) At the conclusion of the first consult I asked Dr. Sack, seeking reassurance, "Do you think I'm psychotic?" Dr. Sack replied: "We're all psychotic when we dream." That hardly put my mind at ease.

An odd detail: Dr. Sack used to take his shoes off during consultations. It reminded me of the story of Moses and the Burning Bush, when Moses was instructed to take his shoes off. "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." An odd association, don't you think? Dr. Sack had a portrait of Sigmund Freud on a wall in his office. Freud's image glowered down on me during the sessions, adding a touch of solemnity to the proceedings.

In any event, I had to quit the treatment because I believed Dr. Sack was talking to Malcolm and Earl. Though that, in reality, was a rationalization. I had to quit because I liked Dr. Sack too much. I can only sustain a relationship with people about whom I have strong ambivalent feelings. Dr. Palombo -- now, Dr. Palombo I loved, but I also despised him. It was a real love/hate relationship. That's familiar and safe mental territory for me. Craig the Embalmer was another person who I both loved and hated. My investment in Bob Strauss is also ambivalent.
And, of course, there's you, buddy. Though I can't say I love you. It's more like a "like/hate" relationship I have with you. Der Raben -- well, Der Raben I really didn't know that well. But from what I could gather he wasn't a really hatable kind of guy. I don't think Der Raben and I could ever be good friends. There just wasn't the correct "love/hate valence." Better friendships through chemistry, as they say.

Same thing with Dr. Sack. You couldn't hate the guy. So, I quit my therapy after only three sessions. I used the excuse that I thought he was talking to Malcolm and Earl -- it was as if I had to invent a grievance against Dr. Sack.

So, the basic story is I can only befriend people who I both love and hate. -- And Social Security thinks I'm mentally unbalanced. Go figure!

In any event, Dr. Sack's son, Robert Sack, MD -- also a psychiatrist -- was kind enough to let me have a copy of his father's clinical notes of my three consults with his father. I typed them up, so you can see what a seasoned analyst had to say about me. The document really just confirms what I've already written about. But I thought you'd be interested.

The Autobiography of Lawrence Carlton Sack

THE FIRST HOUR:

A troublesome -- aren't they all? -- new patient, thirty-seven years old, raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father had a typical petty bourgeois Jewish Orthodox background. The patient's mother was a Polish-Catholic. He is highly intelligent, a compulsive talker, extremely narcissistic and exhibitionistic. He hides his intellectual arrogance behind ironic self-deprecation. He cannot stop his diarrhea of talk, because it is his way of denying his essential constipation -- his total inability to give of himself. His working for a large, prestigious law firm in the capacity of a paralegal (the patient trained as a lawyer) is not only a denial of his own failure to assume responsibilities, but reflects his inner feeling of guilt that only in a state of misery can he find a perverse fulfillment in life.

He gave me no chance to explain what psychoanalysis is all about, claimed to be very familiar with it, and proceeded to show that he lacks even the slightest understanding. He seems to think psychoanalysis is a self-serving rattling off of complaints and accusations leveled at others and oneself, instead of recognizing the serious introspection and contemplation it ought to evoke. He is capable of neither of the latter, because he feels he is so worthless that he cannot be serious about anything that touches him -- not his own self, nor his family, nor those he works with.
He wants to do everything himself without any relation to, or contribution by, another person, in a typical masturbatory phallic fixation. He permits no one, including me, to make any contributions to his life. Obviously, he has spent years at his self-justifying ruminations, where even his self-criticism is meant only to show how shrewd and honest he is about himself. Mainly the self-criticism serves to let him go on exactly as before without internalizing his guilt to the degree that he would need to do something about it; it serves him to avoid any need to change. He is convinced that to rattle off in this way becomes psychoanalysis when he does it aloud with me listening.

Despite his long account of all that went wrong in his life beginning with infancy (!), there is absolutely no realization of his sickness -- his complete inability to relate to another person. How can he, when all he sees of the world is his own projections, which he is certain are true pictures of reality?

He sees psychoanalysis as one vast catharsis, without the need for any deeper insight or internalization. Everything is just one huge ejaculation. I doubt if he can establish even the minimal transference that would enable him to analyze. Probably his selecting me for an analyst typifies his unwillingness to give up his bondage to his Jewish past. I wonder if I should have insisted that he go to a gentile analyst. I may still have to transfer him to one.

In our brief talk before treatment began, I asked him why, given his feeling that his troubles originate, in part, with his identification with his father's Orthodox Jewish background, he selected me, as his analyst. He could not understand my point, saying that no gentile analyst could ever understand him. He speaks as if the issue were finding an analyst whose sympathy and understanding are endless, as were his parents' -- not his own coming to understand himself. His selection of me for an analyst suggests that deep down he does not want to transcend his own background, and so chose an analyst who will not alienate him from what he pretends to hate, but without which he feels there would be nothing left for him or his life. It remains to be seen whether we can overcome this handicap.

Since he thinks his need is to spill out, uninterruptedly, I shall let him, for a full week. Then we shall see if he can stop the spilling long enough for analysis to be possible.

He carries on as if to convince me that all the cliches of a spoiled Jewish boyhood are indeed valid: the overpowering, overindulgent, overprotective mother and the ineffectual father. Essentially the hour was one long alibi. I am to understand that if he cannot meet life, cannot relate to another human being, it's not how he construes things, but because of his parents and their background, along with two specific traumata.

He is a master of the alibi, and like the clever lawyer that he is, he plays both sides of the street. He blames his misery on both kinds of trauma: the physical (an injury to his oral cavity -- at age two-and-one-half!!) and the psychological (his mother's lack of empathy). He must be certain I will see him as the suffering victim, no matter what kind of theories I hold about physical or emotional trauma as causing behavior like his. Actually, it is not traumata, but only his disgust with himself, that forces him to defeat all those who love him (his parents, his potential friends, etc.).

The tirade against his parents, especially his mother, is uninterruptible. A few times I indicated the wish to say something, but he only talked on more furiously. His spiel was like a satire on the complaints of most of my patients, and on the tenets of psychoanalysis: a satire on the dominating and castrating father, and a mother too involved in herself and her own life to pay much attention to her son. This extremely intelligent young Jew (or half-Jew) does not recognize what he is trying to do -- by reversing the oedipal situation, he is trying to make fun of me as he does of everyone, thus asserting his superiority over me and psychoanalysis itself. His overpowering love for his mother is turned into a negative projection, so that what becomes overpowering is the mother's love for him. Overtly he complains that she would never let him alone, was all intrusive -- behind which lies an incredibly deep disappointment that she was not even more exclusively preoccupied with him. While consciously he experienced everything she did as destructive, behind this claim is an incredible wish for more, more, more. His is an insatiable orality which is denied and turned into the opposite by his continuous scream of its being much too much.

Even the most ordinary, everyday request from his mother, such as her reminding him to send a card on his father’s sixty-sixth birthday, is experienced by him as the most unreasonable demand, forcing on him a life of guilt and indebtedness to his parents. Whatever the mother did for him was always too little; the smallest thing she requested was always too much.

After listening all day to the endless complaints of patients about mothers who were never interested in whether they did or did not eat, whether or not they defecated, whether or not they succeeded in school, it should have been refreshing to listen to an hour of complaints about a mother who did exactly all that -- but it was not. It was so obvious that he felt cheated at not being given enough. No doubt he is tortured by memories of his past, and by his present inability to be a man and enjoy normal sex. But he certainly makes the most of it, and nowhere do I see any effort on his part to free himself of this bondage to the past. Obviously be expects my magic and that of psychoanalysis to do this for him.

An important clue, to be followed up later: he is fascinated by his father's constipation, which is so stark a contrast with his excessive masturbation and incessant, diarrhea-like talk. This seem like an interesting fixation at the phallic level, as though the father's constipation has made him so anxious about his own ability to produce that to compensate, he produces without interruption -- whether by masturbating, talking, writing letters, or intellectual productions and achievements. If he does not learn to hold in and store, but continues this indiscriminate discharge, analysis will certainly fail.

If I were to give a name to this patient after this first hour, I would call him "The most unforgettable character I've met." This is not because the patient thinks this designation is true of his mother, as he sees her (as is so of everyone and his mother) but because, while he wishes to believe the foregoing, his major effort is to impress me with himself as "the most unforgettable character I've ever met." Poor soul. Instead of trying to get from me the help he so desperately needs, he tries to impress me with his uniqueness. Everything he accuses his mother of, he is himself, in the extreme. She exploited him because she loved him so much. He exploits everyone because he loves no one.

THE SECOND HOUR:

Despite the same incessant stream of talk little new material. Speculations arrived at by the end of the last hour seem borne out today. As a child, he masturbated, preferably on the toilet, in line with his father's constipation which emerges ever more as a central experience leading to a negative identification. The father cannot let go. The son cannot hold anything in, or hold onto anyone. The father, out of incessant fear for the future, chose and stuck to his job in a garment factory. This influence is internalized by the son as fear about his masculinity. For this he finds only one defense: the excessive masturbation which seems to prove his body is working, but at the price of self-disgust. Because this patient wants not a penis that gives pleasure, but an instrument that expels its contents; he feels a self-assurance which his masturbation cannot give him.

Otherwise it was a repetition of the first hour's contents. In the deliberately vulgar language of the patient, I would entitle this session "Whacking Off." He uses much obscenity to impress others and fools himself into thinking he is liberated, while actually he is expressing his loathing for himself.

THE THIRD HOUR:

It becomes increasingly clear that this patient has read too much about psychoanalysis while understanding nothing -- for example about castration anxiety. What he does not see is how desperately he wishes he had a castrating father, and how deeply disappointed he is because what he encounters instead is only what he experiences as a castrating mother. But even as he complains of how castrating she is, he cannot help admiring her inner strength, which alone seems to sustain the entire family. One gets the feeling that he has to see her as castrating, because he needs to see her as being strong enough to protect him. It becomes also more clear that his true sickness is the refusal to recognize his parents' deep love for him, because that would mean the obligation to love them back, and later, other human beings. Instead, he clings to his vision of all human relations as exploitative power platys. All this gives my patient the particular "Jewish Blues" that formed the leitmotif of this session.

[Following this session, the patient terminated the analysis. The patient’s paranoid fears about revealing himself were transformed into the fear that I was disclosing the contents of his sessions to his employer. LCS]

In fact, Brian, the above material is drawn from “Portnoy Psychoanalyzed,” by Bruno Bettelheim. Bettelheim wrote the tongue-in-cheek analysis of “Portnoy’s Complaint” (by Philip Roth) in 1969. The paper was first published in Midstream Magazine and later reprinted in “Surviving and Other Essays.”

Check you out next week, buddy. By the way, have you taken up gargling. Has the little lady ever discovered you gargling in the bathroom?

Under the Boardwalk

2004-08-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. I write to you once again from my exile: an unquiet oblivion made all the more unquiet by these very letters.

How's it going? Another August 15th has come and gone. Yesterday was Napoleon's birthday. Did you rise to the occasion?

Listen, buddy. I like you. I really, really like you. In a nongubernatorial way, of course. That's a little party humor. A little Jersey Democratic Party humor. Who ever said a Jewish kid and an Irish-Catholic kid couldn't be good friends? I mean really, REALLY good friends?

Well, it looks like the party season is upon us, here at 3801 Connecticut Avenue. Mardi, the front-desk manager, is going all out arranging a party for the residents that she is tentatively scheduling for Saturday September 19. She's planning this as a chance for residents to get to know each other.

Mardi has been thinking about the idea of making the party an ice cream social. What the hell is an ice cream social? Mardi was talking to David Dickenson about having an ice cream social. (Dickenson, if you remember, is the lawyer, who, because he is a lawyer, can't be friends with me--according to The Mad Monk.) Even David Dickenson was baffled. Ice cream doesn't sound like something you could serve with beer. If you can't have beer, what's the point of a party? Who wants to get together over a plate of ice cream? This isn't the Creamery at Penn State.

I'm a lot of fun at parties, did I ever tell you that?

I think I told you the story about the Christmas party I attended at my old place of employment, back in Philadelphia--The Franklin Institute. This was back in December 1977. I was a mere youth of 23 at the time. I was besotted. They didn't serve beer--or ice cream. I was drinking gin and tonics all night. The effects of gin can creep up on you, after a time.
The party was held in the Rotunda of the Franklin Institute: a massive, classically-designed space that features a huge statue of Benjamin Franklin. I tried to climb on to the statue. Climb up the statue, actually. I guess if you had been there, you would have called the cops on me, buddy, and had me kicked out. Or had someone else call the cops for you.

One of the employees, a middle aged-gentleman named Jack Byk, sorted the whole sorry mess out. Jack Byk was a computer expert at The Franklin Institute Research Laboratories, where I worked. He was a native of Vienna, Austria. I don't know if he spoke Spanish. We got to talking. Mrs. Byk was also there.

Some time later, Jack Byk said to me: "Do you have any friends?" I lied. I said yes. He said: "That surprises me. The way you talk. Your interests. I have kids your age. You have nothing--absolutely nothing--in common with them. You wouldn't fit in with my kids or their friends at all." Yes, that's a lifetime problem for me. I'm unique. Too unique for my own good. I'm not a mixer. I'm like straight tonic water. Who drinks straight tonic water?

You know the British don't add ice to their gin and tonic. Only the Americans do that. Americans live dangerously, I suppose. Queer, though, don't you think? But that's neither here nor there. I've been thinking about the four Stanleys of late. Everybody should have at least four Stanleys in his life. Well, I've had mine.

February 1972. My sister and brother-in-law had a party at their apartment for members of my brother-in-law's family. I was 18 years old at the time. I was in my first year of college. I was chatting with the wife of my brother-in-law's maternal uncle, Stanley Weinstein, M.D. Dr. Weinstein was an internist who died in about 1980. Dr. Weinstein was a proud graduate of my high school, Central High School -- where he was a member of the German Club and a Barnwell recipient. (That's an academic award). I don't know if he spoke Spanish. Dr. Weinstein got his M.D. at Jefferson Medical College: Murray Cohen is the head of trauma surgery at Jefferson. Murray Cohen is Fredric's brother, the French-speaking mohel who dabbled in presidential politics. Am I getting a little too loose with my associations?

In any event I was talking to Dr. Weinstein's wife, Janet. Janet Weinstein later told her sister-in-law, my brother-in-law's mother: "I couldn't believe he was only 18. He talked like an adult. I've never talked to an 18-year-old who talked like that. He sounded so mature and knowledgeable." The Weinsteins had three sons. One son, Michael Weinstein, Esq., is a tax attorney in Philadelphia. I think Malcolm and Earl talked to Michael Weinstein about me back in 1992.

October 1987. I was working at Hogan & Hartson at the time. I went to a "wine and cheese" party (not a beer and ice cream party) at the Capitol Hilton that was sponsored by the temp agency that I worked for at the time. I took Cindy Rodda with me. Cindy Rodda was a full-time Hogan employee who I worked with.

It just happened that there was a reporter at the Capitol Hilton from "The Voice of America." He was interviewing the guests (all temporary agency employees) about The Wonderful World of Temping in America. He was doing a story for "The Voice of America" on the phenomenon of temporary work. I guess people in other countries would find that an exotic topic.

I spoke to the reporter. He thrust a microphone in my face. You know, the whole deal. I talked and talked about temping. The whole world of temping. My experiences temping, and so forth. The reporter was wowed over. He said: "I have never talked to anybody like you in my life. You are the most unusual person I have ever talked to. You know, I think I'm going to lead my story with my interview with you. You're going to make this story!"

Yes, people find me to be a tad different, if not a tad askew.

January 1990. I had my first psychiatric consultation with my old psychiatrist, Stanley R. Palombo, M.D. He asked me about my background and so forth. He asked me where I went to college. I said, "Penn State." "Why did you go to Penn State?" he asked. I thought the question was odd. I didn't know what to say. He asked: "Was it for financial reasons?" I said: "Yes." Financial reasons were as good as any other reason. I inquired about why he asked such a question--a question that seemed to me rather odd. He said: "It's the way you talk. I thought you would have gone to one of the finer private schools." Who the hell did he think I was, Glenn Fine? Two degrees from Harvard, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, and a future at the Justice Department as a presidential appointee? No way, man. Dr. Palombo himself is a graduate of Columbia--one of the finer private schools in upper Manhattan.

I have a remarkable talent for making myself sound smarter than I really am. It's a gift. 1972. The year of Watergate, the Nixon-McGovern presidential campaign, and the Munich Olympics. Mark Spitz and all that.

Remember Watergate? The president's aides made an illegal back-door entry and the whole thing snowballed into extortion and hush money. At least Nixon kept the whole thing presidential. Nixon wasn't governor material. He proved that in California in '62. Ask Len Garment; he'd be the first to say, "Nixon was not governor material."

In the fall of 1972 I entered my second year at Penn State. I took an introductory course in public speaking and swimming. Public speaking is a required course at Penn State. At Penn State students also have to pass a swimming test in order to graduate. Don't ask me why. Query: How many swimmers has Penn State ever sent to the U.S. Olympic team? I can remember the locker room after swim class. Things would get a little gubernatorial with Bruce Stein, lathering up General Bonaparte; Stein had a very public relationship with the little man from Corsica. (By the way, did you ever wonder where Napoleon stuck his hand when he wasn't in uniform? Now that's a mystery that needs some investigating!)

The public speaking course I took was taught by one Stanley Cutler, a young fellow who was himself a Penn State graduate. The whole course was really a course in Stanley Cutler. He had a gift of the public gab--as you would expect--and his favorite topic was himself: his likes and dislikes, his opinions about the world at large, and so forth. From a psychoanalytic perspective, Stan Cutler was a lot like Bruce Stein, but without the lather.

In point of fact, Stanley Cutler was an ideal candidate for psychoanalysis. I don't mean that in a bad way. I mean that the way a training analyst, an analyst like Stanley Greenspan, would mean it. Cutler would be an ideal patient for a candidate-in-training: an easy, but rewarding classic neurotic. Cutler had a lively inner life, but he was strongly object oriented. He had a strong libido that was expressed in rich and varied sublimations: his orality was expressed in his professional work (as an instructor of public speaking); his phallic tendencies were expressed in his competitiveness and (controlled) performance anxiety. He had strong exhibitionistic/voyeuristic tendencies; he loved to perform in front of an audience, as well as watch and evaluate the performance of others.

He was fascinated by the quality of charisma: the ability of an individual to capture the interest and attention of a group of individuals. He spoke of Jack Kennedy's charisma in terms reminiscent of Lance Morrow's observations in "A View from the Shore." Cutler talked about how Kennedy, walking into a room, would arouse the curiosity and awe of the audience. There was something electric about Jack Kennedy, Cutler might have said; it was as if he altered the chemical structure of a room simply by entering it. Thirty-two years later, I still remember (or think I can remember) "Olam Cutler," as my Hebrew-speaking friends would say. "The World of Cutler."

Cutler said he thought Sally Struthers had a hot body. Struthers was the actress who portrayed Archie Bunker's daughter on the TV show "All in the Family." I don't even remember the character's name played by Struthers; Archie Bunker used to call her "Little Girl." "All in the Family" was a popular show in the fall of '72. Cutler himself was married and had a little girl (she liked to masturbate, so Cutler reported). Yes, it may have been introductory Public Speaking, but it was an advanced course in Cutler.

He said he liked classical music. His musical tastes didn't seem too sophisticated, though. I think he said he liked "Finlandia," by Sibelius. That piece is what you'd call a "potboiler." At one point he said he was selling his car. A student voiced an interest in buying it. Cutler told the student he'd have to arrange the financing. That was the end of the discussion. Cutler struggled with a cigarette addiction. He had to have a cigarette at certain times. He said his wife was nagging him about quitting. Say what you will about cigars, Professor Freud, but sometimes a cigarette is more than just a cigarette.

I think he mentioned that he had a brother who was a medical doctor. And that he had a scar from an old football injury--in a private place. Or maybe that's my confabulation. Mark Twain once remarked that the older he got, the more vivid the recollection of things that had not happened.

Incidentally, I can remember only one other student who was in that class: Joe Kaplan. Kaplan used to carry a copy of the U.S. Constitution around with him. Kaplan is now a practicing attorney down here in DC: the named partner in Passman & Kaplan. Joe Kaplan was active in student politics. Presidential not gubernatorial.

Be that as it may.

Cutler's students had to give three speeches. The first speech was expository. I recall the speech I gave concerned the energy crisis and alternative fuels. Cutler said the speech was overly-dense with facts; the speech contained too many facts for an audience to assimilate. He gave me a grade of B.

The second speech was intended to be argumentative. I spoke about organized labor. The speech was pro-labor, the type of material that goes over big in the Northeast--states like Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey. Who knows, if things had gone a little differently for me, I could have had a chance in gubernatorial politics. Shaking hands with the unemployed, and all that.

Cutler was very impressed with the speech. He said it was the best speech he'd heard a student give for at least the previous two terms, or something like that.

The third and last speech was a "speech about nothing." "Nothing" in the technical, Seinfeldian sense; not nothing in the common, colloquial sense. I talked about happiness: how elusive happiness is. I offered the notion that the way to avoid disappointment in life is not to seek happiness, but simply to enjoy the happiness that life brings our way. Yes, even at the age of eighteen I was a pessimist. "I should have known there was already something wrong." An eighteen-year-old kid who quotes Spinoza. Baruch Spinoza. One of the great socially-maladjusted misfits of Western Civilization. He lived out his years in total seclusion after he was excommunicated by the rabbinical authorities in Amsterdam. Spinoza was a radical free-thinker whose ideas about religion made him persona non grata in the local Jewish community. Yes, Spinoza got himself banned from his local synagogue. The branch-rabbi called the municipal authorities and had the guy kicked out. But not just for six months; the ban was permanent. It was a devastating loss for Spinoza; he liked his rabbi. I mean Spinoza really, really liked his rabbi. The older man had been a second father to the young radical.

In any event, I remember Cutler's comments at the conclusion of my "speech about nothing;" they were positive. He gave me an "A." Cutler made the unforgettable humorous observation: "You must be a lot of fun at parties." I am, buddy. More than you know!

Something interesting happened in my next class that afternoon: Miriam Groner's Biological Sciences class. A student in Cutler's public speaking class was also taking Dr. Groner's biology course. He called out to me in Groner's lecture hall: "You are weird, man. You are so weird." I guess my thinking was too radical for the kid. My references to Spinoza sent him over the top. I see that particular minute experience as paradigmatic. I see myself as having what is called in psychoanalytic circles as a "high transference valence." My thinking, my behavior, the things I say are so totally my own, so independent, so unconventional that they have a polarizing effect. Some people have a strong positive reaction. Stan Cutler, for example, loved my speech. The tough politician, Joe Kaplan, smiled at me during the speech (that's why I remember him, I suppose). Other people--or at least one other person--had a strong negative reaction. Maybe I'm like Richard Nixon; people either loved Nixon or hated him--intensely.

Cutler was a big George McGovern supporter. McGovern was the Democratic candidate for the office of President of the United States in 1972. "If only he could do something about that immobile upper lip," Cutler once said. Cutler was one of those radical, anti-Nixon, anti-war freaks. Though I remember an observation he once made about President Nixon. It was odd. As of the fall of 1972, it was not known what, if any, involvement Nixon had in the Watergate affair. Cutler said with absolute confidence--despite his opposition to Nixon's politics--"Richard Nixon is an individual of the highest personal integrity. He had nothing to do with Watergate, I can assure you of that." Would you trust a used-car salesman on the encomium of Stanley Cutler? What Stanley Cutler did not know--what no one could have known in 1972--was that Nixon would eventually be driven from office in disgrace, and that this strange, tough, determined, brilliant man would make a comeback from physical illness and mental injury as dramatic as Napoleon after Elba, emerging in later years from his self-imprisonment to confound his critics and enemies.

Running for President is no one-year crash effort, but a way of life extending over a number of years. It is a grueling, debilitating, and often dehumanizing ordeal that exacts an extravagant price not only for winning but also for the mere running and losing. A marathon obstacle course, it consumes time, money, and humans like some insatiable furnace.

As Len Garment would say: Running for President is actually a lot like a course of treatment in psychoanalysis. Believe me, Garment knows.

Ah, yes! That reminds me. My last session with The Mad Monk, Dr. Bash. "Dr. Bash," I opened, "here is the name and telephone number of the rabbi at my local congregation, Adas Israel. Maybe you could call him." "Why would I call him?" asked Dr. Bash. "Maybe he could tell you about the social events at Adas Israel, things that I could get involved in." "No," said The Mad Monk, "you'll have to call yourself. You don't have to talk to the rabbi. Talk to somebody in the office. She'll tell you about the social events. I think they have something every Friday night. You could go there on Friday night. People come from all over. Baltimore, Virginia. They get a large crowd of people. Five-hundred people, something like that. Out of all those people you can find somebody to be friends with."

"But Dr. Bash," I said, "maybe Rabbi Wohlberg speaks Hebrew. The two of you could speak Hebrew together." "Oh, big deal!" said The Mad Monk.

We then got into a learned discussion concerning the Hebrew letter "tav." "Dr. Bash," I asked, "what does 'Adas' mean?" "Adat," she said, "it means 'nation.' The Nation of Israel. It's Adat. Not Adas. You know the Hebrew letter 'tav?' It is pronounced 's' in Yiddish. But in Hebrew it's 't.'. I don't know why they call it 'Adas' instead of 'Adat.'" I commented: "You mean like Shabbat and Succoth." "Yes," said The Mad Monk. "Shabbat is the Hebrew pronunciation and Shabbos is Yiddish. Succoth is the same."

You live and you learn.

"Anyway, if you go there on Friday nights, you don't have to talk to anybody. Just go," said Dr. Bash. Actually Dr. Bash's comment is less comforting to me than it appears or was intended. Those were the very words Dr. Bash used to encourage me to go to group therapy. "Just go. You don't have to talk. Just sit and listen. When you're ready to talk, you can talk." The reality was different. The group leaders, Nicole and Debra, said at the outset that it was an active group. That everyone was expected to participate. A group member was not permitted to simply sit and not participate.

Back in the summer of 1978, when I was 24 years old, I went on a group tour to Italy. I didn't talk to people. They thought I was weird. I sat next to an older couple on the plane over to Italy. One day I happened to be walking behind them. Another group member said to the couple: "You see that young man walking behind us?" "Yes," the lady said disdainfully, "we sat next to him on the plane." "Why would anyone go to Europe alone?" "He looks like he's too smart for his own good." So much for just sitting silently and not talking.

There's an irony about my social relations and social difficulties that Dr. Bash is not picking up on. A polarized quality. You'll notice that she keeps encouraging me to get involved with other people; particularly people in groups, such as group therapy or at Jewish functions. She holds out the possibility that I can get along with people and form relationships. In her mind the future is full of possibilities.

Yet my past interactions have been notably disturbed. I was thrown out of group therapy in March 2004. I was fired from my last job at Akin Gump, where I was alleged to have been potentially violent. I was fired from my job before that, at Hogan & Hartson. I was banned from my local library in April 2004; the police were summoned to escort me out of the building. I've had difficult or dissatisfying relations with all of my psychotherapists since 1992. Yet, Dr. Bash reacts to my pessimism about my social difficulties as if those difficulties carry no implications at all about my potential for social adjustment. "I can't make friends," I say again and again. And again and again Dr. Bash says, "But did you even try?" "Don't contact Brian!" "Don't call Nicole!' "Don't call Earl Segal or any other attorneys at Akin Gump!" "Call someone at Adas Israel!" You see how polarized this world is? I'm continually getting thrown out of environments; it's rare for me to leave an environment voluntarily. That's not entirely normal. Hasn't Dr. Bash herself noticed the polarity of the injunctions she directs at me: "Don't call those people, they don't want to have anything to do with you!" and "Call these other people, maybe you'll make a friend!" Oddly, Dr. Bash talked about employment. She referred to my not working and the fact, as she put it, that "I don't want to work." What's odd is that this particular session is our tenth. For the nine previous sessions, she said absolutely nothing about my working. When I met her in her capacity as my case working in May 2003, August 2003, and December 2003--that's all she talked about. "You need to get a job. You are employable. It's a sin in the Jewish religion not to work." Then when I started to see her in therapy in June of this year she said nothing about work. Yet at this session she mentioned my getting a job. It just struck me as odd. She made the comment: "You know, it can be harder to make a friend than to get a job." Whatever that meant. Actually, it's harder for me to make a friend than it is to hit it big at the Maryland lottery. But that's another story.

"You know, Dr. Bash," I said, "something that bothered me about Nicole in group therapy was when she said I seemed content with my life. Why did she say that? I found that so disturbing. I'm absolutely miserable. I long for some kind of connection with someone. My life is painful for me. How could she say I seemed content with my life?" "She's just a student," said Dr. Bash, adding, "it takes many years of experience to be a psychologist." I said: "But even a layman would know that somebody who is totally isolated, who is obsessed with an imaginary friend, who writes letters to an imaginary friend, has to be deeply troubled, very much in psychological pain." "She's just a student," repeated Dr. Bash.

"You said last time that you thought I was different from other therapists. What did you mean by that?" "Well, Dr. Bash, you tell me what I should be doing. You tell me to make friends, and so forth. Other therapists were not so coercive."

"Did Palombo tell you what to do?" "No, not socially. He didn't try to coerce me into making friends. But he tried to encourage me to get a better job. I was working at the time. I had a law degree. He thought I should practice law instead of working as a paralegal."

"What about Sack? Did he tell you what to do?" "Well, I only saw him three times. But in those three sessions, he didn't tell me I should be doing anything. He was more purely psychoanalytical."

"The last therapist I saw, the one at GW (Meghana Tembe), was totally non-directive. She never told me I should be working or that I should try to make friends." Dr. Bash said, again: "She was just a student. She doesn't even have her degree. In fact, she when she left GW this spring, she went to Baltimore to continue her education with another program." The reference to "Baltimore"struck me as odd. Note that at the beginning of the session, Dr. Bash mentioned that people come from all over (Baltimore, Virginia) to attend functions at the Adas Israel Congregation. That's something I always notice: when people refer to the same thing in different contexts. Why Baltimore?

"Dr. Shaffer didn't coerce me to do anything, Dr. Bash." "She probably gave up," said The Mad Monk.

"I don't think I can make friends." "But you never tried," said Dr. Bash. "My relations with my therapists must say something. The fact that I typically don't like them. The fact that even when I like somebody, I find some excuse to quit, like with Dr. Palombo and Dr. Sack." "Why did you quit Dr. Palombo?" "Well, I had seen him for about a year. And I suppose that I wanted to get closer to him. I wanted a closeness with him that was not feasible given the nature of our professional relationship. I couldn't take that strain in our relationship. So I quit." "And Dr. Sack? Why did you quit him?" "I thought he was talking to Malcolm and Earl." "Dr. Bash, what do I tell people at social events when people ask what I do. You know, they always ask that. 'And what do you do?' What should I say?" The Mad Monk replied: "Tell them you're between jobs." Maybe I should tell them I'm between commitments. I guess if I really want to impress people I could tell them I've been a patient at some of the finer state hospitals: Bellevue, St. Elizabeths.

But seriously, Brian, that's one of the reasons I would like to be friends with you. I feel you know me already, you know my whole history. It's like you're the Claire Hirshfield of Gary Freedman; you know the whole history of my campaigns "from Egypt to Borodino," as Claire would say. I don't have to deal with that "getting to know you, getting to know all about you" crap. Getting together with you would be like putting up a pre-fab house. All the hard part is done already. You just sit down and--"voila!" as Fredric would say. Talking to you would be like talking to a brother.

A few weeks ago, I asked Dr. Bash to call you, Brian. She said, "No. A friendship can't be forced." What I find interesting is that Dr. Bash has no qualms about coercing me to do things. She thinks she can force me to make friends. Believe me, it won't work.

"Dr. Bash, are there homosexuals on the kibbutzim in Israel?" "No. None." "So there are no boys who grew up on a kibbutz who became homosexual?" "No. There are no recorded instances." "So," Dr. Bash, "doesn't that support the notion that homosexuality is environmental. That it arises as a result of the effects of the family environment on a boy?" "No, homosexuality is genetic," said Dr. Bash. "Do you know what genetic means?" asked Dr. Bash. Do I know what genetic means? I wrote the book!

"Do you consider yourself homosexual?" asked Dr. Bash. Actually, I rarely consider myself at all. "You know who started the Kibbutzim?" asked Dr. Bash. "It was idealists who cared nothing about money. They came from Russia and elsewhere. They wanted to create an ideal society. All the early leaders of Israel started out on the kibbutz. David Ben-Gurion, Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir--she lived in the United States, but she was originally from Russia or somewhere--they all started out as members of the kibbutz. They were all idealists. Some of them came from rich families originally. From rich families in Europe. Good families. But they gave it all up to live on the kibbutz. Some of them even walked all the way to [Palestine]."

The Mad Monk was hinting at the (fundamentally bizarre) argument (or confabulation) that because the founders of the kibbutzim (who also included the early political leaders of Israel) came from "good families," without any genetic tendencies to homosexuality, they passed on their genetic purity to subsequent generations of kibbutzim. Hence, the lack of any recorded instances of homosexuality on the kibbutz. I wonder what she was really saying, analytically speaking? (Not to mention the burning question: "What the hell is going on in Trenton, New Jersey?")

You never know what incredible things you'll learn when you first step foot in Dr. Bash's office. I have to tell you, Brian, in my twenty-seven years of psychotherapy, this is the first time a therapist has ever mentioned the name of Israel's former Prime Minister, Levi Eshkol. No, really, buddy. I'm serious. The subject just never came up. Can you believe that? "So I start with a new therapist in September." "Should be. The new residents start in September." "You know, Dr. Bash, I'm looking for a male therapist." "I know," said Dr. Bash softly, her voice trailing off.

"I just wish I had a brother instead of a sister," Dr. Bash. "A brother is no better than a sister," said Dr. Bash. "I mean symbolically. I wish I had a friend who would be like a brother to me." "Did you write a letter to Brian this week?" asked Dr. Bash. "Yes. I wrote Brian a ten-page letter on Monday. I write a lot about you, Doctor."

The Mad Monk asked me if I planned to take a vacation. A vacation from what? From my fantasy camp of a life? I should shell out money to go on a vacation so I can get away from Washington where I do nothing? I can do nothing here. For nothing.

"Dr. Bash, I was thinking, I could visit Israel and stay there with your relatives." "My relatives? No way!"

"You know, Dr. Bash, Dr. Sack died almost exactly a year ago. He died on vacation." "Oh," said The Mad Monk, "it's terrible to die on vacation. How old was he?" "Sixty-nine." "Oh, that's young." (It's actually four years past retirement age, according to Dr. Bash's reckoning. Remember a few weeks ago: "Malcolm Lassman is 65? He must be retired. His son must have taken over his practice.)

"Oh, I forgot to mention, Dr. Bash, but I saw Charles last Friday, Friday August sixth. You remember Charles, the guy who's in charge of the circulation desk at the library? He was very friendly. He said: "Hi, Gar. How's it goin'?" That's more than I get from you, Brian. You need to be spending more time with Charles. You might learn something about being a human being. "They're having a party in my building in September, Dr. Bash." "That's because people go on vacation in August. You need to get in touch with Adas Israel." "Well, I'd like to go to the party in my building first, and see how I get along with a small group of people." "How many people will be at the party?" "Well, there's about 120 units in my building." "Oh, that's big." "So, maybe there'll be about 50 or 60 people at the party."

Gotta run, Brian. But not for Governor of New Jersey or anywhere else. Gotta make plans for the party. I'm a lot of fun at parties, Stan Cutler's sarcasm notwithstanding. Check you out next week, buddy.

The Personal Trainer

2004-08-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

Brian--
Hey, buddy. How's it going? Just give me the facts, man. I just want to know, in point of fact, how you're doing? Mind you, no bloody metaphors!
I don't mean to sound like Jerry Seinfeld (not that there's anything wrong with that!), but what's up with personal trainers? What is the psychology of the personal trainer and the people who hire them? I don't get it.
There's a guy in my building, a Newmanesque, portly fellow. I doubt he's a U.S. Postal Service employee, though. He lost some weight with the help of a personal trainer. The trainer used to come to my building a few times a week. Tubby and the trainer would work together in my apartment building's fitness center. Tubby would work out on the treadmill, the trainer standing at his side. The trainer would tell Tubby to increase the speed, slow down, or stop altogether and get started on another activity. Like Tubby couldn't do that on his own? He needs to pay somebody to tell him what to do? Could anyone please explain this to me?
I can't see paying some purported Sports Authority to tell me what to do. It's like, "Look man, I'm the Sports Authority. There's a right way to work out and a wrong way to work out. I'll teach you the right way. I'll show you what you've been doing wrong. I'll motivate you." Who needs that? I certainly don't.
I work out every day. Forty minutes. I work out strenuously. I sweat like a pig (actually pigs don't sweat, of course; they don't have sweat glands--it's a bloody metaphor). I'm in good shape; my blood pressure is consistently about 120 over 70. I never fail to work out. If I don't feel well, if I'm tired -- whatever -- I get my ass into the fitness room and I work out. I know that when I'm done working out, I'll feel better. That's my motivation. I take two days off--Saturday (Shabbat, as The Mad Monk would say) and Sunday.
I was reading in a recent issue of New York magazine that even Bob Morgenthau, the Manhattan D.A.--the tough-as-nails Manhattan D.A. for life (or for eternity, as it looks right now)--has a personal trainer come to his apartment once a week. Can you imagine that? Serial killers don't intimidate Morgenthau, but the guy's afraid of a treadmill!
I've been working out every day now, just about, since April 1986. I can remember I started working out every day while I was working at Hogan & Hartson. It was the week my supervisor, Sheryl Ferguson, went to Ixtapa, Mexico on vacation. She had a rotten time. But I enjoyed my workouts.
I can be incredibly lazy and unmotivated in many ways, in many areas of life. But, in other ways, I'm a highly self-motivated person.
Law School. My first year of law school was 1979-1980. I spent my first year of law school in Spokane, Washington at a third-tier law school. Too many alcoholic conferences in college with my old professors in my undergraduate days; my academic record was none too stellar. In any event, I spent my first year of law school three thousand miles from home, in Philadelphia. I had no friends, no family, no support of any kind. I didn't make any friends in law school. I was a hermit. The Hermit of Spokane. My mother died in the beginning of January 1980, the start of my second semester, first year. You know how rough the loss of mama can be for a "laughed-at mama's boy." So there I was. Three thousand miles from home. No family, no mama, no friends, no support. The pressures of law school. And, of course, I was struggling with severe mental illness.
I completed my first year in the top 15% of my class. The Chief Justice (Bob Strauss's poker buddy, Wild Bill Rehnquist) finished law school in the top 15%, too: impressive, huh? I just plugged along. My grades were good enough that Temple Law School in Philadelphia accepted me as a transfer student, second year. I transferred to Temple, where I got my law degree in May 1982. By the way, Temple accepts precious few transfer students. Ask Bob Reinstein, the dean at Temple Law. He'll tell you: "We accept only a handful of transfer students."
My point? I did that on my own, without emotional support, encouragement or persuasion. I was motivated to go to law school, on my own. I was motivated to complete law school, despite my tribulations, on my own. I didn't have, or need the help of, someone to motivate or encourage me.
Other examples. Last year, I had a few extra pounds. I wanted to lose weight. I settled on a diet routine and I followed it. I lost about 20 pounds.
I used to be a heavy cigarette smoker. At one point, back in 1993, I decided it was time to quit. I quit: no patches, no drugs, no motivational programs. I just quit. I haven't touched tobacco in eleven years.
I had a bit of a drinking problem a few years back. I was drinking a six-pack of beer every day. Robby can confirm that. You know Robby, at Cleveland Park Wine and Liquor? Anyway, I thought: "Man, this is getting out of control. In another few years, I'm not going to have a liver." I cut back on my own. No Alcoholics Anonymous. No motivational programs. No family member telling me I better quit. I made a decision, and I carried it out. That was it.
Back to my original point. Personal Trainers. What is the psychology of the person who needs another person to tell him to work out, or do anything for that matter? Don't ask me. I have no idea. The concept is totally alien to me. It seems to me that you can divide the world into two classes of people: self-motivated people who do things on their own and unmotivated people who need encouragement and actually benefit from encouragement. We live in a world of sheep and shepherds, as it were.
Be that as it may.
What I've come to see is that The Mad Monk, my psychologist, sees her role as being that of a personal trainer. She sees her role as being the person who will badger, coerce, encourage, persuade, and exhort me to do things the right way. "You need to work. You are employable. It's a sin in the Jewish religion not to work." (Am I even employable?) "You need to join a group. You could benefit from group therapy." (Didn't group therapy turn out to be a disaster for me?) "You need to publish your book. You need to work on your references, your bibliography and your table of contents." (Is my book even publishable?) "You need to get involved with people. That's the only way you'll make friends." (But do I even have a capacity to make and maintain friendships?)
Fundamentally, Dr. Bash functions as a personal trainer. She's trying to get me to do what I need to do to meet my goals. But she herself doesn't really help me in any way with the intrapsychic problems and limitations that impair my interpersonal functioning. In her mind her role is simply to motivate and encourage.
Do I need a "personal trainer?" Can I benefit from a "personal trainer?" Furthermore: What is the reaction of a self-motivated person to a personal trainer? I suspect it's not positive, to say the least. If a personal trainer tried to motivate me, my reaction would be: "Listen buddy, why don't you just back off. I don't need any of your f*****g advice. I'll do this the way I want to do it. If I need your help, I'll ask for it." How do you think Donald Trump would take to some interloper telling him how to run his business? Do you think Donald Trump listens to Tony Robbins' motivational tapes in his spare time? I don't think so.
My feeling is, I may screw up my life. But if I do screw up my life, I'll do it my way. I'm a self-motivated, self-destructive fool.
Returning to the metaphor of the overweight person. There are personal trainers and there are cosmetic surgeons, who do liposuctions, tummy tucks, and gastric bypasses. When I started to work with Dr. Bash, I thought I was getting a "cosmetic surgeon" who would do something. Actually do something. Turns our she's just a personal trainer. That's what supportive psychotherapy is. It's a motivational program. Unlike psychoanalysis. In analysis or psychodynamically-oriented psychotherapy the therapist does something. He provides an atmosphere for self-exploration and development of the self. Dr. Bash provides nothing in the way of a therapeutically-salutary environment. She does nothing but tell me what I need to do. But the bottom line is, I already know what I need to do.
I already know that sitting alone in my apartment is not going to help my social life. I know that the only way I can have any chance at all of making friends is to place myself in social situations. What kind of moron wouldn't already know that? So we have The Mad Monk telling me: "You need to get involved with people, you need to find a place where people congregate--such as a synagogue (reform, conservative or orthodox), a place where people speak Hebrew, a place where people eat food," and so forth. Like I don't already know that? The fat person knows he needs to lose weight. He knows that diet and exercise are the only way to do that on his own. But it's also recognized that some people can't lose weight with diet and exercise alone, and that hiring a personal trainer will not motivate some people who suffer from obesity. For some people, some intervention into internal functioning is required. Hence, the gastric bypass. Have I mixed too may metaphors here? Have I become lost in a maze of metaphors--contradictory metaphors? So be it!
At my last session with Dr. Bash, I presented to her what I call my "Statement of Principles." I read to her a series of statements about myself: "non-negotiable" points, as it were, about my psychological functioning. I wrote the statement in order to deal with the extreme frustration I experience with her week after week: the frustration of having to deal with her endless exhortations. "You need to do this, you need to do that."
This is what I told The Mad Monk.
TO: DR. BASHFROM: GARY FREEDMAN DATE: 8-4-04 RE: STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES
1. I am totally isolated socially.
2. I experience my social isolation as extremely painful and distressing.
3. I have a lifelong history of social isolation, shallow social relations, or difficult social relations.
4. I like few people; I would prefer to be alone than socialize with people who I do not genuinely like.
5. I will not develop social relations simply by mingling with a random group of people. I am bashful, oversensitive, sincere, and melancholy. I require solitude, but I value friendship, which I consider a "sacred relation." See Arieti, S. "Creativity: The Magic Synthesis," at 345 (New York: Basic Books, 1976). How does a person with my personality qualities make friends by mingling in a random social setting?
6. I have severe personality problems.
7. My social needs, limitations, and capacities are determined by my intrapsychic personality problems.
8. Of all the therapists I have seen since 1990 (and I've seen many), I genuinely liked only two: Dr. Palombo and Dr. Sack, both psychoanalysts. Even in the case of these two individuals who I liked a great deal, I found it impossible to sustain a relationship. I quit my therapy with Dr. Palombo after one year; I saw Dr. Sack only three times because I thought he was communicating with Earl and Malcolm. In effect, I experience emotional distress even in the company of optimally empathic individuals. This is far more serious than simply "a lack of social skills."
9. I had very disturbed relations with several therapists; in 1996 a social worker tried to throw me out of her office (after I began to argue with her).
10. In 1989 I consulted my Employee Assistance Program provider (Sheppard Pratt). The social worker (who recorded her opinion that I was "a brilliant man" in her case file) made a psychiatric referral mindful of my personality needs. She referred me to Floyd Galler, a Harvard M.D. (and a personal friend of Dr. Palombo--Dr. Palombo and Dr. Galler did their psychiatric residencies at Harvard together). (The social worker's name was Kathleen Kelley.)
11. I experience my relationship with you, Dr. Bash, as a strain.
12. I like Brian. I would accept Brian as a friend (to whatever degree he would feel comfortable with me). (Definitely no touching or rubbing!)
13. I believe that Brian likes me a lot more than his manifest actions indicate.
14. I would accept other people as friends.
15. I do not know how to meet people who I could befriend, based on my specific needs, limitations, and capacities.
16. Re: therapy-- I have firmly held ideas about my personality that will not change through persuasion or exhortation. I view the mind as being far more than simply a collection of consciously-held ideas that can be changed through persuasion.
17. People who I would accept as friends are:
Eric H. Holder, Jr.; Glenn Fine; Craig W. Dye; Jesse Raben; Brian Brown; Ari (The Jewish Kid); Captain Brad Matthew Dolinsky; or other persons of like persuasion.
18. It may be that I do not have the psychological capacity to form and maintain social relations. The evidence, in my opinion, is inconclusive.
So much for my Statement of Principles. I had hoped that my statement would place my dialogue with Dr. Bash on a new, meaningful level.
But her response left me crestfallen. Big surprise! What do you think the first words out of her mouth were? "Did you ever think of joining the Rockville Jewish Community Center?" Now she has me traveling to Rockville to meet people. Aren't there people in Washington? My question is: Do they speak Hebrew in Rockville? Because if they don't speak Hebrew, what's the point? I thought: "This is it. This is utterly hopeless. Everything I just said went in one ear and out the other. The Mad Monk failed to address any of my concerns--all valid concerns--and fell back on the same old saw: "Interact with people, and you'll eventually make friends." How many times do I have to repeat this? "Interacting with people is a necessary condition to making friends. Interacting with people is not be a sufficient condition to making and maintaining friends. Intrapsychic factors can impair social functioning."
I've come to see that Dr. Bash confuses an inner sense of alienation with feelings of loneliness and isolation. A sense of alienation will impair social relations; affiliation with others will not overcome a sense of alienation, however. The notoriously alienated writer Franz Kafka was unable to overcome his existential sense of isolation even in the presence of his several close friends.
How have I decided to cope with The Mad Monk?
I made a commitment to myself. "I'll just talk about Brian. I'll do to her what she does to me. She drives me crazy with her impenetrability. I'll do the same to her." In fact, a few weeks ago I pointed out to her the symmetry in our behavior towards each other. "You know, Dr. Bash, you complain about my obsession with Brian. You tell me that Brian and I will never become friends and that I should stop talking as if Brian and I will become friends. Well, you do the same thing with me. I am not going to change simply in response to your attempts at persuasion--that's not what psychotherapy is about. And yet, week after week, you rely solely on persuasion, knowing that nothing's going to come of it. We are mirrors of each other. My behavior is a parody of your behavior." She didn't get that point either.
The Mad Monk glanced over at a calendar on the wall. "Look," she said, "it's almost September. Next month will be Rosh Hashanah. Why don't you call your sister. Rosh Hashanah would be a good opportunity to get together with your sister." (Keep in mind: according to Dr. Bash I'm not Jewish. But that's another story).
I haven't talked to my sister in eight years. As far as I know my sister may have moved to Hong Kong. I'll tell you this, Brian, I'm not flying to Hong Kong for Rosh Hashanah. Do they speak Hebrew in China? You have a sister, don't you, buddy? It's pure hell. I wish I had a brother. Don't you ever wish you had a brother?
I told Dr. Bash that I thought my sister got me fired from my job. "The things my sister told Malcolm and Earl got me fired from my job," I said. "Your sister (in point of fact) didn't get you fired from your job," replied The Mad Monk. Notice that Dr. Bash interprets my statement in terms of factual rightness and wrongness, instead of looking at the psychological implications of my statement. My statement indicates (as with Drs. Palombo and Sack) that I have paranoid ideations even in relation to optimally-empathic persons, here a sibling. Shouldn't Dr. Bash be giving some consideration to what that implies about my ability to relate to complete strangers at The Rockville Jewish Community Center? Dr. Bash seems incapable of putting the pieces of the Freedman puzzle together and seeing me as a unique person with distinct limitations and pathology. In her eyes I am a generic socially-isolated person who can benefit from interacting with others. What's the evidence that I can connect with other people?
In seeming exasperation Dr. Bash said: "Well, soon it will be September and all this will be over with. You should be assigned to a resident in September." I noted silently at this point: "Dr. Bash referred to the month of September in two different contexts: (1) getting together with my sister at Rosh Hashanah and (2) the fact that I will be transferred to another therapist in September." I wondered what that signified.
Dr. Bash said she viewed my "Statement of Principles" as a positive step. She said that months earlier I said that I didn't want to change, but now I recognize the importance of change. I disagree. I've always wanted friends. I've always wanted to change. But friends on my own terms; change on my own terms. Certainly, I am still adamantly opposed to submitting to Dr. Bash's exhortations. Believe me, I'm not traveling to Rockville! I fail to see how my statement indicates a desire to change. I'm mystified.
I wonder if Dr. Bash has any appreciation of the concept of triage. I don't think so. Murray Cohen (Fredric's brother) can explain. The bottom line is, maybe the odds are that I can't change. Maybe Dr. Bash is just making matters worse for me by encouraging me to do things that will not result in any positive outcome. Perhaps she simply arouses my frustration by raising my hopes. Certainly, her act of encouraging me to join group therapy, which had disastrous consequences, did nothing more than raise my expectations then frustrate them. I think Dr. Shaffer, my previous therapist, had the right idea. It was as if Dr. Shaffer's thinking was: "Right now he's not ready to change. I will provide an empathic environment for him where he can vent his feelings every week. When he's ready to change, he will change. I will not coerce him. It will not be healthy for him." My condition remained stable during the entirety of my treatment with Dr. Shaffer (1999 to 2003). I stopped seeing Dr. Shaffer in February 2003. Two months later, in April 2003, I started writing these letters to you, my empathic buddy. And the rest, as they say, is history. I was assessed for commitment to St. Elizabeths in March 2004, following the disastrous results of my entering group therapy consistent with The Mad Monk's recommendation; I was escorted from the library by the police in April 2004 following Dr. Bash's act of holding out the possibility of a real friendship between you and me ("Maybe you and Brian could go to lunch together," said The Mad Monk in March 2004).
Be that as it may.
The Mad Monk then tried her hand at psychotherapy. "When you contemplate the possibility of entering a social situation, what feelings do you have?" I thought for a moment, then responded: "Futility. I have a feeling that it will be futile. That nothing good will come of it. I have feelings of my hopes being raised by the possibility of meeting people I might like, but also I have the firm feeling that it's all futile--and I have a tormented feeling." Is that not an analytically cognizable statement?
You've heard of the line, buddy, "like a kid in a candy store?" My feeling about entering a social situation is -- "like a diabetic kid in a candy store." I feel simultaneously a craving but also a tormented feeling that it's all futile. Doesn't that mean something?
Almost grotesquely, Dr. Bash dismissed my response and offered the suggestion: "Do you feel fear, would you say you feel afraid to enter a social situation." I said (with a crushing feeling of frustration): "No. Futility." The Mad Monk replied: "I know, you said that before. But I want to get to the idea of fear." I said (holding back my anger): "Dr. Bash, you asked me a question. I gave a sincere and thoughtful answer. An answer that's worthy of further inquiry. You simply dismissed what I said, and interpolated your own agenda. (pause.) I JUST WANT TO BE FRIENDS WITH BRIAN!" (As I said, I stave off madness with references to you, Brian.) "You see how you use Brian to avoid dealing with feelings you don't want to deal with," said The Mad Monk. Indeed! Actually, I felt like telling The Mad Monk at this point that she's an imbecile; but I thought of you, buddy, and I kept my cool.
I suppose I was wrong. I thought I felt futility. But according to Dr. Bash I felt fear. She must be right about what I'm feeling. She's the professional authority; I'm just a layman--a mentally disturbed layman at that. That reminds me of an anecdote about Goethe. There was a biographer of Goethe who, in the face of Goethe's claim that at a certain time he had dearly loved a certain lady, remarked in a footnote: "Here Goethe is mistaken." Even geniuses aren't always factually right, you know. But what about the issue of futility? Is there no psychological significance to a patient's report that the prospect of a social situation arouses feelings of futility? No doubt there are any number of possible psychological determinants of feelings of futility.
I'm just a layman, not a professional authority, but just off the top of my head I can cite one possible prototype in childhood for overwhelming feelings of futility in adulthood: feelings of futility as they relate to the prospect of social relations.
That possible prototype would center on the so-called rapprochement phase of development. Greenberg and Mitchell write: "The advent of rapprochement places a new set of demands on the toddler's mother. From her point of view the onset of this phase may appear to be a regressive development. The child who a few months before had appeared to be so independent, and so content in his independence, has become more needy, more anxious, more demanding. How should she respond? What she does will depend on her conscious and unconscious attitudes toward both symbiosis and separation. Some mothers welcome the opportunity to reimmerse the child in their own caretaking and in their own body, thereby stifling the drive toward separateness. Others reject the child's new dependency in the belief that 'he's a big boy now,' overlooking the legitimate needs of the subphase. [Margaret] Mahler stresses repeatedly that the mother's reaction at all subphases, and particularly during rapprochement, decisively influences the final outcome." Object Relations in Psychoanalyst Theory at 279.
Might not a mother's failure to respond to the child's phase-appropriate dependency needs--his legitimate needs for narcissistic nourishment--promote tormenting feelings of futility in the child about approaching mother for the gratification of his emotional needs? Might not such a child learn to take refuge in the "splendid isolation" of his own world of fantasy?
There is a tight fit between the implications of Mahler's ideas about rapprochement and the paraphrase of a statement of Shengold's that I offered in an earlier letter: "The emotional connecting necessary for embarking on social relations is initially more than soul-murdered people can bear. They learned as children that to be emotionally open, to want something passionately, was the beginning of frustrating torment. The deeply ingrained bad expectations are felt toward parents and all "grown-ups" [and are later felt toward the peer group and potential friends]." Shengold, Soul Murder at 312.
I told Dr. Bash that I had no respect for her professional opinions. "None at all?" she asked. "No, none," I said. "Well, if you don't want to accept the opinion of a professional . . . "
You know you're in deep s--- when the therapist starts pulling rank: "I'm the professional, you are just a layman. Who are you to reject my opinion?"
I very much need the acceptance and corroboration of people I respect. I want desperately to have ties to a knowledgeable therapist. These connections give me narcissistic nourishment, and when I don't get it, it's a terrible strain for me. I feel I'd rather write these letters in solitude to an imaginary friend than talk to Dr. Bash. Here, on the quiet page, I am master. Here I can express my thoughts. Here I don't have to concern myself with the rightness and wrongness of my ideas. I can simply express my thoughts and feelings, as I would wish to do, without the help and support of an intrusive Other.
By the way, Brian, I was thinking about how dubious Dr. Bash's ideas are concerning the weight of her opinions, and her dismissal of the contrary professional opinions I offer to her on the grounds that I probably "do not understand technical material."
Ask Bob Morgenthau or Bill Rehnquist about the following. Our legal system empowers jurors to make life and death decisions about the accused based on the assessment by jurors (all laymen) of contradictory expert testimony. Let's say that in a capital case, the jury votes to acquit on the grounds that they accept the testimony of defense experts and reject that of the prosecution. What action could the court or the prosecution have taken before trial to insure that the jurors might be able to assess expert testimony "correctly?" NONE AT ALL. Can the jurors be required to take psychological testing to determine their mental fitness? A resounding "No!" Can jurors be required to take IQ testing to determine whether they are intellectually fit to assess expert testimony? A resounding "No!"
This notion that Dr. Bash has that she's the expert and that I have to acquiesce in her professional opinion is nothing more than an expression of her own grandiosity and her conventional notions about authority. Further, Dr. Bash's notion that any conflict between her opinions and my references to technical material must be resolved by imputing a lack of understanding to me of technical material is more grandiosity. All she's saying is that she is always right. That is, no professional person could possibly publish any material that might conflict with her opinions. It must be I who misunderstands the published material. My advice? Go to a courthouse, lady. I remember Ellen once saying: "I've heard enough contradictory testimony by psychologists during my years on the bench to fill a thousand kreplach!" Simply because Dr. Bash is "the authority figure" in our relationship means nothing to me. My notions about authority are unconventional.
Now to my great discovery. This past week I thought of something about The Mad Monk that I never thought before. To me this insight explains a lot about my feelings of frustration in dealing with her.
Psychologists distinguish between what they call "divergent production" and "convergent production." Tests that permit only one right answer, such as a math test or the SATs, would be said to assess convergent production. Tests that are open ended, that permit the test subject to answer in any way--such as the Rorschach test--would be called tests of divergent production. In convergent production, the answers are assessed on the basis of "rightness" and "wrongness." In divergent production, on the other hand, the responses are neither right nor wrong; the responses are assessed in terms of meaning. That is, what does it mean that the test subject responded in a particular way.
"Convergers, who tend to specialize in the 'hard' sciences, or possibly in the classics, have the kind of intelligence which shows at its best in conventional intelligence tests of the kind in which there is only one correct answer to a question. They are less good at 'open-ended' tests in which a variety of answers are possible. In their spare time, convergers pursue mechanical or technical hobbies and show comparatively little interest in the lives of other people. They have conventional attitudes to authority, are emotionally inhibited, and seldom recall their dreams. Divergers, in contracts, choose the arts or biology [note that traditionally psychoanalysts have a background in medical science] as their preferred subjects. They are less good at conventional intelligence tests, better at open-ended tests where creative phantasy is demanded. Their spare-time activities are connected with people rather than with things [note that while I'm socially isolated, I write about people; the Unabomber, a socially-isolated mathematician, wrote about technology]. They have unconventional attitudes to authority, are emotionally uninhibited, and often recall their dreams." Storr, A., Solitude: A Return to the Self at 89-90. What I have observed about Dr. Bash is that she continually, if not invariably, assesses my statements in terms of rightness and wrongness--that is, as if my reports were convergent productions. And, of course, in Dr. Bash's assessment she's always right and I'm always wrong; she's the authority figure, in the conventional sense of things. In many, if not most, instances my statements call for an assessment of meaning; that is, my statements should be seen as neither right nor wrong, but rather as expressions that call for interpretation of meaning. A good example: Dr. Bash asked at an earlier session, "What would you like to do with Brian if he were your friend?" I said: "I'd like to maybe just sit on a park bench and shoot the breeze with him."
Dr. Bash interpreted my statement as convergent production, and looked for a way to assess my statement in terms of rightness or wrongness. "That's not [IN FACT] a friendship. What you are talking about is [IN FACT] an acquaintance. Do you have a dictionary at home? Look up the word 'friend' and look up the word 'acquaintance.' YOU'LL SEE I'M RIGHT."
"In point of fact," if I may be permitted to say that, my statement "I'd like to sit on a park bench and shoot the breeze with Brian" is a convergent production--an expression of my wishes, conflicts, and prohibitions as they relate to my notion of friendship, however warped that notion of friendship is. The statement calls for an interpretation of meaning, not an assessment of factual correctness. You don't say to a Rorschach test subject, "You say that looks like a horse, but most individuals--the jury of public opinion, as it were--say it looks like a butterfly. I'm sorry, you answered incorrectly. You need to change the way you view this inkblot." The Rorschach, as a test of divergent production, calls for an assessment of meaning not an evaluation of factual correctness. The divergent production of the Rorschach test subject is a non-factual universe of pure projection; yet that universe is psychoanalytically cognizable. Likewise, a patient's report in psychotherapy calls for an assessment of meaning. The psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson reports that during his training a senior analyst offered advice on how to work with a paranoid patient: "the universe she is taking you into is a [projective] paranoid universe. You must float along with that paranoia. Do not seek to stop it or even to understand it or you will break the spell." Final Analysis at 100.
What frustrates me is Dr. Bash's exquisite ability to rechannel or redirect my divergent productions into the appearance that they are in reality convergent productions that call for an assessment of factual correctness.
At the most recent consultation I said that I suffered from attachment problems. I simply do not connect with people. I attributed my feelings of futility about embarking on social relations to my possibly having experienced emotional loss or frustration in childhood.
I said that I was attracted to psychoanalyst William Niederland's notion that individuals who experienced significant emotional loss in childhood tended to react to even trivial social frustration or the prospect of social frustration as if they faced something overwhelming. "When did you suffer emotional loss in childhood," asked the Mad Monk. "Well," I said, "I mentioned that I lost an early attachment object (my maternal grandmother) when my family moved from my grandmother's house, where I had lived for the first six months of life." Dr. Bash proceeded to focus exclusively on factual issues:
1. Perhaps I misunderstood technical material that attributed importance, as a matter of fact, to the first six months of life.
2. I did not in fact lose my grandmother; she continued to visit me.
3. I do not in fact remember the first six months of life.
(A competing expert might testify that Dr. Bash ignores the fact that pre-verbal (pre-representational) experiences are significant--and will be expressed in therapy in the form of disturbed affect or "acting out" and not as verbal representations. When I told Dr. Bash that I got into an argument with a social worker in 1996 ("acting out" behavior that might have related back to my infantile experience) and that the social worker tried to throw me out of her office, Dr. Bash replied: "Maybe we should take a look at that. MAYBE I CAN TELL YOU WHAT YOU DID WRONG.").
And my concerns about attachment difficulties? What happened to my "feelings" about my attachment to significant people in my background, which is undeniably a significant issue for me? My feelings got lost in a maze of factual assessments by Dr. Bash. Perhaps I'm wrong about the importance of my relationship with my grandmother. That particular fact does not vitiate the importance of an attachment disturbance in my psychology. The problem is that anything I talk about will be assessed by Dr. Bash in terms of factual correctness.
Well, buddy, I'm facing a new week. Am I feeling futility or fear? Just the facts, man. Maybe I'm sensing futility. Or would I, in fact, be wrong? Maybe it's fear that I feel? I need you to tell me what I'm feeling, damn it! I can't feel my feelings correctly without your advice. Am I right or wrong?
Check you out next week, Brian. You've been a good sport!

A Schumannesque Mood

2004-08-02T12:15:00.000-07:00

Brian--
Hey, buddy. How are you this week, my dear American friend?
July 29. I'm still in a Schumannesque mood, a labile mood. You know the old expression: "If it ain't got that swing, it don't mean a thing." As the saxophone-playing, numbers-crunching, dismal scientist Alan Greenspan would say, my mood -- like the national economy -- cycles between irrational exuberance and dark pessimism.
By the way, have you ever been to a party at Alan Greenspan's and Andy Mitchell's? I'm sure Bob Strauss has--Strauss and Len Garment are old friends of the Greenspans. Strauss attended the Greenspan wedding, back in about '97; they were married by a local judge--a little old Jewish lady from Brooklyn. The Greenspans have this beautiful grand piano in their home. I suppose Condy Rice has played it. If she played anything, she'd probably have played Brahms--her favorite composer. You know the reason Condy Rice likes Brahms? Brahms never really finishes off a musical phrase--he goes from phrase to phrase, without any conclusive cadences. It's a lot like President Bush's foreign policy. He starts a war in Afghanistan then segues into a war in Iraq. Not that I'm criticizing the President. I love Brahms; say what you will about Brahms, but the world is a lot better off without conclusive cadences, in Iraq or elsewhere. Today is the anniversary of Robert Schumann's death in the asylum, where he admitted himself after he tried to commit suicide. I suppose you could say he was suffering from a serious downturn in his mental economy.
There is a note in Frederic Chopin's diary dated July 30, 1856: "Schumann died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure. The telegram from the asylum says: YOUR FRIEND ROBERT SCHUMANN PASSED AWAY, FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday." In fact, Schumann died on July 29, a stranger to the world, with only his wife, Clara, and his dear friend Johannes Brahms at his side. Schumann appears to have suffered from manic-depression: the real kind, not the fake variety they specialize in at GW. I myself was diagnosed with and treated for manic depression at GW by Suzanne M. Pitts, M.D., back in 1992 - 1993. I was prescribed lithium-based medication. Turns out I had the fake kind of manic depression. Pseudo manic depression, I suppose, is the technical name for it. Apparently the illness is recognized by the U.S. Social Security Administration; they've already paid out more than $100,000 in benefits based on my initial diagnosis at GW in 1993: pseudo manic depression. I have to hand it to Dr. Pitts, though. She had the hard task of making all this sound authentic to the Feds. She's the Colin Powell of psychiatry. Suzanne Martel Pitts did wonders impersonating a psychiatrist, as if she were a real doctor. I think they got Dr. Pitts straight out of central casting.
I'm in a very dark place (if you'll pardon the expression): a sad, raw, dark place -- all day, every day. There is no moment to leave it. There is only time for sleep. Even though it exhausts me emotionally and uses me up, it is the price I have to pay. What is my reason for battling my nightmarish struggle for life when I could end it so simply? I may fool you all . . . you know, I may finally do something. . . . Then perhaps Freedman "will do something to redeem the last sixteen wasted years." Yes, the last sixteen years, since I started working at "The Firm," have been a nightmarish waste.
I can't get the image of Robert Schumann's final days out of my mind: the harrowing days just before the great composer entered "The Dead Poet's Society." Those dark days were horrible. The treatment of mental patients in the nineteenth century was barbaric. Has anything changed? Schumann's doctors probably killed him, inadvertently.
In general, the medical director at the asylum where Schumann was confined associated mental illness with what he perceived as sinful behavior. This was in keeping with his diagnosis of "incomplete general paralysis"--French psychiatrists had attributed the condition to "immoral excesses such as alcoholism, 'violent passions,' or sexual overindulgence." For a cure, the medical director's approach was to deal with the body. Mental problems would then heal of their own accord. Treatment included cold baths, copper- and opium-based medication, and strict regulation of diet. In an attempt to purify the patient's system, an increasing regimen of laxatives and diuretics preceded by substantial meals, heavy in calories were prescribed. Reacting strongly to this barbaric treatment, several patients (possibly including Schumann) protested with hunger strikes. The staff responded with a number of tortuous devices intended to force them to eat. In desperation, patients were restrained and force-fed (with a diet of port wine and meat extract) by means of enemas. Schumann's death was attributed to starvation; he died "in a state of extreme emaciation" reportedly resulting from his "frequently refusing all nourishment."
Three years before Schumann died, he befriended Johannes Brahms--"The Talented Mr. Brahms"-- who was about twenty years younger than Schumann. The two composers became great friends. In fact, so great was the attraction between Schumann and Brahms that Schumann insisted the younger man move into his house. Brahms was at Clara Schumann's side after Robert tried to commit suicide, and he was at her side after he died, in 1856. Brahms ended by falling in love with Clara. There are stories that the relationship between them was more than platonic, but it is hard to believe that Clara would have given herself to Brahms. Her mind, from everything we know about her, did not work that way. She was the widow of the great Robert Schumann, and she became a professional widow who wore mourning clothes all her life. For Clara Schumann, every day was Tisha b'Av. Brahms never married. This past week I had several recollections, peculiar recollections--uncanny recollections--relating to Robert Schumann.
Years ago, during my pre-morbid youth (in the days before the onset of my pseudo manic depression), I worked at The Franklin Institute Research Laboratories, in Philadelphia. One of the managers there--my boss, in a sense--was one Bernard E. Epstein. I -- like Bernie Epstein -- had always had a fondness for the Schumann symphonies. You should have heard Bernie's wife, Aida, play Schumann's "Trauemerei." The Epsteins had a great party at their home in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, in April 1970, during Pesach. (Coincidentally, at that very moment, the precocious Rubenstein was doing an extended "concert tour" in south Florida; now there was a lad whose fingers could make the young ladies swoon). Delicate Japanese lanterns were strung in the Epstein garden, and wires hidden among the trees produced Mozart concerti to accompany the delicious food the Epsteins themselves had cooked and the 1953 Chateau Lascombes wine (kosher l'Pesach, of course).
From what I hear the Epstein party wasn't a drunken orgy, but then Bernie Epstein was no swinging Mormon, though he may be some day. The Mormons have given up polygamy, I hear, and now invest their energies in converting Jews posthumously, without their consent. Personally, I have to say, if I were a Mormon I'd prefer doing a clan of eager women at my pleasure than waste my time converting dead Jews. But hey, that's me.
The Epsteins didn't invite me to the party. I wasn't cool enough or hip enough for them (or Rubenstein, for that matter). Bernie Epstein, a saxophone-playing, syncopated Joy-Boy, was a flashy guy: hip, makin' the scene. You know the type, Brian. The Epsteins were into Schumann, cork-lined walls and furniture designed by George Nakashima, a Japanese immigrant. I suppose they thought I wouldn't fit in with their crowd. Aida (also known as "Didi") studied piano under Danny Barenboim; Danny and Aida were Argentine lanzmen. They spoke Spanish together--like two Viennese schoolboys. Did I ever mention that? In any event, Aida Epstein entertained the guests at the piano. She played Robert Schumann's "Trauemerei," among other things, so I hear. (She didn't play Chopin; Frederic--the composer, not the mohel--wasn't cool enough for the Epsteins either). I suppose the Japanese-born Cecelia Segawa Siegle was one of the invited guests; she's now a professor at The University of Pennsylvania.
That's an odd recollection, don't you think? In sum, I can remember that in April 1970, when I was 16 years old, Aida Epstein (an individual I have never met) performed Robert Schumann's "Trauemerei" (a piece that lasts at most about three minutes) at a party that I myself did not attend.
Then, something else. In 1993, when I was in treatment (actually I'm being polite--the correct term would be "treatment") -- when I was in treatment with Suzanne Pitts--an internationally recognized expert in the diagnosis and care of pseudo manic depression--I related an anecdote from childhood. A Scene From Childhood, as it were.
I told Dr. Pitts that when I was about ten years old I had seen a movie about the life of Robert Schumann, broadcast on television, titled "Song of Love." The movie, made in 1947, starred Katherine Hepburn as Clara Schumann. Those were the days before Katherine Hepburn aspired to be an oak tree for the amusement of Barbara Walters. I told Dr. Pitts that I was emotionally moved by a scene in the movie that takes place at a party (I don't think the Schumanns served matzo, but then, of course, I don't know if the party took place at Pesach). At the party, Clara Schumann chastised Franz Liszt about Liszt's showy performance of Robert Schumann's song, "Widmung."
Dr. Pitts used to complain that all I did was relate meaningless anecdotes, rather than talk about my "feelings." All I can say is, check the DSM-IV, sister! One of the diagnostic criteria of pseudo mental illness is an obsession with meaningless details.
"Pitts--that's an unfortunate name." That's a quote from "The Dead Poet's Society." Did you ever see that movie? The movie takes place at an all-boys school. Like the one that Fredric (the French-speaking mohel who dabbled in presidential politics -- not the composer) and I attended.
Well, oddly enough--or "oddly enough"--a description of that very scene, which I experienced as so moving at age 10, found it's way into Rubinstein's autobiography. (Rubinstein wrote the book while his hands were otherwise unoccupied with piano keys, young ladies, or hanging chads from Chad, Rhodesia -- or Kenya). You think that's mere coincidence? That a trivial detail, a trivial recollection, a seemingly meaningless Scene From my Childhood -- a scene from a movie that so moved me -- also moved the great Rubinstein? All I can say is -- "Pitts: it's more than just an unfortunate name!"
Here's what Rubinstein wrote: "A film which gave me real pleasure was the one which MGM [that's Metro Goldwyn Mayer--not Murray G. Marion] made of the life of Robert Schumann. This time I had to contribute all the music which had to be performed later on the screen by the actors who played Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, his wife, Johannes Brahms, and Franz Liszt.
It was a moving experience for me to try to imagine how these great artists performed and once I had to play the same piece in different ways. Robert Schumann presented to Clara, his young bride, the lovely and touching song "Widmung" (dedication) and played it for her rather imperfectly but with great feeling. At a great party, at which the Schumanns and Brahms were present, Liszt, who performed his own "Mephisto Waltz," gave as an encore his brilliant and showy concert version of that same song. Clara Schumann, displeased with his showy performance, gave the great pianist a lesson by playing it to him in its original form, simply and beautifully. I had the hard task of making all this sound authentic. Katherine Hepburn did wonders impersonating Clara Schumann, playing the concertos of Liszt and Schumann, and other works, as if she were a born pianist. The whole film was made with love and respect for the subject."
Be that as it may.
The final recollection that concerns Robert Schumann is as follows. Friday evening, March 25, 1988. I had just started working at Akin Gump, my old law firm, in early March. You remember it was also in early March 1988 that I first encountered you, buddy, at the Cleveland Park Library. But that's neither here nor there--or is it?
That evening Public Television broadcast a performance of the Brahms third symphony. It was conducted by Leonard Bernstein. At the beginning of the program, Lenny offered some comments about the Brahms third. He said that it was "the most enigmatic of the four Brahms symphonies." Whatever that means! I don't know what "enigmatic" music is. I've always been particularly moved by the Brahms third. The work was written years after Brahms' great friend, Robert Schumann had died, but contains a musical reference to Schumann. The Brahms third opens with a musical quote, a six-note descending phrase, from the first movement of Schumann's own third symphony. I like to imagine that the entire Brahms symphony, with all its tortured emotionality, was written as a monument to his dear friend and mentor who died so tragically. I always think of Robert Schumann when I hear that music by Brahms. The music makes me think of friendship and remembrance.
Now that's "extreme sensitivity"--in the Schumannesque sense. Imagine recalling off the top of your head that on the evening of Friday, March 25, 1988--sixteen years ago--you heard a broadcast performance of the Brahms third symphony conducted by Leonard Bernstein -- probably because the symphony calls to mind thoughts of friendship, loss, and remembrance. I don't think The Mad Monk gets any of this, or anything else about my personality. She just "doesn't get it." To paraphrase a slogan from the Clinton campaign in '92 -- "It's the intrapsychic mental economy, stupid!"
How is The Mad Monk doing, you ask? She's still mad, mad, mad.
"Did you work yesterday, Dr. Bash?" "Yes. Was it a holiday?" she asked. "Yes," I said, "it was Tisha b'Av." "Did you fast?" I asked. "No. Did you?" "No."
Tisha b'Av, the ninth day of the month of Av on the Hebrew calendar is a holiday, a fast day, a day of mourning that commemorates the destruction of the first and second Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, in ancient times.
"I see you didn't bring in a few pages of your book," said The Mad Monk. "No. I'm not interested in your opinion about my book. The Pope liked it." "The Pope?" "Yes." "Wow," said The Mad Monk. "Why would I need your opinion if I already know the Pope liked my book?" "And how did the Pope get your book?" "From the Prime Minister of Israel," I explained. -- How did the Pope get my book? Now really! How does she think he got the book?
"President Clinton liked the book, too. And Hillary Clinton." "How did Bill Clinton get a copy of your book?" "Through Vernon Jordan," I explained. "Who?" "Vernon Jordan," I repeated. "Vernon Jordan is a partner at the old law firm where I used to work. He's a close friend of President Clinton's." "Did Bill Clinton like the book?" "Sure," I said, "what's not to like?" "I just want to be Brian's friend, Dr. Bash." "But Brian doesn't want to have anything to do with you," she said. "But Brian likes me," I said. "That's why he called the police on you, because he likes you?" said The Mad Monk. "Yes," I said -- as if the reason were obvious. "Brian's a latent homosexual. (I meant that in a good way, buddy.) He likes me and he feels threatened by the fact that he likes me, so he called the police on me." "You have a reason for everything," said Dr. Bash, "but your reasons are all irrational." I felt like saying: "Just because I'm crazy doesn't mean I can't be irrational."
I told Dr. Bash about my plan to send a copy of my autobiography to the Department of Psychology at New York University, Dr. Bash's alma mater. I told her that perhaps as a professional courtesy, the psychology department would review the book and offer comments to Dr. Bash about it. Dr. Bash said the psychology department wouldn't be interested. Maybe the literature department would be interested, she said. I found Dr. Bash's notion incredibly naive. Even educated laymen are aware that a piece of creative writing can reveal a lot about the writer's personality. That Dr. Bash seemed unaware that my book reveals anything of interest about my personality is actually frightening in its naivete.
"Did you watch any of the Democratic Convention," asked Dr. Bash. "No," I said, "I don't like Kerry."
My candidate was Joe Lieberman. Not because of his religion. I just thought it would be cool to have a first lady named Hadassah. In my estimation, John Kerry is lackluster. Any candidate who makes George Bush look charismatic by comparison has got some real problems, in my mind. And John Edwards? I don't know what, if anything, John Edwards does for Barney Frank and the other members of the Congressional Gay Caucus, but I'll tell you this -- I need more than just a pretty face!
You gotta hand it to these candidates. What they go through! The nonstop speechmaking, the rubber chicken night after night, having to shake hands with the unemployed. That's the great thing about being a dictator, like General Bonaparte, the little man from Corsica. You never have to shake hands with the unemployed. You know what I mean, Brian? It's like Barney Frank once said, "I spent an hour this morning shaking hands with the unemployed. But if you have to, you have to!"
I told Dr. Bash that there's a Jewish congregation here in Washington that has a homosexual membership: Bet Mishpachah. The House of the Family. "Would you like to join?" asked The Mad Monk. "I don't know," I said, "it would make me uncomfortable. Not because they're homosexuals. Joining any organization would make me uncomfortable. I'm not a joiner. I like certain people, certain kinds of people--and other than that, I'm not interested in people. I'm a misanthrope. If I'm in a group of people, I just start out with a feeling of discomfort, a feeling that there will be nobody there that I have anything in common with." Dr. Bash said: "That's because you lack social skills."
Again with the social skills. I may be lacking in social skills, but frankly, if I suffer from a schizoid personality disorder, the restrictions imposed on my social functioning by that disorder far outweigh the impairment posed by any lack of social skills. I feel like telling Dr. Bash: "Pick a diagnosis and stick to it." Anthony Storr writes: "One of the most characteristic traits of the people psychiatrists label schizoid is their inability to make close relationships with people without feeling threatened. The typical schizoid dilemma is a desperate need for love combined with an equally desperate fear of close involvement." Schizoid personality disorder is to a lack of social skills what migraine is to a tension headache.
"From my youth upwards my spirit walk'd not with the souls of men, nor look'd upon the earth with human eyes; The thirst of their ambition was not mine, the aim of their existence was not mine; my joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers, made me a stranger; though I wore the form, I had no sympathy with breathing flesh." That's from Lord Byron's "Manfred," a dramatic poem that was set to music by Robert Schumann, by the way. (Did you know that Lenny made his debut with the New York Philharmonic in the early '40s conducting Schumann's Manfred Overture?)
If you look at the movies that held my fascination as a boy, you see something revealing about my nature; I loved movies about the isolated hero, the hero who was consumed with the pain and passion of the lonely quest. "Birdman of Alcatraz," with Burt Lancaster (I remember being deeply upset by the scene where the prison warden confiscates the Birdman's bird collection); "Christopher Columbus," starring Frederick March; "The Egyptian," the story of a lowly physician who comes to the attention of Pharaoh -- suffers the destruction of his career -- and ends his days in exile in the desert, writing his memoirs (those things only happen on Hollywood sound stages, of course). And Robert Schumann! I should have known there was already a problem. A ten-year-old boy who identifies with a mad composer who dies at age 46 in a lunatic asylum, with one dear friend at his side. What do you say about that, Glickman? Did you hear about Glickman, Brian? He's gone from "The Man Who Bought His Dinner with Food Stamps" to "The Man Who Came to Dinner."
Back to my session with The Mad Monk. "When I was in college I belonged to Hillel. Are you familiar with that organization?" Hillel is a national organization for Jewish students, with branches at various colleges. "They used to sponsor Sunday brunches -- you know, bagels and lox, that type of thing. Well, I used to go. I chatted with people. But nothing ever came of it. I didn't meet anybody I felt I wanted to be friends with."
Dr. Bash asked: "What would you like to talk to Brian about?" "Nothing," I said. I chuckled. I meant "nothing" in the technical, Seinfeldian sense. I think Dr. Bash thought I meant "nothing" in the common, colloquial sense.
"If I were to talk to Brian, it would be a conversation about nothing." "A conversation about nothing?" "Yes. For example, what did you do today?" "I got up and came to work." "See, there's a conversation. I could talk about that with Brian." "But you don't work." "That's even better. Brian and I would have even less to talk about!"
"So you just go to the library once a week now," said The Mad Monk. "Yes," I said, "I just go once a week. I just write one letter per week to Brian now. I used to write a letter to Brian about every day. That was when I used to go to my local library every day -- the branch where Brian works. But now that I don't get to see Brian, I don't feel inspired." "That's good," said Dr. Bash, "out of sight, out of heart." "Out of sight, out of mind," I corrected. "That's true to some extent. I'm just as obsessed with Brian as I used to be, but I don't feel as creatively inspired as I used to. But the obsession is still there."
"Did you get a chance to see Bill Clinton's book?" asked Dr. Bash. "Yes. As a matter of fact, I saw a copy at a bookstore, and I read the first page. It was interesting, but I was disappointed. Stylistically, it wasn't impressive." "It was written by a shadow writer," Dr. Bash explained. "You mean a 'ghost writer,'" I corrected.
"I was thinking of getting Brian a gift, Dr. Bash." "A gift? What would you do with it?" "I could leave it at the door of the library." "Don't do that," said Dr. Bash, "it will get you in trouble." "But, Dr. Bash, I could leave the gift anonymously, simply address the gift to Brian." "Don't do it," said Dr. Bash. "You need to forget about Brian, you need to put Brian out of your mind," said The Mad Monk.
Dr. Bash continued: "You need to invest your energy into publishing your book. You need to find a publisher. I tell you what: if you get your book published, you could give Brian an autographed copy of it. He would look up to you." And this comes right after The Mad Monk said I need to get Brian out of my mind! The Mad Monk is continually undermining her credibility; her ad hoc dissembling undermines any sense of genuineness about her statements.
"But Dr. Bash, Brian already looks up to me. Brian likes me." "That's why he called the police on you?" asked Dr. Bash rhetorically.
"I know Brian likes me. I know people. Let me tell you something. There used to be a young guy in my apartment building. I didn't know anything about him. He used to see me sitting in the lobby. He'd look at me sometimes and smile. Once I heard him talking to the front-desk manager (Elizabeth Joyce). It was just a routine matter. But he was so eloquent. The way he talked, his use of language. I thought: 'He must be a lawyer. He must have graduated from an ivy league school.' Well, after he moved out of the building, I found out his name was Jared Silverman. I looked him up. He was in fact a lawyer, and he graduated from The University of Pennsylvania. So, how did I know that? I just know. I know people."
At this point Dr. Bash said something revealing. She asked me: "Did you talk to him (Jared Silverman)?" Note that just a few weeks ago, I said there was someone in the building who I liked--who I thought I might be friends with (David Dickenson). Dr. Bash asked: "What does he do?" I explained that he was a lawyer. She said: "Forget about it. No lawyer is going to be friends with you." At this consultation Dr. Bash inquires about whether I made any effort to be friends with the lawyer, Jared Silverman. See the inconsistency? Though in all fairness to Dr. Bash, she did not know the time frame of the Jared Silverman anecdote. She might have assumed I was working at that time. But I wonder. Can I be a friend with a lawyer or not? Would I want to be friends with a lawyer?
"Years ago," I continued, "at a law firm where I used to work, there was a law clerk. I knew he was special. I don't know how I knew. But I knew. And I really knew nothing about him except for what I observed. So what do you think he's doing now? He's the Inspector General at the Justice Department. I found out he has two degrees from Harvard. A bachelor's degree in economics and his law degree. He was a Rhodes scholar. You know what that is? And he was a star basketball player in college. How did I know he was special? I just knew."
"A few years ago, there was a young guy in my building. His name was Ari. I think he was a Jewish kid. Ari is a common name in Israel, isn't it? Elizabeth Joyce knew him. He looked like a tough kid. He would look at me straight in the eye. Sometimes he would smile. I felt some kind of bond with him. And we never spoke. It was totally nonverbal. I wonder what he's doing now. I pinpointed him as someone who was going places in life. I just think he's somebody who's done something with his life. He impressed me. Most people are sheep in my estimation. I hate sheep. This kid didn't look like a sheep."
"When I worked at Akin Gump, back in 1989, I worked with a young guy, John Falk--he was a temporary paralegal. He was from Arizona. He was very independent-minded. I liked him. We went to lunch three times. He said he wanted to join the Marines." "You felt comfortable with him?" asked The Mad Monk. "Yes," I said, "he was someone I felt comfortable with." Dr. Bash seemed impressed with what I was telling her. That's rare, I have to tell you. She seemed to accept the idea that I had some kind of intuition about people.
She asked me about the social clubs that my apartment building is in the process of organizing. I explained that the clubs are in the planning stage right now. Nothing concrete has been settled about them. Dr. Bash encouraged me to join something. I didn't tell Dr. Bash that I suggested to building management that they organize a "Nudist Club" as well as a "Brad Dolinsky Fan Club." I suggested to the front desk manager, Mardi, that Brad (Captain Vagina) could give tenants advice on women, dating, and relationships. Mardi told me the Nudist Club was a nonstarter. "This is a conservative organization," she said.
I told Dr. Bash that I felt I was throwing my life away. "I was thinking the other day that I could live another thirty years. What am I going to do, be thinking about Brian for the next thirty years?"
Dr. Bash said: "In the Jewish religion you are allowed to mourn for only one year. Just one year." I guess Clara Schumann, the professional mourner, wasn't Jewish. I know she didn't serve matzo at dinner parties. I told The Mad Monk I had till next April to mourn for you, buddy.
I said to Dr. Bash: "I long for Brian." She wrote that down; she takes notes. She spoke the following words aloud as she wrote them down: "I long for Brian." Actually, I was striking a Hermann Hesse-like pose. There's a line in his novel Demian in which Sinclair says about his friend, "How I longed for Demian!" But it's the way I feel.
"What do you do all day?" asked Dr. Bash. "I lay on my couch, stare into space, and think about Brian."
In fact, right now I have a rendezvous with my couch. Check you out next week, Brian. August 15th will be Vernon Jordan's birthday. Coincidentally, it's also General Bonaparte's birthday. Maybe the three of us--you, me, and Vernon Jordan--could get together for lunch. Just the three of us. I think we can leave General Bonaparte out of it. People might talk.
See you, buddy. Try to keep your moral excesses in check.

Thoughts in a Minor Key

2004-07-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

Brian--
Hey, buddy. What's up, my friend? Every day gets a little closer. Closer to what, you may ask? Closer to wherever it is you'll finally end up. Now that's something you can't deny to the Metro police!
To paraphrase Robert Schumann (again with the Schumann!): "During the last week, I kept sitting at the word processor; I composed, I wrote, I laughed and I cried." I feel a bond with Schumann. His mother wanted Robert to be a lawyer, and he did in fact attend law school. But early on, he felt the inexorable allure of a career in neurosis. He abandoned the law for music, literature -- and Clara.
For this man who had been living in permanent doubt about himself, who could never make up his mind, life was strewn with impossible challenges: always doubting of his vocation (lawyer, poet, pianist, composer), his impossible love for his future wife, Clara, famous pianist of the 19th century, his mental state and his torments. Such extreme sensitivity, his perfect knowledge of famous German writers (his father was a bookseller, a publisher and an author) and his evolution towards depression led Schumann to be considered an undeniable romanticist.
Sensitive, different and determined to forge his own path, Schumann succeeded on his own terms. "At school he was an average student," recalled a close friend of Schumann during his youth, "rather dreamy and inattentive. But what soon struck me about him was the absolute certainty in his own mind that one day he would become famous. In what he would be famous--that had yet to be determined--but famous whatever the circumstances."
This quote begins a newly-published biography of Schumann, which I recently came across. I turned to the conclusion of the book, which talks about Schumann's final weeks and months at the asylum where he was committed and where he died at age 46. (I usually read the beginning and then the end of a worthwhile book, but not the middle). I was moved by a passage at the end of the book, the passage that describes Schumann's despair at the point the asylum director confiscated all of Schumann's books, writings, and writing materials without his knowledge. Schumann had lost all control over his life, all autonomy. It wasn't a good thing, believe me.
About a month ago I purchased a CD of some of Schumann's early piano pieces. Some of his most famous and popular works for piano: Carnaval; Scenes from Childhood (including the famous Traumerei or Reverie); and Papillons. I listen, compulsively, to the CD every day. These pieces say in music what I try to express in my letters. Carnaval and Scenes from Childhood are both collections of short pieces, caprices really. Schumann loved small works and composed valuable ones. He was a master miniaturist.
On Friday I bought another Schumann CD containing the Humoreske, Opus 20, together with the Bunte Blaetter, Opus 99, performed by the young Israeli pianist Uriel Tsachor. Maybe he's a friend (or relative!) of The Mad Monk's. He's a nice Jewish boy--a Juilliard graduate, no less. But he's no Rubinstein. And quite frankly, I doubt if he'll ever be elected Prime Minister of Israel--or Kenya.
I had never heard these works before, that I can recall. They are dark, dense, and profound, unlike the earlier piano works. Anyway, it was one of those budget CD's: $3.99. Not a bad deal. But oh, what a poet Schumann was, regardless of the price of the recording!
My own mood is dark and pessimistic at this moment.
During the past week, I've been rummaging through some old letters. It always wrenches me to find old letters filled with the half forgotten names of people with whom I have had the most tender experiences. So many people, so many fine moments. What has happened to them? My many-tiered file cabinets, my mounds of envelopes often remind me of some vast cemetery: lives pressed into folders, voices trapped within the boundaries of quotation marks mutely and eternally playing out their dramas. Living with these monuments imbues me with a keen sense of transience. Even as I find myself immersed in the present I sense the specter of decay watching and waiting--a decay which will ultimately vanquish lived experience and yet, by its very inexorability, bestows a poignancy and beauty.
The desire to relate my experiences is a very compelling one. I am intrigued by the opportunity to stave off decay, to prolong the span of my experiences. How much better to know that I will exist in the mind of the reader--or the conjectural reader-- rather than in the abandoned warehouse of unread notes and letters.
Eloquent lines, aren't they? I didn't write them. The quote is a paraphrase from Irvin Yalom's book, "Every Day Gets a Little Closer." Yalom does pretty well with his writing, financially I mean. For him writing is a career in itself. Somewhat crass, though, don't you think? -- transforming other people's lives -- their specific identities, their joys and sorrows -- into the undifferentiated dollar? A few pennies for the penny jar.
Be that as it may.
My session with The Mad Monk, of Wednesday last? How did that go, you ask? Typical, oh, so typical.
She asked to see a few pages of my autobiography. She wants to offer me an opinion as to its publishability. Like I need her opinion! Like I value her opinion! I couldn't care less what her opinion is. She could say the book is a masterpiece. She could say it's worthless garbage. My opinion is that it's good. That's my meek and humble opinion. As God himself said upon appraising his own creation: "He saw that it was good." Do you think God cared about anybody else's opinion? For millennia now, people have been asking the Almighty: "Why, God, why did you create a world filled with so many imperfections?" To date, God has not responded (as far as I know). I draw certain inferences from God's silence. Or am I being paranoid? Am I making unwarranted assumptions?
What I find disturbing about Dr. Bash's action is the psychoanalytical implications. She's not concerned about reading the book to appraise, or analyze, it's psychological meaning -- that is, she doesn't seem interested in giving any thought as to how the work expresses my unconscious wishes, conflicts, and prohibitions: my inner world of fantasy. She's simply concerned with reviewing a few pages to determine, to her satisfaction, whether the book is marketable. Whether I can publish the book and make some money from it. Of course, what does "the poetry of the unconscious" mean to The Mad Monk?
The anti-Semites say that art for the Jew has no meaning other than a pecuniary one. "How much is it worth?" "How much can it be sold for?" Maybe my view of Dr. Bash is an anti-Semitic one. But I am offended by her action.
Analytically, I see her behavior (her request to review a few pages of the book to assess it's marketability) as an expression of anality.
In "Character and Anal Eroticism," Freud took off from his clinical experience to propose some general hypotheses about character formation. He had supposed as early as 1897 that excrement, money, and obsessional neurosis are somehow intimately linked; a decade later, he had suggested to Jung that patients who obtain pleasure from withholding their feces typically display the character traits of orderliness, stinginess, and obstinacy.
Building on these ideas Shengold argues that "anal defensiveness" involves a panoply of defenses evolved during the anal phase of psychic development that culminates with the individual's power to reduce anything meaningful to "shit"--to the nominal, the degraded, the undifferentiated.
What is my book worth to me? Everything. It reveals (or conceals) my inner wishes, my longings, my joys and my pain. For Dr. Bash the book has no value other than a royalty -- the undifferentiated dollar.
What are Dr. Bash's opinions worth to me? Nothing. She doesn't simply challenge my thinking, which is an appropriate procedure for a psychologist. She invalidates my thinking. She invalidates everything, in fact. But more than that. The things she says to rebut my assumptions are nonsensical.
An example. At our last session Dr. Bash challenged, or invalidated, my ideas (inferences, or assumptions) about my environment. She said: "You assume. You make assumptions. You shouldn't make assumptions. Do not assume (where did I hear that phrase before?). It's dangerous to assume." I had told Dr. Bash that I inferred that you, Brian, knew who I was early in our relationship and that you had been in communication with our mutual friend, Malcolm Lassman.
I proceeded to challenge Dr. Bash. I said: "You assume a lot yourself, doctor." The Mad Monk replied: "How? How do I assume?" "Well," I explained, "you assumed that the man who sleeps in my local library, the library patron who sleeps at the Cleveland Park library all day, is homeless. You have no evidence he's homeless. How can you possibly know that he's homeless?" "I know he's homeless," answered The Mad Monk. "But how do you know that?" I asked. The Mad Monk made an offer of proof: "At my local library, there are several people who sleep there all day. I asked the librarian who those people were--why they sleep in the library. The librarian explained that they're homeless people. The man you see sleeping in your local library (Cleveland Park) must be homeless." So much for Dr. Bash's evidence.
She then challenged me about my assertion that Malcolm has been spying on me. Her challenges were based on assumptions, unwarranted -- and somewhat improbable assumptions. "Malcolm is probably retired by now." I said: "He was born in 1938. He'd be about 65 years old now." "That's right, he must be retired," said The Mad Monk. Assumption. She added: "He probably has a son who took over his practice." Two assumptions: Malcolm has a son, who's a lawyer; and he took over Malcolm Lassman's law practice. I said: "Malcolm does in fact have a son who's a lawyer, but I don't think he practices at Malcolm's firm." The Mad Monk, emboldened with her newly-acquired facts, proclaimed without any doubt: "There, you see. His son must have taken over Malcolm's law practice." This is all a house of cards. It's all total confabulation. There's no evidence (hard evidence) that Malcolm is spying on me. Yes, I admit that. But I can say with equal assurance that there's no evidence that Malcolm is retired or that his son has taken over his law practice. Dr. Bash challenges my thinking, but her challenges are even more ridiculous than my paranoia.
By the way, buddy. I happened to run into Barbara Walters the other day. She stopped me on the street and asked: "Mr. Freedman, do you yourself believe you are paranoid?" I said: "Barbara, I can't comment on my paranoia. It's part of my appeal. My wit, my intelligence, my good looks--and my paranoia--are all part of my appeal. I can't comment on those things." In any event, there's an invariable style to Dr. Bash's assumptions. She applies her personal experience or a model of conventional reality to situations about which she has no personal knowledge. Conventional fact: "People tend to retire in their mid-sixties." So Malcolm (someone about whom Dr. Bash has no personal knowledge) must have retired since he's in his sixties. Conventional fact: "Lawyers sometimes have children who are lawyers." So Malcolm (someone about whom Dr. Bash has no personal knowledge) must have a child who's a lawyer -- and! -- who has taken over Malcolm Lassman's law practice. Is this the cognitive style of someone whose opinions I can respect? I don't think so.
I have a thought. It is helpful to view the operative issue in my conflict with The Mad Monk as relating to conventionality, not paranoia. Dr. Bash's thinking would be considered nonparanoid by most people despite her fanciful constructions and her confabulations because she assumes (without any firsthand knowledge) that a conventional reality prevails in all situations. My logical inferences about my firsthand experiences are considered paranoid not because they are inferential, but because I assume that a nonconventional reality can prevail in some situations. The appeal and therapeutic effectiveness of Dr. Bash for certain patients may be comparable to the effectiveness of the narcissistic leader vis-a-vis certain groups. Kernberg writes that "the large-group members' identification with the narcissistic leader reinforces some of the pathologically narcissistic characteristics of 'static' crowds. These groups are conventional, ideologically simplistic, conformist, [anally-regressed], and able to indulge themselves without guilt or gratitude; they lack a sense of personal responsibility or a deep investment in others." Striking fact. People say I'm paranoid because I draw inferences; I make assumptions. Significantly, just as there is a pattern or style to Dr. Bash's assumptions (she tends to make assumptions about unknown situations based on her understanding of the conventional), there is a style to my assumptions. I make assumptions or draw inferences based on what I see firsthand. I do not apply facts about known situations to unknown situations, at least not with haphazard abandon.
Back to Malcolm and you, Brian. You probably don't remember this incident. It happened years ago, very early in our "relationship." It was October 1991. I was still working at Akin Gump. It was just days or weeks before my job termination. Cleveland Park Metro station. The landing down in the station before you approach the final escalator to the surface. I'm going downtown to work. I happened to see you, buddy, as you were (I'm assuming) on your way to work at the Cleveland Park Library. We made eye contact (if you'll pardon the expression). You glared at General Bonaparte, then looked up at my face and smiled, then walked off. That experience, that personal experience, struck me as odd. I thought: "What a smart ass. And that gesture! He must know something about me." At least that was my assumption, that was my inference. Do you see the difference between my style of assumptions, or inferences, and The Mad Monk's style of assumptions? I make assumptions based on personal experience--peculiarities, patterns, gestures, implied communications. Maybe my assumptions are right, maybe they're wrong; but they are based on first-hand perception. Whereas Dr. Bash, as a general rule, makes unwarranted assumptions about people and things of which she has absolutely no personal knowledge, based on factually unrelated (though comparable) situations that define conventional reality for her.
And Malcolm? What personal experience did I have that suggested something a tad askew about Malcolm? September 1989. I was visiting my sister at her home in New Jersey. I confronted her with the accusation that she was in communication with persons at my place of employment, Akin Gump. I said: "Let me tell you how smart I am. I happen to know who you've been talking to. It's Malcolm Lassman." In an excited utterance, my sister said: "You ARE smart!" Those were her exact words. Then she clamed up and said nothing more. Every time I questioned her later on, she refused to acknowledge her "admission" about Malcolm Lassman and consistently called me "paranoid." But the incident--my sister's statement or admission--struck me as odd. But hey, that's me.
In any event, back to The Mad Monk. I told her that her interaction with me is not psychotherapy. It's really mind control or brainwashing. She thought my observation was humorous, and denied trying to brainwash or control me. But what else can I make of a therapeutic style that's based on invalidating every idea I offer? I asked her why she does what she does with me. She said: "I'm trying to break you of your ideas." And that's not brainwashing? What is it?
I suspect that Dr. Bash's effectiveness is definitely produced by brainwashing techniques, whether or not it is consciously done. I believe that with patients more vulnerable than I (patients, who, shall we say, are unable to retain their sense of autonomy by going through all four parts of the Beethoven string quartets in their heads) her pervasive style of "breaking patients" by denying all and withholding any confirmation or validation, has the effect of heightening the patients' suggestibility, their compliance, and their identification with Dr. Bash. Anthony Storr writes that prisoners of war can begin to identify with their interrogators, and that the warm and friendly feelings which develop between the two may have a powerful influence on the prisoner's behavior. I further believe that what Dr. Bash would like to depict as my implacable treatment resistance is, sadly, my desperate attempt to retain any sense of autonomy. With Dr. Bash there's a blurring of the distinction between illness and autonomy, between defiance and initiative; it's the same blurring you find in authoritarian regimes. According to Shengold, a patient's need "to borrow the convictions of others," whether those of his therapist or other third party is not a sign of healthy compliance; rather it shows an unhealthy lack of autonomy. Shengold at 102.
When I'm with Dr. Bash I have the feeling that my privileged autonomy is under attack. That areas of my functioning that should be under my discretionary control (my right to have opinions, draw logical inferences, read and talk about whatever I choose, for example) are under attack. ("You should read romance novels and detective stories. You should be watching more television.") The attacks on my legitimate areas of autonomy are so persistent and pervasive that I feel like a prisoner.
Something that's been in the news recently is what Martha Stewart will face in prison. Every person I've seen interviewed about Martha Stewart's imprisonment talks first and foremost about the loss of control that a prisoner faces in prison with respect to every aspect of life. I suspect that the reason for prison restrictions is not simply to facilitate physical management of the prisoners. I suspect also that such an overwhelming loss of physical control by prisoners over every aspect of autonomy fosters psychological control over prisoners by prison officials and guards. In effect, loss of autonomy by the victim (whether physical or psychological) promotes brainwashing and mind control.
Oddly enough, there are overdetermined issues of anality here. The prisoner faces a loss of identity. He is assigned a number; he is reduced to the nominal, the degraded, the undifferentiated.
Further, the group pressures of prison life promote an anally-regressed conventionality that is ideologically simplistic and conformist -- as Kernberg would say.
And significantly, the prisoner loses all control, all autonomy, which can be seen in anal terms. In the Nazi concentration camps, prisoners even lost control over their anal sphincters. Bettelheim writes (Am I permitted to read Bettelheim? Probably not.): "[The prisoners] were forced to soil themselves. In the camp defecation was strictly regulated; it was one of the most important daily events, discussed in great detail. During the day, prisoners who wanted to defecate had to obtain the permission of a guard. It seemed as if education to cleanliness [as first experienced in childhood] would be once more repeated."
Is this an exaggeration of The Mad Monk's behavior? I don't think so. It's a metaphor. It's as if Dr. Bash elicits verbal productions from me, which she construes as "s---," and which she then uses to soil me. I recall one instance of many. She asked: "Tell me, what do you think your positive characteristics are?" I said: "Well, I think I'm intelligent." She said: "You? Intelligent? Believe me, no intelligent person would live the way you do. You're not an intelligent person." Again and again, buddy, I fall silent during my consultations and Dr. Bash inquires: "What are you thinking about?" I say: "I'm thinking about Brian." You have become my Beethoven. I concentrate on you to stave off madness. (By the way, did you get a good price for my Beethoven CD at your book sale on Saturday?)
Here's my take on my relationship with Dr. Bash. I believe our relationship can be summed up in libidinal terms. It is a conflict between, on the one hand, a therapist who uses her anality to dominate and control the patient in an attempt to ELIMINATE the patient's negative qualities, and on the other, a patient who is struggling with the (oral) frustration associated with his inability to INCORPORATE a gratifying object.
I have a dissociated image of myself. It is the image of a terminally ill patient tormented with an unslakable, Faustian craving. It is an image of a death in the asylum. --
I awake with horror in the morning, and bitter tears well up in me when I must face each day that in its course cannot fulfill a single wish, not one!
On a hot July day, I lay in a small room in an asylum fighting for what remains of my life. A sheet covers the lower half of my naked body, with its swollen abdomen; above it, my chest and arms, thin by now, still suggest the athletic vitality that had always characterized my walk and gesticulations. A tube is inserted in my nose; a second tube leads from my side into a glass jar at the foot of my bed; both are removing the wastes my body can no longer eliminate. The gallons of iced apple juice I gulp down to moisten my cracked lips and dry throat reach only the stomach and flow out into the jar. Nothing moves past the stomach level, below which there are intestinal obstructions, and because my body absorbs little, whether I drink, suck lemons, or rub ice on my lips, my thirst is unslakable.
And when night begins to fall I timidly recline on my bed, and even then I seek in vain for rest; savage dreams come on to terrorize. The god that lives within my bosom can deeply stir my inmost core; enthroned above my human powers. He cannot move a single outward thing. -- Not a pretty picture. It's the way I feel. Thanks for listening to my tale of woe, buddy. Woe is Freedman, woe is Freedman! I don't think I could get through this thing without you. Talk to you next week.
P.S. Message to my neighbor. (You know who you are.) You had a drunken orgy on the roof on Saturday, and you didn't invite me? I know your type, joy boy -- flashy, makin' the scene. Your type just doesn't cut it with me. And, by the way, I thought Mormons didn't drink. I'm thinking of reporting you to the local LDS chapter.

The Dream of the Twin Brother

2004-07-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

Brian--
Hey, buddy. In the immortal words of Charles Davis: "Haven't seen you in some time. How have you been?" Yea. That's right. I saw Charles at the CVS on Saturday, July 17. It made my day. One of your crew was actually friendly. Wouldn't you know, it would be a brother?
Last week I saw William. I know he saw me, but he said nothing. It was a momentary encounter about nothing. That hurt. It really hurt. Then last month when I saw you at MLK, and you barely acknowledged my presence, well, it was crushing, man, really crushing. It took me a long time to get over that snub, buddy.
Not much to report to the home office today. As I told you, I'm in the midst of a minimalist period. I live inside my head, and even there, not much has been going on. At times I feel like an imbecile. Certainly, these letters read like they've been written by a deranged imbecile.
What are these letters, fundamentally? A carnival of reveries and recollections. Scenes of all things perceived and experienced: scenes from a life, or from childhood, perhaps. It's true what they say: "Every neurotic will someday return to the scenes of his childhood."
"Everything in the world has an effect upon me," wrote the great composer Robert Schumann. "Politics, literature, people. I think about it all in my fashion, and my feelings find their expression in [my letters]." Of course, Schumann ended up in a lunatic asylum.
Tell you about my last meeting with The Mad Monk. "Olam Bash," as my Hebrew-speaking friends say. The World of Bash.
Big news on that front. I got a new diagnosis. I get new diagnoses periodically. I'm a protean psychotic, I suppose. Always changing.
My new diagnosis is Axis I: Delusional Disorder. Axis II: Schizoid Personality Disorder. It used to be Axis II: Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I had asked Dr. Bash how she was able to shoehorn my social isolation into the diagnosis Delusional Disorder. Social isolation is not necessarily associated with Delusional Disorder. So she explained that she would make me schizoid on axis II. That would explain my social isolation. But as Schumann wrote from his asylum: "I can not accept the doctor's words as those of an absolute oracle."
I think Dr. Bash is off base. Schizoids typically have no social interests; they're socially indifferent. I'm isolated, but as we know, buddy, I have my social passions! I like you, Brian, and I think about you all the time. I like few people, but the people I like, I like with a passion. I'm not convinced that's schizoid.
I think my social responsiveness--or lack thereof--is, at heart, narcissistic. I'm cold and aloof. But I'm not socially indifferent. I crave to be with people. But MY kind of people: people who will gratify MY needs. Lucky for you, buddy, I like you. You're somebody I crave to spend some time with.
I think I resemble Gustave Flaubert and his fictional creation, Madame Bovary. Madame Bovary is a novel about nothing, did you know that? "Un livre sur rien," as Flaubert once said. (Yes, he really said that, Fredric). Flaubert said he wished to make the novel an aesthetic object rather than a communicative act. His wish for impersonality found expression in the attempt to fool the reader: "the victim must be uncertain what he is supposed to think, unsure whether he is being made fun of, suspicious that the book may have been written by an imbecile."
Flaubert was an emotionally-distant and interpersonally-detached individual. He was a classic narcissist--not a schizoid. One commentator writes: "Both Emma Bovary and Flaubert are too self-involved (narcissistic) to develop a true object-relation to members of the opposite sex. For both of them, the roots of disillusion seem to center on the inability of the real objects (Charles for Emma and Louise Colet for Flaubert) to fulfill the primitive needs of a narcissistic nature." I think I've proved my case. Schizoid? I don't think so.
I asked Dr. Bash about the diagnosis paranoid schizophrenia. I asked her if the diagnosis paranoid schizophrenia wouldn't encompass my social isolation. The Mad Monk said: "No. Schizophrenics are friendly, sociable people." That's news to me. David Reiss, M.D., writes: "Schizophrenia, it has been said, is the cancer of psychiatry. Often, patients with this affliction show signs of impaired social relationships and initiative in childhood. Then, often in late adolescence, they become diagnosed during a first psychotic episode which may frighten both them and their families. Finally, many patients go on to suffer from a mixture of intermittent psychotic experiences and prolonged periods of reduced motivation, difficulty in understanding social and occupational requirements and, as a consequence, they maintain a state of partial withdrawal." (Editorial -- "Families and Schizophrenia Redux." Psychiatry, vol. 58, page 1 (February 1995) (Stanley R. Palombo, M.D., consulting editor)).
Of course, who the hell is David Reiss? What does David Reiss know? The Mad Monk told me about a male patient she had years ago, when she worked at Bellevue Hospital, in New York. The patient had paranoid schizophrenia. She administered an IQ test. She was stunned when she calculated the result. His IQ was 185. 185, Brian. The guy was a genius. When Dr. Bash stated her astonishment to the patient, the man replied: "I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid!" Funny material. So from that experience, Dr. Bash thinks all schizophrenics are funny, sociable people.
Again, last week, I asked Dr. Bash to what she attributed my social problems. She said: "You lack social skills." I told her that in group therapy I was descried as outgoing and personable. She said incredulously, "You? -- Outgoing?" I told her that back in December 1994 I was interviewed by the U.S. Secret Service, and that the agent (Philip Leadroot, S.A.) said: "I don't understand why you're so socially isolated; you seem like a friendly guy." The Mad Monk's response: "You were afraid you were going to get arrested, so you made an effort to be friendly." Whacked. You either have a skill or you don't. You don't express skills you don't have simply because you're under duress. Did you ever hear the story about the imbecile who scored a perfect 1600 on his SATs? You know how he did it? His father wanted him to go to Harvard. And the kid was afraid that if he didn't get accepted, his father would kill him. That's Dr. Bash's reasoning.
Do I believe I lack social skills? Yes, I would say so -- in an Eisslerian sense, at least. I have the self-concept that I'm unlovable. So I approach people, if at all, very tentatively. I seem desperate for a kind of friendliness that I cannot achieve naturally and spontaneously. That's why I lack close acquaintances, I suppose. Yes. I am unable naturally and spontaneously to achieve friendliness with people. That's a social skill. But there is more than this.
I have such a fear of frustration; it's overwhelming at times. It's not just a common fear of rejection. It's more. Some observations that Dr. Shengold makes about the difficulties that "soul-murdered" people have in analysis seem to apply to my deep reservations about initiating social contact. I see the following quote as a wonderfully evocative and poignant description of my feelings about approaching people.
Shengold writes: "The emotional connecting necessary for insight [or, more generally, for embarking on social relations] is initially more than soul-murdered people can bear. They learned as children that to be emotionally open, to want something passionately, was the beginning of frustrating torment. The deeply ingrained bad expectations are felt toward parents and all 'grown-ups.' The distrust is based not only on the projection of 'bad' feelings (derived from the aggressive drives and the inevitable frustration of wishes), which give rise to intimations of losing control and a terror of being overwhelmed by feeling. Such fears beset every child in the course of development; they also lurk in our subsequent fantasy life (although their intensity varies with the individual). In addition to this, the distrust of parents and the entire affectively charged environment is based for soul-murder victims on experienced reality. They have been abused and neglected and have learned a lesson: if you cannot trust mother and father, whom can you trust? So a really meaningful alliance with the analyst [or a meaningful start to a friendship] takes a long time to develop [sometimes 15 years of close observation of one's local librarian is required!], although at first it may appear that one exists; these people are likely to behave in "as if" fashion, to possess a facade of relatedness that combines compliance to what is usually expected with a provocative defiance [manipulating the computer icons?] that has a gamelike quality for them. People around them must not matter too much." Shengold, L. "Soul Murder," at 312.
Months ago, Dr. Cooper, my old psychiatrist, said she would look into the ACT Program for me. That's a program for addicted people--alcoholics and dope heads. I'm not an alcoholic or a dope head, but the program provides home visits by a social worker. Dr. Cooper said the program would be good for me because it would provide me with more social contact than I currently get. But Dr. Cooper never called me.
So I told Dr. Bash that I suffer from a "Brian addiction." I'm addicted to you, buddy. "Don't I qualify for the ACT Program, Dr. Bash?" "No," she said, "that's for alcoholism. You don't have alcoholism." I said, "I have Brianism." She didn't see the humor in that.
I should have told her that I suffer from "Al Jolson Syndrome." "You made me love you, I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to do it." I don't think she'd get it.
I think she's totally fed up with my obsession with you. She seemed put-off last week. Or maybe she was just having a bad day.
Jeffrey Masson sees a deep connection between obsessiveness and addiction: "The lives of soul murder victims were pervaded with sadness; their rituals, their obsessive gestures of every kind, are an attempt to recapture the lost childhood they never had. It is not surprising to find that all addicts have suffered such loss. Psychoanalytic studies of addiction have enabled us to see 'addictive' features in many areas seemingly unrelated to pure drug or alcohol addiction. Compulsive sexuality can serve as an addiction, as can the practices of asceticism." So can letter writing, I suppose.
I told The Mad Monk that I feel like a love-sick 13-year-old girl who's obsessed with a boy who wants nothing to do with her. Dr. Bash said: "So what about a boy? That never happens to a boy?" "Not with me, it didn't," I said. (I lied; I actually have latent heterosexual feelings.) "What about boys?" inquired The Mad Monk. "Did you have those feelings for boys?" Right. Funny stuff.
Dr. Bash then ventured further into Dr. Bash territory. "You lack social skills. If you had social skills you could have had Brian for a friend. When you first got interested in being his friend -- if you had had social skills -- you would have known how to approach him appropriately. And he would have responded. But you lack social skills, so you can't make friends." What she conveniently blocked out was the fact that you have a policy, so I'm told, of not befriending library patrons -- regardless of social skill level. Dr. Bash was using what I call "The Lost Opportunity Model." She uses that frequently. "If you had taken medication when it was first recommended, you would have responded to the meds. But instead you waited three years. And when you finally took the medication that Dr. Taub had recommended, the medication didn't work." Variation: "If you had social skills, your initial social overture to Brian would have done the trick."
It's all part of the Dr. Bash credo: "I have no insight and I take no responsibility." The issue is, what is my problem at this moment, and how can we work on that problem. Forget about the lost opportunities. Early in my "treatment" Dr. Bash said: "If you had seen a psychiatrist when you were a child, you wouldn't have these problems now." Again, the lost opportunity. That's what they call "water under the bridge," isn't it?
The Mad Monk asked me what it is that I would like to experience emotionally with you. I said: "a sublime moment." She said, "What?" I repeated: "A sublime moment." She said nothing, which is unusual for her. She just shook her head, silently. Her look was WORSE than the look my father gave me when I told him I wanted to become a ventriloquist. That look on her face! It was as if she were thinking: "He really is crazy -- but without the humor or the social skills." What I had in mind was the Faustian moment, the transcendent "Augenblick." (The Chanin Brothers can translate).
Actually, my statement to Dr. Bash -- my desire to experience the Faustian "moment" -- can be seen to have psychological significance. At least perhaps Irvin Yalom, M.D. (and his colleagues in existentialist psychiatry) might see some connection between the desire to experience the transcendent "Augenblick" (The Moment) and a need to ward off "death anxiety."
What is the Faustian "Augenblick?" It is the all-encompassing Moment in which past, present and future is experienced simultaneously in a single pin-prick of time.
Peter Salm writes: "To experience, in a single instant, the succession of events that mark our existence in time is equivalent to eliminating time altogether; it means an existence in a continuous present tense. As temporal creatures, nervously feeding a shortening future into a lengthening past, we attribute to the gods a timeless mode of being and an [immortal] existence in total simultaneity." To experience The Moment is to erase the future (and necessarily death itself) and simultaneously to recapture one's lost youth from the past. "Give me my youth back!" Faust implores Mephistopheles.
Is it mere coincidence that my mad escapade with you began in the months preceding my fiftieth birthday? Maybe my need to experience The Moment coincides with my increasing concerns with my mortality. (And by the way Brian, I'm still waiting for my 50th-birthday tee shirt).
Dr. Bash neglected to ask me if I'd ever experienced such a moment. If she had, I would have said: "Yes. With my friend Craig the Embalmer (or maybe I should call him "Craig the Gravedigger" in this context). Sitting on a park bench. I loved sitting on a park bench, any park bench, with Craig and talking about nothing: "absolument rien," as Sylvain Boni would say. I never failed to experience those moments as 'sublime moments.'" That's what I crave, that's what I want to re-experience. My Faustian goal remains elusive. Maybe I should ask Earl Segal about getting involved with some land reclamation projects.
The bottom line is that Dr. Bash has no analytic skills whatsoever. If I say something a tad askew, such as, "I want to experience a sublime moment with Brian," she dismisses it as the ravings of a lunatic instead of inquiring into my meaning. What I need is some "50-minute Martinizing." My time with Israella is really "about nothing." But not in the technical, Seinfeldian sense.
Alas, I'm in an irrevocable funk. I experienced my frustration with you, and my banishment from the library, as the last straw, I think. The last straw in a life of frustrations. What happened at the library was insignificant in itself, but for me, based on my past history, it was "Too much, too much." As President Nixon would say: "It was one crisis too many."
I told Dr. Bash that I hadn't spoken with my sister in eight years. I told her that my sister had destroyed me, that she had gotten me fired from my job. "Whatever it was that my sister told Malcolm 'L'assman' (pardon my French) and Earl Segal got me terminated." I really believe that. I think Dr. Bash is unsure whether she is being made fun of, or whether mine are the productions of an imbecilic psychotic. I'll keep her guessing.
Be that as it may.
I had a dream the other night. This is really personal, man. Eyes only. I don't want you spreading this stuff around. The dream was slightly queer. What's interesting is that, despite my obsession with you, you were not in the dream. The dream was an emotionally-laden one for me.
DREAM OF THE TWIN BROTHER
I was a "house guest" on the CBS summer reality TV series, "Big Brother." The house guests were being rewarded with the opportunity to make a brief telephone call to a family member. All the house guests were gathered around a telephone in the living area. I was in a bedroom. I wasn't interested in talking to my family. (An instance of dream life imitating real life). I was just relaxing in bed, and watching my teammates in the other room. One of the male contestants, whose name was "Gary," entered my bedroom, jumped into bed with me, and started to wrestle playfully with me. It was completely nonsexual. I said jokingly: "Gary, people are going to talk." Gary said: "Let them talk." At that moment I thought: "I've found a friend in the house."
It was a sublime moment. A touch of "Rupert and Gerald Do Reality-TV," I suppose. Remember "Women in Love" by D.H. Lawrence?
Check you out next week, buddy. Give my regards to Julie. By the way, after 5 seasons of Big Brother, I'm seeing just how special His Holiness Hardy-Ames Hill was.
P.S. These letters to you are all I have. Schumann wrote before the final break: "I have discovered that there is no more powerful stimulus to imagination than tension and longing for something." It's Faustian, you know. "I stumble between enjoyment and desire. And in the throes of enjoyment, I crave more desire!" So wrote Goethe. Artists are never satisfied. But then, they wouldn't want to be. The Mad Monk doesn't understand that. With her it's always a question of - "This is what you should do if you want to be happy." But what if what it is you really want is to "crave happiness?"

Love That Bob!

2004-07-06T12:30:00.000-07:00

Brian--
Hey, buddy. How was your Fourth of July? I think I reached new depths of misery this weekend last.
Brian, Brian, Brian. What are we going to do? I just see nothing going on for me, occupationally or socially. I've been out of work now for almost 13 years. Who would hire me in any type of job worth doing? Socially, I just had a bad breakup with my girlfriend. She claims I threatened her, and called the cops on me. Women!
It just seems that, at age 50, I'm at that point in life--and in a life situation--where most normal people would give serious thought to committing suicide. Fortunately, I'm not normal.
Dr. Bash popped the question last session. I knew the question was coming--if you'll pardon the pun. "Do you have sexual feelings for Brian?" "No," I said. "I don't have any feelings for Brian below the neck."
I've decided to come clean. Fess up. Yes, I've had one homosexual experience. It happened years ago, in Pittsburgh. I've never mentioned it before -- to anyone. We were both crazy kids at the time. His name was Bob. His father was a German immigrant who came to the States to pursue a career as a solo flugelhorn player. The old man never made a go at that (big surprise!), and settled for a career in dry goods. Bob said his mother wanted him to grow up to be the first Jewish President of the United States. Obviously, that never happened, at least so far. I think about Bob now and then. I wonder if he ever made anything out of himself, whether he ever did anything with his life.
We slept together. He would get up in the morning and rush off to work, scrabbling through piles of our mingled trousers and briefs, running his head under the sink, slamming the front door in farewell, and after he was gone I would spend the luxury of my extra hour by bathing in the claw-foot tub and in the strangeness of it all. We lived well. Bob cooked elaborate dinners; in the refrigerator there was always pasta in the colors of the Texas flag, a variety of weird wines, capers, kiwis, unheard-of fish with Hawaiian names, and stacks of asparagus, Bob's favorite food, in the rubber-banded bundles that he never failed to refer to as fagots. We sent our dirty clothes out to be cleaned and they came back as gifts, tied up in blue paper. And, as often as possible we went to bed. I did not consider myself to be gay; I did not consider myself, as a rule. But all day long, from the white instant when I opened my eyes in the morning until my last black second of awareness of Bob's fading breath against my shoulder, I was always nervous, full of energy, afraid. The city was new again, and newly dangerous, and I would walk its streets quickly, eyes averted from those of passersby, like a spy in the employ of lust and happiness, carrying the secret deep within me but always on the tip of my tongue.
In any event, the fling with Bob didn't last. I woke up one morning and found a note on my bed stand. "Freedman. You rubbed me the wrong way -- literally and figuratively. I'm taking a trip to Russia; will be backpacking through the Urals. Bob." I never saw him again.
Be that as it may.
I find it absolutely impossible to talk to The Mad Monk. First, she simply invalidates everything I say. Her standard responses include: "No, that's not true." "No, I don't think so." "You need to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather." "Do you speak Hebrew?" "Do you eat out?" "Do you play chess?" Yes, that was the latest addition to her repertoire of recommendations: "Do you play chess?" I rely on you, Brian, or references to you, as a mantra--as a defense against the pain inflicted on me by her inanity. I just keep saying: "I want to see Brian. I want to talk to Brian. Couldn't you talk to Brian?" It's a never-ending cycle. She: "Do you speak Hebrew?" I: "I just want to talk to Brian." She: "Do you eat out?" I: "I just want to talk to Brian." She: "Do you play chess?" I: "I just want to be friends with Brian." I think she's getting sick of me. Good! She should understand that so long as she interacts with me as if I have no valid opinions, no unconscious wishes, conflicts or prohibitions--she, in turn, will suffer the consequences. Frankly, I see no end to this stalemate. Dr. Bash is not smart enough to comprehend how her behavior elicits the responses that she gets from me.
I badly need the support and corroboration of people whose opinion I respect, and when I don't get it, it's a terrible strain for me. Sound familiar?
Last session, she said to me: "I see by your chart that one of your previous psychiatrists, Dr. Taub (she proceeded to spell his name, "T-A-U-B"), recommended that you take the anti-psychotic medication Zyprexa in the year 1998. And that you refused to take it." My response: "Well, I in fact took Zyprexa in the year 2001 and it didn't do anything for me." The Mad Monk replied: "Well, if you had taken the medication when it was first recommended, it would have worked." I said: "But I took the medication eventually." She said: "But you took it three years after it was first recommended. If you had followed your psychiatrist's recommendation initially, the drug would have worked." As the sisters say in the 'hood, "Oy veh!"
I pointed out to Dr. Bash that it's a recognized fact that anti-psychotic medication rarely is effective in cases of delusional disorder. Its effective in schizophrenia, but not delusional disorder. "No," she said, "that's not true. Anti-psychotic medication is effective with delusions; it doesn't matter if the delusions are symptomatic of schizophrenia or delusional disorder." She doesn't know what she's talking about. Even Dr. Barbot said to me a few months ago, "anti-psychotic medication is frequently ineffective in delusional disorder."
In any event, the fact is I've taken three different anti-psychotic medications (in addition to lithium for my non-existent bi-polar disorder). None of the meds worked. So Dr. Bash's comment is somewhat moot. Even assuming anti-psychotic meds can be effective in delusional disorder, the fact is the three meds I've tried haven't been effective. And get this. Dr. Bash said: "So what medications did you take?" I said, "Zyprexa, Abilify, and Risperdal." Her response: "Oh, I don't think Abilify is the right medication for you." Like she knows. Where did she get her medical degree?
As I've pointed out to countless psychiatrists, I have very severe personality problems independent of what would be termed psychotic symptoms. Even if you removed the psychotic symptoms, I'd still be left with a debilitating (non-psychotic) personality disorder. Keep in mind, I've been seeing psychiatrists for 27 years now. It was only in 1992 that anti-psychotic medication was recommended for me. The fact is I've had a life-long history of social isolation that pre-dates the year 1992. I've had serious, debilitating personality problems before Bob Strauss started to spy on me in the fall of 1988!
At one point Dr. Bash asked me what it is that I'd like to do with you, Brian, if we were to get together. I said: "You know, I've thought about that. There's a park bench in front of the library. I'd be happy just to sit on the park bench with Brian and talk--shoot the breeze. Maybe for a half-hour or so, once in a while. We could just talk and eat lunch. Talk and have a sandwich or something. That would make me happy." And, of course, Dr. Bash proceeded to invalidate that with an absurd tangential response. "Well," she said, "that's not a friendship. That's something you do with an acquaintance. Do you know the difference between a friend and an acquaintance? Do you have a dictionary at home. Look up the word "friend" and look up the word "acquaintance." You need to that." ("You need to do that"--you just knew she would get that phrase in somehow, somewhere). "A friend is someone you do things with, go places with, share experiences with. An acquaintance is someone you just chat with. You're confusing an acquaintance with a friend." Does it matter? She missed the point. I feel comfortable with someone, namely you, buddy. I'd be happy just to talk to you, precisely because I feel a bond, a connection with you.
Based on what I said about you, she proceeded to offer her recommendation: "Well, if you're happy just to chat with an acquaintance, why don't you just go to a park and strike up a conversation with a stranger?" Yea. Right. Is that really what I'm talking about?
I can just imagine a conversation between Dr. Bash and Nancy Reagan:
NANCY REAGAN: I miss Ronnie so much, Doctor Bash. I feel I was robbed of my last ten years with him. I wish I could have some time with him. Just an hour. Just sit on a park bench and talk to him for an hour, the way he was before his illness. That would bring some closure to our relationship.
THE MAD MONK: Well, Mrs. Reagan, if that's all you're looking for, why don't you go to a park. Are there any parks in your neighborhood? Just go to a park and -- you'll see I'm right -- there are a lot of old men sitting on park benches who you could talk to. It's not hard to find old men sitting on park benches who'd be willing to chat with you for an hour. Really, Mrs. Reagan, you're making this more difficult for yourself than it needs to be.
Well, maybe that's what I need to do. Get myself a pair of double-knit slacks, some white shoes and find some old geezer on a park bench to chat with. And my problems will be solved!
With Dr. Bash, there's just no recognition of any internal psychological functioning: no recognition of internally-generated psychic pain. In her way of thinking, everything comes down to finding some soothing object in the outside world. It's all a matter of speaking Hebrew, finding a park bench, playing chess, or eating out.
Once again--as I've said countless times in the past--if it's so easy to make friends and if conventional social adjustment is the ultimate source of happiness, why are there so many lonely and miserable people in the world? Or even better: why are there so many miserable drug addicts who shoot up with their conventional friends? If dope-heads have friends, why do they need drugs to make them happy? Even more: why are there people who by any reasonable measure have enviable lives, but end up committing suicide--people like Vince Foster or Edgar Rosenberg (Joan Rivers' late husband). I guess these people never mastered the Hebrew language, the font -- or mikvah, as Fred Cohen would say -- of all joy!
I was struck by something I read about Suze Orman. You know her? The money guru? She appears on public television stations from time to time, giving advise on managing money and investing. She's Jewish. She said that when she was young, she moved to Israel to find spiritual fulfillment. One day she was riding on a bus in Israel, and she struck up a conversation with the person sitting next to her. She explained her whole story: how she grew up in the States and moved to Israel to find spirituality. Her companion mocked her. "You're looking for spirituality? So you moved to Israel? You won't find spirituality here or anywhere else. Spirituality comes from yourself. From inside yourself. It doesn't come from outside. Spirituality comes from inside. You don't need to live in Israel to find spirituality." Of course, if Suze Orman had been sitting next to Dr. Bash, she'd probably still be looking for spirituality in Israel. "Do you have a synagogue in your neighborhood?" "You need to master Hebrew. Right now your Hebrew needs improvement. That's your problem, Miss Orman."
By the way, Brian, did you know that there are no lonely, unhappy people in Israel? It's the only country in the world where nobody's unhappy. You know why? Everybody speaks Hebrew! That's why Dr. Bash moved to the U.S. to practice psychology. There's just no client pool in Israel. So she learned English (the perfect language to be miserable in), got a psychology degree at N.Y.U., and the rest, as they say, is hysteria. "People, people who speak Hebrew, are the luckiest people in the world!"
I just don't know what to do. I gotta get out of this relationship. I keep thinking about Dr. Caesar, the psychoanalyst in my building. You know, I really think one dollar per session's not a bad deal for him--at least that's what I thought before I learned that he drives a Porsche and subscribes to "The Wall Street Journal." My current thinking is that any psychoanalyst who drives a Porsche and reads "The Journal" everyday is not going to be too keen on a patient who pays one dollar per session.
So where does that leave me? Maybe Dr. Akman would take me on. Jeffrey Akman. I think I told you about him before. He's the head of psychiatry at GW. He's homosexual. He's in a long-term relationship with another guy. Maybe he'd find my case interesting. Maybe he'd see some research interest in a gender-confused, obsessive letter writer who's been looking for love in all the wrong libraries. Jeff Akman is a cool guy. He specializes in gay male patients. His patients all love him--literally, I suppose.
I don't know. As far as I can see, I'm ready to go to work in therapy. Do some hard, in-depth therapeutic work -- without the Hebrew, the chess, the park benches, the synagogues (Reform or Conservative) or the "all you can eat" breakfasts at Denny's. It seems to me that Dr. Bash can't meet my needs. She just perpetuates my role as the "professional patient." That specific phrase she used: "I see by your chart . . . " That's so typical of the mental outlook of therapists who perpetuate the professional patient syndrome.
It reminds me so much of what Erik Erikson wrote about the professional patient: "Hospitalized patients, having been committed, are often ready to commit themselves. They expect 'to go to work,' both on themselves and on whatever task they may be asked to do. But too often they are met by a laborious process of diagnosis and initiation which emphasizes the absolute distance of patienthood from active life. Thus literally 'insult is added to injury' in the uprooted one, already considered expendable or abnormal by his previous group of affiliation, who finds himself categorized and judged by those who were expected to show him the way through a meaningful moratorium. Many a man acquires the irreversible identity of being a lifelong patient and client not on the basis of what he 'is,' but on the basis of what is first done about him [as described in his medical records]. "Insight and Responsibility" at 97. Incidentally, Dr. Bash's motto is: "I have no insight and I take no responsibility."
Everything The Mad Monk recommends doesn't pan out. So how can I take her seriously? When I first saw her, she said I was employable. She would harp on that endlessly. "You can work. I don't understand why you don't work. It's sinful in the Jewish religion for a person not to work." Apparently, she subsequently got her marching orders. "Don't tell him he's employable." She no longer talks about my getting a job.
You should ask Brian if he would go to lunch with you. -- Yea. Right.
You should do group therapy. -- And that turned out to be a dream come true, didn't it?
When I asked Dr. Bash last week why I had problems in group, her answer was "you have no social skills." In fact, nobody in group even alluded to my lacking social skills. They said they found me personable, charismatic and outgoing. The Mad Monk is giving me symptoms I don't even have; that's great for my self-esteem!
Months ago, Dr. Bash said I was fabricating evidence of delusions. She said I really didn't believe that the Pope and The Prime Minister of Israel were involved in my case. Now, she's dropped that idea, and chastises me for not taking anti-psychotic medication to rid me of my ideas about the Pope and the Prime Minister!
She asked me to tell her why I'm obsessed with you, buddy. I said: "Would you accept a written explanation?" "Sure," said the Mad Monk. The following week I told her I'd written a ten-page letter about you, Brian. "Ten pages!" she said. "That's awfully long. You just keep repeating the same things over and over again in your letters. And you think people are interested in reading what you write? Nobody's interested in reading the same thing over and over."
I've had it. Really, Brian. Dr. Bash is the last straw in a lifetime of disappointments. Lock me up for saying this, but "Somebody's going to pay for my pain."
Check you out later, my Faustian friend. Write to you again on the 12th, buddy.

A Sense of Futility

2004-06-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

Brian--
Hey, buddy. How was your Father's Day? I hope you weren't saddled with any more maroon shirts.
I happened to see William last week. Did he tell you? I saw him on Connecticut Avenue. He waved. I called out to him: "Four more months!" Yes. Today is June 21st. My banishment began on April 21st. My return to the Cleveland Park branch is scheduled for October 21, barring unforeseen (but totally foreseeable) circumstances. I'm thinking of writing you a letter, buddy. A letter that will extend the ban. I'm thinking, "how does the ban hurt me?" It only helps me, really. No jury duty. Plus, Social Security will be calling sooner or later to find out about my status. A well-placed "nut case" determination made by my local librarian can only keep the checks flowing. You may never see me again. Unless, like William, you happen upon me on the street (or other venue).
I'm feeling like Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election. Remember that? When Reagan ran against Bob Strauss's old friend, Jimmy Carter? Reagan asked: "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" I feel like asking you, Brian, "are you better off today than you were two months ago, at the beginning of my banishment?" I'm no better, I can tell you that. My interest rates in you have only soared; they're at about 20%. I think about you all the time, buddy, or at least 20% of the time. My unemployment remains the same. Yes, my personal economy is in a mess.
At my session with The Mad Monk, on June 9th, Dr. Bash said something interesting. Her spin on your decision to ban me was that you felt threatened by me. I explained that the infamous letter I wrote was not, in fact, threatening. I explained that even the police said the letter was non-threatening. Dr Bash said: "It doesn't matter. Brian felt threatened. That's enough." Yes, Brian felt threatened that's enough! Your opinion, regardless of how unsupported by objective facts, is sufficient.
Funny thing. At my last session with Dr. Bash on Friday June 18, I told Dr. Bash that I was uncomfortable in group therapy. I said I felt threatened by the other group members and the group leaders. "How?" asked Dr. Bash. "Well," I said, "there were comments from time to time about my disability benefits. That I was just malingering. That I was just in therapy to "keep the checks flowing." I said I felt those comments were threatening to my sense of honesty and integrity. I explained that no therapist, in the entire time I've been on Social Security, has implied or stated that I was engaging in any fabrication to "keep the checks flowing." Dr. Bash said: "That's not threatening. Those comments were not, in fact, threatening. I don't understand what you mean when you say you found those comments threatening." Interesting.
You see the dialectic, as Nicole Raffanello would say? When someone else says he feels threatened by me (you, for instance, Brian), that person's opinion is sufficient. He doesn't have to be objectively threatened. But when I say I feel threatened, my opinion, my subjective mental state is not enough. I have to be absolutely factually accurate. My statements have to be objectively verifiable and fact-based.
That's not simply quibbling. It's an important dynamic in my relations with others. It is the very dynamic that was at play in my job termination. My coworkers said they were afraid of me. That was their opinion. There's no objective evidence that I did anything of a threatening nature--by deed or word. But they said they felt threatened and that was enough. As Dennis Race said: "His coworkers said they were afraid of him."
Yet when I said it was my opinion that I was a victim of job harassment, my subjective mental state was scrutinized by a different standard. Dennis Race said that my opinion was the product of a psychiatric disorder and that I was potentially violent because I held a certain opinion. I was terminated (or banished) from the firm. My subjective opinion was scrutinized for its factual accuracy, and, shown wanting, I was determined to be mentally disturbed. What about the people who said that they were afraid of me, that they were afraid I was homicidal? Weren't they disturbed? No. They were just stating an opinion. That's all. Just like you, Brian. "Brian felt threatened by you. That was enough." For others, opinion rules. For me, serious fact checking is summoned.
We see the same dynamic in racism. A black guy goes into a white-owned store. He dallies. Walks around the aisles. Checks out items. The store owner says the black customer looks suspicious. That's enough. The store owner's opinion is sufficient to establish in some devious way that the black guy was "suspicious looking."
A black guy goes to a restaurant. He waits to be served. He waits and waits. No service. Other patrons, all white, who arrived after the black customer are waited on. The black guy complains: "In my opinion, there's something wrong here," he tells the manager. That's the black guy's opinion. Is it enough? No, a resounding no! "You people are all paranoid. There's nothing going on here. We're short on staff. You people are always walking around with a chip on your shoulder, thinking that everybody's out to get you."
Be that as it may.
I told Dr. Bash that listening to her invalidation of all my opinions is difficult for me. I explained that I've thought long and hard about my personality and my experiences over the years. That I've read a lot of articles in psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. I told her that I have ideas about my problems that will not be easily dislodged. So she asked me to clarify with some examples.
I said, "Well for one thing, I think, based on things I've read, that my earliest experiences in infancy caused problems for my development. When I was born, my parents lived at my grandmother's house, while they looked for a house to buy. They had been living in an apartment. But they had moved out of the apartment just before I was born. And I was raised for the first six months by two mothers, my maternal grandmother and my mother. I was bottle-fed, so they were able to share the feeding and caring duties. I think there's a chance I bonded with both my mother and my grandmother, and that when my parents moved out, when I was six months old, I may have experienced the loss of my grandmother as traumatic."
Dr. Bash's observation, so typical, was a fact-based analysis. "But you didn't, in fact, lose your grandmother. After you moved to your new house, your grandmother still came to visit. She still held you, fed you, took care of you." Fine. But what about my subjective experience? Did I feel a sense of loss, and was my development affected by that subjective experience of loss? Dr. Bash will never even entertain that question, because it involves assigning some value to my infantile subjective mental state. And we know that's forbidden for her. She will always apply a fact-based analysis to me; but, at the same time, permit others to have subjective opinions about me, or assign value to other persons' subjective mental state.
I'm willing to concede it's not a very crucial issue. I guess there's no way to know how I might have been affected by having two mothers. Though there is literature on the subject. Gary N. Goldsmith, a psychiatrist at Harvard, wrote a paper on Freud titled: "Freud's Aesthetic Response to the Moses of Michelangelo." The Annual of Psychoanalysis (1992). Freud himself had two mothers: his biological mother and a nanny on whom he was very dependent. Goldsmith argues that the experience was important for Freud's early development: that Freud experienced an infantile depression as a result of the loss of his nanny and that his repressed rage was expressed through its opposite--namely, idealization. Goldsmith offers the opinion, also, that Freud's aesthetic interests, or obsessions, (here, Michelangelo's statue of Moses) were a sublimation of his rage over the loss of his nanny.
It's interesting to observe the role of idealization in my personality functioning. My relationship with you is a fantasized one, based on an irrational idealization. In fact (if I may say that), my ban from the library and my mourning experience about the loss of library privileges may be interpreted, perhaps, as a derivative of some early loss. Couldn't the loss of my grandmother in infancy be seen as a precursor (one of several) or determinant of my reaction to you and my loss of you, buddy? Might not the behaviors that I engaged in prior to the ban, that in fact (may I say that?) resulted in that very ban, be seen as having been calculated to result in the ban - what might be termed an acting out in the service of the repetition compulsion? That is to say, perhaps, I was tempting you to punish me so that I could re-experience a loss and mourn over that loss, all in an attempt to master the loss. As the analysts say, the whole matter may evidence my need to transform a passively experienced loss at some early stage into a loss that is actively sought: a perverse form of ego mastery.
Of course, with Dr. Bash as my therapist, we'll never know.
Another thing. Dr. Bash always throws out the baby with the bathwater (no pun intended). Leave aside the question of infantile loss. It's simply useful to look at something else, if only because people always say to me: "Well, why is it that your sister turned out so well (yea, sure!) and you have all these problems in life?"
Dr. Bash didn't pursue the fact that from day one my sister was treated differently than me. My sister was breast-fed, while I was bottle-fed; my sister had one maternal attachment object, while I had two; my sister did not experience any confusion or loss connected with her mothering, while I experienced both confusion and loss. What does that say? It probably says something. One of my previous psychiatrists, I.J. Oberman (who trained in psychoanalysis with a student of Freud's, named Theodor Reik), once told me that whatever happened to me that caused my problems must have happened in the first six months of my life. Interesting, isn't it?
Then another thing. I have a theory that my early loss (well, in my opinion there was a loss) was not just injurious but also ego-strengthening. The complexity of my early relations and my attempts to master that complexity might have paved the way, in adulthood, for my ability to understand complex psychological issues and social situations. Whatever.
Then I told Dr. Bash about the injury I suffered when I was two-and-a-half years old. I explained that while my mother was cleaning some kitchen curtains, I put a curtain-rod in my mouth; I fell, and the curtain rod punctured the soft-palette. The wound bled profusely and had to be cauterized.
I explained that I had read an article that attributed developmental consequences to early childhood injury or mistreatment. Joseph Fernando, "The Exceptions: Dynamic and Structural Issues," in the 1997 annual, "The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child." Fernando's patient, a young adult, had suffered a broken leg in early childhood. According to Fernando, the injury and its aftermath (parental blaming behavior) caused a disturbance in her superego maturation, and led to the character type that Freud termed "The Exceptions." In "The Exceptions," the early idealized parental images are never metabolized as in the normal person, and the individual's superego remains warped. Such individuals attempt to recapture in their interpersonal relations in adulthood representations of their early idealized parental images. Fernando's patient was obsessed with two persons. The two persons were her only friends. The patient was not simply lonely. It was that she only wanted to bond with these two persons because they matched her internalized and idealized images of her parents. See the connection with me? Have you noticed that I tend to be a little obsessed (unrealistically, I might add) with certain persons? Also, another feature of the character type "The Exceptions" is that they are rebellious. The results of my own psychological testing state that I tend to "question and denounce social sanctions to the point that I lose sight of my own best interests" (William Fabian, Ph.D., The George Washington University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry). Isn't that quality suggestive of rebellion? Well, that's my opinion!
So we have a situation where I suffered a notable physical injury in early childhood. In adulthood I tend to become obsessed irrationally with certain idealized persons, and I have the personality quality of rebellion. I have identified a paper that draws all these issues together, and shows that these seemingly unrelated issues are all of a piece; they all fit together. Don't you think that should give Dr. Bash pause? Ah, but you're not a Mad Monk; you lack the monastery state of mind so necessary to understanding the monkish mentality.
You know what Dr. Bash's comment was? "Do you remember the injury and its aftermath?" "Very little," I said. "Well then," said The Mad Monk, "the injury could not have possibly affected your development if you don't even remember the injury." I have never, in my 27 years of psychotherapy, seen such a naive notion of psychological functioning. According to The Mad Monk, you have to remember an injury for it to affect you. Bizarre.
It is a tenet of psychoanalytic theory that early deprivation, injury, or loss is registered not only in memory (conscious or otherwise), but as autoplastic change in the ego, particularly in the ego defenses. Ruth Abraham (whose work is quoted by Goldsmith) writes that Freud's infantile disturbance in his relationship with his mother resulted in an early "splitting" of his image of his mother. Goldsmith goes on to argue that Freud's autoplastic response centered on reversal (of rage) and idealization. "Splitting," "reversal," and "idealization" are ego defenses -- they constitute an autoplastic response of the ego to an external stressor. They are not memories; they are structures. Arnold Rothstein, an internationally prominent expert in the area of narcissistic disorder, attributes the ego attitude of rebellion to an autoplastic response to deficiencies in early maternal love. See Rothstein, A. "The Ego Attitude of Entitlement." The International Review of Psychoanalysis, 4: 409-417 (1977). (Rothstein was a star football player in college, by the way -- not a viola player). Perhaps my relationship with the U.S. Social Security Administration is a symbolic derivative of early maternal deficiencies. Something worth looking at as I enter my second $100,000 of disability payments.
In the case of "The Exceptions" Fernando hypothesizes that the relative lack of superego maturation and integration in these persons affects maturation of the ego ideal, ultimately interfering with the deconcretization of the ego ideal and its integration into the personality as a substructure within the superego system, a process that normally takes place definitively in late adolescence. These are structural disturbances of the ego resulting from early injury or maternal deprivation -- not the persistence of memories of injury, deprivation, or loss.
There is a disturbing symmetry between, on the one hand, Dr. Bash's view of the personality as a collection of memories and thoughts, and her view, on the other, that the role of the therapist is to change the patient's conscious thinking -- to get the patient to adopt the therapist's outlook. That's brain-washing and mind control -- not psychotherapy. Psychotherapy, done properly, is a process involving structural changes in the ego. See Stanley R. Palombo, M.D., "The Emergent Ego."
Leonard Shengold makes a pertinent comment about the limitations of any therapeutic approach that depends on the patient simply accepting the mental outlook of the therapist: "When patients merely borrow the 'outlook' of their analysts (the analysts' views into the patients' minds), it is not insight and there is no integration. The patients must slowly and painfully make their own the mental contents and finally the correlative power."
Dr. Bash went on to caution me about reading technical material. "You should not be reading these things. You need to watch more television. (She actually said that). You need to read romance novels and detective stories. What do you read?" I said, "I like Hermann Hesse." "Who," said the Mad Monk? "Hermann Hesse. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945." "Never heard of him," said The Mad Monk. "What does he write about," she asked. "Idealists, rebels, nonconformists, wanderers," I said. The Mad Monk's response: "That has nothing to do with you." And I suppose detective stories and romance novels have anything to do with me!
Then I went on to discuss my opinion (!) that I suffer from a rapprochement crisis. I explained that I thought my mother failed to respond appropriately to my combativeness and need for what Margaret Mahler calls "refueling," when I was a toddler. This was too much for Dr. Bash. At this point she summarily cut off the conversation. It was all too much for her.
"What television shows do you like?" she asked. "Well, I like Fear Factor, Law and Order, Cops, and America's Most Wanted." "Good," said Dr. Bash. "Watch them, and don't read any more psychoanalytic material."
Incidentally, if I may continue with this forbidden topic. Don't you find intriguing the internal consistencies between the Goldsmith paper (on infantile maternal loss) and the Fernando paper on the consequences of early childhood injury -- two issues that seemingly have nothing to do with each other?
According to Goldman, infantile maternal loss can lead to rage that is defended against by idealization. According to Fernando early childhood injury can lead to the failure to metabolize early idealized parental imagoes, with a tendency toward idealization in adulthood. Don't you see how these insights help explain my obsession with you, buddy.
Are you sort of empathizing for my sinking feeling about The Mad Monk? She doesn't know squat about anything that is important about my case. "But you don't remember the injury." "You never really lost your grandmother." Yes, those are the facts.
But in my opinion -- MY OPINION -- the actual loss and the actual injury, events that occurred if at all in the historical past, fall out of the present psychodynamic picture. What's interesting and significant is that these papers by Goldsmith and Fernando explain adult dynamics that, in fact -- IN FACT -- do seem to apply to me. Goldsmith's ideas and Fernando's ideas provide a useful orienting approach to the psychological issues of my irrational and obsessive idealization of you (and others) and my rebellious attitude toward authority figures. That's important. That's you and me, buddy. My idealized buddy, Brian.
In any event, Dr. Bash has concluded that mine is a useless case. "You don't want to change," she keeps repeating. "I can't help a patient who does not want to change." If you ask me, I have changed over my 27 years of psychotherapy. For the worse, that is. Yes sirree, Bob. I've changed all right. I've gotten markedly worse, particularly in the last year since I've been exposed to The Mad Monk.
Thus ends my communication from my mental prison - "Stalag" Freedman. Yes, I may as well be marooned in a prison camp on a desert island, like Dreyfus on Devil's Island.
Check you out later, Brian. I'll write you again next week, June 28th.
P.S. It was really good running into you at MLK this morning. Be advised: Branch librarians should not be seen at MLK in anything other than business attire. Seeing you in a tee shirt and jeans was disappointing; but then you do that sometimes, don't you. Disappoint, I mean.

Do You Speak Hebrew?

2004-06-14T12:39:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. How's it goin'?
Another miserable weekend has just concluded. I'm looking forward to another miserable week.
My first therapeutic session with Dr. Bash, The Mad Monk, was a real hoot. It was a collection of contradictory observations, redundancies, and ultra-meaninglessness.
An image of Dr. Bash emerges from her observations. Perhaps I'm attributing a negative meaning to trivial events, but the image that does emerge is one of (on her part) a lack of internal object development. It's as if all her observations were an externalization of her own lack of internal psychological development.
Let me review with you what I wrote down, exactly as I wrote it in my notebook.
First, I told her about the problems I've had with you. The whole story about my writing letters to you and how you banned me from the library. I told her that I still write letters to you, but that I save the letters on my own e-mail account.
She said: "Why do you address the letters to Brian? Why not address the letters to someone else, so that you don't get Brian involved in this. That way, if you address the letters to someone else, it will keep you out of trouble with Brian."
I responded with an association or identification. I said: "Did you ever hear of the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, Dr. Bash? He said that whenever he gave a concert, when he first walked out onto the stage, he would scan the audience with his eyes. When he spotted an attractive female in the audience, he kept her image in his mind as he gave the concert. He would think only of her. He imagined that there was nobody else in the audience, and he imagined that throughout the concert he was playing only to her."
I explained that my letters to Brian are like that. Brian is fundamentally an unknown person who I've picked out to address letters to. I may as well be writing to the entire world, but I've chosen one person to write to: a person who seems in some way special to me. Dr. Bash interjected: "Yes, but you could just as easily pick someone else to write to." I answered: "But I've chosen not to. I've chosen to write to Brian. I believe we have a long history together. Like Rubinstein, I've made a choice based on my feeling that that one person is appealing to me."
At that point Dr. Bash said something intriguing and revealing. "So just because Rubinstein did that, you have to do that?" What is significant about Dr. Bash's comment is that it imputes to me an act of imitation or mimicry. I see someone else do something so I have decided to mimic that behavior. Of course that's wrong. What I've done is to recognize that I have an existing, intrinsic (internal) emotional need to connect with someone in a crowd of anonymous people and personalize the experience of being in a crowd of strangers. I have noted a parallel or analogy between my behavior or need and the behavior and need of another person, Arthur Rubinstein. What is important is that Dr. Bash's comment assumes a lack of any pre-existing internal needs or personality trends: a lack of internal object development.
At another point in the session, Dr. Bash suggested that I join a book club. She said: "You like books, you like to read. Why don't you join a book club, where you can get together with other people and read books, and discuss them with other people." Note that in a book club there is an important aspect of mimicry or imitation. If I were to join a book club, I would have to read a book simply because everybody else was reading a book. To paraphrase Dr. Bash's earlier comment about Arthur Rubinstein: "Just because someone else is reading a book, I should have to read the same book?" You see the contradiction. Obviously, imitation and mimicry is good and appropriate if it is in the service of social relations with a group of persons--according to Dr. Bash.
Then she says to me "Do you speak Hebrew?" ("Do I speak Hebrew??" I'm thinking what on Earth is she getting at here?) I said: "No, I don't speak Hebrew. I wasn't raised in the Jewish religion. I didn't have a Jewish education." "Why not?" she asks. I say: "Well, my mother wasn't Jewish. Only my father was Jewish." "So you're not Jewish," she says. "I am Jewish--according to the Reform movement." "No," she says, "you're mother has to be Jewish." "No," I say, "according to the Reform movement, you're Jewish if your father is Jewish and you've made some public affirmation of your Jewishness." "So," she says, "did you do that--make some public affirmation of your Jewishness?" I said "yes." "I used to go to services when I lived in Philadelphia."
"Do you have a synagogue in your neighborhood?" she asks. "Yes," I say, "Adas Israel." "Oh," says she, "is that Reform?" "No," I reply, "it's Conservative." "Well," says Dr. Bash, "is there a Reform synagogue near you?" I said: "Well, there's the Washington Hebrew Congregation on Massachusetts Avenue." "Well," says The Mad Monk, "why don't you go there? You could meet people there."
Finally, at last, the purpose of the initial question -- "Do you speak Hebrew?" becomes apparent. She couldn't just say, "Why don't you go to functions at a local synagogue, you could meet people there?" No. She has to go through the whole linguistic history ("Do you speak Hebrew?"), and then the whole split in the reform versus orthodox movements concerning who is a Jew, and the location and denomination of all the synagogues in my neighborhood -- all before she gets to the point. And of course, it's the same old point. "Join other people, and you'll make friends." It's a variation on "Do you eat out?"
That whole line of reasoning misses the point. The problem is the nature of my internal functioning and how that internal functioning impairs my social (external object) relations. Simply putting me with other people (whether in a book club, a restaurant, or a synagogue) is not going to promote my social relations, if there are significant factors in my internal functioning that impair my ability to connect with other people. She just doesn't get that. And probably never will.
Speaking metaphorically, you can't take a person with anorexia nervosa and treat the person by saying: "Well, aren't there any restaurants in your neighborhood where you could eat? Couldn't you phone out for a pizza or Chinese take-out?" All of that is irrelevant. The external availability of food is irrelevant to the anorexic's internal prohibitions against consuming food. Simply placing me with other people is not going to help me make friends. When a person's personality problems flow from a developmental experience of having been an outsider in his own family, he will carry that experience, and the adaptation to that experience, throughout life. Dr. Bash does not understand that I have the psychology of the outsider. The simple act of placing me with other people does not alter my deep-seated sense of myself as an outsider.
The fact is that just a few months ago I placed myself with a group of other people -- in group therapy. That certainly turned out well, didn't it? A little humor there. You would think Dr. Bash would ask about that, since it was she who recommended that I get involved in group in the first place. You would think she would have said: "Tell me about group therapy. Your feelings and reactions to the other group members and the group leaders. Tell me what you think went wrong there." But no. She asks: "Do you speak Hebrew!"
There's a mythical quality in Dr. Bash's thinking. If it were so easy to make friends -- if you can make friends simply by interacting in a group of people -- why are there so many lonely, isolated, and miserable people in the world? It makes no sense to me. Basically, all she is saying is that for her, for Dr. Bash, (1) interacting in groups of people is a source of narcissistic integrity and (2) she finds it easy to make friends in groups. That's all she's saying. Her comments indicate no insight whatsoever about precisely what intra-psychic difficulties can impair the development of social relations.
What I've come to see is that Dr. Bash does not see the distinction between "necessary conditions" and "sufficient conditions." Many therapists are like that. She looks at the necessary conditions of making friends, and assumes that satisfying those conditions are sufficient. A necessary condition of making friends is the act of interacting with other people. Getting involved in groups can serve that necessary condition. But the individual also has to have the psychological capacity to make friends -- that's internal, and a separate issue from the necessary condition of interacting with other people. I, for example, can interact with people, thereby fulfilling the necessary condition but that is not sufficient for me to make friends. In my case there are compelling intra-psychic factors that impair my ability to make friends. Dr. Bash assumes that one only need to satisfy the necessary conditions and ignores the fact that those necessary conditions may not be sufficient.
Analogy: How do you get into Harvard? Well, you first have to apply. That's a necessary condition for admission. Is that sufficient? No. You also have to have top grades and SAT scores -- those academic credentials are another necessary condition. But are they sufficient? No. Harvard has a limited number of spaces for entering freshman. It can accept only a limited number of even qualified candidates. So fulfilling the necessary conditions of applying, and having the necessary academic qualifications may not be sufficient to get into Harvard. But in Dr. Bash's way of thinking, if you fulfill the necessary conditions for making friends, that's all there is to it. And what does that omit? The fact that some people do not have the intra-psychic functioning that permits the development and maintenance of social relations. Again and again, Dr. Bash omits any consideration of internal object development.
What about the following psychological factors? Are they neutral as to social functioning?
Massive splitting and isolative defenses (Shengold);
Extreme anxiety and guilt in relation to drive expression (Novick and Kelly);
Unmetabolized superego precursors that dispose the individual to guilt and intense primitive idealization;
Superego deformation resulting from the failure to moderate early idealized parental imagoes, resulting in the behavioral effects of intense primitive idealization and rebellion (Fernando);
Loss in infancy of a primary maternal attachment object with a lifelong disposition to depression (Goldsmith);
Rapprochement crisis resulting from the mother's failure to respond appropriately to the toddler's phase-appropriate neediness (need for "refueling") and combativeness (Greenberg and Mitchell); and
Development in a narcissistically-regressed environment in which the patient served as a scapegoat for forbidden impulses (Brodey and Bowen).
I asked Dr. Bash if she had written any papers or published any papers. She said that she had written a paper comparing children raised on the Kibbutz with city-raised children. Fascinating! What occurred to me -- and I see this as truly frightening -- is that Dr. Bash herself was raised on a kibbutz, or perhaps kibbutz-like thinking was an important part of her developmental background. (She's a fifth-generation Israeli).
Kibbutz life is communal. Everybody eats together, works together, the children are raised together in a group, and so forth. These people's whole sense of self-esteem and narcissistic integrity comes from being with others. Conformity rules. The worst thing in the psychology of these people is to be separated from others and to fail to conform to the social mores of the group.
For the individual raised in a kibbutz, there are strong impediments to individualism. The notion that an individual might find a sense of narcissistic integrity by being a nonconformist -- different from the group -- would seem incomprehensible and reprehensible. But that's me! I derive my sense of self-esteem by looking to my own personal values and following them. Speaking metaphorically, I like to go skinny-dipping while everybody else is going to church. Speaking of Harvard graduates, I'm like the guy who built himself a cabin on Walden pond, lived there, then wrote about the experience. What I admire are, as Primo Levi called them, "Waldenesque people" - the very antithesis of the Kibbutznik. I fear that my values and Dr. Bash's values are diametrically-opposed.
I think Dr. Bash suffers from minyan mania. She's a minyan maniac. Everything you do, you have to do in a group of at least nine other people. You even have to read the books that everybody else is reading. F--- that!
I was thinking of something of psychoanalytic interest. The fact that infants are naturally and universally other-directed; they are object seeking. When baby sees mother, he naturally holds up his hands to be held. He seeks out the nipple without reservation. It's as if Dr. Bash externalizes that behavior onto me. "Simply place Freedman with other people, and he will naturally and unreservedly reach for the nipple." Guess again. In group therapy I exhibited a lot of weariness of the group, its values and behaviors. My dominant struggle was one of autonomy: maintaining my own identity and sense of individualism in the face of the strong group pressures to conform to group mentality. Dr. Bash's externalization -- the idea that all people (from infancy on) -- are object-seeking or other-directed is false.
It is instructive to keep in mind the following: There are no anorexic infants. Infants do not think: "Well, I better not drink too much of this milk, I might get fat." There are no paranoid infants: "I better not drink this milk, she may have poisoned the milk." There are no vindictive infants: "She really pissed me off yesterday, I'm just not going to drink her milk--the hell with the nipple, I'll do without!"
But in fact there are paranoid adults, anorexic adults, and angry (self-defeating) adults. Dr. Bash's externalization that people are naturally other-directed and unreservedly object-seeking totally ignores -- once again -- internal object development: the developmental experiences and intra-psychically-generated fantasies that are the precursors of internal object development. Dr. Bash needs to have a good, long, hard talk with Stanley Greenspan, M.D.
I told Dr. Bash about the library patron who is allowed to sleep all day at the Cleveland Park Library. I thought her reaction was revealing. She said: "Oh, he must be homeless. That's why he sleeps in the library. You have to feel sorry for those people. There's nothing wrong with that. Homeless people have nowhere else to go. So they sleep in the library."
I said: "Dr. Bash, I don't know if he is, in fact, homeless. All I know is that he sleeps all day in the library." Dr. Bash said: "He must be homeless. That's why he sleeps in the library."
What's interesting about Dr. Bash's observation is the element of confabulation. She assumes without any evidence that the man is homeless. In effect, she resorts to confabulation to exonerate the man's inappropriate behavior or bad act of sleeping in the library.
Notice that she seems to apply a different principle to me. She does not say: "Mr. Freedman, I must assume that you must have had a difficult and painful childhood (confabulation) for you to have the social problems that are plainly evident in you (first-hand evidence)." But with the misbehaving patron she says: "I must assume the library patron is homeless (confabulation) for him to sleep in the library all day (first-hand evidence)." This inconsistency is not a good sign. In fact this first session is not a good sign of things to come -- and apparently there's still a lot to come.
The Mad Monk said she won't be able to locate a therapist for me until September. So that's at least another ten weeks with The Mad Monk!
Check you out later, buddy. I'll be taking a break from letter writing for the rest of this week. I'll write you again next Monday June 21, 2004.
P.S. I can't believe Tony Blair was in my neighborhood last week (at the National Cathedral) and he didn't even stop by my place. I've had it with these Prime Ministers!
P.P.S. I gave the following memo to Dr. Bash. It's my goals in therapy. I'm looking for one "best friend." You're the friend, Brian.

TO: Israela Bash, Ph.D. FROM: Gary Freedman DATE: June 9, 2004 RE: Goals in Psychotherapy __________________________________________________________________________
A few months ago Dr. Cooper said that I need to formulate goals in therapy -- clearly-defined, achievable goals.
I have thought long and hard about my goals, and I would like to state them to you now. I believe the following goals are realistic and achievable. In support if my contention that the goals are realistic, I cite the names of individuals whose life-styles include these behaviors.
1. I would like to have one best (male) friend, and no other friends. Too many friends unnecessarily complicate life. I will be satisfied with one very close friend. (Michael Chabon).
2. I would like to sleep all day in the Cleveland Park Library. Sleeping all day in the library is very gratifying, and can be a socially-acceptable way of living one's life (John Conner).
3. I would like to be grandiose, lacking in empathy, and interpersonally exploitive. This is a life-style that works for many people. (Rocco DiSpirito).
4. I would like to have a set of "pen-pals" which whom I can communicate in writing on a regular basis. I want to have no social or direct contact with these persons. Under no circumstances may these individuals address me by my first name. My preference is that my letters be a mixture of intellectual abstractions and bawdiness. (Oliver Wendell Holmes).
These are my goals. I look forward to working toward these goals with you, Dr. Bash.
Shalom!

The Pope and the Prime Minister

2004-06-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. Whassup?
I SURVIVED DR. BASH!!!! I'll tell you all about it on Monday June 14, 2004. There's just too much to talk about now.
Check out the letter to the U.S. Attorney I've written (6/10/04). It's a rage reaction, I suppose, to my session with Dr. Bash yesterday. An analyst could tell you why it discharged my anger. I don't know why, but I feel a lot better having written it.
I'm thinking of sending it to Joe DeGenova:
Dear Mr. DeGenova:
The Pope and the Prime Minister of Israel are conspiring against me--they want to destroy me.
I request your pro bono representation in putting a stop to this conspiracy. I realize that there are problems of jurisdiction and sovereign immunity. But I'm confident there's something you can do.
I've written about this matter to a former U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia who is now in private practice; unfortunately he has not responded to my inquiry.
Check you out later, buddy. Don't let the Pope take advantage of you, Brian.

A Sense of Foreboding

2004-06-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. What's up? Do you mind if I ask?

I haven't prepared a letter for you today. I'm writing extemporaneously, in real-time as they say. Just some random thoughts off the top of my head.

Tomorrow's the big day. My big day with The Mad Monk, Dr. Bash. I have a feeling she's going to drop me like a hot potato. You know, she says she can't work with somebody like me. Somebody who doesn't want to change. Supposedly, this thing's only going to be an interim thing till Dr. Bash can arrange a permanent therapist for me. Let's hope that's soon.

Dr. Bash is too dogmatic for me. To paraphrase former President Reagan: "My problems are not problems of psychological dogma. Rather, they are problems of flesh and blood; problems that cause real pain and destroy my psychic fiber--the psychic fiber of a real person who should not suffer the further indignity of being told by the psychologists and psychiatrists of this world that it is all somehow my fault."

I figure I'll give Dr. Bash the "Woe is Freedman speech." "Woe is Freedman, woe is Freedman." You know, the whole crap about the social isolation, the lack of friends, family or social contacts of any kind. The fact that I can't hold down a job. I'll add the stuff about the Pope and the Prime Minister of Israel, for good measure. You know the whole deal. It's a "vast conspiracy" out there that's been trying to deny me a life, lo these many years. I figure if Hillary Clinton can pull it off, so can I.

Of course, I'll talk about you. "I need to see Brian. He's my only chance for a friend right now. You're going to have to talk to Brian, Dr. Bash."

I was thinking about you and the whole library situation, Brian. You know, I'm allowed to return to the library in mid-October. I might return then, I might not. Yes, that's right. I just might stay away for a longer time, for good, even. You might never see me again. I'm thinking you should apologize first. That just might be my pre-condition to returning to the library at Cleveland Park: an apology from you. After all I've gone through, the whole crazy thing with the Metro Police, and so forth, it's the least you can do.

Back in February 1992, the last time I had lunch with Craig the Embalmer, it was just a few months after I had been fired by Akin Gump. I told Craig I had been laid off--not fired. I said I might return "if Larry Hoffman (the managing partner) gets down on his knees . . ." And Craig interjected: "Gets down on his knees and gives you a blowjob?" I said: "No, gets down on his knees and begs -- begs me to come back. Then and only then might I consider returning to Akin Gump."

I'm thinking along the same lines now, buddy. I think you should apologize. But not just any ordinary apology. You're gonna have to get down on your knees and beg -- beg me to come back to CPK. Really, do I need CPK? No, not really. I'm doing pretty well at the other branch libraries and MLK. I just might decide to stay away from CPK for good. I'm gonna run that by the Metro Police (and maybe the U.S. Attorney's Office). It'll be like Paula Jones: "I just want an apology."

One of my old psychiatrists said my problem in life was that I wanted too much. "You want too much," he often said -- in regard to countless issues. He said that was my problem in making friends, that I expected too much from people. "The way to make friends is to just interact with people, and things may develop or not. You have to engage in give-and-take." I don't get it. I was thinking about the writer Michael Chabon (who apparently had problems with co-eds who majored in French). He said he's always had one best friend and no other friends. (He's heterosexual.) The funny thing is that that's unconventional. If I stated that as a goal in therapy, I'd be told that's not the way social relations work. "I'm looking for a best friend and no other friends. That's my goal." The therapist will say: "That's not a realistic goal."
But it works for Michael Chabon. What I don't get is this: Therapists seem to work according to "conventional morality." A person needs to "change" to the extent his goals and behaviors are inconsistent with conventional ways of behaving and thinking. That omits the fact that there are lots of unconventional people out there who are getting their unconventional needs met. You see the problem? Another example is Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose social relations were limited to writing letters. Now if I stated that to a therapist as my goal: "I just want to have pen-pal type relationships and nothing else," well, the therapist will say that's abnormal (unconventional) and needs to be "changed." But it worked for Holmes.

Another example: That library patron at CPK -- what's his name -- John Conner? He sleeps all day in the library. You know who I mean? The guy who was in the Peace Corps. Now if I said to Dr. Bash: "My goal is to be permitted to sleep in the library all day long," she'd say, "no wonder you have problems with Brian. You can't sleep in the library all day." But it works for John Conner. Why? Why is that?

Did you catch that TV show "The Restaurant," with Rocco DiSpirito? On one of the episodes a few weeks ago, there was a table full of psychiatrists at the Restaurant. Rocco got into a conversation with them. He told them he was "a certified narcissist." One of the psychiatrists said: "Well, it works for you." (Jeffrey Chodorow, Rocco's dispirited partner, might disagree). But why? Why does it work for Rocco?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a recognized mental disturbance. Symptoms include grandiosity, lack of empathy, interpersonal exploitiveness, and so forth. A therapist will tell an unhappy narcissist -- "You need to change." But why? Why eliminate or modify the narcissistic qualities? Why not just make the narcissism work for the patient? It's as if these therapists confuse their role with that of the clergy. With the clergy, the aim is for the individual to be a "good person." But why be good, if "badness" works for you? Further, therapists assume that if things are not going well for the patient, it's because of his "bad" (unconventional) characteristics. Not necessarily.

The thing is I've been in therapy so long now (27 years), I'm just totally confused. I really am in a "woe is me" state of mind. I've just given up. Too many years, with too many questions unanswered. I'll talk to you later this week. I'll be taking the day off tomorrow.

Take care, buddy. I hope I survive The Mad Monk.

A Huge Epiphany

2004-06-07T12:11:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. I woke up this morning with this huge epiphany. Of course, a lot of guys wake up in the morning with huge epiphanies. So, there's no need to go into that.
Another miserable weekend. The weather, the boredom, and this weekend -- an added torment. Thoughts about starting therapy with Dr. Bash on Wednesday. Yes, Dr. Bash called me on Thursday afternoon last and told me to see her on Wednesday at 2:00. She was speaking in her professional voice. Not a good sign.
You know how I got started in therapy? It all started 27 years ago. Someone talked me into seeing a shrink. It was a lady who did her practice in her apartment. We sat down and talked. The phone rang. She went through the swinging doors, and I could see into her kitchen. She had a pork roast sitting on the counter, waiting to be placed in the oven. How am I going to take advice from someone like that, I thought? Someone who eats treif. That was the end of my first shrinkage. Maybe if she had been kosher I'd have stayed in therapy with her.
I live in an askew universe of my own making. I've made my way to age 50 with the blissfully oblivious demeanor of someone who doesn't know any better or, more precisely, doesn't know any other way. I happily admit that I have no judgment, so I have chosen a throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to life. I'm a terrible analyzer of what will be good for me or anyone else.. Whatever I think the outcome is going to be, I'm always wrong. Like you and me, buddy. I thought we'd eventually get around to being friends. I thought eventually you'd find me and my letters irresistible, and you'd say something along the lines of "Hey, Freedman, let's get together. Let's do lunch." Man, was I wrong!
I live inside my own head. My own world is the only one that makes any sense at all to me. I often speak as if I'm having a Socratic dialogue with myself. What's funny to me is something the rest of the world doesn't understand. I'm a very private person who lives in his head. When that is interrupted, it interferes with my sanity. I'm fundamentally a very delicate person.
That fragility was captured in my experience in group therapy. The rough and tumble world of group -- the name-calling, the envy, the jealousy, and so forth just set me off. I couldn't take it. I don't respond in kind. I try to treat people with respect. I can't just come right out and say: "He's only here to keep the disability checks flowing." Even though I couldn't stand those people, I could see they were psychologically vulnerable and I had enough empathy that I couldn't just devalue them outright. What I need is not just a tougher skin, but a tougher approach to other people who don't deserve my respect. But then, the way group was, they'd all just pounce on me if I fought back. It's like the old Jewish expression: "Rock falls on jug, jug breaks. Jug falls on rock, jug breaks. Poor jug." That's me, the poor jug.
Like when Craig the Embalmer started working at Hogan, everybody was all over me because I wasn't friendly with Craig. "Have you talked to the new guy?" "He seems like a really nice guy." (Actually I hate nice guys. That's why I like you, buddy). So I was a bad person because I wasn't friendly with the nice new guy.
Then when I started to work at Akin Gump, and nobody talked to me, I was in the wrong. "Oh, he's extremely shy. Or he's psycho or something." Aren't I a nice guy? Wasn't it wrong for other people not to make a social overture to me? I guess not. Poor jug. I remember being so miserable at Akin Gump. I was really in despair.
You know another problem for me is that my delicate nature makes it difficult for me to engage in small talk. I'm totally reluctant to glad-hand. I'm just not a glad-hander. I remember when I started at Akin Gump, I glad-handed with David Callet. I wished I hadn't later on.
I think I'm better off not socializing. I make a better impression if I'm not around. Like right now, for instance -- and for the past 12 years -- I've been making a fantastic impression at law firms all over the city. And that's just by my not being around. It's when I show up at a law firm that the problems begin.
Things were great between you and me, Brian, for the year that I was writing letters to you, staying anonymous. The problems started right after I got up the nerve to give you that gift back in late March 2004. The Beethoven CD. Remember that? Within a month, I was gone. I should have stuck to the anonymous letters. I would have made a better impression by staying anonymous.
The world of my own making, the world of my own fantasy is the only real and worthwhile world for me. It's like: "O.K., this is Freedman. Freedman knows he's just living out a fantasy. Freedman knows it's not real. Freedman is having a good time."
I know how things are going to go with Dr. Bash. Dr. Bash lives in the "real" world. She disdains fantasy. Trouble.
She tells me "You need to change. You're problem is you don't want to change. I can't work with a patient who doesn't want to change." I take that as an insult. I change my underwear every day. What more does she expect? Briefs, T-shirt, socks. I never wear them two days in a row. That's change. And that's about all the change that I can handle. But, do you really need any more change than that?
Dr. Bash is one of these "You need to this" -- "You need to do that" type of therapists. Like I don't know what I need to do! I know what I need to do. The question is how do I do it? I know I need to do more than just lay around on my couch all day. But how do I work if people spread rumors about me and make it impossible to keep a job. It's hard to keep a job when people are spreading stories that you're planning to buy a gun, bring it in, and shoot everybody.
I'd like to have friends. I know I need friends. But just how do you do that? How do you do that when you keep having to face these interlopers from South Africa! I told you the story about Craig the Embalmer. Back in the end of May 1991. We were going to get together. Hang out. At the last minute Craig calls me and tells me he can't get together with me because he has a friend coming in from South Africa. Just how do you deal with that whole South African situation? I just never learned how to negotiate that whole thing. Craig said: "It's an old friend from graduate school. I haven't talked to him in a long time." Funny thing. When I called Craig in July 1993, after not having talked to him in a long time, he said to me: "Why are you calling me after all this time?" You see the contradiction? Again, poor jug!
I'd like to be able to keep my inheritance. You know when you inherit money it's yours. You get to keep that. It's your property. But when I inherited money from my mother, my sister and brother-in-law were waiting in the wings. "Hand it over," they basically said. "We want the inheritance." At that time, back in 1980, my brother-in-law was working as an account executive at Merrill Lynch (he had a business degree). He was making like $100,000 per year. They didn't even need the money. But I had to hand over my inheritance.
Actually, that's my little stab at humor. My brother-in-law wasn't earning $100,000 a year as an account exec in 1980. He had a business degree (paid for by his uncle), but he worked a crappy job as a sixth-grade teacher in Camden, New Jersey - the garden spot of the Garden State. Don't let my sister tell you she wasn't hungry for my inheritance.
Oh -- and yes -- lest we forget, I'd like to visit my local library. But I find of late I can't do that, under penalty of arrest. That's another thing that's been wrongfully denied me. (As you can see I have a virtuoso collection of wounds and angers.) The rules are different for me, apparently. It's unlawful for me to use the computer consistent with its intended use. It's unlawful for me to admit I suffer from depression or that I think about punitive damages or that I refuse to do what I have no legal duty to do. Yes, those things get me in trouble. But other people are allowed to sleep all day in the library. Get into arguments with other patrons. Argue with the librarians (like good old Lori). Talk about masturbation in a loud tone of voice with the librarians. All that's OK. But just don't ever talk about punitive damages. Poor jug.
Another thing with Dr. Bash is my relationship with my sister. "Why don't you call your sister?" "You should call your sister." Like my sister has no duties in relation to me. I'm the sick one. Believe me, my sister never failed to mention that! I'm the one with paranoid schizophrenia or bi-polar disease, or delusional disorder -- or whatever the hell I suffer from at the moment. I'm the one who's been disabled for the past 13 years. Doesn't a family member -- namely, my sister -- have any duties in relation to me? Why is it I who has a duty in relation to my sister. I'll tell you this. David Riess -- he's a local psychiatrist. He's the editor-in-chief of the journal Psychiatry. He says that paranoid schizophrenia is the "cancer" of mental illness. That's illness! And I've been diagnosed with that. You're telling me my sister has no duty to contact a relative with "cancer?"
I think if my sister were to call me, I'm not even sure I'd want to talk to her. She's a nut-job. I feel better not talking to her, really. My sister was a French major. Did I ever tell you that, Brian? Yes, she majored in French -- at least for a time.
French majors!
I admit I have an ugly fondness for generalizations, so perhaps I may be forgiven when I declare that there is always something weird about a girl who majors in French. She has entered into her course of study, first of all, knowing full well that it can only lead to her becoming a French teacher, a very grim affair, the least of whose evils is poor pay, and the prospect of which should have been sufficient to send her straight into business or public relations. She has been betrayed into the study of French, heedless of the terrible consequences, by her enchantment with this language, which has ruined more young American women than any other foreign tongue.
Second, if her studies were confined simply to grammar and vocabulary, then perhaps the French major would develop no differently from those who study Spanish or German, but the unlucky girl who pursues her studies past the second year comes inevitably and headlong into contact with French literature, potentially one of the most destructive forces known to mankind, and she begins to relish such previously unglamorous elements of her vocabulary as languere and funeste, and, speaking English, inverts her adjectives, to let one know that the sometimes even thinks in French. The writers she comes to appreciate -- Breton, Baudelaire, Sartre, de Sade, Cocteau -- have an alienating effect, especially on her attitude toward love, and her manner of expressing her emotions becomes difficult and theatrical, while those French writers whose influence might be healthy, such as Standhal or Flaubert, she dislikes and takes to reading in translation, where she willfully misreads Madame Bovary and La Chartreuse, making dark romances of them.
Be that as it may. So much for my sister, the French major. Would you go out of your way to telephone a French major? Would Fred Cohen go out of his way to telephone a French major? I don't think so.
Another thing Dr. Bash is always recommending is that I eat out. "Do you eat out?" she always asks me. Like I'm going to make friends with diners in restaurants. "Hello. My name is Gary Freedman. I have paranoid schizophrenia. I'm disabled and haven't worked in 13 years. My last supervisor said she was afraid I was going to kill her. And the D.C. Government determined that my coworkers formed genuine fears that I might have been planning to carry out a Columbine-style assault at the law firm where I used to work. Do you mind if I join you for dinner?" Right.
Maybe Dr. Bash thinks I'll meet a hot waitress (or waiter). Maybe mingle with the kitchen staff. Maybe she thinks it'll be like "Rocco meets Jeffrey." And that -- that -- really worked out, didn't it? Rocco DiSpirito and Jeffrey Chodorow (or whatever his name was). Rocco and Jeffrey almost ended up killing each other. Believe me, it's best not to get involved with strangers in restaurants.
If Dr. Bash asks me that again, you know, "Do you eat out?" I'm going to say. I only eat kosher. I only eat at kosher Vietnamese restaurants. And they don't have any in my neighborhood. Listen lady, I don't eat treif.
The thing is I just like very few people to begin with. It's not just a matter of meeting people generally. It's not like you put me with a random collection of people, and I'll mix and mingle and end up befriending people. There are very few people I genuinely like, who I genuinely would like to get to know. And I generally know who I like in the first five minutes. I identify with a passage in J.D. Salinger's short story "Franny and Zoe."
I love this line: "And you make people nervous, young man," she said--most equably, for her. "You either take to somebody or you don't. If you do, then you do all the talking and nobody can even get a word in edgewise. If you don't like somebody--which is most of the time--then you just sit around like death itself and let the person talk themself into a hole. I've seen you do it."
It's like I told you before. I'm a big fan of that TV reality series "Big Brother." That show's been on every summer since the year 2000. So far there have been about 48 contestants. Of those 48 people I only liked one person. My old buddy, His Holiness Hardy-Ames Hill.
I'm an individualist. A nonconformist. Those are the people I like. I'm thinking at this moment of a variation on the old Woody Allen (or was it Groucho Marks) joke: "I wouldn't belong to any organization that would have me as a member." My motto is: "I wouldn't be a member of any organization whose members look to organizations for friendship." Did you watch that TV show "Colonial House?" There were some folks on that show I liked. The Voorhees family. John and Michelle. They were individualists. Nonconformists. While everybody else was attending Sunday church services, they were out skinny dipping, defying the crowd. I think probably John Voorhees had one huge epiphany out there in the woods, the kind of epiphany you don't get at church services.
They (John and Michelle) had no problem saying to the group. "We believe what we believe. And we don't do things just to be a part of the group. We're not going to do something just because it's the norm, or just to conform." John Voorhees spent four years in the Marines and he's tried his hand at writing: short stories and a novel. Creative guy. Yes, a creative individualist. I liked John Voorhees. Very grounded. Good-looking, too.
Well, as you can predict, this whole Dr. Bash thing is not looking too promising. If Dr. Bash starts in with this "You need to do this" -- "You need to do that" crap, I'll just parody her with "You need to call Brian." "You need to call Brian and tell him he has no right to curtail my library privileges." Of course, she'll say: "I'm not going to call Brian." And I'll say: "Well, I'm not going to eat out. Period."
The whole thing is going to end up with bitterness and recriminations, deadlock, stalemate, and argument. I can only really function in an analytic type of therapeutic setting. In analysis, you just talk about whatever is on your mind. It's like these letters, really. You just talk, and make connections. Connections between the present and the past. Connections between the intra-psychic and the interpersonal. Connections between yourself and the analyst; connections between your relationship with the analyst and your relations with other people, both past and present. That's what it's all about. And that's all it's about. Nothing more. Nothing less.
There's an analyst in my apartment building. His name is Martin Ceaser, MD. He graduated from Case-Western Reserve University, but I don't hold that against him. Yes, he's from Ohio, but not all Ohioans are bad people. Dr. Ceaser has an older guy for a patient who does analysis. The guy seems to be in his late fifties, I guess. He's here every day at 7:30 AM. Doing his analysis. Dr. Sack, who passed away last August (August 5th or maybe August 6th -- I can't be sure, as Albert Camus would say), had an older lady in her 60's (I suppose) who did analysis. I guess it's never too late to change your underwear, or anything else.
The thing is I'd like to do analysis, but it's damned expensive. You can imagine seeing a doctor 5 days a week, just how expensive that is. I could afford one dollar per session. I think doctors have an ethical duty to see reduced-fee patients, don't they? I'd agree to see Dr. Caesar for one dollar per session. It doesn't sound like much, but when you stop to think that at the end of the week that's five bucks -- well, that's enough for a cup of coffee at Starbucks. Dr. Ceaser likes Starbucks -- he likes to drink out. A year of "one-dollar-per consult" analytic sessions, and you've got enough money for 50 cups of coffee at Starbucks. Nobody can possibly sit down and drink 50 cups of coffee at one sitting. So that's a lot of coffee. When you think about it in those terms, one dollar per session is actually quite a hunk of change. I gotta run that by old Marty Caesar. See what he says.
P.S. It was a shame about Ronnie, wasn't it? I was thinking about Michael Bergin's comment about Jack Nicholson: "There was something electric about him. It was as if he single-handedly changed the molecular structure of a room when he entered it." Mike Bergin used to be the Calvin Klein underwear model. Bergin changes his underwear every day, so he claims.
As a memorial to President Reagan, I've made an addition to my autobiography. What do you think? Oddly enough, my memorial to Ronald Reagan fits in the section that talks about Jesse Raben. Uncanny, eh? You see, the flora at Rancho del Cielo (speaking metaphorically) is not just a collection of vegetation. It's an eco-system. The psychoanalysts say (and they're right) --these associations are not random; they're unconsciously-determined and they recur, again and again.
He then came out of his room, . . . Hugo Wolf, Letter to His Parents. I rose. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. [He] looked at me, and said: "I have seen you before, I think. You are . . ." Hugo Wolf, Letter to His Parents. . . . Rabenstein? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust. Ah, no, no! Richard Wagner, Letter to Mathilde Wesendonk (April 7, 1858). . . . pardon the slip! Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. . . . Raben? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust. I must confess that . . . Primo Levi, The Periodic Table. . . . I was born . . . Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters. . . . Rabensteiner, . . . Franz Kafka, The Trial. . . . a Jew: Primo Levi, The Periodic Table. . . . but I sign . . . Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years. . . . Raben . . . Richard Wagner, Gotterdammerung. . . . as a pen name . . . E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will. . . . now and then. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust. I thought as much! Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. For a moment the old man was silent. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar. I looked at him, lost in astonishment. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness. There was something electric about him. It was as if he had single-handedly changed the molecular structure of the room. It struck me that what I'd heard about certain celebrities was true: they had It, whatever the hell It was. Star power isn't a myth; it is tangible and forceful. Michael Bergin, The Other Man: A Love Story. John F. Kennedy Jr., Carolyn Bessette, & Me. He went in front of me and opened the door of the reception room, which was furnished in a truly royal style. In the middle of the room was a couch covered in velvet and silk. Wagner himself was wrapped in a long velvet mantle bordered with fur. When I was inside the room he asked me what I wanted. Hugo Wolf, Letter to His Parents.
Check you out later, buddy. Stay clear of the decaff.

"We Have Everything Under Control"

2004-06-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. Just a brief note. As Charles Dickens might have said had he lived into the era of managed care: "It was the worst of therapies and the worst of therapists."
There have been some revolting developments on the psychotherapeutic front. Remember the meeting the three nincompoops had back in April? I told you about that. Indira Gandhi, The Mad Monk, and Dr. Cooper got together to map out a strategy. I was assured: "We have everything under control. You will be assigned a new therapist as soon as your therapy at GW ends (that was May 24th--last week), and if a new therapist is not located, Dr. Bash will see you in the interim."
Well, wouldn't you know! Dr. Bash is out sick, and nobody knows when she's coming back. I knew this was going to go nowhere. Just like I said: "The Bureaucratic Mind At Work." The whole meeting business resulted in nothing happening. Right now I'm out of the loop. My new psychiatrist, Dr. Barbot, doesn't know anything about my psychotherapy. I can't reach Dr. Cooper. I have no relationship with GW anymore (not that I'd want any). And Dr. Bash might be out for a while.
All I can say is, thank God I've got you, buddy. Talk to you next week. No letter tomorrow. I'll have something for you on Monday June 7. Did you call Earl to wish him a happy birthday? Better do that!
See you, Brian.

He Had High Hopes, He Had Pie in the Sky Hopes

2004-06-01T12:20:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. What's up? I had a really rough holiday weekend. The weather, the World War II Memorial dedication, the miserable social isolation -- all brought me to the brink of despair.
You know my father was a decorated World War II veteran. (He was awarded The Good Conduct Medal.) The whole memorial thing brought back memories. My old man served in the South Pacific -- the geographic region, not the musical. My father saved us from the Japanese; and was discharged Private First Class. That's unlike Bob Strauss, who saved us from the Communists and later sold us to the Japanese.
Yes, my father was wounded in action. Not by enemy fire, though. A mosquito bit him, and he came down with malaria. That's right. Bob Dole has nothing on my old man in terms of patriotic sacrifice. In any event, my father finally got the recognition he deserved in marble and bronze.
I spent the weekend thinking about the past. Particularly my years down here in Washington. I've now spent almost 21 years down here. How the memories flood back!
In the summer of 1983, at the age of 29, I moved to Washington, DC and entered the Master of Laws Program at American University Law School. This wasn't exactly the culmination of a lifelong dream. I'd come to Washington to become managing partner of a major law firm, and, in fact, I'd been signed two years earlier as a law clerk by Sagot & Jennings, one of the more reputable law firms in Philadelphia. I thought the line from law clerk to managing partner would be straight and short. But other than occasional rejection letters, I wasn't making much progress, and I was beginning to wonder why I'd ever left Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia's not hard to find on the map. That's where I'd been born and raised, and my family -- what's left of it, still calls it home.
I missed them - my family, I mean. And I missed big-city life. I barely knew a soul in Washington, which at that time, back in the early 80's, was just a sleepy Southern town. Actually, I didn't know anybody. I was renting a one-room apartment in Cleveland Park. The previous tenant had been the Spanish Embassy. I could still smell the Arroz con Pollo when I first rented the place.
Washington is very tough on lonely people. When my classes ended at American University, I'd walk the 20 or so blocks from Scott Circle to my apartment in Cleveland Park, and see all these happy couples on the street, arm in arm or hand in hand, smiling and cooing at each other, and I wondered when it was going to be my turn. I wanted to be happy too.
At night, I'd look at all the lit-up windows in the surrounding high-rises--millions of them (or do I exaggerate?)--and I'd imagine all the happy people sitting down to dinner, watching a romantic movie on TV, then crawling into bed to make love for hours on end. When you're lonely, you tend to think you're the last lonely person in the world. You can't even imagine that there are other people out there--single people, couples, even married people--who are just as lonely as you are.
But they're out there, of course. They're everywhere. Some of them even stayed at 3801, where I lived. There were women who would slip me their phone numbers, asking me to please call, they were available. And there were lonely men, too. I remember one tenant in particular, a man in his late forties - we'll call him Stanley S.: he always buzzed the front desk just as I entered the building after classes and asked the clerk to please send me up with the afternoon papers. This was in the days before Tim Norton manned the front desk. It became something of a running joke at my building: "It's Gary's boyfriend again, pining for him." I'd go upstairs, newspapers in hand, and he'd open the door in the buff and ask me to come in.
"I can't," I'd say. "I'm sorry."
"Oh please, Gary. Just for a minute or two. You're so handsome."
"No," I'd repeat. "I'm in training for the priesthood and I only do it with young boys." I lied of course. I wasn't in training for the priesthood and I didn't do anything with young boys.
And he'd look at me with those big puppy-dog eyes, like he was about to cry or something, and ask if I was sure. "I'll do anything, Gary. Anything at all, Just say the word. Tell me what you want. Spell it out."
To be honest, I felt kind of bad for the guy, I could relate to that kind of loneliness.
I was meeting people here and there, sure, but I couldn't afford to go out.
Anyway, that was twenty years ago. I'm still lonely, still on the brink of despair, running from dark place to dark place. You know the drill. Psychologically, I'm one of the walking wounded. That's why I always carry a pen in my right hand. I always carry a pen in my hand in case I come up with another idea for a letter to you, buddy. Some new, previously undisclosed, painful memory of which I need to unburden myself. Elizabeth always understood. She never said: "Hey, Freedman, why do you always walk around carrying a pen in your hand?" I'm not sure Tim Norton is as understanding as Elizabeth.
My life is just one miserable patch of painful experiences. It's so sad, so lonely. I guess I just never learned how to connect with people. I'm just one sorry, lonely, sod.
I went through a whole array of borderline states this weekend. The miserable loneliness. The feelings of worthlessness. The desire to strike out at someone. The desire for a sympathetic ear.
I reminded myself of Dr. Irvin Yalom's description of one of his borderline patients: "I'm nothing. Garbage. A creep. A cipher. I slink around on the refuse dumps of human camps. Christ, to die! To be dead! Squashed flat on the Safeway parking lot and then to be washed away by a fire hose. Nothing remaining. Nothing. Not even chalked words on the sidewalk saying, 'There was the blob that was once named Marge White.'""
But then I think about you, buddy, and all the good times we've shared and my spirits lift. Yes, I suppose that's what separates me from the garden-variety borderline patient. I remember the good times. I have a capacity for memory. And those good memories sustain me.
I was thinking about the six-month ban from the library. I think it's based on a false premise. Namely, the premise that I would somehow forget about you if I were separated from you for a period of time. It's as if you projected onto me the image of a teenage girl. A girl who's obsessed with her boyfriend. You know the kind of situation I'm talking about. Her parents disapprove. Sort of like a Romeo Montague (no relation to Chris Montague) and Juliet Capulet syndrome. The father says to the girl: "You're obsessed with Romeo. You need to let things cool off. Take a six-month break. See other people. Date other guys. Then in six months re-evaluate your feelings about Romeo." As William (Dacosta -- NOT William Shakespeare) said to me: "We think it's best if you took a break from the library. Take a six-month break."
Well, yes. That procedure makes sense in the case of the teenage girl. Teenage girls are fickle. Oftentimes with teenage girls a romantic flame that burns brightly flickers out when new interests appear on the scene.
Problem with me is I retain my feelings about people and experiences. If I was obsessed with you, buddy, in April, you can bet your gaudy guts I'll still be obsessed with you six months later. I retain my memories. Unlike the garden-variety borderline, I remember the good times--even if they existed only in my febrile imagination. Besides, what else do I have going for me?
It's not as if, once I was banned from the library a whole new social scene would open up for me, with a whole new range of people to see. I hang out with the same old buddies. (Yea. Right!) I don't go anywhere. I don't see anybody. If anything, my obsession will be stronger six months from now than it is today. Remember, in six months, I'll have a whole new set of letters behind me. A whole collection of "new memories" that I've created in my head. My relationship with you only grows and grows.
I remember my last phone conversation with Craig the Embalmer in July 1993. He said: "What have you been doing since the last time we got together?" (We had had lunch together in early February 1992). I said to Craig: "Nothing. I haven't been doing anything. I was waiting for the next time we would get together." Craig said: "That's what I was worried about."
I was struck by something I heard reported on the TV news concerning the dedication of the World War II Memorial. A reporter mentioned that there would be grief counselors on hand at the ceremonies. I thought: "How odd. Grief counselors. The war ended nearly 60 years ago. Anybody who lost anybody in the war lost that person 60 years ago." But sometimes you never forget. Sometimes the memories just flood back. I guess the moral is to stay away from cork-lined rooms, madeleines, and cups of tea. Barbara Gauntt can explain.
My whole psychology is a psychology of memory, loss, and an obsession with regaining what was lost. As Proust called his masterpiece: "In Search of Lost Time." (Mistranslated as "Remembrance of Things Past," a line from a Shakespeare sonnet). That was Proust's whole life. Recovering his memory of the past. It was his life's work. Believe me, buddy, I'm familiar with that line of work!
So how will things have changed for me when the ban is over? My obsessions and preoccupations will be the same. I'll still be writing letters to you. I'll still be complaining to my psychologist that I want to be your friend, but that you don't respond to my social overtures. Dr. Bash will still be encouraging me to ask you to go to lunch with me. Mind you, Brian -- You have a duty to be my friend, according to your own paradigm, which is, namely, "A person has a duty to do what he has no legal duty to do!" My social horizons will not have enlarged at all. I'll still be lonely and miserable. I still won't be taking my anti-psychotic medication. Just how will things have changed? And if things haven't changed -- and I can assure you they won't -- then how will I be any more suitable to be a patron at the Cleveland Park Library than I was the day I was banned? Think about it. If your rationale for banning me was valid and legitimate in April 2004, and those issues of concern continue to prevail six months hence, how will it be any more appropriate that I return to the library in October? Put another way, couldn't your reasons for banning me be used to justify a permanent ban? That's how ridiculous your ban is.
When somebody commits a crime, you send him to prison. The rationale is punishment and rehabilitation. It's hoped that the person will reflect on his past misdeeds and go and sin no more. That won't be happening in my case. When I return to Cleveland Park Library, I will be as penitent as Martha Stewart, who's convinced she did nothing wrong.
Be that as it may.
I haven't heard from Dr. Bash yet about my new therapist. You recall that I had my last session with Indira Gandhi last Monday, May 24, 2004. And Dr. Bash, The Mad Monk, is supposed to arrange a new therapist for me. I'm not holding my breath for anything meaningful there.
Now that -- that-- would be good for me. A positive thing. If I could develop a meaningful and satisfying relationship with a therapist. Somebody I liked. Somebody who was very bright and insightful. Somebody I really looked forward to talking to. Then, maybe then, I could put you behind me. But I'm pretty well assured in my mind that I won't be assigned to anyone worthwhile for me. I'm convinced the field of clinical psychology -- with few exceptions -- attracts losers.
I mean, just look at Debra Kosch, one of the leaders of the group therapy I was in. She majored in international relations in college. Then -- and only then -- she goes into psychology. Obviously, she couldn't get a decent job as a White House reporter like David "eyebrow plucker" Gregory (B.A., International Studies, American University), so she decides one day: "I think I'll be a psychologist!"
Indira Gandhi was intelligent, reflective and thoughtful. But she just didn't do it for me. We talked about my dissatisfaction with her. She just didn't integrate things, synthesize things. Every week it was like a clean slate. She didn't apply what she had learned about me from previous sessions. She couldn't see the forest for the trees. It's as if she just saw the trees, for her a forest was simply a collection of trees -- not a specific eco-system. She couldn't process the idea that in psychology, the whole of the personality is greater than the sum of its parts. A forest is more than a collection of thousands of individual trees. It's an ecosystem, with its own biological dynamics.
I can just imagine Indira Gandhi as a criminalist at a crime scene investigation. She sees blood splatter. "Oh, there's some blood on the wall." Then she sees a bloody knife. "Oh, it's a bloody knife." She sees that the door lock was tampered with, "Oh, it looks like the front door lock is broken." Then she sees a body lying dead on the kitchen floor. You proceed to ask her what she thinks. She doesn't process the details as evidence of a cohesive transaction, a crime, but rather as a collection of discrete facts: "Well, my conclusion is that this is a house with blood splatter on a wall, a broken lock on the front door, a bloody knife, and a dead body on the kitchen floor." But what does it all mean, Ms. Gandhi. "Well, it says to me there's blood splatter, a broken lock, a bloody knife, . . . " And that's Indira Gandhi, the criminalist.
Week after week with her, I had a feeling of lack of synthesis. Nothing was getting processed at any deeper level of meaning than discrete surface facts. As I told her again and again: "There's an overwhelming feeling of meaninglessness about this relationship." I would have to say that my 15 months with Indira Gandhi were the most meaningless, absolutely meaningless, I've ever spent in therapy. I didn't even get angry with her. She was a total nonentity to me.
And God help me if I complained to Dr. Cooper, my psychiatrist. The response I always got was: "Ms. Tembe is a very good therapist." Like I had no right to an opinion! Listen, Dr. Cooper, I've been doing therapy for 27 years. I'm a professional patient. I'm not an amateur. I know my therapists. I have a right to an opinion. My opinion is that The Prime Minister just didn't do it for me.
And you know what? All this makes me long for you all the more, buddy. My imaginary relationship with you is so overwhelmingly satisfying. You're all I have. You're all I want. You're everything to me. That ain't gonna change. I'm counting down the days till we're together again, Brian. You're my best buddy.
Check you out later, Brian.
P.S. I won't be writing to you tomorrow. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist. I'll talk to you on Thursday. Maybe you, me, and Earl could get together for Earl's birthday. It's the big five seven for Mr. S.

A Case of Paranoia

2004-05-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. They say a single anecdote is worth a thousand words, so consider this brief note a substitute for a ten-page letter.
Check this out. This is really uncanny. It seals the lid on my insight that I'm a manager victimizer. I uncovered another "body," so to speak.
TIMOTHY NORTON:
Norton is 26 years old. He graduated with a B.A. in English from The George Washington University in about the year 2000.
A few years back he got a job here at my apartment building (3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW) as a part-time front desk clerk. Talk about underemployment.
Last year, when Elizabeth Joyce retired, Tim was named Front-Desk Manager. (Trouble ahead for me!)
Tim is dissatisfied with his job. I heard him talking to a tenant about his desire to get a job in writing. Apparently front-desk management (and the awesome responsibilities that job entails) were not what the young Tim Norton had in mind while he was spending four years at one of the finer (and expensive) private universities.
He seems somewhat socially inhibited. I don't know of his romantic conquests; he may have a wild social life for all I know. But in fact I don't know.
Well anyway here's the picture. Crappy manager's job, professional underachievement and dissatisfaction -- and questionable social adjustment.
Now here's the punch line. What they call the clincher. A few months ago, Norton called me aside. He said: "Mr. Freedman, can I talk to you?" (Isabelle Fine was sitting in the lobby at the time). So Tim says: "Mr. Freedman, I try to be fair with all the tenants--treat them fairly. I pick up the feeling that you seem hostile toward me." I said: "What gives you that idea?" He said: "Well, for one thing, I notice that you wave to me in the exercise room." (The apartment has an exercise room with a closed-circuit TV.) I pointed out that I wave to everyone from the exercise room. I said that I used to wave to Elizabeth Joyce. (Elizabeth Joyce is English -- apparently, she has a stiff upper lip. After all, she survived The Blitz in WWII.). So, the long and short of it is that Tim says to me -- "Never mind."
Get it? Everywhere I go, it's the Cicada Syndrome. Probably the whole thing with Tim would never have happened if this hadn't been 2004. All I can say is, I don't know if I can take this again seventeen years from now, when I will be 67 years old.
By the way -- on a related issue. Icon Manipulation. I was thinking of something that might have prompted your bizarre accusation to the Metro Police that I had used the computer consistent with its intended use, namely, I pressed the "rename" function on the keyboard. That's hardly misconduct.
Anyway, I thought about an instance of your own computer behavior which was definitely misconduct from a number of perspectives.
Let me refresh your recollection. Remember the Romantic E-mail episode? (I know nobody reads these notes to you, Brian, so I can be open and frank here.)
You'll recall that about a year-and-a-half ago I found an e-mail that you had written and printed out -- an e-mail that you had written to a female who was not your wife. The e-mail was romantic, if not erotic. Remember that? Maybe it was innocent. Though usually, when a married man writes a romantic note to a lady not his wife, there tends to be something going on. As they say, "Where there's smoke, there's fire."
The clincher was your reaction when you checked the computer printer to get your salacious e-mail. You saw that the e-mail was not there. You said to me angrily and forcefully: "GIVE ME THAT E-MAIL!!" If I had any question before about the forbidden nature of the e-mail, your angry reaction "was worth a thousand words," as they say.
My point is -- isn't that a misuse of the District's property? A married District employee printing out a personal e-mail to his girlfriend?
What do you think your supervisor, Barbara Webb, would say about that? Did you ever wonder, Brian, if maybe I surreptitiously made a Xerox copy of that e-mail, and that maybe I have a copy of it right here with me now? Did you ever think of that? Like they say: "Get Met, It Pays."
Another thing. When a married guy sends a romantic e-mail to his girlfriend, isn't that a sign of some dissatisfaction in the guy's marriage? See my point? Isn't that another symptom of the Cicada Syndrome? "Romantic dissatisfaction."
Yes, Brian, the pieces of the puzzle fit together. Maybe you never forgot about the romantic e-mail incident, and you figured -- "I'll get that bugger!"
Check you out later, buddy. Rest assured, your secrets are safe with me.
P.S. I'm thinking maybe you're like Henry VIII. Now there -- there -- was a guy with marital dissatisfaction! His wives couldn't produce a male heir. Maybe you have the same concerns.

The Cicada Syndrome

2004-05-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

The Cicada Syndrome Brian--
May 27, 2004
Hey, buddy. I'm feeling a bit low. I'm careful not to say I'm in a dark place. I know how that gets you upset. And we don't want to upset you, do we?
This muggy, rainy weather has me down. Besides I've kind of figured out that we probably won't be getting together on Memorial Day. Bugger!
I've been thinking about the French writer Marcel Proust. In the final volume of Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past," the Narrator, sitting in a little library waiting to go in to a recital, is flooded with illumination after illumination about love, art, memory and time. All the pieces of the puzzle of his experience suddenly come together for him, and he emerges from his reverie ready to undertake the task of writing the magical book that the reader holds in his hand and will soon have to part from.
I've been thinking of my experiences, and, as it happened in the case of Proust, the pieces of the puzzle fit together for me. It's unbelievable. It couldn't be more obvious. There's a pattern. It happens every 17 years. Can you believe it? It happens, like clockwork, every seventeen years. Like some bizarre insect that emerges from the earth, from its chrysalis, according to some exact internal biological clock.
I suppose the fiction writer might say something along the lines of "Once upon a time, in Washington, DC, there lived a human monster unlike anything mankind has ever known. Enter the world of an evil genius, a miscreant so depraved that only the most hideous of crimes could satisfy his lust, a depraved monster who lives to possess the essence of young organizational managers, a vampire of the unfulfilled underachiever, whose bloodless, inane quest takes him beyond the boundaries of unconscious wishes, and culminates in job termination, in some cases, or suspension of library privileges, in others."
So much for the fiction writer. I deal in facts.
I am a threat. Yes! My potential victims fear me. There is so much I could do, if only I wanted to -- at least according to the belief systems of my individual victims. I hold the power in my hand. A power stronger than the power of money or the power of terror or the power of death: the invincible power to command the fear of the paranoid!
I can't believe I never saw the ineluctable schema before. But there is a pattern to my victimization. As Dr. Eissler pointed out "Victimology, that newly-founded brand of criminology, has found that the personality of the victim is the cause of his becoming a victim and this is also true of persons who suffer from the so-called "Cicada Syndrome."
What is the "Cicada Syndrome," you ask? In this heretofore unrecognized syndrome the aggressor seeks out another individual, who, because he possesses certain personality qualities, is considered by Freedman a prime candidate for an unusual fate, a fate destined to be repeated every seventeen years. The victim is sought out and terrorized in a ruthless, but insidious, attack on the victim's inner sense of well-being and narcissistic integrity. Freedman places the victim's very masculinity at risk!
These are the facts.
In the year 2004 I preyed on you, Brian. You know about that, of course. I sought you out and terrorized you. Inside I laughed in scornful mockery at your fears, while you cringed lest I strike out at you from the dark places of my soul.
Little did you know that you were only the latest victim of my serial perversity.
Seventeen years ago, in 1987, I preyed on another innocent victim, Craig Wallace Dye. He feared my attack, and responded in self-defense, or should I say he responded defensively.
Then, in early 1988, as part of the same 17-year cycle (1987-1988) I began my ruthless attack on another hapless victim, John David Neary, at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld.
Oddly enough, my victims have several things in common. All three were managers, with serious dissatisfactions in their private lives, who had unrealized aims in their professional work. Yes! Let the word go forth! I am a maniacal manager-victimizer. I victimize innocent organizational managers, who are underemployed and who are dissatisfied in life. I force them to love me, and they respond with reversal and projection. In the end, I am destroyed. I return to the bowels of the Earth from whence I came, and emerge from the Earth seventeen years hence to strike again.
In the event you remain unconvinced, let me elaborate.
CRAIG WALLACE DYE:
The year was 1987. Craig the Embalmer had started working at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson in October 1986, at age 27. He was a brilliant young man with a genius-level IQ. He was later accepted to Harvard Law School and other law schools of high repute. But that would be years in the future.
As of 1986, Craig had a master's degree in international relations awarded by Johns Hopkins University. And what occupation did he assume at Hogan? An elevated position of responsibility and authority, you say? No! A resounding no! He worked on the firm's furniture inventory, when he wasn't involved in the lofty vocation of coding documents. He had spent the earlier years of his life in dissipation -- traveling the world, waiting tables, and getting due mileage out of young lassies. Yes. Craig was handsome, intelligent, manipulative and a professional womanizer. But career-wise he was less than successful.
In mid-year 1987, the love of his life, Amanda, dumped Craig. Yes, dear, sweet, clinging, 20-telephone-calls-per-day Amanda left Craig's life for good (or ill) while the assassination heiress had yet to make her appearance. As of 1987 Craig was, as they say, going nowhere fast: romantically and professionally.
In August 1987 the Embalmer took on a male roommate, Daniel Cutler, who also worked at Hogan -- Craig and Daniel had adjoining desks at work, in fact. It was "mostly Daniel, most of the time."
Craig assumed responsibilities in the Computer Applications Department, and of critical importance for our tale, ultimately became Manager of the Computer Applications Department.
The picture is complete. Romantic dissatisfaction, professional underachievement, and a crappy manager's job. The perfect victim for me! I took advantage of Craig's situation and ruthlessly exploited the poor, hapless Embalmer. He responded with reversal and projection, as the analysts say, and the rest is history. Or at least my job was history. Craig and his comrades concocted a story that I was out to get poor Craig, poor helpless Craig. Yes, I was a manager victimizer! I had to go. In late February 1988, I was terminated by my supervisor at Hogan after the effective machinations of the Embalmer sealed my coffin.
Thus ended Phase I of my seventeen year cycle.
JOHN DAVID NEARY:
The cycle picked up again a few days later, in early March 1988, at Akin Gump, with my second victim, John David Neary.
John David Neary was the perfect victim for me. He was a 1985 graduate of William and Mary College and had high hopes for a brilliant career in the law - as a lawyer, that is. Unfortunately, for John David, law schools didn't quite have a corresponding confidence in John David's potential.
In 1989 he attended the wedding of a friend and complained that he was the last in his crowd of friends who remained unmarried. Romantic dissatisfaction.
John David had a crappy manager's job, supervising other paralegals. My depraved and insatiable urge to gratify my vile proclivities could not be staunched. I would once again follow the dictates of my biological destiny. I would once again be a manager victimizer!
I know this will weary you, buddy. It wearies me. But I have to say it.
Once again, John David -- as with Craig before him -- presented an image of alluring potential victimization that I could not resist. Romantic dissatisfaction, professional underachievement, and a crappy manager's job. The perfect victim for me! I took advantage and ruthlessly exploited poor, helpless John David. He responded with reversal and projection, as the analysts say, and the rest is history. Or at least my job was history. John David and his comrades concocted a story that I was out to get poor John David. Yes, I was a manager victimizer! I had to go. In late October 1991, I was terminated by Akin Gump after the effective machinations of John David convinced senior managers that I was frightening, Yes!, a frightening paralegal with whom John David could not work. I was determined to be potentially violent -- more, in fact -- I was determined to be a manager killer. Not just a manager victimizer, but a potential manager killer. See Freedman v. D.C. Dept. of Human Rights, D.C. Court of Appeals, No. 96-CV-961 (Record on Appeal at 349, stating that J.D. Neary was afraid of me and that he could not work with me).
Thus ends the first seventeen-year cycle. I returned to the bowels of the Earth, not to be seen for the better part of a generation.
Years would pass. Seventeen years to be exact. But no fear, I would return to wreak havoc once again. I would arise from the Earth, as part of my seventeen-year cycle and start all over again. Not to another life, a better life, but to the self-same life of manager victimization.
That brings us to the year 2004. That brings us to you, buddy. You, like your predecessors, were the perfect victim.
You were male. You had a crappy manager's job, running a local branch library, despite your obvious intelligence and underutilized abilities. You had worked your entire adult life in a field traditionally dominated by women (and a fair quota of homosexuals). Your only male colleague, William -- a unique individual -- is a bi-polar psychotic whose wife's first husband was a homosexual. Indeed, there's an "incestuous" quality to William, who married the lovely Debra, also a librarian -- the children's librarian at The Chevy Chase Branch of The DC Library.
Though married, you have no children -- at an age when most married men enjoy paternal fulfillment. Yes, you are unfulfilled in your private life. You were the perfect victim for my ruthless exploitation. Ironically, or uncannily, John David was active in the Big Brother's of America, an organization whose members mentor fatherless boys. Odd, don't you think? My victims are always unfulfilled males.
Yes, Brian. I victimized you, and you were sore afraid. I terrorized you with talk of dark spaces, references to compensatory damages (frightening!), and my open confession that I was failing to do what I had no legal duty to do. Yes, what a bastard I am, preying as I do on hapless managers such as yourself.
Again, I know this will weary you, buddy. Oh, how it wearies me! But I have to say it.
Once again, as with Craig and John David, you possessed a host of alluring qualities that proved irresistible for me. Your lack of paternal fulfillment, your professional underachievement, and your crappy manager's job. The perfect victim for me! I took advantage and ruthlessly exploited poor, helpless Brian Patrick. He responded with reversal and projection, as the analysts say, and the rest is history. Or at least my library privileges were history. Brian Patrick and his comrade, William, concocted a story that I was out to get poor Brian Patrick. Yes, I was a manager victimizer! I had to go. And so, on April 21, 2004, my library privileges at the Cleveland Park Branch of the DC Library were suspended after the effective machinations of Brian Patrick and William convinced the Metro DC Police that I was frightening, Yes!, a frightening library patron whom Brian Patrick could not abide. Brian Patrick determined that I was a vengeful icon manipulator who resided in dark places and who -- bastard that I am -- perversely refused to do what I had no legal duty to do.
Thus ends my second seventeen year cycle. And thus, buddy, ends my "Notes from Underground." And thus, to paraphrase Nietzsche, ends Freedman's Going Under.
Check you out later, buddy.
P.S. Hey, Brian. A bit of Army humor. What would you call it if Dr. Brad Dolinsky (Captain Vagina) were booted out of the army? -- A Vaginal Discharge!! Get it?

An Epistolary Madness

2004-05-24T12:36:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. This weekend was a total washout. I slept most of the time, and made a brief trip to the supermarket for oatmeal and powdered milk, although I have about a six-month's supply of both in my pantry. But like I always say, you can never have too much oatmeal and powdered milk.
It's like these letters I write. Letters, letters, letters, letters. I can never write enough letters. I live to write letters. As Ellen once said: "Of even vegetarian kreplach, one can get too much." To which I would reply, "No, Ellen. You can never get too much kreplach. Yes, there may be a limit to how many kreplach you can fit into your bowl of broth. But you, yourself, can never get too much kreplach."
What does letter writing mean to me? Why are letters my chosen form of communication, my chosen form of human interaction? I suppose because letters allow for a certain kind of intimacy, or even just the illusion of intimacy. It's a very controlled kind of interaction; there's a grandiose quality to letters. You never have to worry about the reactions of the person you are communicating with. No frowns or intrusive sighs emanate from the other party. One is free to blather on and on, without regard for the boredom or disapproval of the other party.
The psychologist Lillian B. Rubin put it so well: "Contact that takes place largely by letter allows for a peculiar kind of intimacy in that we can write about deeply felt matters while we are also protected from the unexpected or unplanned messages conveyed in a face-to-face encounter. If I am speaking directly to a friend, I watch for signs of his reaction to my words, just as he watches my facial expressions and body posture to fill out the message my words withhold. But the letter protects both of us. The signs of his approval or disapproval, restlessness or boredom, and so on, are not visible to me; the symptoms that would signal depth of my distress not accessible to him. Letters, of course, provide even less possibility than the telephone for an immediate or unintended response, therefore more control and more protection for both participants.
Such long-distance best friendships based on the exchange of letters share some of the qualities of the therapist-patient relationship. Both permit intimacy while, at the same time, preserving distance, both allow discretion in what is revealed, how much and when; both promise safety from well-meaning but unwanted intrusions
We can confide a personal problem to a therapist or to a long-distance friend with some certainty that intimacies revealed are safe from the immediate circle of friends and family (assuming I had either), without fear that we'll run into the confidante in the supermarket and have to face the question, spoken or unspoken, "Is everything okay?" We can share something of our fears and fantasies with some assurance that we will not confront a reaction that's difficult or painful. The responses of both will be safely hidden from view--the therapist's because of training, the friends because of distance." Lillian B. Rubin, "Just Friends: The Role of Friendship in Our Lives."
Of course, Lillian Rubin omits any consideration of the paranoid recipient of the letters, who sees dark meanings in the written communicator's references to dark places, recompense for pain and suffering, and the individual's failure to take actions (namely, ingesting medication) that he has no legal duty to do. No, Brian, Lillian Rubin never met you, buddy. You put a whole new spin on the dangers of letter writing. "The paranoid recipient" of letters saved to hard-drive on a public computer. Maybe Lillian Rubin needs to add a chapter for 21st century readers -- a chapter on the danger of letter writing on public electronic facilities.
At my meeting with William and the good offices of the Metro DC police, Officer Williams questioned my procedure of letter writing to you, buddy. "Have you ever had a friend," he asked? "Letter writing is not a way to make friends," he admonished. "The way to make friends is to talk to a person face-to-face."
Well, like my response to Ellen's views on vegetarian kreplach, I have to respectfully disagree.
The fact is there are all kinds of friends, all types of friendships. Some friendships, even great friendships, start out as letter-writing relationships and progress to face-to-face contact. Some friendships remain primarily, if not exclusively, letter writing relationships.
Look at the great, and ill-fated, friendship between Dr. Eissler and Jeff Masson. It started out as a letter writing relationship. The young Jeffrey Masson, a trainee at a psychoanalytic training institute, certainly wasn't going to show up at Dr. Eissler's Upper West Side apartment and ask the old sage of psychoanalysis out for coffee. The only realistic way for Masson to approach Dr. Eissler was by letter. Eissler was a formidable figure in the world of psychoanalysis. Kind of like you, buddy, in the insular world of the D.C. library system. The great Brian Brown, sage of Macomb Street!
Masson writes: "When I first read Eissler's books, shortly after I applied to the Toronto Psychoanalytic Institute, I felt I was entering a world of long ago and far away. It was a feeling that appealed to me, because it recreated the sensations I had had when reading European scholarship during my student years in Paris. I had felt like this when I read the great Buddhist scholar from Belgium, Etienne Lamotte, for example, or the works of the French Indologist Louis Renou. The excitement of seeing genuine scholarship in psychoanalysis provided a link to my own past. I decided to write to Eissler about historical matters in psychoanalysis that had already begun to interest me early in my training. I was surprised and delighted when he answered me and took my questions seriously. I wanted to know about Daniel Paul Schreber (!!!), and more about Wilhelm Fliess, and about Freud's early case histories. I greatly looked forward to getting to know him (that is, Dr. Kurt Eissler)."
So that's how the friendship between Jeffrey Masson and Kurt Eissler began. I'm still waiting for a letter from Lieberson. I'm thinking any day now, Jeff Lieberson's going to write me a letter asking about Don Zimmer's crotch-scratching proclivities. "Mr. Freedman, I presume? I'm Jeff Lieberson."
My point is, there's no one way a friendship can arise. There's no one way a friendship can blossom and bloom--or even be maintained.
Ellen and I were talking the other day--over some eggplant kreplach--about the great Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. -- Ellen's old mentor. Ellen pointed out that Holmes' personal relations were marked by barriers and distance. The archetypal Holmes friendship was a correspondence friendship, with the other participant being inaccessible to Holmes except for occasional visits. Even the most persistent of his correspondents, such as Harold Laski, rarely got beyond a certain level of intimacy. When Laski proposed, after many years of letters, that he call Holmes by his first name, he was summarily rebuffed.
Ellen pointed out (I call her Ellen, but she herself once said to me, "Freedman, it's 'Judge,' to you, buddy") that much of Holmes's communications with others was at the level of intellectual abstraction, though he also had an earthy, bawdy side, which punctuated his talk and occasionally his writings and revealed itself in his covert private life. Much of the distinctiveness of Holmes's style came from his juxtaposition of earthy or homely language with abstract ideas; although he held the two impulses apart in his activities, in his thoughts they easily intermeshed. "I wonder," he once said, "if cosmically an idea is any more important than the bowels."
Or as Goethe once said: "In the end, every idea is just a fart." I suppose great minds run along the same paths. Everything is just a collection of body functions. As David Duchovny once said about acting: "The human part of acting is all about basic body functions. Basically, the less complicated you are, the more primary your motivation is, the better actor you are. You take it down to the basics: eating, pissing, shitting, fucking. Those are the kinds of emotions that read. They're strong and good. They come across."
I guess, in the end, I'm looking for an intellectual relationship. A friendship with an intellectual guy, -- maybe Ivy, like David Duchovny -- someone with whom I can discuss abstract intellectual ideas. You know Duchovny got his B.A. in English from Princeton and was working on his Ph.D. at Yale when he went into acting. His dissertation at Yale was going to be titled: "Magic and Technology in Contemporary American Fiction and Poetry." Now that's what I'm looking for in a friend. A healthy taste for the intellectual and abstract.
Not that there's not another side to Dave: a homely, earthy, bawdy, Holmesean side. A world of eggplant and penises.
Here's a description of David Duchovny eating lunch during a break in filming a movie, back in 1999:
He's wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He is relaxed, affable even, playing a guy shooting the shit with a friend in a corner booth of a diner. He probes the contents of a Styrofoam container, the daily special from his favorite vegetarian restaurant, driven by special courier to the set, near a national park in Calabasas, an hour northwest of Hollywood. "Oh, my God," he says with mock horror, poking at a large eggplant, skinned, in a viscous brown sauce. "I think I've found John Holmes's penis!" That's John Holmes, the porn star -- not Oliver Wendell, although exactly how covert Justice Holmes's private side was remains a mystery. He might have done some porn in his day, though not videos, of course.
Duchovny's humor is your typical elevated Ivy humor -- Princeton, Yale, Skull and Crossbones humor -- wry, abstract, witty and urbane. A typical Duchovny joke: "I don't want to brag about the size of my cock, but I just got a sex change and a guy was fucking me the other day and he said: You have the biggest pussy I have ever fucked!" That's real Captain Vagina, Columbia University humor, buddy.
Yes, that's what I'm looking for in a friendship. Wry, urbane, witty asides offered up amid intellectual abstractions concerning eggplant and penises. It's just so hard for me to find friends I can commune with on my level. Besides, eggplant is out of season right now.
Check you out later, buddy. And we can continue this great discussion.

It's Legal In Massachusetts

2004-05-21T12:40:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. What's up? Have these lazy, hazy, cicada-ridden days of late May got you down?
You know, people have been coming up to me on the street, they've been stopping me on the street, and been saying--have been asking me: "Hey, Freedman, what did you think, what did you really think and feel, at the moment, the very moment when William and the good officers of the Metro DC police force told you that you were banned from the Cleveland Park library, after all those years of daily visits? I mean, it must have been rough, devastating really? Well? What was it like for you?"
I have to admit, buddy, at first I was afraid. I was petrified. I was thinking, "I don't know how I could ever live without you by my side." But I grew strong. And I learned how to get along.
And the rest, as they, say, is a pack of letters!
No major opus today. I'm written out. Three major letters in one week is about all I can handle. Like I've said before I'm no Balzac. Even Balzac limited himself to about three major novels per year. That white heat of inspiration can wear a guy out. Then there's always carpal tunnel syndrome to worry about. Too much time at the keyboard--well, you know what they say. You might end up growing hair on your palms.
I was thinking recently, "What would Brian do if I were to call him at the library? Would he get all professional on me and say something like: 'Mr. Freedman, I don't think it's appropriate that we chat on the telephone.'" Or would you agree to meet with me outside the library. What if I were to call you and ask you out to lunch? What would you do? Get all professional on me? Hide behind that veil of professionalism? Is that what you'd do?
The fact is my psychiatrist, Dr. Cooper, suggested that I talk to you. Try to get close to you. Make a social approach to you. Doctor's orders, so to speak. I think it's a little hypocritical of you to, on the one hand, chastise me about not taking the medication that was prescribed for me by my doctor, and yet, on the other, refuse to respond to my social overtures, overtures that were prescribed by that very same doctor. See my point? Isn't that a little inconsistent? The bottom line is--it's you, buddy--you--who are the medication. Medication itself--literal medication--chemical formulations--are a means to an end. That end is social adjustment. Chemicals are a way for a mentally whacked-out person to get into the normal social groove.
The ultimate aim remains, in the end, that social groove. Making a friend, or a group of friends. In the end, the friends are a kind of maintenance therapy. You hook up with friends, and that keeps you on the right track in life. Friends are like non-chemical therapy. You see them, or talk to them periodically--you "ingest them," as it were, periodically, like you would take medication. The aim is to keep you normal, to keep you human.
Simply pumping a person full of meds, with no hope that that person will enter that higher level of functioning is pointless and, really, a little grotesque. It's like the courts ordering a criminally-insane prisoner to be medicated so he can be executed. What are the meds for, in that case? So he can be normal for a few moments before he faces execution?
What are meds for in my case? Make me non-paranoid so I can sit in my apartment alone, and just look at the four walls in a normal mental state? Stare at the TV all day without delusions intruding on my loneliness? I mean what's the point? What's the fucking point?
Think about it. You and the other humans out there are the meds. The ultimate meds. I really think I've hit upon something here. An intriguing paradigm. "Freedman is bad and dangerous because he's not taking his meds. But I, Brian Brown, am good and innocent--an innocent potential victim of Freedman's madness. I, Brian Brown, am the good object, medication is the good object. Freedman has a duty to take meds (in fact, under the law I don't--but, of course, you're not a lawyer), but I have no moral duty to respond to Freedman's social overtures, despite the fact that I've been obsessed with him for the last 12 years and despite the fact that Freedman's own doctor has recommended that Freedman be friendly with me. I, Brian Brown, have no duty to do anything. I'm just a passive object, just like the good old pills in the bottle."
Is that a keen insight into a psychological situation, or is that just my illness speaking? Maybe if I took my meds I wouldn't be having these thoughts. But, hey, look at Oliver Wendell Holmes--a brilliant guy, a logical guy, a lawyer. He was a pathological letter writer. He was a little whacked himself. Some of his ideas were a little off the Supreme Court wall, if you know what I mean. Should he have taken meds, assuming there had been any in his day? Would the Metro DC police be saying to old Oliver, "Listen, buddy. You seem a little strung out. Maybe you need to be taking something. Sure you're a bright guy, but mental illness is mental illness. It's just not normal for a guy to be writing all those letters you've been writing. Writing letters is no substitute for real social relations. And that's what you've been doing, Mr. Holmes. You hide behind your robes writing letters, squirreled away in your study writing letters to your 'friend' Fredric. That's not normal, dude. That's not healthy. That's not the way to make real friends."
I don't know. But, hey, I'm nuts.
Then there's Dr. Bash, The Mad Monk. "You should ask Brian to lunch. You and Brian should go to lunch." Granted, Dr. Bash is a psychologist. Legally, she can't prescribe. But that's her recommendation. Just who do you think you are, Brian, refusing the recommendation of an employee of the D.C. Department of Mental Health? An employee of your own employer. The D.C. Government.
Am I getting a little needy? Putting too much pressure on you? Like you never put pressure on me! "Freedman, you gotta take your meds!"
Funny thing. Back to my paradigm. Back to the issue of duty. Notice how you would say you have no duty to be my friend. But you imply I have a duty to take meds that have been prescribed by my physician. That's fucked up, man. The legal fact is, I have no duty to take meds. Just like you have no duty to be my friend, I HAVE NO DUTY TO TAKE MEDS. My paradigm is a perfect symmetry. A psychoanalyst might be intrigued by that. I wonder what old Dr. Palombo would say about that. The way you've turned everything around. You deny your own duty, and project that on to me. "I, Brian Brown, have no duty to respond to Freedman's social overtures, but Freedman has a duty to take meds." That's whacked, Brian. That's what the analysts would call a paranoid transformation: reversal and projection.
What would you do if I called the cops on you? "Officer, my psychologist says I should go to lunch with Brian, but Brian refuses. Are you going to enforce my psychologist's recommendation?" Officer Williams: "That sounds like a civil matter." Freedman: "Well, I'm not so sure. Dr. Bash, the mad monk, is an employee of the D.C. government; I think her recommendations carry some legal authority in this jurisdiction."
The ultimate symmetry is this. Just as I have no duty to take meds, you have no duty to be my friend. But, other people have made recommendations. That's all. Neither recommendation--the recommendation to take meds nor the recommendation that we be friends--is legally enforceable. And when you look at it, who's being more rational, who's being more reasonable. You? Really? You, Brian? "Call the cops on Freedman. He's not doing what he has a legal right not to do?" What if I called the cops on you, Brian, and said: "Hey, officers, Brian isn't doing what he has no legal duty to do, namely, go to lunch with me as was recommended by my psychologist." At least I have the sanity--crazy as I am--not to do that. I think the cops might really haul me off to St. Elizabeths if I called them and told them that.
You know what I think, Brian. I think, fundamentally, you're just a selfish MF'er. One total social MF'er. A Master of Fraud. We all know what you've been up to, lo, these last 12 years: watching, monitoring, taking note of my every sigh, groan and fart in the library. Reporting everything back to Malcolm and Earl. Who are you kidding, Brian? You've got a thing for me, to put it euphemistically. That's the paradigm.
Then you call the law on me! You have the nerve to call out the law. "Sheriff, I want this straggler banned from my ranch!"
Is what you did sane? No. A resounding no. It carries the deceptive ring of rationality, but it's fundamentally no more reasonable than my calling the cops on you for failing to do what a D.C. employee recommended that you do. Namely, respond to my social overtures.
You might be interested to know, buddy -- no, more than that -- you might be surprised -- no, even more than that -- you might be shocked to learn what an insightful psychoanalyst might say about your act of summoning the law to ban me from the library because I was not doing what I was legally free not to do. Are you aware that a psychoanalyst might interpret that as a latent homosexual fantasy? Think about it. Reversal and projection -- the two ego defenses operative in paranoia.
What is the opposite (the reverse) of legally-enforcing a separation between two people? Why, it's a marriage. In marriage, two people voluntarily assume mutual legal duties. An analyst might say, "Mr. Brown, unconsciously, you wanted Freedman. You wanted him in a powerful way. A way that was extremely threatening to your rational, conscious mind. Consciously you felt threatened by Freedman, but unconsciously you loved him. Unconsciously you wanted to marry him--you wanted to summon the law to compel a union, and you defended against that wish by doing the exact opposite--summoning the law to enforce a ban, to enforce a separation. You, my friend, are what is euphemistically termed a latent homosexual. My prescription? Five years on the couch, Mr. Brown!"
"But that's insane, doctor," you might say. To which the doctor would respond: "Have you ever heard of the famous Schreber case, Mr. Brown?" ("Who??") "In that case, Freud made the discovery that the 'core conflict in the paranoia of a man' is, as he put it in the case history, a 'homosexual wish fantasy of loving a man.' The paranoiac turns the declaration 'I love him' into its opposite, "I hate him'; this is the reversal. He then goes on to say, 'I hate him because he persecutes me'; that is the projection.'"
"And what does that have to do with me," you might ask. "Simple," says the good doctor. "You unconsciously grew to love Mr. Freedman. You felt an internal threat to your masculinity. You transformed that internal psychological threat into an external physical threat. You feared that Freedman might physically attack you. That was the projection. You defended against that threat by summoning the police -- the law, as it were -- to enforce a ban. And that was a reversal of the act of summoning the law to enforce a union, a marriage, between you and Mr. Freedman." (Projection + reversal) = paranoia = latent homosexuality. I would say that you and Mr. Freedman were made for each other. You are both paranoid. You are both . . . " "STOP!," you say, "I don't want to hear anymore!"
"Doctor," you say, "I couldn't care less about Freedman. Since he's been banned, I don't even think about him." To which the doctor would respond: "Out of sight, out of mind."
Anyway, that's the Freudian perspective. Remember, as Ellen would say, it's now legal in Massachusetts.
One word. Face it, Brian. You're a forty-year-old male. You've worked your entire adult life in a profession traditionally dominated by women (with a fair quota of male homosexuals). Sure, you're married. But you have no kids--at an age when most married guys have kids. I think--I really think you may have issues. And I think my letters to you, and some of the openly and persistently sexual content of those letters might have sent you over the top.
Not that I'm any better. Here I am, a fifty-year-old male. No wife, no woman of any kind. An underemployed, then an unemployed lawyer. But quite frankly, maybe we were made for each other. Maybe that's the connection between us. Metaphorically speaking, maybe it's a case of "Billy Bean" meets "David Catania, Esq."
Overture. Opening. Prelude. Season opener. First pitch. First swing at the bat. Whatever.
Listen, buddy. I know we don't have a lot in common--on the surface at least. I'm into baseball. You're into opera (Fag!). But at a deeper level, a symbolic level, aren't they really the same thing -- opera and baseball?
Think about it. Both opera and baseball, as someone once said, are genres of voluptuous lyrical expression, loved beyond rational explanation by the devotee, that any sane human bred into a culture of quick-riff garbage finds skull-numbingly boring, primarily because both demand an extended commitment of time and attention. Both opera and baseball freeze the moment in order to plumb and exalt the soul's emotion, unfurling at a stately, infuriating, nineteenth-century pace until, in one case, the fat lady trills at last or, in the other, Don Zimmer finally finishes scratching himself.
Listen, I'm just looking for a buddy to shoot the shit with in the corner booth of a diner. Is that too much to ask? That's what I'm gonna tell the cops when I call them. "Officer, my psychologist, a D.C. employee has recommended that I ask Brian to shoot the shit with me in the corner booth of a diner, and Brian refuses my overture. Is that legal? Isn't there something you can do? Can't you force him to do something?"
Or what about a friendly game of poker? You know a few years back Len Garment started up his monthly poker club. Bob Strauss and Bob Bennett (yes, Bennett and Strauss are poker buddies) and "the Chief" Bill Rehnquist and Garment get together--or at least they used to -- for a friendly game of poker, once a month.
I don't play poker. But I play Gin Rummy. Maybe we could get together for a high-stakes game of Gin Rummy. High stakes or "high steaks." I could bet my entire monthly food-stamp allowance on a "high steaks" game of Gin Rummy. That's ten bucks, buddy.
What do you say? Remember, in your paradigm, you have a duty--a legally-enforceable duty--to do what you're not legally required to do. You made up that ridiculous rule. You have yourself to blame.
Or are you just a double-standard MF'er? A Master of Fraud!
Check you out later, Brian. Think about the paradigms.
P.S. By the way, I found out that Brad Dolinsky--Brad Matthew Dolinsky, M.D.--is a Columbia grad. Yes, Captain Vagina (apartment 600) is actually Ivy. Can you believe that?

The Middle-Aged Man and the Holy See

2004-05-19T12:45:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. Some disappointing news. I'm sorry, but I have tobreak this to you.

After careful consideration, I've concluded that I cannot accept the honor of being the Prime Minister. Yes, I must decline the call of my party to assume the all-important leadership position of our people. Hope you can get over that, Brian. It's time to move on.

What underlies my decision? Well, I was thinking about something my old buddy Hardy-Ames Hill, the idealistic individualist, once said: "I'm not somebody who's willing personally to barter or change my morals or change my values to be accepted by anyone. That's not being true to yourself."

I can recall reading something that Albert Einstein said in 1948, at the time of the creation of the State of Israel, when he was asked to become Israel's first president -- a largely ceremonial position.
He said that as Israel?s president he could foresee that there would be occasions when he would be called upon to support and promote policies that might be at variance with his values and beliefs. He said he could not in good conscience do that; he had to be true to himself. So he had to decline the offer to be Israel's first head of state.

Incidentally, do you pick up the shades of Hamlet there? "That's not being true to yourself." As the old windbag Polonius said. -- "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." I have the same philosophy, the same philosophy of life and philosophy of politics. Just as I don't vote in elections, I must also decline elective office. "Neither a voter nor a Prime Minister be." Besides, I don't want my toothbrush being used to clean the look -- if you recall that sordid episode in Hardy's tenure as Prime Minister.

You know -- as the actor David Duchovny once said in another context -- I always feel, when somebody calls you Prime Minister, it's like they're saying "fag." You know what I hear when somebody says Prime Minister? I hear pussy. (That's Duchovny speaking.) I don't know why. Maybe the best things about the celebrity of public office are the things like being able to get that seat on Air Force One that you wouldn't normally get, but that's kind of like cheating. They're not being nice to you. You're getting good service, sure, but in the end they're thinking: pussy. I know they are. They're thinking: He couldn't take it if we didn't bring him those special chocolates. They're thinking: He couldn't take it if he had to sit in coach."

Well, believe me, I can take it, buddy. I've sat in coach. It's not that bad. The long and short of it is, I can live without being Prime Minister.

Well, just five more months, and I'll be making my comeback to Cleveland Park. What do you have planned for my return? Any special celebrations? Forget about the champagne and caviar. A modest celebration will do. You know, it's pretty exciting. The thought of a comeback. "The Comeback Kid," that's what they'll be calling me on Ordway Street. Like Napoleon making his way back to France after the disgrace of Elba. One thing, Brian, just don't ever send me to St. Helena. Now that -- that -- I couldn't take. Hopefully, there won't be any Waterloos in my future. When I come back, I'll be back to stay. And won't that be a dream come true!

I'm wondering what the future holds for me in terms of my psychotherapy. Man, do I need psychotherapy! Dr. Bash, The Mad Monk, has promised me that if she can't locate a therapist for me, she, personally, will treat me. That should be a real trip. Psychotherapy with the Mad Israeli emigre.

Dr. Bash thinks I'm a fraud. She's convinced that I'm faking my illness. That I don't actually believe that I'm under surveillance. The whole thing about the Pope knowing me, and having read my writings was too much for her. I still remember when I told her: "All the Prime Ministers of Israel know me, they know of me at least -- and they've read my autobiography." Well, that was too much for Dr Bash. "You're making it up. I don't believe you," she said.

I have to tell you, it makes complete sense to me. The whole thing. The Prime Ministers, the President of the United States, even the Pope. They all know me.

The interesting thing is that it does sound incredible on the surface. But when you start to look at the details--it makes sense. Yes, I admit it, if you look at the whole thing from a Macro-paranoia level it sounds like a script that even Chris Carter would reject. (Remember Chris Carter? Producer of the X-Files? Twin Peaks?) But at a Micro-paranoia level, the pieces start to fall into place.

Here's my thinking. These are the pertinent details.

GARY FREEDMAN. Employed as a paralegal at the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld (1988-1991). The firm's executive partners include Robert S. Strauss and Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. Freedman's status as an underemployed attorney, with a Master's degree in International Trade from American University brings him to the attention of the firm's managing partners.

Upon being considered for a full-time paralegal position Freedman submits to the firm's legal assistant administrator letters of recommendation written by the Secretary of the Society of International Law (the late Seymour J. Rubin, Esq., Professor of Law, American University) and a letter by a former assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The sheer ridiculousness of Freedman's status ensures that he's going to get noticed--if not in a good way, then in a bizarre way, a way ensured to trigger hushed snickers in the inner recesses of the firm's offices.

Freedman is of mixed Polish and Jewish heritage. His mother was a Polish Catholic and his father was Jewish.

Freedman writes his autobiography. The structure of the writing is experimental. Part play, part poem, part novel. The autobiography would tend to appeal, at least as a curiosity, to a person with a literary background.

Freedman has a strong interest in classical music, and the autobiography features an abundance of material about music, musicians, and classical composers.

ROBERT S. STRAUSS. Executive partner and founder of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Areas of concentration include international trade law. Served as Special Trade Representative of the United States in the Carter Administration. Served as Ambassador to the Middle East Peace Negotiations in the Carter Administration. Met with President Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel.

Ego-maniac. The publication "Current Biography" (1992) reports that Robert Strauss, after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Begin and Egyptian President Sadat, exclaimed: "Begin was intrigued, captivated by me . . . . [and] Sadat was crazy about me, and I him" (quoting Time Magazine, March 14, 1988). From the perspective of the psychiatric nomenclature, the personality quality of grandiosity (a symptom of narcissistic disturbance) will tend to be associated with the qualities of "lack of empathy" and a tendency to "breach boundaries." A grandiose individual might have no compunctions about obtaining confidential mental health information about an employee (boundary breach), disseminating the material to third parties (i.e., be totally lacking in empathy for the privacy concerns of that employee)--all for the purpose of glorifying his own massive ego.

Strauss's father, Charles Strauss, was an immigrant from Germany, where he trained as a classical pianist. Charles Strauss tried to make a career for himself in the United States as a classical piano concert performer.
Strauss has an interest in biomedical issues. He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Ronald Reagan Institute of Emergency Medicine of The George Washington University, and has funded a chair in neurology at The University Of Texas Medical School. Freedman was an out-patient at the GW Medical Center Department of Psychiatry from 1992-1996, during the tenure of psychiatry department chairman Jerry M. Wiener, M.D. The late Dr. Wiener was an internationally- recognized expert in psychiatry and psychoanalysis. He served as President of the American Psychiatric Association in 1994 and was a past president of The American Psychoanalytic Association. Dr. Wiener, like Robert Strauss, was a native of Texas and attended the Baylor College of Medicine in Waco.

VERNON JORDAN. One of three executive partners of Akin Gump, along with Robert Strauss. (I don't know the identity of the third executive partner).

Close friend and confidant of former President William Jefferson Clinton (1993-2001).
Serves on the board of trustees of Howard University. Strong interest in education issues.
WILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTON. Actively involved in Middle East Peace negotiations. His administration negotiated a blueprint for peace, the so-called Wye Accords. National Security adviser Samuel ("Sandy") Berger was formerly a partner at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, where Gary Freedman was employed from 1985 to 1988.

President Clinton's attorney in the Paula Jones case was Robert Bennett, Esq. at Skadden Arps. The legal assistant administrator at Skadden Arps was Freddie Rios (1991- ), Gary Freedman's supervisor at Hogan & Hartson (1985-1988).

Skadden Arps employs as an attorney Michal Barak Lotenberg, Esq., the daughter of former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak.

Robert Bennett's brother is William Bennett, a highly-literate individual and author, and former Secretary of Education.

Robert Bennett also represented Henry Zapruder in litigation with the United States government concerning the ownership rights to the famous Zapruder film of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Zapruder's daughter, Alexandra, has been romantically involved with Craig W. Dye, since 1988.

CRAIG W. DYE. Romantically involved with Alex Zapruder, daughter of tax attorney Henry Zapruder. Employed as a paralegal at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson, beginning in 1986. Worked closely with Hogan legal assistant administrator Freddie Rios in 1986-1987 on the firm's furniture inventory, in preparation for the firm's move from 815 Connecticut Avenue to Columbia Square. Dye was Gary Freedman's best and perhaps only friend (for a time). Dye has a master's degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. Dye scored in the 99th percentile on the law school admission test(in 1991) and was admitted to the leading law schools including Harvard, but declined to attend law school.

EHUD BARAK. Former Prime Minister of Israel. Negotiated the Wye Accords during the Clinton Administration.

Fluent in English. Earned master's degree in systems analysis from Stanford University.
Trained as a classical pianist.

Three daughters, one of whom practices law at Skadden Arps (Michal Barak Lotenberg), where Robert Bennett is a partner.

HIS HOLINESS POPE JOHN PAUL II. Fluent in English. First pope to visit Israel (1999?). Met with Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Polish-born Cardinal. As a young student, was interested in drama and literature. In school days he acted with an amateur theatrical troupe and participated in poetry readings and literary discussions.
Avocations included acting, theater, and playwriting. At age forty (1960), while a priest, the future Pope wrote a play titled "The Goldsmith Shop," which tended toward symbolism, metaphysical, and poetic presentation and was critically acclaimed for its very modern and sophisticated approach to stagecraft.
Well, breathtaking, isn't it, buddy. There's no doubt in my mind. The Pope knows me, and has read my works. He's one of my fans. So much for the Mad Monk's denials. If nothing else, I think this presentation shows that I'm not making up my beliefs. I really believe what I say, because it all works out at a Micro-paranoia level.

Here's the interesting thing. Dr. Bash was convinced that I made up the whole story because when she asked me: "Why do you think all this is going on, all this surveillance? Why is it going on?" I answered: "I don't know." Dr. Bash said: "That tells me you are making up this whole story about the Pope and the Prime Minister of Israel, because every other delusional patient I have ever worke with has been able to say why he believes his in delusions. You can't tell me why you believe what you say you believe. So I have to conclude that you're making these things up."

Well, now I can say why I believe what I believe. This doesn't mean it's actually happening. But I think it establishes my bona fides. I believe--I sincerely believe--what I say I believe because it makes sense to me in terms of the connections of the parties. And we know that's the way my mind works. I am driven, by the nature of my cognition and my paranoia, to link up people and events, to look for symbolic meanings, to investigate people's backgrounds, and to see connections. Crazy as my ideas are, they have their roots in my cognitive style--the need to associate ideas and people, to link up "like with like"--and to see connections between myself and people in my environment.

Again, I realize this is all part of my psychopathology, as I told David Callet years ago. (David Callet is from Pennsylvania, and like myself attended Penn State. That means something, right? We also are very literate individuals with a high level of integrity. We're both "virtue-a-holics." Obviously, David Callet would have a special interest in me. -- Now, of course, that's a little humor, but not just humor.)

The fact is, I can't prove that my ideas about the connections between people are real, or that people have some connection to me. But I think I've established my bona fides, based on what we clearly know about the nature of my personality. I compare, and I link up ideas and people.

In answer to Dr. Bash's question: "Why do you believe this is going on?" I will say: "I believe this because of the nature of my cognition, and the fact that I need to link up my immediate surroundings with people and issues on a grander scale. My real-life connections to Craig Dye and Freddie Rios and my more tenuous links to Robert Strauss and Vernon Jordan link up, at a much more tenuous level, with Prime Minister Barak and the Pope. My mind just expands ideas outward--from the most immediate to the most distant. I wonder if Dr. Bash can accept this explanation?

Be that as it may.

I was doing some reading about the Pope. Funny thing. He has things in common with my old buddy Hardy-Ames Hill. Hardy's mom died when he was ten years old. I think it was a defining event for him. I think his integrity as a person and his idealism can be traced to his psychological struggle with his mother's death.
And don't you know! The Pope's mother died when little Karol was nine years old. He must have been a sensitive child (you can see his artistic temperament in his interests and avocations, going back to his schoolhood days). He must have been really affected by his mother's death.

And oddly enough, he has things in common with Hardy. The idealism. "To thine own self be true." The leadership qualities. "In high school I played soccer, tennis and I swam. I always swam. In my senior year I captained all three teams." Then on the TV reality series "Big Brother" you could see the leadership qualities and the mentoring of the other contestants--and his need to protect the weaker players.

I remember what Hardy said to the other houseguests when he won the Head-of-Household position for the second time (by the way, he holds the record on that show for earning the title three times): "If anyone thinks this Head-of- Household thing has f-----g gone to my head, just stop me in my place and fucking tell me. I ain't better than any of you's guys."

Buddy, can't you just hear the Pope saying that to the College of Cardinals?

Check you out later, Brian. It's been great, buddy.

P.S. You think Shelly Cohen at Morgan, Lewis and Bockius knows nothing about this? He's a GW trustee and Henry Zapruder's old tax law partner at MLB. And of course, Shelly Cohen knows Gene Lambert, Esq. at Covington & Burling, another GW trustee. Give me time and enough computer space, and I could link up the entire world!

By the way, don't tell Shelly Cohen that I haven't filed a tax return in years. He's the former IRS Commissioner. The IRS is just about the only federal agency that hasn't investigated me at one time or another. Let's keep it that way.

A Law School Reunion

2004-05-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. What's up?
I got a letter yesterday from my old law school, Temple University in Philadelphia. They're holding a reunion for the classes of 1982, 1983, and 1984. I graduated in 1982. Here's something we could do together, buddy! Interested?
Reunite, Rekindle, Reunion 2004. It's being held on Saturday May 22, 2004. There's going to be a full open bar, music by DJ (who's DJ?), Hors D'oeuvres, auction of old library carrels (now that sounds exciting!), and complimentary parking in Liacouras lot.
Liacouras lot. Peter Liacouras used to be a law professor at Temple. He rose to Dean of the law school, then President of the University. He's now emeritus. He was Dean of the law school back when I was a student. I remember the school held a 50th birthday party for him back in 1981. I remember Professor Reinstein (now Dean Reinstein) saying that Liacouras couldn't believe he was 50; I know the feeling. (I was taking a course in Constitutional Law backing 1981. Reinstein had just returned from Washington, having completed a stint at the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, in the Carter Administration). I later took a course on Employment Discrimination Law (my specialty!) with Professor Reinstein. Eva Bleich was in that class: an old friend of mine. Frau Bleich's father was a Berlin Jew; both her parents were concentration camp survivors. Frau Bleich's husband, Robert (originally a mathematician), was also a lawyer.
President Liacouras knew my sister. Back in the late 1960s, when my sister was an undergraduate at Temple, she worked part-time as a secretary at the law school's unit in law and psychiatry. She was "Estelle Freedman" back then.
Maybe Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert can give us a ride up to Philly. President Swygert used to be a law professor at Temple Law School back in my student days.
Be that as it may.
I had my penultimate session with my psychologist at GW yesterday. Just one more session, next week (May 24, 2004), and I'm done baby, I'm done!
Indira Gandhi--as I call her affectionately--had some positive points and some drawbacks. She was a nice person. Very intelligent. Thoughtful and introspective. She was noncoercive, unlike many of the therapists-in-training I've seen in the past.
But there was a basic incompatibility between us. I just found her style (and this was me, not her) vapid and vacuous. There was a basic meaninglessness about the enterprise from week to week. I never got to build, or create, a narrative. I would come in, sit down, make a few comments. And it was like Pimlico: "They're off and running." She would start asking questions. She would keep asking questions till we got to the stretch. Then we'd reach the finish line. We went nowhere fast, as they say. Each and every week.
Then the whole process would start up again the nest week. No critical mass ever developed. There was little continuity from session to session, and little synthesis of ideas within a session. That's disturbing for me. I live--absolutely live--for continuity and synthesis. Example: look at my letter yesterday. I attempted to show how each detail was a metaphor, and the cluster of details could be seen to be interrelated at a metaphoric level. Now that's analysis! That's the work of analysis, my friend.
The themes yesterday were fraud, corruption, deception, Watergate, The Dreyfus Case.
Mayan Art, French Impressionistic painting, the huge marbleized columns in The National Building Museum, Watergate, The Dreyfus Affair. On the surface, these ideas (or issues) have nothing in common. But as metaphors, they tie together. The thing in analysis is to take the patient's free associations and find a common denominator.
Fraud:
Mayan Art: a metaphoric "veneer" of civilization that concealed a society living at the edge of an abyss, on the edge of the Central American Rain Forest. The few privileged persons at the pinnacle of Mayan society lived at the expense of the many who eked out an impoverished and disease-ridden existence.
French Impressionism: a metaphoric "veneer" of civilization that concealed a society at the edge of the abyss of World War I. The few privileged persons depicted in the paintings lived at the expense of the many who eked out an impoverished existence, working 16-hour days in factories and mines under horrible conditions, with no legal protections--as Professor Reinstein will attest.
The Huge Marbleized Columns at The National Building Museum: a literal veneer of plaster and paint that concealed thousands of bricks that formed columns that held a huge structure in place. The columns are a metaphor for fraud and corruption, giving the appearance of marble, when in fact they are faux marble. The columns support a huge structure of bricks, just as a large corrupt enterprise is supported by a deceptive appearance of legality. RICO. Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization. A corrupt organization whose illegality is plastered over--"marbleized" as it were--and supported by the machinations of a sizeable column of persons ("a mob of bricks," as it were).
Watergate: Burglary; illegality; small enterprise concealing a larger corrupt enterprise; deception; concealment; corruption leading to the highest level of government.
(Incidentally, Robert Reinstein can tell you the story of a law school buddy of his who was once interviewed by President Nixon during Nixon's days in private practice (with Len Garment) in New York, in the mid-sixties. The buddy wasn't hired, but Nixon gave the kid a souvenir "Vice-President" pen.)
Dreyfus case: Treason; illegality; small enterprise concealing a larger corruption; a racist society; a society depicted in the art of the times as one of ideal beauty.
Yes! That's the work of analysis. But it takes ingenuity to see the patterns of thought in a patient's concrete observations and anecdotes. Inexperienced therapists get caught up in the details. "Bricks, paintings, burglary? What is this patient talking about?" Inexperienced therapists don't know how to just shut up and listen. They don't get the larger picture. The larger impressionistic canvas, as it were.
In the end the patient is blamed for lack of progress. "He talks about inconsequential facts. He blathers on and on. It's not my fault that the patient doesn't progress. He doesn't talk about his feelings. He doesn't talk about important issues." But of course the feelings are embedded in the ideas the patient talks about. The patient is not necessarily aware of those embedded feelings. When the patient talks about "bricks," or "burglary," the feelings have to be brought to the surface by analysis. And analysis itself is a process of looking at the details, but not getting caught up in them. You need to look at the details as small, minute expressions of larger entities--larger structures of thought and feeling. In fact, analyzing a patient is like analyzing a corrupt business. "Why, we just sell pizzas. Nothing more. Look at our books. Check our suppliers. What do you think we are, the Corleone Family?" Indeed!
But most of that cannot be taught. It's a style of thinking. To be an analyst, the individual-in-training has to have a pre-existing disposition to look at the world in a certain way. The trainee has to have a cognitive style that permits--or more, requires--him or her to look for ever-larger structures in the flotsam and jetsam of the patient's ideational productions. And that cognitive style cannot be taught. The trainee either has that ability, or cognitive style, or not.
Now, yes, many patients talk in a flood of feeling. Sometimes, however, those are the most severely-disturbed patients. That's one of the ironies of therapy. Sometimes the most severely-disturbed patients are the ones who are easiest to treat, in a sense. Such patients immediately launch into feelings, castigation and neediness. The therapist cannot help but see the problem. The patient is obviously distressed and expresses that distress in a summons for help. "Please, please, doctor, I am in pain. Help me. Oh, you never help me. You take my money, but you do nothing. You just sit there." The patient is dependent, and that dependency shows.
Ironically, a more highly-developed patient can be harder to treat, precisely because of his complexity and structuralization. Typically, there tends to be more reserve, more tolerance for pain, more highly-developed capacity for symbolization in the more psychologically-mature patient. It's not always easy to discern the problems. (Metaphorically, like the real Corleone Family, the deception rises to the level of an art in the psychologically-complex neurotic). The therapist can very easily get lost in the "maze" of symbol and metaphor--the "bricks and marbleized columns" of the patient's narrative, as it were.
Here-see for yourself.
Primitive patient:
"This weekend was a pure horror. I felt alone, abandoned. I have no friends. I gazed out the window. Passers-by walked down the street. Couples walked hand in hand. People who had other people. Happy people. It's as if the entire world is made up of happy people. People with friends. While, I, alone in my apartment, sat depressed, aimless. Desperate really. I live on the edge of despair, doctor. You don't help me. You never help me. You are worthless, doctor."
Inexperienced Therapist's Report to Supervisor:
"Patient is lonely and depressed. Patient seems to be on the brink of despair. Suicidal ideation cannot be ruled out, though patient did not talk about harming himself. Patient needs support and re-assurance. Patient needs to be shown alternative ways of viewing his situation. Patient is compliant and cooperative, and talks freely about his feelings."
More Structured Patient:
"I went to The National Gallery of Art this weekend. I visited the Mayan Exhibit and an Exhibit of Small French Paintings. Then I went to the National Building Museum, and gazed at the huge marble columns. I was lonely and depressed. But seeing these things took my mind off my problems."
Inexperienced Therapist's Report to Supervisor:
"Patient denies his feelings. Patient is mired in details and circumstantiality. Patient discusses anecdotes, with little insight into his feelings. Patient undoubtedly has feelings of shame about his social isolation, but is unable to talk about his feelings because they threaten his fragile sense of narcissistic integrity. Patient needs to talk about his feelings in a supportive setting. However, this needs to be done in a careful manner. Clearly, patient is easily threatened by insight into his underlying distress. Patient's fragile sense of self could easily collapse in the face of a too-rapid and too-deep exposition of the underlying causes of his psychic pain. Patient tends to be uncooperative and noncompliant with the therapeutic process. He tends to become defensive and angry when confronted with the vapid quality of his narrative."
Right! Guess again!
There's something so frustrating about my therapy with non-analytically-trained therapists. It's like going back in time -- five years, ten years, twenty years -- in my mind, only to come to rest on a parking lot. Like a car parked on a parking lot in the inner city. I feel I never get beyond that.
Janet Malcolm puts the whole issue so clearly and fully in "Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession." She quotes a seasoned analyst's reflections on his treatment, years earlier, of one of the patient's he worked with early in his training. The psychoanalyst has the insight and integrity to see that the limitations and problems were his own, not necessarily those of the patient.
Malcolm writes: "[The patient] went on and on, berating me for my coldness and passivity and indifference to her sufferings--and that was the true beginning of the analysis. But I didn't know it. I sat there cowering under her anger and irked with her for not knowing that what I was doing as I 'just sat there' was classical Freudian analysis. I found her in every way disappointing. I had expected a patient who would free-associate, and here they had sent me this banal girl who just blathered. I didn't understand--I was so naive then--that her blathering was free associating, that blathering is just what free association is. Worse than that, I thought I had to instruct her on the nature of her unconscious. I would laboriously point out to her the unconscious meaning of what she said and did. Only after years of terrible and futile struggle did it dawn on me that if I just listened--if I just let her talk, let her blather--things would come out, and that this was what would help her, not my pedantic, didactic interpretations. If I could only have learned to shut up! When I finally did learn, I began to see things Freud had described -- to actually see for myself symptoms disappearing as the unconscious became conscious. That was an incredible thing. It was like looking through a telescope and realizing that you are seeing what Galileo saw." Malcolm at 70-71.
My wish. My fervent wish. Listen, you chorus of therapists out there! Could you all just let me drive around, take a look at the sights, and stop directing me to the parking lot! Meaning is disclosed by the succession of scenes that can be seen from the car window, and not by sitting in "park" in the place of your choosing, you leeward-chorus of therapists!
Check you out later, buddy. You're a good listener, Brian. Has anybody ever told you that?
P.S. Just because it's now legal in Massachusetts, don't be getting any funny ideas, Brian.
P.P.S. Angela Purnell runs a real professional organization up here at Tenley. You could learn a few things from her. It's quiet and professional up here. A quiet place to think and reflect, the way a library should be. A couple of weeks ago I told her about my problems with you. I said: "Do you know Brian Brown?" A spontaneous and genuine smile flashed across her face: "Yes, I know Brian." Apparently Ms. Purnell is an FOB.

Monet, Manet, Tippy-Tippy Day Day

2004-05-17T12:13:00.000-07:00

Brian-

Hey buddy. How was your weekend? My weekend was as vacuous as usual. My life is lived in my mind. I wander the highways and by-ways of my mind, with little concern for what transpires beyond the border of my blood-brain barrier.
Although I've written innumerable letters, many of them among the tensest and most poignant ever written, I have been little more than an unimportant bachelor to my contemporaries, a recluse, a nobody. I am undoubtedly aware of the sharp originality of my work, but I refuse to think of a publisher and, during my lifetime -- to date -- only one of my letters has found its way into print. That was a letter I wrote to "The Daily Collegian" in the Winter term 1974, at Penn State. It concerned the issue of organized labor. It was pro-labor. I regard publication as "the auction of the mind." and, secretly trying to perfect my daringly unorthodox missives, I hide the writing from all but a few privileged eyes. Consider yourself a privileged person, buddy.
My weekend repeated in large part my weekend last. I ventured out to The National Gallery once again. This time to see the exhibits I missed last weekend. I stopped off to see the exhibit of ancient Mayan art. It is the art of a lost world. It's peculiar when you think about it. A group of people, a collection of tribes in Central America, for a brief moment in history, rose to glory out of the tropical rain forests and created lasting monuments to their culture--only to succumb to the ravages of war, degradation of the environment and disease, finally retreating back into the rain forests from whence they came. Some law firms are like that, you know. A handful of lawyers get together, form a partnership--the firm grows to glorious heights, then withers and the partnership is dissolved.
While at the Gallery I perused the collection of small French paintings. Impressionistic paintings. I've seen the exhibit before. But it never ceases to delight. The paintings depict a lost world of elegance and grace. But that society was rotten to the core, really. What the paintings conceal are the ravages of uncontrolled economic exploitation--child labor, the mines, factories where people worked 16-hour days, six days a week. Not to mention the corruption of the French Third Republic, which reached the culmination of moral decay in the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890's. And then when you stop to think that this was the very society that immediately preceded the catastrophe of the First World War! It's really a fool's paradise in a sense. All you see in those paintings, really, is a fragment of a society, window-dressing, no more. Those painters certainly had a perspective on perspective, but had no perspective on the social problems of the day. I, too, loose perspective gazing at those enchanting scenes of life's most charming moments: a faux paradise.
There's an odd parallel between the exhibit of French paintings and the Mayan exhibit. The Mayan exhibit shows the art of courtly life. But what of the common Mayan, living at the edge of the rain forests, eking out an existence, fighting a never-ending battle with tropical diseases and the ever-present threat of famine. So too the French Impressionists depicted, unknowingly, a world at the edge of an abyss.
Don't you think those French painters had to have been near-sighted? Monet, Manet, Tippy-Tippy-Day-Day? The paintings all seem to have been painted as through a fog. Another oddity. The paintings comprise an exhibit of "small French paintings." The pictures were painted by artists no more than five-feet high, I guess. Impressionistic Lilliputians. Small French paintings painted by small French painters. Toulouse-Lautrec is a case in point. A case of stunted-growth -- poor Toulouse. A pathetic genius.
I also paid a visit to The National Building Museum. Have you ever been there? It's a rather bizarre architectural creation. The huge columns are a fraud, by the way. They mimic marble. But of course, they're faux marble: they're really plaster-covered brick columns painted to resemble marble.
They're a convincing fraud, though. Architectural RICO, as it were. They're totally believable in their deception until you begin to think about the fact that there are no seams in them. If they were marble, they would be blocks of marble with seams. The faux marble is continuous from floor to ceiling, a dead give-away. No marble columns that size could possibly be one large block of marble without a break. I'm sure Ellen--architectural maven that she is--would notice that scam immediately.
I suppose the building gives you some idea of what the ancient baths in Rome looked like in their day. I guess you've been to the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. Shame they weren't preserved for future generations. Perhaps St. Peter's gives some idea of the breadth and feel of what the ancient baths must have been like.
In any event, The National Building Museum is like walking into a Seinfeld episode. Instead of a coffee table book about coffee tables, you're confronted with an architectural curiosity about architecture: a building about buildings. I'm sure that's where Larry David got the idea for the coffee table episodes, don't you think, buddy?
You know The National Building Museum started out as The Pension Building. Now there's a complex symbolism! When I entered the building I thought: how fitting! Faux marble confronts the faux disabled-worker on disability. No--that's just a little attempt at humor. I'm in fact disabled. Make no mistake about that. And if there was ever any question about the bona fides of my disability claim, well, just ask your friends on the Metro D.C. Police. They know I'm disabled. William made that perfectly clear to the officers. Then there's Dr. Cooper and Dr. Taub. Dr. Meghana Tembe--otherwise known as Indira Gandhi. Virtually everyone is convinced that there's real insanity lurking behind the "paint and plaster" of my columns. Everybody except Dr. Israela Bash, The Mad Monk. I think The Mad Monk is still wedded to the idea that I'm basically functional: silly woman.
Do you think you and William are in the clear about the scam you pulled on the Metro Police? I wouldn't count on it. Anybody with half a brain could see that the whole thing smells.
First of all, I'm alleged to have engaged in the dastardly crime of icon manipulation and the lesser-included offense of icon tampering. William represented this to the Metro Police as if it were a heinous crime, a dastardly act, reeking of depravity. Yet at the same time quite seemingly-ingenuously -- or should I say insouciantly - William denied that he or you, Brian, were aware that I had been tampering with the icons for the entire previous twelve months. You see the problem? Just how serious can the act be (the act of icon tampering) if you can engage in the conduct, undetected, for a 12-month period. It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to see that your position is untenable. The ineluctable conclusion is that you and William knew about my icon tampering (and said nothing--which is the conclusion I've reached) or one must conclude that you and William were completely unaware of my act of icon tampering and that that conduct is absolutely trivial, certainly not warranting a six-month ban from the library.
You can't have it both ways, chappie. "Oh, yes, officer, we never noticed that he was tampering with the icons for the last twelve months, but indeed it' a dastardly offense that caused us endless trouble for the last twelve months." Now, really, Brian.
But I guess that's why you and William are librarians and not rickets scientists. Or is that rocket scientists? I always get the two confused. I'm planning to make the most out of this situation. Wait till I send a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft. Yes, that's my latest game plan. DOJ.
Dear Attorney General Ashcroft:
I want to assure the Office of the Attorney General of the United States that I am cooperating fully in an icon-tampering investigation conducted by the Metro D.C. Police: Officer J.E. Williams and his partner. The putative offense was reported by Mr. William Dacosta at the direction of Brian P. Brown, on April 21, 2004. A preliminary investigation by Mr. Brown disclosed that I had been engaged in the act of icon manipulation (and the lesser-included offense of icon tampering).
Rest assured that I am keeping Officer Williams apprised of all material evidence pertinent to the issues of fact placed in controversy by Mr. Brown. And I will continue to do so. I can do no less.
These issues include the following: (1) I am in a dark place; (2) I suffer from clinical depression; and (3) I have not been taking the medication that was prescribed for me by my physician, which I am legally-entitled not to do. Mr. Brown determined that these facts were incompatible with my continued patronage of the Cleveland Park Branch of the District of Columbia Library.
Believe me, I understand the seriousness of the allegations made against me, particularly the act of icon manipulation (and the lesser-included offense of icon tampering), and will cooperate fully in any investigation carried out by the U.S. Department of Justice. I understand that the Justice Department may be setting up an icon-tampering task force, owing to the gravity of this offense, and that my case might very well serve as a test case for the issue of federal jurisdiction.
I have previously been investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, the Federal Protective Service, and the U.S. Capitol Police. These agencies will attest that I cooperated fully in their investigations.
In order to assist the U.S. Department of Justice I am advising that I have set up a "Web Site" that contains a collection of letters and other documents pertinent to this matter. I am sure that this documentation could very well be invaluable in any investigation carried out by the Department, including the Icon-Manipulation Task Force. I will be contacting the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Director Robert Mueller) as well as members of Congress whose legislative responsibilities encompass the acts described above (namely: dark spaces, depression, and engaging in acts that are permissible under the law).
Thank you very much. Again, I pledge my full cooperation.
Sincerely,
Gary Freedman, Esq.,
Buddy, I'm sure the Metro DC Police are going to love this. I mean absolutely love this-- in a manly way, I'm sure. I have a fantasy about this whole matter. Something that struck me about scandals from the past.
Do remember how the whole Watergate scandal started? It started out as a routine police matter, within the purview of the Metro DC police. The apparent evidence was that there had been a burglary, a common, garden-variety burglary, at the Watergate. In time, and with the ingenious and dogged persistence of two "Washington Post" reporters -- namely Woodward and Bernstein -- the burglary was seen to be a small growth in a larger cancer. A cancer on the Presidency of the United States, as presidential counsel John Dean put it. There's something about that notion that just grabs me, and links up with the deepest recesses of my unconscious fantasy life.
How ironic that it could very well be a trivial and routine police matter that busts this whole thing wide open. And what do you think your future in the DC library system will be once your role is exposed? Do you think "The Powers That Be" down at the Home Office will take kindly to your act of rendering the D.C. government liable to a multi-million dollar lawsuit? I think not, my friend.
Then there was the Dreyfus Case in France at the end of the 19th century. The so-called Affair.
Remember that? How do you think that whole thing got started? It all started with a nosy cleaning lady working the night shift at the Section of Statistics of the Office of the French General Staff. She used to read the trash that the French generals used to toss in the circular files. One evening she came across a curious, a very curious document. It was the so-called "bordereau"--literally, as Barbara Gauntt will translate--a laundry list. It was a laundry list of top-secret French weapons and other issues of military interest that had been issued by the German embassy. It was the memorandum out of which the Dreyfus Affair would emerge. Yes, beware of night-time security guards and bored cleaning ladies; those are the morals of both Watergate and the Dreyfus Case.
How did the famous Bordereau fall into the hands of the Section of Statistics? The "official" version, from which the Ministry of War would never depart, was that the precious document had been found by Mme. Bastian in the wastebasket of Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, the German military attaché, and passed on to Commandant Henry, no doubt on the evening of September 26.
And the rest as they say is history.
I'm gonna make you famous, buddy. You might end up unemployed and destitute, but you'll be famous. Can you ask for anything more in life? Impoverished immortality!
By the way, I've been keeping Officer Williams apprised of the full dimension of the icon-manipulation case. I suppose I have a civic duty to keep the police informed of facts pertinent to conduct on my part that threatens the very core values of Western Civilization.
A barrage of letters to attorneys in the Criminal Division of the Justice Department should cause quite a flurry, don't you think? Remember Watergate? The Cubans? You may very well be known to posterity as the Irish-Catholic whose discovery of icon manipulation (and the lesser included offense of icon tampering) led to the downfall of The Waltz King and his merry dance band.
Check you out later, buddy. Gotta take my medication.
P.S. I told Officer Williams that I think "Schreber-like" dynamics underlie your fears about me--your fear that I might be dangerous. Quite frankly, I'm flattered. But just keep your hands to yourself, buddy!

Pharmacological Fulminations

2004-05-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. How's it goin'?
No long Joycean letter today, replete with interminable ruminations and reflective free-associative introspection.
Just wanted to let you know that I'm free this weekend. My girlfriend is out of town. If you want to get together, just ring me up, buddy. You know I'm always here for you. Though, in truth, I may not be all there for you.
Maybe you could get some of your buddies together, and we could play some softball. Tim Norton, the front-desk manager in my building, plays softball; he's always a reliable ringer. Warning though -- you'll have a lot of explaining to do with your friends when they see that I throw like a girl.
I wanted to advise you of something about my medication. I started taking anti-psychotic medication on March 17, St. Patrick's Day. Dr. Cooper, my psychiatrist, prescribed Zyprexa (Olanzapine) after my psychotic breakdown the day before (March 16th) (Pat Nixon's birthday).
Dr. Cooper didn't prescribe any refills. The medication ran out. So I'm not on any anti-psychotic medication. I know I told you I had stopped taking the medication just before my "arrest," on April 21, 2004. And indeed that was true. But the evening of the arrest, I was so hyped-up that I started taking the medication again -- until a day ago.
The thing is I'd like to undergo evaluation before I start up on anti-psychotic medication again. There are assessment protocols that are used to evaluate the indications and effectiveness of anti-psychotic medication. As you probably can guess, psychotic thinking is characterized by specific, identifiable warps in thinking. The effectiveness of any anti-psychotic medication can be evaluated by looking at the amelioration of those specific and typical warps in thinking.
I was reading that in the clinical evaluation of Zyprexa, the following protocols (see below) were used to obtain a baseline of psychotic thinking (in the test subject's unmedicated state) and comparison readings at various dose levels of the drug.
I thought it would be useful if I were to take the very same tests that were administered in the clinical trials of Zyprexa. Even Dr. Henry Barbot, my current treating psychiatrist, said to me at my last consultation that I need psychiatric evaluation of my current mental state.
Be that as it may.
The following are the tests that were deemed useful in evaluating the psychotic thinking and amelioration of psychotic symptoms in the clinical trial of Zyprexa, the anti-psychotic medication that I had been taking. See Physicians Desk Reference, 57th ed., 2003 edition. Entry for "Zyprexa" at page 1877.
1. Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS)
2. Clinical Global Impression (CGI)
3. Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS)
4. Scale for Assessing Negative Symptoms (SANS)
Subjects who were tested after medication showed a statistically-significant improvement over baseline measurements, using the above protocol.
Personally, I suspect that the protocol would show no improvement in my case upon administration of Zyprexa. I have never shown any improvement in delusional thinking. And in fact it is recognized that antipsychotic medication tends not to affect fixed delusional systems of longstanding duration.
There was no change in my psychological, or ideational, preoccupations while I was on the Zyprexa. If you review documents that I've written, such as my letters to you, I think you would agree that you can see no difference in the letters when I'm on the medication as compared to when I'm not on the medication.
Now, my view of the other meds I'm on is totally different. I'm also on antidepressant medication: Effexor. It's very effective in maintaining my mood; it increases my anger threshold (I can take a lot more crap and not get angry while I'm on the med); and it decreases my ruminations and my obsessive thinking. Believe me, buddy, when medication works, I can see that it works, and I'm enthusiastic about taking the med. I have nothing but positive things to report about the various anti-depressants (SSRI's) I've taken since 1999.
Same goes for the minor tranquilizer I'm on: Xanax. Xanax--like Ativan, another drug of the class benzodiazepine--is effective as a hypnotic and also at reducing my level of agitation. I get very good results with the benzodiazepines and am enthusiastic about them.
But the Zyprexa just doesn't do anything for me. Plus, it makes me very fatigued. I feel like I have congestive heart disease when I'm on Zyprexa; even walking is a strain. And you know how important physical exercise is for me.
I think psychological testing (see above) would bear out my point of view that there's no objective evidence that Zyprexa (or Abilify or Risperdal--the drug William takes) has any therapeutic effect on me.
In any event, give me a call buddy. We can get together and talk about the Indian elections. Gandhi's back, baby, she's back!!
Or we can talk about my current thinking; my current strategic thinking. I was pondering the possibility of talking to your supervisor, Barbara Webb. Or Grace Lyons, The Americans With Disabilities Act Coordinator. But to tell you the truth, as Gandhi would say, I'm thinking it's best to keep this grievance I've got against you going at full throttle. I now have a rationalization to send letters now and then to the D.C. Police, keeping them apprised of the issues that you, my friend, placed in controversy about my mental health and stability. If I got my library privileges back, I'd have no legitimate reason to stay in communication with the good officers who saved you from possible carnage and mayhem (I'm being literary, of course).
Here's the thing, buddy. The Police can protect you from violence, but who will protect you from non-violence. That's Gandhi's Truth.
See ya.

Earth's Constricted Life

2004-05-13T12:22:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. I pen you another missive from my constricted cell--my six-by-eight foot writing hut--attired in the metaphorical garments of the prisoner-of-fantasy that I am.
How are you bearing up under the strain of our falling out? Breaking up is so hard to do, they say. Of course, I've never used a cell phone. (Who would ever call me?) So I have no experience with breaking-up. But I've heard about the phenomenon. Not pleasant, so I hear.
Breakup or not, my epistolary relationship with you continues. Did you foresee that? Did you foresee that I would continue to communicate with you by letter, or did you assume these letters would stop with the end of our physical relationship? Oh, the questions! So many questions.
Did the British authorities anticipate that jailing Mohandas K. would transform a garden-variety Indian malcontent into the future Mahatma? Did "The British Powers That Were" foresee that Gandhi, from his prison cell, would pen the blueprint of Indian autonomy? Probably not.
With me, as with others of my ilk, you always have to take into account the uncertainty principle. One never knows how I will react to a stimulus; and how my reaction will stimulate others, in turn, to act. I suppose that when I was terminated from my position at Akin Gump--(the world that dances to an interminable three-four rhythm)--The Powers That Be assumed that I would continue on my way, pick up a job at another place of employment and never be heard from again. Little did they know or foresee that I would assume the identity of a One-Man Warren Commission, turning my job termination into the crime of the century, assuming the role of Dick Tracey without portfolio--tracking down the malefactors who had denied me a place on the dance floor while the band played on: Um-pah-pah, Um-pah-pah.
Mortality and Immortality. These themes have plagued me since the end of last year, when I turned 50 years of age. What have I accomplished, what remains for me, how will future historians--the Michael Beschlosses and Doris Kearns Goodwins of this world--treat my legacy? Will my work be treated fairly, objectively? Or will my name be blackened by the "nattering nabobs of negativity," as Spiro Agnew would put it?
Like all great men, or potentially great men, I ponder and I worry about my legacy. I ponder how future generations will see me. Future generations must know-I must see to it that they know--how I lived, how I suffered, how I survived. They must know my thoughts, and the ego structure that housed those thoughts, as Stanley Greenspan--the Levittown of psychoanalysts--would say.
Do you wonder about these things, buddy? Do you wonder about your own legacy? I suppose the childless individual is more likely to ponder, and be preoccupied with, his place in the future than those persons who are fortunate enough to have sired biological heirs. Persons who have children see those children as carrying on their seed, and rightly so. For them biological continuity and biological destiny tend to subsume concerns for historical survival. One has a son and assumes that that one individual, at least, will, in the narrowest literal sense (but also in the wider metaphorical sense) "say Kaddish."
I didn't say Kaddish for my father. Where would I have found a minyan? It's hard enough--a near impossibility, in fact, for me to find a single other--let alone nine others who will share some physical space with me. And for that association of ten men to continue for an entire year is beyond the realm of possibility. In fact, my uncle--my father's older brother--arranged that Kaddish be said for my father.
I always wondered about that. About my father's mindset. He had a son, but what did he expect of that son? I had no Jewish education. My Jewish observance was virtually non-existent. What did that mean to my father. A man raised in an orthodox background looks to the son--at least one son--to carry on his name: in the narrow (and in the larger metaphorical sense). Certainly in the real, literal sense, my father passed on little if anything to me to carry on.
But in the realm of fantasy--unconscious wishes, conflicts and prohibitions--as they say in Levittown, perhaps my father passed something on to me that I carry as a burden (not as a cross, to be sure) but as a burden. The lumber, shingles and fixtures of the mind--as Stanley Greenspan would say. Psychoanalysts believe that, you know. The parent passes on to the child not simply conscious beliefs and behaviors, but also the underlying "blueprints" of unconscious mental life.
According to the analysts--and I've read this in Meissner and Erikson--unconscious beliefs, values, and fantasies from generations past will be passed on to future generations. Perhaps for me the burden of the past is so powerful, in some consciously-unrecognized way, that that cause, that burden, that responsibility outweighs any concern I might have about my own personal, biological immortality, and any responsibility I might otherwise have for biological procreation. It is, perhaps, as if The World of My Fathers have spoken: "You will be our servant. You will do a great deed, not for yourself, but for us. You will tell the story of our Wandering. You will pass that story on to your fellows and future generations. That--that--will be your life, that will be the purpose of your existence. You will have no children. You will devote your creative energies to The Word. Our Word. Do this, our son, and you will do all that is required of you!" Perhaps that is my responsibility, my destiny, and my legacy. "You will preserve in Words the World--the unconscious mental World--of your Fathers. And for that deed you will be blessed, Our Son!"
In this sense, I suppose, I resemble the Designated Survivor: for the Designated Survivor "The Word" vitiates the imperative of physical generativity. Perhaps it is this role--the role of transmitter of The Word--that dominates my anguished and tormented existence. At some deep level of the unconscious, properly speaking, the Superego, as Erikson would say, I live out the role of one who knows, who understands, who possesses a gift and responsibility for transmission of The Word. The Word of "The World of Our Fathers," in Louie Howe's phrase.
Knowledge and Memory. These are my tasks, perhaps. To know and to transmit The Word. My physical task will be complete upon publication of The Word. My physical existence has one purpose, and not to procreate my kind, but to preserve The Memory of the Past--the World and experiences of those who have passed. That is the sole task of the Designated Survivor. What is the Designated Survivor? Despairing of physical immortality in the form of continuity of the generations--biological immortality--the elders imposed on one individual the duty to survive for one purpose alone: to communicate The Word.
Suffering. I suffer my role, if that be my role. I seem to live for one purpose alone. That role is instinct with duty and guilt. I feel the burden no less than Goethe's fictional creation, Faust. But while Faust saw no purpose to his torment, I see purpose in mine. To wit: to turn dross into gold--to give permanence to the insubstantial, to transform the idiosyncratic into a universal medium of exchange. Faust despaired because of his lack of awareness. He saw his pain as personal and therefore devoid of value. He gained the ultimate transfiguration at the point he became parable, a parable of universal significance. The alchemist of matter became the "alchemist" of the universal human struggle. The dross of Faust's human existence was transformed into the gold of universal meaning: but only after Faust's death.
My suffering is Faust's suffering. "In every garment, I suppose, I'm bound to feel the misery of earth's constricted life. I am too old for mere amusement and still too young to be without desire. What has the world to offer me? You must renounce! Renounce your wishes! That is the never-ending litany which every man hears ringing in his ears, which every hour hoarsely tolls throughout the livelong day. I awake with horror in the morning, and bitter tears well up in me when I must face each day that in its course cannot fulfill a single wish, not one! The very intimations of delight are shattered by the carpings of the day which foil the inventions of my eager soul with a thousand leering grimaces of life. And when night begins to fall I timidly recline upon my cot, and even then I seek in vain for rest; savage dreams come on to terrorize. The god that lives within my bosom can stir my inmost core; enthroned above my human powers. He cannot move a single outward thing. And so, to be is nothing but a burden; my life is odious and I long to die." Thus said Faust. But Mephistopheles replies: "But somehow death is never quite a welcome guest." And isn't that true!
Goethe wrote: "Man errs so long as he strives." Another truth! Attempt to change your lot or even carry out a task, and you will fail. Allow the stormy seas of life to carry you, and eventually you may be carried back to shore. Am I becoming too philosophical, or perhaps too bathetic for your taste? I have a strong bathetic side that I try to conceal with humor. Yes, humor--but there's little humor in this letter, I admit.
Brian, people say to me--they stop me on the street and say: "Don't you despise Brian for what he did to you? Calling the police and all that? The embarrassment of being caught out as an icon manipulator, or perpetrator of the lesser-included-offense of icon tamperer? Yes, I despise that. I hate you for that. But I see you as my Mephistopheles. A devil, but not simply a devil. I see everything that comes my way in life as an opportunity. You, buddy, summon the darker forces, like so many before you: but that--that--compels me to light a candle in the darkness of my cell (May I admit that I am in a dark place?) How's that for a novel turn of metaphor? Eh, buddy?
I no longer struggle against the current. I've learned, like Goethe, that it's pointless to fight the tide: to attempt to strive. Let the current take you where it will. Let the devil tempt and destroy. I will make an opportunity out of the infernal forces you, and the other powers of darkness, foist on me. I remember President Nixon's ruminations in the darkest days of Watergate, when "The Great Resigner" faced the real--all-too-real--possibility of criminal conviction and imprisonment. He opined: "Some of the greatest political writing has been born out of the experience of the prison cell. I will be like Gandhi. I will welcome my imprisonment as an opportunity to create--in words--a new vision." Yes, that's what Nixon told Garment--Garment who was so constricted in the legal options he could offer his client, the President. "There are worse things than jail," Nixon said. "There's no cell phone there. There is, instead peace. A hard table to write on. The best political writing in this century (the 20th century, to be sure) has been done from jail." Nixon mentioned Lenin and Gandhi to his lawyer, Leonard Garment.
Here I am imprisoned in my cell, my writer's hut, my one-room closeted compound--and I play with words. Perhaps not great words or ideas. But who knows where these meandering thoughts will lead. I face the currents and let them carry me to unknown shores. More bathos! But not mere bathos!!
Yes, I'm in a bathetic -- if not pathetic -- mood.
So how will future generations remember me? Let's say one of your kind--a librarian of this wicked world--a librarian of the 25th century were to write my biography. What would he say? How would he open the account of my sordid life?
Perhaps you can "bank" on his "opening the account" as follows:
THE LIFE OF FREEDMAN AS TOLD BY BRIAN P. BROWN'S 25th-CENTURY HEIR--
IN EARLY TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY America there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages. His story will be told here. His name was Gary Freedman, and if his name--in contrast to the names of other gifted abominations, Saddam Hussein's, for instance, or Kim Jong-Il, Osama bin Laden's, The Waltz King's, etc.--has been forgotten today, it is certainly not because Freedman fell short of those more famous blackguards when it came to arrogance, misanthropy, immorality, or, more succinctly, to wickedness, but because his gifts and his sole ambition were restricted to a domain that leaves no traces in history: to the fleeting realm of icon manipulation and the dark world of the hard-drive. (Pace, Patrick Suskind).
Yes, Brian, that will be my legacy. I am, and will forever be remembered as, an icon manipulator--a shameless and tactless icon manipulator and hard-drive tamperer. And you found me out. You discovered my lack of Icon Tact.
But I had an intimation of your discovery--the discovery you made that would lead to your act of perfidy in calling out the law against me. Yes! Tuesday April 20 ("The Day Before," so to speak), a date which will live in infamy, I noted your lack of Eye Contact. I knew you knew. I sensed the impending disaster. I knew the jig was up.
Like the Big Jew in the Sky, I knew I was about to be betrayed by my own Apostle. The Apostle of Doom. Say what you will about my lack of icon tact, buddy, but I've always had the guts to look you straight in the eye. I always make eye contact. Can you say the same?
Who knows, Brian? Maybe a great friendship will be born out of our legal tussle. Did you know that for Gandhi, opposition and conflict were sources of friendship? Claire Hirshfield will bear me out on that. The chief concomitant of "non-violence" for Gandhi (what Gandhi call "Satyagraha," or truth force) was loyalty to the opponent. You must tell your opponent what you are going to do, precisely and without the faintest deviation from fact. ("I am in a dark place. I will not take medication. I will avenge my pain and suffering.") You must accept your opponent's course of action, which you yourself have foreseen and chosen. Did you think that I--Freedman--didn't know that there would come a point in time when you would react to my provocations? Are you that naive, silly boy? For Gandhi, asking the maximum penalty from the authorities was a form of this. You must never deceive your opponent or take unfair advantage of him. He must always be aware to the full of what you intend. He is, in fact, your friend, from whom you are temporarily separated by a disagreement, but you must never forget that he is your friend. It has often been noted that many of Gandhi's opponents--jailers, policemen, detectives, jail doctors--(perhaps even librarians)--became his greatest friends.
How sad, I must say, that the two bothers who interrogated me--the two African-American policemen--could not see the similarities between me and my struggle, on the one hand, and, on the other, the tactics employed by Martin Luther King, Jr.! It is so sad, really. The police I dealt with seemed to take offense when I, just like Dr. King, offered a hand of friendship to them. They didn't even seem to know of their own heritage!
Do you think my comparison of myself with the Mahatma and Dr. King is a tad overdone? Well, I'm a grandiose narcissist. That's how I earn my living. By my psychopathology. Some make their way in the world by their wits. I make my way by illness.
Well, buddy, it's time for me to move on--to the leering grimaces of the life that await me.
See you later, Brian.

The Fortress of Koenigstein

2004-05-10T12:28:00.000-07:00

The Fortress of Koenigstein Brian--
May 10, 2004
Hey, buddy. I hope this weekend found you in good fettle. Did you do anything?
I spent most of the weekend wandering the Fortress of Freedman.
Wanderer that I am, I explored both internal and external worlds. My external behavior was conventional enough, but my exploration of my inner world and my independence of mind in exploring my relationship in the universe was profound, as usual.
I led an "Arafat existence," as is my wont. I'm old and growing older (or at least middle-aged and growing more so by the minute), trapped in my apartment--like Arafat in his compound at Ramallah--scorned by Malcolm Lassman and Earl Segal, and often ridiculed by my own people (the librarians of this wicked world), but that doesn't mean I or my thoughts are irrelevant. They're simply idiosyncratic. But not irrelevant.
I remained confined to "my compound" on Saturday, plotting strategy. Yes, I feel trapped and hopeless. It's been that way since the occupation. Will I ever come into my own, I wonder.
As the pundits say: "What is Freedman? Everything. What has Freedman been until now? Nothing. What does Freedman want to become? Something." All I want is to come into my own. I don't need a room somewhere, as Alan Jay Lerner would say, (I've already got that)--what I need is to come into my own. I have a book ready for publication. It just sits on a shelf, awaiting its destiny, its publication.
Yes, I spent most of my weekend in my fortress of solitude, like Superman. A fortress in the subterranean depths of 3801 Connecticut Avenue. A futile (or seemingly so), meaningless, and lonely existence in my fortress. Scorned even by God--or, at least, that's how it feels at times. Was it Woody Allen who said: "God Isn't Dead.--He Just Doesn't Want to Get Involved." I sometimes think Lieberson would be a good friend for me. But I'm old enough to be his grandfather. Lieberson is my neighbor, by the way. I'm not a pederast. Young boys aren't my thing. After all, I'm half-Jewish. I'm not a Catholic priest, shunning cloistered nuns for young alter boys. Give me a nubile, young nun with a habit any day. The more lascivious the habit, the better.
"The Fortress of Koenigstein." The King's Stone. Koenigstein--That's Woody Allen's real name, by the way. Did you know that? Koenigstein. No, no. Wait! Allan Stewart Konigsberg. That was Woody Allen's real name. "Konigsberg." The artist whose picture hangs in The National Gallery actually gave his painting the wrong name. The painting should be The Fortress of Konigsberg, but the artist's attention was distracted by a nubile, young nun and he ended up misnaming his own painting. The artist was probably a friend of Rubenstein's.
In any event, Koenigstein translates as "King's Stone." But not the President's Stone. A stone but not a marble block. A stone block. But not a writer's block.
I suffered writer's block most of this weekend. I had no idea what I would write to you about. Right now, it's five antemeridian. It's dark. Should I risk my liberty and admit something? Yes! Let's throw caution to the wind. The dark night of the soul I experienced this weekend led to a more mature and adequate faith.
"How do I revive my creative juices?" "How do I summon the creative spirit? The creative spirit that infuses my communications with you, buddy?" Those are the questions I pondered in my fortress this weekend.
I've moved my writing venue, shall we say. I created a writer's hut within my apartment. A protected cloister. A place where I can meditate, gather my thoughts, and let the transference (my thoughts about you, Brian) take shape. I have a walk-in closet in my apartment, where, this weekend, I set up my word processor along with the paraphernalia of my trade. The signs of my profession, shall we call them. My computer discs, my dictionary. A hard chair suitable for the writer's mind. Comfortable, but not overly so. Yes, I've gone back in the closet. While so many people are coming out of the closet, I've "in-ned" myself. The small space concentrates the spirit and mind. Do you notice a new tone in this letter: a tone of the didactic and enigmatically stoic?
Yesterday I got out. I ventured downtown. I sought inspiration in the outer world. I made my way to The National Gallery of Art. At least, that was my destination.
But on my way, I walked by The National Archives. Did you ever notice, at the Northwest corner of the Archives Building, the memorial to President Franklin Roosevelt? It's touchingly simple. I had seen it before, but I had forgotten about it. The President's Stone. It's a simple block of marble with a terse inscription: "Franklin Delano Roosevelt." And the dates: 1882 - 1945.
A small plaque discusses the history of the monument. And I rephrase from memory: "In the year 194-, in the presence of several close aides, President Roosevelt talked about the kind of memorial he wanted erected when the time came. He pointed to his desk, and said: "It should be a simple marble block, the size of that desk. Engraved on the stone should be my name, and nothing more, except the dates of my birth (1882) and death. And I would like the stone placed on the grounds of the National Archives." The explanatory plaque closes: "Erected by the President's friends, on the fifteenth anniversary of his death." Or words to that effect. And there it stands today. The Franklin Roosevelt Memorial. It is strikingly poignant. The President's stone, as it were.
That's all he ever wanted. A simple marble stone. Of course, the government erected something on a grander scale--more Rooseveltian, shall we say. I've never been to the "official" memorial, have you, Brian? It's a tad silly, don't you think. The statue of FDR's dog, Fala. (And is that a wheelchair under FDR's cape?) I suppose we should be grateful that FDR didn't have a pet hamster. The Memorial Commission would have said: "We need a reproduction of that hamster next to the statue of the President." Yes. The President and his annoyingly-gnawing companion. Fortunately for all of us, he had a dog and not a treadmill-chasing rodent. The bottom line is that President Roosevelt already had what he ever wanted. The President's simple marble block at the northwest corner of The National Archives. What I wonder is, why the Archives? Why did Roosevelt select that site? A question for K.R. Eissler, I suppose.
And so I made my way to The National Gallery. I ventured through the West Wing and the East Wing. Actually, they're all one--East and West. And isn't that a dream come true? I had feelings of nostalgia for the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Philadelphia Art Museum, which was one of my childhood haunts, has a more extensive collection of mediaeval art than The National Gallery. I've always found mediaeval art odd but intriguing. The Philadelphia museum has several mediaeval rooms--yes, the entire rooms from mediaeval buildings were removed from their European provenance and are housed in the museum. In fact, there's an entire mediaeval cloister in Philadelphia, where nuns -- the nonflying variety -- used to gather their thoughts, meditate, and pray to The Big Jew in the Sky.
A painting in the National Gallery caught my interest. "The Fortress of Koenigstein." The painting depicts a ruined castle on a hill, in the town of Koenigstein in Germany. I suppose Woody Allen can trace his roots to that town. The castle, as depicted in the painting, is partly in ruins, but there it stands--alone, safe from invading forces (for the most part). Above the hoi polloi, standing on a hill, like the Parthenon. A metaphor for the grandiose egotist in me, perhaps. A grand castle, in ruins, standing on a hill--its impressive design an atavism of a forgotten age.
Is it really twenty years since I made the decision to move down here from Philadelphia to practice law? Made the decision to go South--literally and (unintentionally) figuratively?
While at The National Gallery I perused the work of a contemporary artist, Jim Dine--born in about 1933, he's still among the living. His work is naturalistic--or realistic--I suppose you'd say. One room of the Gallery was dedicated to a collection of about 40 sketches that Dine had done of ancient Greek marbles from a Greek temple, marbles that are now housed in a museum in Berlin, Germany. An explanatory plaque quotes the artist. "Drawing is not an exercise. Exercise is working out on a stationary bicycle, going nowhere. Drawing is like riding on a real bicycle, taking a journey."
But of course, Jim Dine never met Stanley Schmulewitz, the vice-president of the Tenants' association in my building. Schmulewitz works out on a stationary bicycle in his street clothes. I suppose you could say old Stanley is all dressed up with no place to go. Schmulewitz wears sneakers in the swimming pool, so they say.
Then I made my way to the East Building. "Go East Young Man," as Justice William O. Douglas titled his autobiography. And that I did. Via the underground concourse. Just like Berlin in the old days. You know the stories about the East Berliners digging tunnels under the Berlin Wall, making their way to freedom, and proclaiming "I am free!" Well, I made my way through the concourse and thought: "I.M. Pei!"
There was an exhibit of American paintings titled: "From Bingham to Eakins." It was a small--and disappointing--exhibit. It featured only one important painting by Eakins, a portrait of Dr. William Thomsson--whoever he was. The exhibit occupied only two rooms. You know, Thomas C. Eakins was a graduate of Central High School in Philadelphia, my alma mater. 38th class. June 1861. That class won't be having a reunion any time soon! At least not on City Avenue.
You know the funny thing about the concourse that connects the East Building and the West Building of The National Gallery is that "moving sidewalk." There's that lengthy moving treadmill that connects the West Wing and the East Wing. You walk along the treadmill and you feel like a pet hamster. Actually, Jerry Seinfeld used to do a bit about "moving sidewalks." They have them at airports. "Did you ever notice?" Everything Seinfeld says is always prefaced by "Did you notice?"--at least so his detractors say. I never heard Seinfeld say that. In any event. Seinfeld complains about the people who think they can just stand still on those treadmills. The people who think that because the treadmill is moving they can just stand still, rest, gather their thoughts, meditate, and let the treadmill do the moving. "Move, move, move!" Seinfeld says. "You idiots, don't you know, the moving treadmill is there to speed up your movement--it's not simply there so you can avoid walking altogether." So Seinfeld turned the moving sidewalk into schtick.
Funny thing how Jewish minds differ, but always gravitate toward the same problems. Einstein worked out the mathematics of traveling along a beam of light. It was a problem that haunted him since his boyhood days. Einstein was the first person to see that there's an ineluctable conclusion that flows from the fact that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light--the C in E=mC2. If a person were to travel on a beam of light--hypothetically speaking, of course--he could never achieve anything by walking. That is, he could never speed up his travel time. That follows from the fact that the beam of light is already moving at optimal speed, namely, the speed of light. I suppose that's the origin of the saying "going nowhere--fast."
I just find that odd and intriguing that Seinfeld and Einstein--radically different minds, with radically different intellectual orientations--in some sense worried about the same problem. The idea of an object moving forward while traveling on a moving object. Whatever that means. All the while I think about people who think about moving on moving objects. A problem of psychology. Well, that's where my head is at, buddy.
Check you out later, Brian.
P.S. What I found really galling about you calling the Police on me was the fact that it implied that you thought I was just a common, garden-variety mental case. I'm a mental case, to be sure. But not common. Not garden variety. I'm special. My psychopathology is unique, as I told David Callet sixteen years ago. Yes, I preserved that issue for the record during my brief chat with David Callet, Esq. "I notice you seem to work very hard," said David Callet. I responded: "It's part of my psychopathology." Buddy, if word gets out that I'm an ordinary nut case, it will ruin me, absolutely ruin me! Don't you know that?
P.P.S. NEWSFLASH!!!!
I'm writing this real-time. It's 1:04 postmeridian even as I speak. I'm at the Westend Branch (with Mrs. Jones-is that her name? Jennifer Jones?). There's a nutty guy who frequents this branch. He's here every time I visit this branch. He's neatly dressed, as usual. Today he has on tan slacks and a blue long-sleeved shirt. Anyway, he's always talking to people about his crazy theories about the left-wingers and Communists, and their nefarious schemes that are undermining the world order (or what George Bush, Sr. would call, I suppose, the New World Order. So I got to the library about 8 minutes to 1:00 PM. The library doesn't open till 1:00 PM. The guy was talking in a loud, boisterous voice about how millions are going to die in World War III. How Israel has a nuclear weapon that would make the Hiroshima bomb look like a kid's toy. Really, really horrific stuff. Talk about disrupting the peace. Both the content (violence) and the manner of communication (a boisterous harangue) was probably enough to prompt a passing cop to tell the guy to either shut his trap or move on. Then the guy got into a verbal tussle with another patron, just outside the door of the library. "Shut the fuck up." "You're always in my face, every time I come here." "Nobody's interested in your fucking crap!"
And the librarians inside the library? You mean they couldn't hear the guy outside? Do you see where this is going, buddy? I know you do. The long and short of it is Mrs. Jones opened the door at 1:00 PM and acted like nothing was even a tad askew. It was as if she's used to the guy. When she opened the door, she let everybody--I mean everybody--in. She didn't exclude Mr. Human Bull-Horn.
My thing is - what is it that I did to merit my impeachment? (The question is: Is what you did legal under Scottish law? Is what I did illegal under Scottish law?) I said I was depressed; I said I was not taking one of the three medications that was prescribed for me; and that people will pay for my pain (through lawful means). I didn't talk about millions of people dying, or anybody dying or suffering any physical injury. I'm bemused.
You need to reevaluate your threat assessment procedures, buddy.
By the way, I mentioned before that there's a young lady at this branch (Westend) who lives in my building. Maybe the police should talk to her.

The Wanderer

2004-05-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

The Wanderer Brian--
May 6, 2004
Hey, buddy. What's up on Macomb Street? Anything new? Anything interesting?
I love that line from the movie about the 19th-Century German opera composer, Richard Wagner. "You are ordered to leave Munich forthwith!" So says the royal messenger. Wagner's responds sarcastically: "May I have time to pack?"
At my psychotherapy consult on Tuesday, May 4, 2004, I spoke about my banishment, or exile, from the Cleveland Park library. My therapist asked an interesting question. "What metaphors come to mind that encapsulate your experience of banishment from the library."
What's interesting about that question is that if you look at my autobiography, "Significant Moments," the writing is absolutely replete with references, direct and indirect, to the experience of wandering and exile. It is no exaggeration to say that the theme of exile and wandering form a kind of skeleton around which the entire writing is draped.
There's an interesting book I own by Carol S. Pearson titled "The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By" (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989). The author talks about five basic heroic archetypes in literature. It is the author's observation, or insight, that all literature, from the most heroic and manifestly mythical to the most realistic, contains heroes that conform to fundamental archetypes or stereotypes of mythical types. At pages 20-21 the author provides a chart that lists and compares 11 basic characteristics or assessment criteria of the mythical archetypes that she titles, respectively, (1) the orphan, (2) the martyr, (3) the wanderer, (4) the warrior, and (5) the magician.
The degree to which my personality conforms to the criteria of "The Wanderer" is striking. Let me review "The Wanderer" archetype according to the author's 11 fundamental criteria.
THE WANDERER ARCHETYPE
1. GOAL -- Independence, autonomy
2. WORST FEAR -- Conformity
3. RESPONSE TO DRAGON -- Flees
4. SPIRITUALITY -- Searches for God alone
5. INTELLECT/EDUCATION -- Explores new ideas in own way
6. RELATIONSHIPS -- Goes it alone, becomes own person
7. EMOTIONS -- Dealt with alone, stoic
8. PHYSICAL HEALTH -- Distrusts experts, does it alone. Alternative medicine, enjoys isolated sports
9. WORK -- "I'll do it myself," searches for vocation
10. MATERIAL WORLD -- Becomes self-make man or woman, may sacrifice money for independence (like Jesse Raben)
11. TASK/ACHIEVEMENT -- autonomy, identity, vocation
My experience at the library, the experience of banishment, has an archetypal quality, or existential aspect, to it. While on the surface, the experience of the ban appears to concern the issues of bad conduct and subsequent punishment by the authorities, the outcome of banishment in reaction to my lack of conformity has a wider meaning for me.
This proposition finds abundant support when one considers the pervasive role of The Wanderer in my literary and historical identifications that are manifest in my autobiography.
As one leafs through my autobiography one sees immediately that the overriding quality in my identifications is wandering and the struggles of wandering. Each successive section of the writing focuses on an aspect of wandering: its requisites, goals, and risks.
Melitzah: "Those with an intimate acquaintance of Hebrew texts," so the writing begins. Thus the book opens with an implicit allusion to the wanderings of the Jews and the reliance of the Jews throughout history on The Word and verbally-transmitted tradition as the only things of permanence in their peripatetic existence.
Candide: Wanders the world facing disaster after disaster
The Writer: remains true to himself in an always alien world
Individualism: each man has only one true vocation--finding the way to himself
Conformity: the Wanderer does not conform to reality, he creates his own reality
Jean Valjean -- The Victor Hugo hero wanders through France as a fugitive from the law, and creates his own reality (or environment) in the guise of an assumed identity, Monsieur Madeleine
The Rescue: The rescuer acts as a lone individual
Conformity: The Wanderer places an absolute premium on the absolute value of the individual. He risks his personal safety and security and feels drawn to "the great adventure."
Values: The Wanderer (like Daniel Ellsberg) sees as corrupt the pursuit of group (or collective) goals and seeks to expose that corruption.
Discovery: The Wanderer (like Jeffrey Masson) is convinced that he can discover truths that are not seen by others, and risks his security in pursuit of finding those truths.
Curiosity: The Wanderer is curious and will act with naive foolishness or ruthless aggression in pursuit of discovery
Slander: The Wanderer risks the slander of his fellows in pursuit of his goal of discovery of truth
Punishment: The Wanderer risks societal punishment in pursuit of his goals
Adam and Eve: These two archetypal figures faced banishment as a punishment for the bad act of attempting to satisfy their curiosity
Reciprocity of Curiosity: The curious person who breaches the boundaries of others will, like Nietzsche or Ellsberg, face the breach of his own privacy.
Is there any need to continue? I think not. After my autobiography is published I suppose there will be some eager Ph.D. student who will elaborate the themes I have set forth here. I can just imagine some future American student at a British University writing his M.A. thesis (arranged like a film script, of course) on the subject: "The Theme of the Wanderer in Freedman's 'Significant Moments.'"
That reminds me of an anecdote I find humorous. William Faulkner once participated in a seminar composed of English professors. The seminar's theme was Faulkner's use of symbolism. One English professor asked Faulkner about some theme in his works, and Faulkner replied: "I just write. That's all. I don't worry about symbolism, or anything else. I let you English professors worry about those things. I just write stories."
Be that as it may.
Do you really think medication can help me deal with the core, existential conflicts I experience? Are you that naive, Brian? "He's not taking the medication that was prescribed for him." Oh, well, that's terrible--we'll have to banish him from the library.
It's uncanny--UNCANNY--how my reporting my act of misconduct (i.e., my act of not taking my medication--an act that evidenced my "distrust of experts") set in motion a series of events that led to my banishment by you, Brian. You became an unwitting player in my repetition compulsion, which centers in part on my "distrust of experts" and on my need to be banished, to become a Wanderer. Don't you find that a tad odd? Perhaps my life was becoming a tad too comfortable for me. You brought me back to my "regressive" goal--the need to be banished, and the need to Wander.
I had a consult with my psychiatrist, Dr. Barbot, yesterday. He said he may increase my anti-psychotic medication by 50%--from 10 mg/day to 15 mg/day. I'm sure that will make a big difference for me! A little sarcasm.
It is so frustrating for me that my psychiatrists focus on the issue of medication, when it is so apparent that I suffer from some existential conflicts--conflicts that are pervasive and complex-and beyond medical remediation.
There will be those therapists who, looking at my banishment from the library will say: "Well you knew the rules, and you failed to conform--and you were punished. In the future, perhaps you will remember that punishment, the banishment from the library, and seek to avoid it. Perhaps in the future you will obey the rules and conform." "You need to develop the ego structure that will enable you to conform to acceptable norms of conduct."
But there will be other therapists who, looking at my banishment from the library, will see it as reflecting an existential conflict: an expression of a need to experience and re-experience the state of banishment, the need to wander. In other words, they will see the experience of banishment and punishment as "themes" that need to be repeated again and again, themes that are apparent in my literary and historical identifications. Such a therapist will take the sophisticated viewpoint that, in all probability, I need to negotiate a struggle with wandering and alienation. It's not simply that I fail to conform out of some perversity or lack of ego structuralization. It is, rather, that I am driven by unconscious wishes, conflicts and prohibitions to experience what I in fact experience. And those unconscious, wishes, conflicts and prohibitions--as Stanley Greenspan would say--are housed in their own disturbed ego structure. For such therapists, we are not dealing with a lack of ego structure, but, rather, a deviant structure (perhaps highly developed) that sustains, or houses, disturbed affects and promotes disturbed experiences.
Going back to my autobiography, you find so many identifications with the issue of banishment and wandering. I just can't get away from that idea, which seems so important for me.
Even the titles of some of the books I quote suggest the issue of wandering, estrangement, "occupation" and banishment. Titles such as "Nietzsche in Turin," or "Hermann Hesse: Pilgrim of Crisis," or "Indian Home Rule" (with the British occupation of India the polar opposite of banishment or exile).
Scattered throughout the writing are references to Wagner evicted from his paradise on the estate of Wesendonk, the wealthy merchant.
Freud leaving Vienna to live in exile in London.
Hesse living out his days in exile in Switzerland.
Masson's termination (or banishment) by the Freud Archives.
Masson's reference to his fantasies in adolescence that centered on "hidden Tibetan Monasteries," separate and apart from the mainstream world.
The mythical Castalia--Hesse's fictional creation--a secret order hidden from the rest of the world.
President Nixon's resignation (or banishment) from the Presidency of the United States.
Bruno Bettelheim's release from a Nazi concentration camp and his subsequent "exile" to the United States, where, initially at least, nobody believed his story of Nazi persecution.
The French novelist Emile Zola's escape to London after his conviction on a charge of criminal libel by the French government.
Adam and Eve's banishment from paradise because of their act of disobedience (and conversely, Abraham's absolute obedience to the parent (God) which is associated with annihilation (of Abraham's son, Isaac).
Shakespeare's fictional creation Prospero, who exiled himself to a magic island that he could dominate.
Marcel Proust (author of "Remembrance of Things Past") working alone on his literary masterpiece in his cork-lined room.
Howard Temin, the virologist, working out his discoveries in isolation from his colleagues, and in defiance of accepted wisdom.
The list is seemingly endless.
I am reminded of the psychoanalyst Leonard Shengold's observation that sometimes a patient's pattern of thinking is so pervasive that the psychoanalyst can say, unequivocally, that he has uncovered a vital truth about that patient.
I believe that my underlying truth is the Wanderer fantasy. This psychological need, or fantasy, must be understood and worked through. Medication will not alter that fantasy, that need to experience banishment, the need to discover as a lone wanderer.
Such is my state of alienation from psychiatry! "Alienation!" That's another symptom! Carol Pearson, the author of "The Hero Within" writes that the Wanderer's core affects are "alienation and isolation" (page 14).
Check you out later. By the way, today is my 15th day of my banishment. I suppose I can say that I'm loving and hating it.
P.S. Today (May 6) is Freud's birthday. The old guy would have been 148 years old today.
P.P.S. Carol S. Pearson, Ph.D., is the President of the Center for Archetypal Studies and Applications (CASA), the Director of the Transformational Leadership Certificate Program at the Georgetown University Center for Professional Development (CPD), a Senior Scholar at the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland, and an adjunct faculty member in the Saybrook Graduate Program in Organizational Systems Inquiry. Dr. Pearson's research focuses on developing the theory and practice of depth coaching and consulting. To this end, she has identified the archetypes that are most important for healthy human, organizational, and leadership development, and has designed models and instruments to assess the presence of archetypes in individuals and social systems, including the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI), which she developed with Hugh Marr, and the Organizational and Team Culture Indicator (OTCI). Dr. Pearson has published extensively in her field of research and her work has been translated into several languages. Her publications include The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By (HarperCollins, 1986, 1998); Educating the Majority: Women Challenge Tradition in Higher Education, co-edited by Donna L. Shavlik and Judith G. Touchton (Macmillan Publishing Co., 1989); Awakening the Heroes Within: Twelve Archetypes that Help Us Find Ourselves and Transform Our World (HarperCollins, 1981); Magic At Work: Camelot, Creative Leadership and Everyday Miracles (Doubleday, 1995); The Hero and the Outlaw: Building Extraordinary Brands Through the Power of Archetypes, co-authored by Margaret Mark (McGraw-Hill, 2001); and Mapping the Organizational Psyche, co-authored by John Corlett (CAPT: Center for Applications of Psychological Type, forthcoming 2002). Additionally, during 1998-99, she served as Senior Editor of The Inner Edge: A Resource for Enlightened Business Practice, a newsletter designed to apprise leaders of emerging ideas and breakthrough practices. Dr. Pearson has been Academic Vice President of Goucher College and Director of Women's Studies, first at the University of Colorado, Boulder and later at the University of Maryland College Park. She also was a member of the teaching faculty at each of these institutions, receiving tenure in 1977 and promotion to full professor in 1985. Dr. Pearson holds a Ph.D. in English from Rice University (1971), an honorary degree in Humane Letters from Norwich University (1987), and a certification in Personal Mythology Methods by the Midway Center of the D.C. Psychiatric Institute Foundation (1986). From 1988 until 1990, she continued her studies in Jungian psychology as part of the Professional Enrichment Program in Jungian Theory and Practice, Wainwright House, Rye, NY. In 1980-81, she was an American Council on Education (ACE) Fellow in Higher Education Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Upon returning, she served a year as a visiting scholar at the ACE Center on Leadership Development. In her coaching/consulting practice, Carol Pearson works with executives, entrepreneurs, professionals, and management teams and speaks and leads seminars in Canada, Europe, and Central America, as well as throughout the United States.

The Ruminations of a Banned Library Patron

2004-05-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. Are you missing my presence at the library? To tell you the truth, I'm missing the Cleveland Park library, but I'm not missing you particularly. The way I see it, if you've seen one fat, Irish-Catholic ass, you've seen 'em all. Not that I have anything against Irish-Catholic asses, fat or otherwise. It's just that I don't miss yours.
I suppose if we had been actual friends, instead of friends-as-a-metaphor, my separation would have been a source of pain for me. But what I miss primarily is the fact that I've had to become a peripatetic (or simply pathetic) library patron, wandering from library to library in the DC Library System.
There's a lady at the Home Office (The Martin Luther King Branch) who handles complaints pertinent to discrimination under "The Americans With Disabilities Act." Her name is Grace Lyons. Maybe you've heard of her. I'm thinking about presenting to her my complaint about my (possibly) discriminatory exile from Cleveland Park. The fact is I suffer from a disability (paranoid schizophrenia). I'm a lonely guy, just reaching out for friendship. Even my therapists (who are employees of the District of Columbia) encouraged me to reach out to you. Further, according to my "Patient Rights Statement," I have a right not to take medication that is recommended for me. And of course, my stated desire to make people "pay for my pain" was protected speech: I was talking about taking legal action. Fundamentally, you banned me from the library for the following reasons, which, I opine, do not "pass the mustard" under anti-discrimination laws.
Fundamentally, as I see it, you banned me from the library for the following reasons:
1. I have severe mental illness (a disability);
2. I was not taking anti-psychotic medication that was prescribed for me, which I have a legal right to do;
3. I suffer from depression; and
4. I have feelings of anger toward (and a desire to redress in a lawful manner the wrongs done to me by) attorney managers at my former place of employment.
What did I say that was such a crime? Maybe YOU need to be in therapy, Brian, or at least take a remedial reading course. I may tend to exaggerate, but you are an over-reactor. You overreact to purely non-threatening statements. You're the Three-Mile-Island of over-reactors.
Oh, yes! And I changed the icons. What a dastardly crime that was! But didn't the Turks do the same thing when they took over Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul? Didn't the Turks change all the Greek Orthodox icons? Yes, I admit it. I'm an iconoclast! Oddly enough (and you may not know this) but at this very moment, there's an exhibit on the second floor at MLK of Greek Orthodox icons. I perused them the other day. I passed by the exhibit quickly, lest I be overcome with an irresistible urge to tamper with the icons.
How do I feel about being banned from the Cleveland Park Branch?
To tell you the truth I feel like Babu Baat (the Seinfeld character) who was deported back to Pakistan because he never filled out his visa renewal application. "Brian Brown? He's a wery bad man. A wery, wery bad man. When (or if) I return to Cleveland Park I will exact vengeance on that man (by lawful means, of course).
I have to add that disclaimer now ("by lawful means") whenever I say anything even remotely threatening. Even when I say something as a joke. I find that you have some virtues (or do I exaggerate?) but you are a humor-challenged individual, Brian. And they say I'm hypersensitive. Imagine calling the police on someone simply because he says he's in "a dark place." Now really, Brian!
There's also your boss, Barbara Webb. I've been thinking of contacting her about my treatment at your hands, Brian. Maybe Miss Webb will show some mercy on this Queer Duck.
Yesterday, I talked with my therapist about my feelings about being banned from the library. I said I felt as if I was in a wrestling match with you, and that you had won the first round by pinning me to the ground. But that I wanted to flip you over and pin you down, and win the final victory--triumph for me, humiliation for you. I'd just love for The Powers That Be at the Home Office (MLK) to determine that your banishment was a tad overdone, and that those Powers re-instate my library privileges at Cleveland Park. That would be sweet. And I'm not talking nude wrestling. I'm talking fully clothed, no holds barred wrestling. A little G-rated Rupert/Gerald wrestling. I'd love to claim victory over you, Brian. In front of a burning, hot fireplace or not.
As you can see I'm stuck in the same banal observations. I think Freud termed people like me banal, or banal retentive. I retain the banal experiences of life and memorialize them in meaningless letters that get saved on computer files that never get read. Such is my life!
So how is William bearing up under the strain of not interacting with his favorite library patron--namely moi? I can just imagine you and William ruminating about me: "Remember the time he said this?--or "Remember the time he said that?" Well, you don't have Freedman to kick around any longer. But like old RMN (that's Richard M. Nixon) -- I'll be back. The terminated will be de-terminated. Remember, the meek shall inherit the stacks. Didn't the Big Jew in the Sky once say that?
I'm reminded of the note that The Prime Minister penned to Eleanor Roosevelt after the death of FDR. I paraphrase: "I feel so deeply for you all. As for me I have lost a dear and cherished friendship which was forged in the fire of war. I trust you may find consolation in the glory of "his" name and in the magnitude of "his" work."
Yes, in these dark days, I find myself all-too frequently lapsing into military metaphor (not to mention the third person singular) (and the confusion of subject ("my") and object ("his"). It's always been a source of solace to me; that is, military metaphor, the third person voice, and the confusion of subject and object. And of course, my work at the library -- like FDR's on the international stage -- was of considerable magnitude. Say what you will, Buddy, but I always displayed that very special "magnitude-with-attitude."
After FDR's death, Eleanor Roosevelt told a group of reporters who had gathered around her: "The story is over." Well, in my case, the story may be over, but the letters will continue. Count on that, my friend.
As for the Second Front, my psychotherapy is coming to an end at GW (don't forget I'm fighting a two-front war; you are my first front, my therapists are my second front). Just three more sessions with Indira Gandhi, and its farewell time for Viceroy Mountbatten, as it were. Can you follow my metaphors?
My therapist said that I need to start focusing on my feelings about termination. Termination of my therapy at GW, that is. That won't be difficult. My life is a series of terminations. Few beginnings, but many terminations.
How do I feel about my therapy coming to an end? Nothing really. I suppose I see it as a release. A release from meaninglessness.
I will look on my tenure at GW as a strange and inscrutable interlude. First, I never understood why, when my therapist at the DC clinic left (Dr. Shaffer), they couldn't find me a replacement therapist at the public clinic. Now I can't understand why I have to leave GW. Just a few months ago, they were saying that I would be assigned to a new therapist at GW when my current therapist (Indira Gandhi) finished her internship. GW's rationale is that it would be better for me if all my therapy services were placed "under one umbrella." That metaphor is more apt than they know. My entire life is like one long rainy day; or one dark (may I say that?) and stormy night of the soul.
I'm looking forward to my new therapist. I'll be seeing someone at the D.C. Community Mental Health Center. The one good thing about the new therapy is that it will be free of charge. Gratis. GW was charging me five dollars per session. So that -- that -- at least, is one positive thing.
Terminations. This past year has been a year of terminations, false starts, and losses.
First, David Bloom died. You know, David Bloom, the NBC reporter. I had an irrational emotional investment in that guy. He was a terrific reporter. I think I mentioned how highly I thought of him. When he died last April, April 2003, in Iraq, it triggered something in me. A feeling of loss, I suppose. A feeling that some portion of the sublime--which is in short supply here, on planet Earth--had been lost. It was at about the time David Bloom died that I started to write letters to you, buddy. That was David Bloom's favorite way of addressing people, by the way. "Buddy." David Bloom used to call everybody "buddy."
Then, in July "The English Lady" left. The English lady was the front desk manager in my apartment building. She added a touch of class to the building. The management company hired a corpse to replace Elizabeth Joyce. Imagine being replaced by the walking dead; and he doesn't even speak with a British accent!
The greatest blow, I suppose, greatest because it was the most personal, was the loss of Dr. Sack. Dr. Sack was a psychiatrist in my building who I admired a great deal. I saw him for three consultations back in May 1991. I remember the first consultation was May 13, 1991. I remember the date because it was the anniversary of Sigmund Freud's circumcision. I'm sure Fred Cohen, M.D. would get a chuckle out of that. Not to mention Dr. Sack's widow, Dr. Sally Ann Amdur Sack.
Dr. Sack's widow is the editor-in-chief of Avoteynu, the Journal of Jewish Genealogy. The journal contains articles pertinent to issues of Jewish genealogy. I happened to come across a copy at MLK the other day. Interesting stuff, by the way. Reminds me of that old TV show from the 60's: "I Dream of Genealogy."
I wonder how Dr. Sack's widow is getting along without the good doctor. You know, it can be very difficult for the survivors of the great and near-great. Maybe Dr. Sack's widow will find herself a rich Greek-Jewish shipping magnate, a la Jackie O. Somebody like Richard Ben-Veniste, only a little older, a lot richer, and with considerably more knowledge of maritime law.
But back to Dr. Sack. I was so stunned by his death. I remember one day, shortly after I learned of his passing, I listened to the slow movement of the Beethoven Ninth again and again. For about two-and-a-half hours. The piece lasts only about 15 minutes--so that's a lot of repetitions. I was just in a dazed fog. I always looked on Dr. Sack as my own personal Jerusalem. At Passover, observant Jews say: "Next year in Jerusalem." I used to comfort myself by thinking, "next year maybe I'll be in therapy with Dr. Sack." It's as if all my hopes for the future died with Dr. Sack. But, as they say, life must go on. In times of greatest need I find it soothing to retreat into platitudes. Why not?
Then in February of this year I entered, then quickly exited, group therapy. It was a disaster. But not an unmitigated one. I had the feeling that my experiences in group provided the valuable experience of confirming many of my suspicions about my social problems. Certainly, the experience confirmed my suspicion that I'm a different species from another galaxy. I think: "If those freaks are human, count me out of the human race."
The most recent disaster was your act of banning me from the Cleveland Park Library. Let's hope that's the last disaster for this year. I think I've reached the quotas of disasters for one year.
You may ask: "Well, Freedman, did anything positive happen to you this year?" I'd have to say "yes." My epistolary friendship with you, buddy, has been a great source of pleasure to me. I love writing to you. It's not a chore to write to you. It's like sex, really. You don't need any motivation to do it. The motivation is just there. It's irresistible, actually. What they call in the criminal law, an irresistible impulse. Yes, that's the way I'd put it. I have an irresistible impulse to write to you, commune with you, share my thoughts with you, Brian. Brother-Animal, You!
I hate your gaudy guts Brian, but I like you, too. And as we know, in my warped psychology that combination--that ambivalent combination--makes for my most intense relations with other males. People I like, I simply like. But people I both like and hate--well, that puts the Other in a special league of liking. I suppose it's that ambivalence that brings me closest to my relationship with my father. People say, "Do you like Brian?" I say: "No, I both like and despise him. That's why I like him so much." At least those are my feelings about you in my fantasized imagination. That's the transference. I don't really know you, like you, or hate you in reality. You're--as I've said before, a chimera, a phantom, a ghost. The ghost of library visits past, at least for now. But remember your Dickens! Mr. Scrooge also had to contend with the ghosts of library visits future.
Check you out later, buddy. Remember, just because I'm banned from the library doesn't mean we can't get together. I'm still thinking about Memorial Day. What do you say?

Trivial Events

2004-05-04T12:41:00.000-07:00

Trivial Events Brian--
May 4, 2004
Hey, buddy. How's it going at the library? That's no longer a meaningless salutation. What, literally, is going on at the Cleveland Park Branch. Since my exile to St. Helena, I genuinely wonder what's been happening in the cultural capital of Cleveland Park.
What did you do this weekend? As usual I did nothing, nothing interesting and nothing uninteresting. But I survived. Remember, I'm a survivor. A friendless survivor. For some reason I was thinking this weekend about Franz Wisner. Franz Wisner was Jesse Raben's roommate at Tufts University. I was thinking about normal people. How they just live, interact, and befriend each other. For them normal living is like breathing. They just do it. They don't think about it. I think about social relations a great deal, precisely because, for me, social relations are difficult, all-too-difficult. It's as if I suffer from the asthma of human relations. When you have asthma, you think about each breath. You attach a meaning to something that other people do without thinking--namely, breathing.
The utter vacuousness of my weekend gave me an idea for a TV show. A pilot-in-the-making. Must-see-TV at its best. "American Idle." It would be a reality show in which contestants compete for a prize for living the most idle and meaningless life. Think of it as a comedy version of Gilligan's Island.
I kept thinking this weekend of the line by Clifford Odets. "That miserable patch of event, that mélange of nothing, while you were looking ahead for something to happen, that was it! That was life! You lived it!" Yes, I've lived life--about three-quarters of it by now. But what have I done?
Whenever I tell people how I've gotten stuck in a rut, how my life seemed to come to a screeching halt at the time of my job termination 13 years ago, they will say invariably: "You need to get on with your life." I invariably respond: "This is my life. How could it be anything else? Whatever you do--whatever that happens to be--that's your life. How could it be otherwise? Can the life you live be anything other than getting on with something? And how can that "something" be anything other than your life?" What people really mean when they advise someone to get on with his life is: "You need to do something other than what you're doing." But for some reason, inscrutable to me, they don't say that. They say: "You need to get on with your life." But why the obfuscation? A question for philosophers, I suppose.
Saturday night I watched "Hannah and Her Sisters" on TV. That's a Woody Allen movie. Remember the famous line: "These pretzels are making me thirsty." No, I'm just yanking your chain. That's actually a line from Seinfeld--an episode of Seinfeld that parodied a Woody Allen movie, any Woody Allen movie. They're all really alike-all Woody Allen movies seem identical to me. At least that's my opinion.
I'm not a great fan of Woody Allen. It's as if all of Woody Allen's movies are slices of a loaf of bread. A single loaf. Each thin slice of bread is virtually identical. The size may vary to some extent, the number of caraway seeds--with Woody Allen the bread is always rye--may vary, but basically, one slice of Woody Allen is pretty much like any other slice.
Some of his movies are more entertaining than others, but they're still all alike. The masterpiece is "Annie Hall." That won an Oscar for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. "Hannah and Her Sisters" got critical acclaim too. But it didn't medal. At least not like "Annie Hall."
Woody Allen 's movies remind me of the witticism about the Vivaldi concertos. You know Vivaldi, the Venetian composer? They say he didn't write 400 concertos. He wrote one concerto 400 times. You could say the same about Bruckner. If you've heard one Bruckner symphony, you've heard them all.
Is Woody Allen a genius? Well, he is prolific. But is that a sign of genius? If he had made only one movie, say "Annie Hall," would his genius be any less than if he had made ten movies. If Beethoven had written only the ninth symphony, or Shakespeare had written only "Hamlet," would these creative people be any less a genius? I don't know.
Then there's the issue of precisely what part of a creation is the part that exemplifies the genius. Take Beethoven's Diabelli variations. Beethoven wrote a piano piece: thirty-three original variations on a waltz theme by Anton Diabelli. Fundamentally, the piece in its entirety is a collection of bagatelles. Each bagatelle lasts about 2 minutes on average. The entire piece takes about an hour to perform. It is considered one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. But what makes it great? A single bagatelle wouldn't qualify as a work of genius. But would five bagatelles? Or twenty? No. What makes the Diabelli variations a work, a creation, of the highest musical achievement was Beethoven's act of squeezing out of Diabelli's brief and commonplace waltz-theme every last drop of musical meaning.
In the case of the Diabelli variations, it's the piece as a whole that is evidence of the highest powers of musical creativity. In art, it often happens that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If Michelangelo had painted one human hand reaching out toward another, that might be talent but not genius. But to create a fresco, such as the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which depicts a grand multiplicity of gestures, postures and figures--well, now, that's a work of genius.
In art, we can isolate fragments and appreciate them. We can take a single variation from the Diabelli variations, listen to it and say: "Ah, what a delight!" We can look at a single scene from the Sistine chapel and exclaim: "How inspired!" But that's art. In science, it's not always easy to isolate out aspects of a creation. Take Einstein's famous formulation: E=mc2. There's energy, mass and the speed of light. The whole is not suggested by the individual parts. An equation exists as a totality. You can't slice up Einstein's Theory of Relativity into segments as you can with a loaf of bread.
Be that as it may. I suppose all this rumination means only one thing. I have too much time on my hands.
But back to Woody Allen.
In one part of the movie "Hannah and her Sisters," Woody Allen decides he's going to convert to Catholicism. There's a scene where he returns home and proceeds to lay out on a table all the paraphernalia he will need as a Catholic. A crucifix, a loaf of white bread, and a jar of mayonnaise. Heaven and Hellmans, I suppose you could say.
Actually, I've been thinking of converting. Not religion. It's hard to convert when you're a half-Jew. It's a painful decision when only part of you is Jewish. Which part exactly is the Jewish part, and thus, which part is in need of conversion. It's like trying to separate Siamese twins. The outcome can be fatal.
I have a theory that all people are fundamentally Jewish. It's our cultural upbringing that modifies that essentially Jewish character to something else. How could it be otherwise? Who would eat white bread, for instance, out of free choice. Any sane, rational person would sooner eat pumpernickel or rye. No sane person, as an act of free will, would choose to put mayonnaise on a corned-beef sandwich. People are born with an instinct to put mustard on a corned-beef sandwich. It's the process of acculturation that perverts the human being's normal tendencies.
There is a belief in traditional Judaism--a rabbinic belief from the middle ages--that if you take an infant and raise him without any language, he will naturally speak Hebrew. The human's normal affinity is to speak Hebrew. Hebrew, so the mediaeval rabbis believed--is the language of God, the language by which God spoke to Adam and Eve and Moses, the whole cast of characters that Michelangelo painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. But since most people grow up learning English, French, or Chinese, or whatever, they assimilate the language they hear around them. So much for the linguistic sophistication of the mediaeval rabbis.
But back to the issue of conversion. No. I'm not thinking of converting to another religion. I'm thinking of converting to normality. In terms of the dialectic Normal/Abnormal, I'm genuinely, 100% abnormal. Unlike my religion I'm not half abnormal. Believe me, I'm totally abnormal. So it's not a question of precisely what part of me needs to convert. Any change in the direction of normality would be a step forward for me.
Actually one of the highlights of this weekend was that I read an article in the June 2004 issue of the magazine "Psychology Today." The article was titled "Snap Judgments" by Carlin Flora. The article says that everybody makes snap judgments of other people. We all tend to form an impression of other people upon first meeting them. It's not necessarily sexual. Like, for example, when I saw my buddy Glenn Fine for the first time, I just knew he was a great guy--no, more! A Great Guy. So much for the chastisement directed at me in Group therapy that I have no right to judge a person based on only a few trivial observations about the other person. Related to that is the accusation that I attach a negative meaning to trivial events. We all do. We all attach a negative meaning--or at least some meaning, negative or positive-to trivial events. It's just that I was stupid enough--or ingenuous enough--to tell the managing partners of a law firm what I thought.
What separates me from normal people is not that I attach a negative meaning to trivial events, or that I make snap judgments about people. It's the fact that I have awareness of what I'm doing, and I'm up-front and honest about what I do.
The June 2004 "Psychology Today" article, at page 60, says:
Just three seconds are sufficient to make a conclusion about fresh acquaintances. Nalini Ambady, professor of psychology at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, studies first impressions carved from brief exposure to another person's behavior, what she calls "thin slices" of experiences. She says humans have developed the ability to quickly decide whether a new person will hurt or enrich us--judgments that had lifesaving ramifications in an earlier era. She believes that thin slices are generated in the most primitive area of the brain, where feelings are also processed, which accounts for the emotional punch of some first encounters. Immediate distrust of a certain car salesman or affinity for a prospective roommate originates in the deepest corners of the mind. The ability to interpret thin slices evolved as a way for our ancestors to protect themselves in an eat-or-be-eaten world, whereas modern-day threats to survival often come in the form of paperwork (dwindling stock portfolios) or intricate social rituals (impending divorce). The degree to which thin slices of experience help us to navigate modern encounters--from hitchhikers to blind dates--is up for debate.
So what is it precisely that makes me abnormal? Is it my tendency to attach a negative meaning to trivial events? Well, "Psychology Today" would say--resoundingly--"No!" Is it my tendency to judge whether I like a person--whether that person will hurt me or enrich me--after only a brief encounter? Again, a resounding "No!"
According to "Psychology Today," we all attach a meaning (positive or negative) to trivial events. We all make snap judgments about other people.
So what makes me different? It's my sincerity, my lack of shame, and my cognitive ability to understand and describe--and elaborate--the trivial that distinguishes me from others. A person might say: "I don't like him. Why? Because. Just because." Or a person may say: "I don't really like him. But I have no right to judge, so I'll repress my dislike." Or a person will say: "One shouldn't over-analyze things." Well, I do none of that!
I am a shameless over-analyzer. I will elaborate a detail--squeezing out every last piece of juice out of a detail. I believe that I have a right to do that. I'm sincere in my feelings about people. I don't pretend to like people I don't like. I'm unusually open about expressing my positive feelings about people I like; or the converse, speaking openly about the negative in people. These are the things that make me abnormal. Yes. I'm abnormal and proud to be so.
On second thought, maybe I'd better just stick with the religion I was born with. I'll stick with my slices of rye. The hell with the white bread! If I want to count every last caraway seed on a slice of rye, I'll do it. If I choose to attach a negative meaning to each trivial seed, I'll do that! I don't care what Ellen and J. Alfred Prufrock think!!
Check you out later, buddy.
P.S. I've changed all the light bulbs in my apartment. I've upped the wattage from 40 to 60. I know how my being in a dark place is threatening to you. Believe me, I don't want to threaten you. I now live in a clean, well-lighted place.

Lost in the Doldrums

2004-04-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. It's just after 5:00 AM. It's dark. Yes, I am in a dark place once again.
Lucky for me, I didn't tell you I was in the doldrums a few weeks ago. You probably would have called the Coast Guard out after me. And believe me, you don't want to mess with maritime law.
I can just hear William saying to the Coast Guard: "Brian Brown and I are very concerned about Mr. Freedman. Mr. Brown happened to come across a letter that Mr. Freedman wrote and saved on the library's hard-drive in which Mr. Freedman complains about being in the doldrums. He says he feels like a Titanic survivor adrift in the North Atlantic amid the frozen flotsam and jetsam of the icy coastal waters off Newfoundland. Then, at another point in the letter he complains, further, that he feels like a ship lost at sea, a sinking ship. And more! He compares himself to a German U-boat, prepared to sink neutral vessels on the high seas. Officer, that really had Mr. Brown and me concerned--I mean, a German U-Boat! Mr. Freedman is talking literally" (No, William, I'm talking metaphorically) "he's talking literally about upsetting the international law of the seas that's been in place since the end of the Napoleonic era. Officer, the letter Mr. Freedman wrote is literally (!) a distress signal. It's an SOS from Mr. Freedman."
Brian, I'm in the doldrums. Yes, I'm like a ship, such as "The Sea Wolf," adrift in the doldrums. GET OVER IT!
Be that as it may.
So many things struck me as odd about the Metropolitan Police interview.
First, the officers relied wholly on your interpretation of the letter I wrote, and proceeded to question me without having read the letter. I suppose that was the only practical approach. It was a lengthy letter. But still, it would have been useful if they had taken a few minutes to read the letter, then proceed to question me about the letter's content.
The most serious accusation you made about me--the accusation regarding my threat to "make people pay for the suffering I have experienced" was immediately shot down (may I say that?) once the officers were made aware by me that what I was talking about was pursuing legal remedies, and not threatening to carry out physical harm on anyone. "This isn't a threat," said the officer. "He's talking about pursuing legal remedies. That's not a threat." Do you have a problem with reading comprehension, buddy?
There was that peculiar colloquy about my intellect. William pointed out that I was very intelligent. "He's very intelligent, officers," said William. "He changed the computer icons. Why, I don't even know how he did that. But he knew how to do that?" It was as if William were talking about the devil. The devil is fiendishly clever. That's the way he's seen. His evil is insidious and inscrutable. The devil works in mysterious ways. There was a quality about William's attribution: the quality of attributing to me what, on the surface, sounds like a virtue (intelligence), only to use that attribution as a collateral attack on my character. It's as if William were saying: "He's fiendish, he's clever, he's very smart, why he's the Devil personified!" I'm not calling William an anti-Semite, but that's a quality that anti-Semites attribute to the Jews. "They're smarter than us. You have to watch out for those Jews. They're clever, and they know how to put their intellect to nefarious purposes." Watching Louis Malle's film "Au Revoir Les Enfants" (Good-bye, Children) I was struck by an accusation made by one of the anti-Semitic students about the Jews. "The Jews are evil because they're smarter than us, they have more money, and they are the people who killed our Lord."
Then one of the police officers chimed in: "You're very intelligent and well-spoken. You should be a teacher. Why don't you teach? You should teach, instead of doing nothing." I felt as if I was being attacked from all directions (that's a metaphor). What I mean is I was being subject to all kinds of contradictory sanctions and attributions. Here I was a mental patient with serious psychopathology (as David Callet would say), but at the same time I should be a teacher (according to the Police). I wonder how that officer would feel about having his child's care and education entrusted to a paranoid schizophrenic.
Paranoid Schizophrenia. That's another thing. I noticed that when I said I had paranoid schizophrenia, the police said nothing. They didn't question that. I recall the time in February 1996 when I was interviewed by Secret Service agent Phillip Leadroot. I said at that time that I had paranoid schizophrenia. He shot that down (may I say that?) immediately. "No, you don't. You don't have paranoid schizophrenia. I proceeded to show Special Agent Leadroot the letter written by my then treating psychiatrist, Dimitrios Georgopoulos, saying his diagnosis was paranoid schizophrenia. Agent Leadroot simply dismissed the letter and its diagnostic assertion.
I was struck by the officer's handling of the accusation that I had changed the computer icons. As I said in a letter a few days ago, the officers didn't question anything about that. They didn't ask me precisely how I did that, or ask William what was involved in curing the problem. There was almost a paranoid quality to William's accusation: "Officer he did something evil with the computer. I don't even know how he did it!" The officer's response reminded me of the scene described by the psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson concerning his termination by the Freud Archives. Dr. Eissler accused Masson of "getting Zeplichal wrong." "I asked you, Professor Masson to find out who Zeplical was and you said apparently he had written a book on Geometry. But you were wrong, Professor Masson. The Zeplichal Freud had in mind had written a book on shorthand, not geometry." Masson said he proceeded to look around the room and there was a quizzical look on everybody's face. "Zeplichal? Who??" ("Freedman changed the computer icons." "What? What?"). It was as if the police officers' response could be described in Masson-like terms: "Yes, you changed the computer icons! Terrible! Terrible! Terrible misconduct!"
In fact one passage from Masson's book "Final Analysis" can be paraphrased to describe fully the accusations lodged against me by William.
"I believe I have a right to know why I'm being banned from the library. Why, why, William? Why am I being banned from the library?" William was calmer now, and he said everything I said was true--that I had a right to know why I was being banned from the library--and he would now tell me why I was being banned. I was being banned for three reasons. "The first is your statement that you are in a dark place. The second reason is the Computer Icon incident. Do you remember, Mr. Freedman? You sat at the computer and changed the computer icons. The third and final reason you are being banned is that you were prescribed anti-psychotic medication and you confessed that you were not taking it!" Here William paused to look up at me. William was serious and apparently considered this almost a sin.
I was too stunned to respond.
I turned to the Police officers, and I said "Well, Mr. Dacosta has told you the reasons why I am being banned from the library. I want to ask you, do you both feel so strongly about the computer icons?" For a moment, they looked confused ("What?"), then there was murmured assent. Yes, indeed, you changed the computer icons, terrible, terrible a terrible incident."
In truth there was very little reasoning or none at all. The Police officers' method was one of accusation, assumption, and denunciation.
I was stripped of my library privileges, like a disgraced soldier.
It should be unnecessary to state, at least to my friends (assuming I had any), that I was shocked.
Well, chalk it up to "life imitating art," I suppose. Uncanny, don't you think?
What was irrational about the Police officer's response was, as I pointed out in an earlier letter, that they didn't inquire into what remediation was required to fix the computer problem. Would it take an hour of assistance from Tech Support? Would somebody from the main branch of the library have to stop up to Cleveland Park to fix the problem? Yes, indeed, if that had been the case, I would say that what I had done was serious, a serious act of misconduct that merited some kind of sanction imposed against me. But to accuse me of doing something that would take all of five seconds to cure, and then ban me from the library for that absolutely trivial act is odd, if not bizarre. The strangeness of it all suggested to me that you and William had a second, hidden, unstated agenda.
You and William are quirky people, buddy. You're librarians. That says it all. I didn't want to push William (or you, Brian). I didn't want to hurt you both. Something terrible was going on inside William (as well as you), William was not capable of talking about it, but it was real, and I was the source of his pain. I did feel bad for him. And I felt bad for you too, Brian.
I wrote about that the other day. I think that at some deep level, you really like me. You really, really like me (with all the ardor of a Flying Nun). You are unable to connect with me socially or professionally. My presence in the library, day after day, is a kind of narcissistic injury or wound for you. It's as if you were a hungry fox, and I a cluster of ripe grapes, just outside your grasp. That reality tormented you. So you had to ban me from the library. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose.
In retrospect I wonder what role envy and jealousy played in William's reaction to me. A number of pertinent questions arise.
I think we can all agree that I'm a socially attractive person. I think we can agree that my letters are witty, entertaining, interesting and, yes, sometimes even poetic. I suspect that at some level you feel flattered by my attention. And I further suppose it's possible William is envious of the attention I focus on you. William is the odd-man-out of our daily tête-à-tête. He's been left out of the ménage, so to speak. So there's this possible envy and jealousy William feels about my letter writing to you, Brian.
Isn't it possible that you and William have formed a kind of psychological coalition against me, based on your respective, individual grievances against me.
William is envious and jealous of the attention I lavish on you. And you, Brian, are threatened by the taint of homoeroticism in my epistolary relationship with you. You are threatened, too, by my social attractiveness, attractiveness that remains forever out of your grasp. You are threatened by the fact that our relationship can never go anywhere. Perhaps I'm somebody you'd like to be friends with, perhaps close friends, but your occupational duties preclude any friendship. So you and William, both, from your own individual perspectives, feel threatened, hurt, envious ("Mr. Freedman is fiendishly clever"), and jealous.
Then there's the issue of my disability benefits, and the fact that my life is a fantasy camp. William, you know, suffers from serious mental illness, but because medication cures his symptoms he is able to (more than that!)--he is required to work. Because medication works for William, William is compelled to grind out the daily wage gruel. He is unable to claim he is disabled. He can't just take it easy, like moi. I, on the other hand, live my life, as it were, as if I am on an extended vacation. I don't have to work because I can claim a mental disability; moreover, a disability that defies medical remediation. Possible validation of this belief is the fact that I've heard (or eavesdropped on) William saying he'd like to retire. He'd like to retire, and live off retirement benefits. But he can't do that financially. Additional confirmation comes from the fact that William made the odd and highly personal admission, during our conference with the Police, that he's on lithium and Risperdal. He said that in front of the Police officers. I ejaculated at that moment: "That's antipsychotic medication!" William responded forcefully: "You better believe it is!" So there is some kind of peculiar congruence between the fact that William takes anti-psychotic medication that cures him and enables him to work, on the one hand, and the fact that I was not taking my anti-psychotic medication, thus (in William's mind) enabling me not to work. You'll recall that "one of the three accusations" made against me was that I had been prescribed anti-psychotic medication but was not taking it.
All this reminds me of something my father used to say. "Politics is three people." At least three or more people will always underlie any political configuration or coalition.
Bottom line is I have a sense there's that quality of "political coalition" between you and William against me. In politics, as we all know, strange bed-fellows sometimes arise. You take three people: A, B and C. A has his own reasons for resenting C; and B has his own specific reasons for resenting C. Put A and B together, and their specific grievances against C meld. In the end C will get "impeached." At least that's the way it works in Scotland.
But sometimes C, after impeachment starts a new life, writes a best-selling book, and goes on to live neurotically-ever-after.
Check you out later, buddy. As usual, it's been great talking with you, Brian.
P.S. Tell William that Captain Freedman on "The Sea Wolf" sends his regards.

I Feel Jewish, Oh So Jewish

2004-04-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

Brian--

Hey, buddy. Wassup? Jus chillin? It's all good, Brian.
Welcome to AllthingsFreedman.com. Or perhaps, in view of my enigmatically stoic and eternally didactic manner I should call it AllthingsFreedman.edu. Or even more, perhaps, in view of my protean nature--the cast of characters I embody--I should say: "Welcome to AllthingsFreedman.org! Yes, Freedman is an Org, a complex multiplicity of ego states and affective nuances.
I'm feeling very Jewish. What, you may ask, does it mean to feel Jewish? Well, I suppose that what it means to feel Jewish differs from person to person. For Elie Wiesel, it means Remembrance. A remembrance of the past, of past experience, of loss, of the loss of family, community, of the entirety of European Jewish civilization. It's as if Wiesel's assigned role in life is to preserve for future generations the memory of the past in word and metaphor.
For Ariel Sharon, a secular Jew for the most part, I suppose being Jewish means being the political leader of a polity of Jews, the Jewish state, the embodiment of the hope of the Jewish people, both past and present. I was deeply moved by, and will never forget ("and will never forget," that's so Jewish), something that the Prime Minister said at the height of Israel's foray into the West Bank--and the siege of Ramallah where Yassir Arafat was hold out--last year, in 2003. The Prime Minister was asked about the legitimate claims of the Palestinians to the West Bank and to the desire of Palestinians worldwide to return to Israel proper. In measured tones of proud severity, Ariel Sharon proclaimed the unalterable and undeniable ties of the Jewish people to the land of Israel: "The land of Israel," he said, "has been the home of the Jewish people for three thousand years." It was as if for Sharon nothing more need be said. Whatever the claims of the Palestinians--whether those claims be legitimate or illegitimate--the Prime Minister proclaimed (as Earl Segal might): "We, the Jews, hold title to this land in fee simple."
That one statement changed my view of Sharon as a mere conquering militarist to the view of him as man who sees himself as carrying a moral responsibility for the protection of the claims of the Jews to their historical homeland, the land of their fathers and the home of future generations of Jews. "The hope of the Jewish people" as Harvard comparative literature professor Stephen Greenblatt said at the time.
Golda Meir, another secular Prime Minister, when asked whether she believed in God said: "I believe in the Jewish People, who believe in God."
So what does it mean when I say "I am feeling very Jewish?" For me it is a feeling of the power of reason and of The Word. It is a feeling, or capacity, to suffer or experience an injustice, all the while confident that the means to right that injustice rests with the Power of the Word. Words that function as more than words. "Beyond Words," as the motto of the D.C. Public Library has it. Beyond Words: a phrase that connotes the power of words as Words, but paradoxically not "fighting words," as Justice Holmes would call them. Words as the vehicle for emotion, from the most sublime to the most disturbingly vengeful. But only words, not action--not action, not illegality.
Being Jewish for me means suffering a wrong and seeking to right that wrong by sitting down with paper, pen and ink. Or word processor. Or computer. For me the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the most "religious," the most "Jewish" of the rights of Americans. Ironically I refer not to the Establishment Clause. For me religion is not literally "religion," that is the world of sacrifice and slaughtered rams. For me religion -- the Jewish religion--is the freedom to speak and write, to express one's self in words. A veritable Sea of Words. The freedom to navigate through the Sea of Words, which are the rational manifestation of the wild currents of variegated emotional states -- from the most exultant to the most despairing.
Words, words, words, words. Words as a vehicle of expression, of the embodiment of experience, of morality, of identity. Words as a connection between my world of personal experience, on the one hand, and to the world at large, on the other. Words as a vessel of communication, words as the conduit of the desire to "Let the World see what I have seen."
Do I recognize that a direct threat of physical harm through words is a forbidden act in our society? Yes! Do I respect the distinction between a proscribed "threat of harm" and, alternatively, the permissible act of freedom of expression? Yes! But I also recognize, as any thinking person must, that the subjective perception of threat by the recipient of a communication is not necessarily a measure of the forbidden nature of the ideas of the communicator. The fact that the recipient of a communication feels subjectively threatened is not a measure or indicator that the communicator has engaged in an unlawful act.
So what does it mean when I say I'm feeling very Jewish? For me "feeling very Jewish," as the secular Jew (or half-Jew) that I am, means being true to the best in the Jewish tradition. For me the best in Jewish tradition takes the form of recognizing that the conscious acceptable enemy, be it personal, social or societal is to be battled in a war waged largely in words within the controllable arena of social conscience within a writing: whether that writing be a letter, a play, a speech, a work of art or any collection of words--or "Words."
Well, so much for my Jewish feelings.
And how are you feeling, my friend? You who claim to be so threatened by my words!
How can one explain why someone would subjectively feel threatened by an expression that any reasonable person would not perceive as threatening?
How can one explain your bizarre act of summoning the police and having me banned from the library for a six-month period simply because I wrote a letter that communicated nothing more than the fact that I was depressed, that I wanted to avenge (through lawful means) the wrongs done to me, and that I was not following my physician's medical prescription that I take medication that did not help me in any way?
Perhaps, the reason is that you have positive feelings for me--perhaps you like me a little "too much," shall we say. Perhaps your reaction was a "paranoid one," in the technical sense of the word.
Is it possible the I am an important person to you emotionally, and that you assigned me an unacceptable quantum of malign power precisely because of your irrational investment in me?
Yes, I like you, Brian. Yes, perhaps I like you a little too much. But isn't it possible that behind your face of rationality lurks the ghost of Schreber?
You will recall from my previous letters that Daniel Gottlob Schreber was the psychotically-paranoid judge (is there any other kind!) whose bizarre memoirs, "The Memoirs of a Neuropath," intrigued Freud. Freud wrote an analysis of Schreber's memoirs, an analysis that was a tour de force of insights into the paranoid mental state. Freud's insights, which center on the homosexual import of paranoid fantasies, have informed all subsequent psychoanalytical writings on the subject of paranoia.
Freud's biographer writes: "For decades Freud had been persuaded that the craziest ideas of the most regressed psychotic are so many messages, rational in their own twisted way. In accord with this conviction, Freud chose to translate Schreber's confidences rather than to dismiss them. He read his world system as a coherent set of transfigurations designed to make the unbearable bearable: Schreber had invested his enemies, whether [his treating physician] Dr. Flechsig or God, with such malign power because they had been so important to him. In short, Schreber had come to hate them so deeply because he had earlier loved them so much; paranoia was, for Freud, the mental ailment parading with unsurpassed vividness the psychological defenses of reversal and, even more, of projection. The 'core conflict in the paranoia of a man' is, as Freud put it in his case history, a 'homosexual wish-fantasy of loving a man.' The paranoiac turns the declaration "I love him" into its opposite, "I hate him"; this is the reversal. He then goes on to say, "I hate him because he persecutes me"; that is the projection." Peter Gay, Freud: A Life For Our Time at 281 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1988).
For Freud, to call a man "paranoid" was to call him a homosexual -- or at least a sublimated one.
You see, Brian, the difference between you and me is that I have insight into my feelings. I know what my feelings about you mean, and I accept that meaning. Call me grandiose, but I'm a superior person at least in my ability to have insight into my variegated "dot org" mental states. For those with poorer insight and/or a poorer understanding of their intrapsychic motivations, the real world can arouse disturbing feelings whose rationality seems ultraclear, but which are no less irrational.
Brian, in conclusion, maybe the reason you felt threatened by my letter to you, the letter of April 16, 2004, is that you like me, you really, really like me--as The Flying Nun would say.
Check you out later, buddy.
P.S. If you're ever at a party at somebody's house, Brian, never yell "library" in a crowded foyer -- it could cause a fatal stampede to the stacks.