psychology

psychology
therapy
cognitive behavior therapy

May 11, 2024

First Love and Recovery From Heartbreak

First love has a long lifespan. Indeed, the intensity of affection can survive well past the twosome’s formal breakup.

A transformative romance stretches time like taffy, far beyond the last goodbye. When it does, the memories impact the former lover and those who take her place.

The first time packs a wallop. Risks are surmounted, among them opening your heart, exposing your unclothed self, and saying three words that total eight letters.

Is that number lucky? It all depends.

At its best, first love combines enchantment, joy, and touching intimacies. For those who doubt themselves, it represents an affirmation, too.

The message of love demonstrates your worthiness of the consideration and affection of another, about which many lack certainty. The partner gives you wholeness sufficient to salve your insecurity, at least as long as the relationship continues.

Assuming delirium-inducing emotions persist on both sides, the gift of substance and meaning endures. 

More often, one has either found someone else, decided he is unready for a permanent connection, discovered troublesome qualities in the admirer, or realized the spark is gone.

A young heart shatters.

What happens then? Several possibilities exist.

Questions are asked. Why? Wasn’t I good enough? Did you meet a guy you liked more? What did I lack? Tears have been known to enter the conversation, including those of person who decided to end things.

Denunciations are spoken or written. Blame. Indictments. Accusations of infidelity or lying. Rage.

Perhaps the one departing offers friendship. The invitation to a platonic relationship tends to sound like a guaranteed last-place finish in the Kentucky or Epsom Derby. 

Deal making. Promising to do better even to the point of begging and pleading.

And then? Nothing but memories unless torturous photos of sunnier days survive. 

Closing the door produces a formal conclusion of the partnership if the one left behind plays by the rules. No more emails, texts, phone calls, surprise appearances, or dates will be written in the calendar, nor rapture emerge in response to a touch now forbidden.

Shadows persist, nonetheless. The image lives on, as do both the best and worst recollections. 

Scenes are replayed by the abandoned one. Return visits to favorite old places recall better times and delightful occasions. “Our song” is back on the open market, no longer ours. After grieving, perhaps the sad one begins to date again, but he is not the same.

In many cases, the first love carries a part of you away, like a thief in the night. Your heart is now a hostage without a payable ransom for its return. The emotional attachment is the property of the ex. 

Once a welcome visitor in everyday life, now makes regular appearances within. She pays no rent for the space or heartache inside, rendering automatic comparisons with appealing newcomers and serving as a measure of perfection unlikely to be matched.

Any fresh flirtation must contend with the one who loved you for too short a while. Sleepless and thinking of her, you carry a torch, hoping to rekindle her interest.

A first love tends to be idealized regardless of your need to shrink her to size. The previous lover becomes the gold standard because the one who is hurt makes her so. She is unique, as all “firsts” seem to be. Seem …

She now inhabits a mental and emotional room in the individual she left, where all her gifts grow in the guise of a phantom.

Yearning can persist for years. The spark of such a one lasts, in part, by making an imprint that cannot be duplicated. 

The initial feelings of a person being swept away are similar to the astonishment associated with the birth of your first child. Neither the newborn’s enlivening effect nor the electricity of first love had ever been encountered before. 

No matter the virtue of any new romantic interest, the entrance of another is hard-pressed to produce the wonder that came earlier. The advantage of the predecessor was her entrance into another life innocent of love.

We can only be innocent once.

Revisiting old emails and texts, if the bereaved chooses to, is a self-imposed twist of the knife. Writing letters you don’t send can express the pain and perhaps drain some of it. 

Sometimes, taking inventory of all the former lover’s good and bad qualities is helpful. Doing so may reveal fewer reasons to continue worshiping the one you paint as a goddess.

Destroying old photos and written communications can reduce the temptation to think of her over and over.

A question arises—a question that needs an answer. Was #1 irreplaceable, or were your emotions the simple product of the human desire to love and be loved? Were you ready and waiting, ripe for the taking?

Potential mates, some quite remarkable, can still be found nearby if you seek them. The right moment awaits. You carry it with you.

In the end, the magic of your first love almost always diminishes as the breakup recedes in time, but requires returning to the dating game without her. 

Yes, you erected a statue of the one you believed was the only one. Still, as you reconsider the pain and preoccupation of something that cannot be, one hopes the sculpture will be seen with new eyes and without adornment: the remnant of a spell that must be broken.

The initial sweetheart was on time at the right time, and now that moment is past.

Perhaps you are ready to realize, as did Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, that the wizard was unnecessary for the life she wanted. There were other possibilities there for the taking if she pursued them.

Kansas and her family might not be your destination as it was for Dorothy, but love doesn’t only reside in a single place or departed heart.

As Shakespeare’s Coriolanus reminds us upon being banished from his Roman homeland, “There is a world elsewhere.”

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Rejected Suitor at the top of the page is the work of Norman Rockwell. It originally appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1926. Next comes Salvador Dali’s The Ghost of Vermeer Van Delft from 1934. It is followed by Arcimboldo’s Summer, completed in 1563. Finally, The Torero of  Broken Hearts, 1902, by Gerda Wegener. They are all sourced from Wikiart.org/

 

May 5, 2024

How Many Selves Do You Have?

Do you know Stan? You might think you do, but how much of Stan’s life and personality are you aware of? Does having lunch with him three times yearly reveal all there is to know? Or is he a Zoom buddy who doesn’t exist for you below the belt?

Have you seen the fine fellow angry, sad, lonely, or excited? How often have you witnessed his behavior in the moment he succeeds or fails?

Turn the questions around. What portion of your temperament and dark side is your friend cognizant of?

Indeed, how much do you understand yourself?

Léon Bloy wrote:

There is no human being on earth who is capable of declaring who he is. No one knows what he has come to this world to do, to what his acts, feelings, ideas correspond, or what his real name is, his imperishable Name in the registry of light. (L’Ame de Napoleon, 1912).

We all know ourselves from the inside and cannot experience what others take in from their perspective outside of us. Each of us has access to emotion, pain, anxiety, happiness, lust, dreams, judgment, and many other elements unavailable to those who see and hear us.

When we talk about knowing the full range of our nature, our internal assessment—accurate or not— dominates our thoughts and evaluations.

Even so, this source of awareness is incomplete.

Protective psychological defense mechanisms hide facets of our personalities from consciousness. Onlookers may recognize signs of depression in us before we do. A lack of energy, tone of voice, facial expression, and sensitivity are aspects of what we offer in an unhappy state, even if we don’t know it.

Men and women deny, rationalize, and repress some of what is inside while projecting their troubles onto outsiders.

Strangers or acquaintances judge us based on first impressions, an up or down day, appearance, or how we are described on social media. Their beliefs about political affiliations or sexual preferences can color, enlarge, shade, or diminish insights when we size up another. Nationality, tone of voice, wit, and religion fuel instantaneous affections, disappointments, or indifference.

Since 21st-century technology allows rapid long-distance communication, humans are vulnerable to extreme misrepresentation. Smaller communities and repeated face-to-face interaction are less available today to inform others of our true nature—and we of theirs.

Thus, we have become the potential objects of second-hand opinions of the most unfavorable type. Moreover, what we infer when speaking to someone on a screen doesn’t always weigh the unusual quality of this kind of familiarity, full of pixelated strangers and computer friends.

That vulnerability extends to what is said about us by those who have some experience of who we are or claim to possess unique insight without evidence. Their notions play on rumors, fake news, and the ability to hide themselves while vilifying the object of their contempt.

The dangers of opening our souls to acquaintances are exacerbated when they appear sunny, happy, untroubled, and good-natured. The less secure find interactions with such persons lead them to compare their insides to their counterpart’s outsides.

Unattractive aspects, including the details of personal problems, are often kept secret for fear of negative judgments, unwanted advice, and the fear of becoming fodder for gossip.

Did I hear you say your understanding of yourself is accurate? Consider driving habits. Ninety percent of U.S. accidents are caused by human error, but 73% of drivers think they are better than average behind the wheel. Homo sapiens enjoy the capacity to shine a favorable light on themselves with little awareness.

Adults can be like teens struggling with an identity crisis. Personal choices then determine which self to put on display and with whom. 

Perhaps dear friends get a rarely-seen version. Therapists, ideally, evoke the most forthright and open individual. One would hope the existence of a “negotiating” version of you emerges to buy a car or sell a house, but not with those who are closest, including children or a spouse.

There is one other persona I haven’t mentioned—the one who will turn up tomorrow—your future self. Events of consequence, such as situations requiring risk, chance, loss, trauma, triumph, love, and raising offspring, can modify a person.

There could be several new versions ahead for the one that goes by your name, with no small part due to aging. Altered future selves are inevitable, including those created by the desire to change one’s life.

If possible, you may find it most satisfying to have only one version of who you are: the truest one. This would allow you to be genuine to all who know you, not role-playing different characters to fit their expectations.

Life is easier this way.

The best of your time ahead depends partly on what you make of it. Like an unfinished sculpture, it is in your hands.

Though the sculpture is never completed, remember this: it is the only “selfie” that matters.

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All the photos are the work of Laura Hedien, with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

At the top is a Supercell Storm with Lightening Over a Combine Near Springfield, CO, 12/16/23. It is followed by versions of The Wave in Coyote Buttes, AZ, all from 2024.

April 21, 2024

Thinking About Memory and the Need to Forget

People without a fine memory often don’t realize they are forgetful.

Others, including bosses and friends, might inform them. At one point, I employed an office manager who failed to perform assigned tasks and denied she received instructions. She was earnest but insisted I’d never told her what to do.

I could have written every request, but that would have taken time I didn’t have. The relationship did not end well.

When I was young, I didn’t need to write anything down to bring it to mind—not appointments, school assignments, or directions to an address. In the days before cell phones and cars with built-in navigation systems, a first-class sense of direction was necessary. That, or mounting a compass on the windshield, as my directionally challenged Uncle Sam did.

My adeptness in recalling and following directions wasn’t always enough. A hard-to-get date with a student nurse led me to her crowded part of the city. I got to her dormitory in plenty of time but found neither an empty parking place nor a garage.

I went up the street, down the street, right, left, rinse, repeat over and over. Eureka! I found a space, parked, and frantically rushed to get her. One problem. I was so confused and disoriented that I had no idea where my car was. Good impression, correct? But I did stumble upon the vehicle, and there were more dates. As Blanche Dubois utters at the end of A Streetcar Named Desire, 

Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

In this case, the gentle indulgence of someone I didn’t know well.

Some of us recall too little, while others retain too much. Each injury, disappointment, error, humiliation, misfortune, heartbreak, and insult. Imagine such a parent blaming you during childhood. The list never shortens because the storage space is endless. Pity those held to account for each new failure and reminder of old ones.

Fingerpointing harms many of those targeted while the less vulnerable push back or end the relationship. It is a miserable and lonely way to live for anyone whose index finger is too active.

Others accumulate every loss and cause of sadness, rerunning their injuries on a revolving internal wheel of misfortune. It is better to grieve, find gratitude, and learn to make friends who display the kind of character necessary for intimacy.

Some people possess useful visual memories of places and faces. One odd skill I inherited is seeing an aging face resembling a person I knew in my teens and watching it return to an individual’s appearance of decades before.

A patient of mine told me a heartbreaking story about recapturing the forgotten facts of a life. Her mother had dementia. The elderly woman’s husband had died long before, but she had lost the ability to retain the knowledge of his death, which drifted away each day. Upon waking, she asked where he was and insisted on finding out. Her caretakers revealed the truth and restarted the shock and tears of the widow. Daily.

Perhaps the most extraordinary example of the capacity to retain information is described by William Egginton in The Rigor of Angels. In 1929, the groundbreaking neuropsychologist Alexander Luria evaluated Solomon Shereshevsky, a journalist in the Soviet Union.

His memory “had no distinct limits.”

This amazing man became a mnemonist working in the circus. To enhance his skill, he refined his natural ability with a new approach to it:

To be able to recite back the lists of numbers, random words, poems in foreign languages, and even nonsensical syllables that audience members would call out to him, he landed on the strategy of picturing them drawn on a chalkboard.

Unfortunately, Shereshevsky discovered the ever-larger number of chalkboards he read from and retained in his head interfered with recalling the most recent ones he fashioned while performing for the patrons of that day. Egginton recounts, “Shereshevsky waged an almost constant war against images and associations from the past that threatened to flood his every waking moment.”

To Alexander Luria, the neuropsychologist who continued to test him, the man was disabled further by another facet of his retentiveness.

Shereshevsky’s world was “rich in imagery, thematic elaboration, and affect” but also “lacking in one important feature: the capacity to convert encounters with the particular into instances of the general.”

Phrases such as “catching a cab” would barrage him with possible interpretations, interconnections to old thoughts, visions, experiences, and multiple meanings. One can imagine him being overwhelmed to the point of compromising his everyday life.

One way to think of this poor man is to compare him to a King Midas. The difference between the two is that Midas wished for the “golden touch.” Shereshevsky requested no part of his double-edge talent for retaining every experience.

Photographic memory, anyone?

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The top image is Carmel Valley Memory, a 1999 work by Eyvind Earle. It is followed by The Gate of Memory, created in 1864 by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Third in line is Presence of a Memory by Alekos Kontopoulos. The final painting is Ladies of Arles (Memories of the Garden at Etten), a work of Vincent van Gogh, dating from 1888. All of these are sourced from Wikiart.

April 14, 2024

Mäkelä: In the Shadow of Great Men

Last week, the Chicago Symphony’s former 82-year-old conductor had reason to be unhappy. By contrast, his successor and future occupier of that throne, a tall, energetic, and ambitious 28-year-old, was feeling on top of the world.

The latter, Klaus Mäkelä of Finland, failed to mention the most recent CSO Music Director in interviews celebrating his own designation as the ensemble’s leader beginning in 2027. Ricardo Muti, the former head of the glorious band, is the fellow whose name was absent.

Here is an excerpt from Mäkelä’s April 5th interview with WBEZ Radio’s Courtney Kueppers. The young man offers a telling description of the sound of the Chicago musicians and two of those who created it:

It’s an amazing sound. Its brilliance, its shine, its strength, its everything. And it’s really touching to hear. I was thinking about yesterday, when I started rehearsing, I listened to all the recordings — I love the old recordings and all the recordings of the past — and there were some moments when I thought: Oh my god, this sounds exactly like a Fritz Reiner recording [Reiner was CSO’s maestro in the 1950s] or a [Georg] Solti [the Chicago orchestra’s longtime music director] … And I think that’s incredible that they’ve managed to preserve it. And of course, my job is to also further develop it, but also preserve it. And I think it’s so wonderful because in today’s world, orchestras start sounding the same. And we need voices which are really original.

Hmm. Why might Mäkelä have neglected Muti, now the CSO’s Conductor Emeritus? No doubt, Maestro Muti believes he did more than “preserve” the orchestra’s qualities in his 13 years as top man.

But Mäkelä associated himself with the two most significant conductors in the Windy City since the middle of the last century. One gathers that he expects to fill their shoes. As Daniel Burnham, the architect who designed the CSO’s Orchestra Hall, wrote:

Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably will not themselves be realized.

Reiner and Solti would have agreed. They did more than “preservation” of the status quo. They made “no little plans.”

Fritz Reiner rebuilt a CSO in recovery from everything that had happened in Burnham’s building during the preceding 11 years.

“Papa” Frederick Stock, their leader since 1905, died in late 1942. He was followed to the podium by Desire Defauw, who stayed for a less-than-stellar four-year tenure. World War II complicated the Belgian’s time, leaving him with 11 new players in his first season.

Artur Rodzinski lasted only a season (1947-48), and the 36-year-old Rafael Kubelik just three (1950-53). Fritz Reiner’s arrival at the end of 1953 raised the CSO on all levels, not least their long-playing records, which remain perhaps the most consistently fine group of discs in its history.

Amsterdam’s  Royal Concertgebouw

Georg Solti’s contribution was different. A Hungarian like Reiner, Solti inherited many of the same players who performed with Reiner before Solti began as Music Director in 1969. The group included several fine personnel additions made by Jean Martinon, Reiner’s immediate successor, including Principal Horn Dale Clevenger.

Even so, the CSO had toured little domestically and never outside the USA. Solti made sure his new orchestra crossed the ocean. International fame and a flood of records followed, as did endless tours in the United States and abroad.

Klaus Mäkelä (K.M.) is in the habit of commending big, transformative names. Upon the news of becoming the future Chief Conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, he told Principal Double Bass Dominic Seldis of his admiration for Willem Mengelberg’s recorded legacy. The man K.M. named put that renowned ensemble on the map and led the first festival of Gustav Mahler’s complete Symphonies in 1920.

Mengelberg last conducted the Dutchmen in the 1940s. Mäkelä mentioned no one who served after that. 

It is easy to conclude that Chicago’s youngest-ever Music Director wants to change an orchestra that must adapt to survive in the post-Covid world. His charm seems to belie an extraordinary self-confidence.

The job is enormous, and he knows he must replace 15 players out of the gate.

Who might Klaus Mäkelä have named if he’d been appointed to the Boston Symphony? Serge Koussevitzky, no doubt. But that conductor’s mark involved more than insisting on a ravishing orchestral tonality and realizing his interpretive genius in concert and on disc.

The BSO leader commissioned countless works and steadfastly championed them, including those of American composers. His fingerprints are also on Ravel’s orchestral transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition and Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra.

In 1942, he established the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, which continues to support living composers. Moreover, Koussevitzky fashioned the New York Philharmonic’s summer concerts in the Berkshires into an annual warm-weather festival of the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood, focused on performance and the mentorship of young musicians.

Serge Koussevitzky

Successful conductors each possess a potent ego. One cannot stand before soloist-quality musicians of experience and intelligence without it. The players must be convinced you are worth their time, though they will carry you even if you aren’t. Everything suggests Mäkelä has the ego and technique to do the job.

The three conductors named by Mäkelä, as well as Koussevitzky, had that and more: a visionary quality that would take the men and women sitting before them somewhere beyond the next performance.

As Seldis noted in the Concertgebouw interview, Mäkelä’s new “office” — the glowing concert hall in which he will perform in Amsterdam — has 26 red-carpeted steps leading not far from the organ pipes down to the stage — a harrowing trip for some.

One can only hope that the steep descent he will walk signals nothing ominous about the talented baton-smith’s future. Two storied orchestras expect every bit of his capacity beginning in 2027. 

My suggestion? As Former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt said:

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

For now, a Burnham-like “plan” will have to wait.

April 7, 2024

Where to Find Acceptance

Everyone wants acceptance from friends, bosses, and those we love. We also search for self-acceptance, the knowledge of oneself, and satisfaction with who we have become and what we have achieved.

One other kind is not less important. A rewarding life requires assent to the terms of living, the inevitable joys and sorrows, along with all our fellow travelers in the same air and water on or above the earth.

I’m speaking of accepting the rules of the game of existence, which include how to survive, live in the moment, take joy in small things, develop resilience, and mindfulness of the shortness of time.

No other creature knows the last of these conditions. Homo sapiens do.

The other side of the equation is expecting too much and believing time is endless. Thinking we can “have it all” when no one can.

What does all mean?

Those of us in the Western World want a significant measure of wealth and the material well-being that accompanies it. Many seek status and admiration of a substantial kind and amount.

People wish to be known by a select group and accepted for who they are, though this comes with risks.

Virtually everyone prays for a long and healthy life, maintaining the body and appearance of a preferred version of an earlier self. Countless others also hope to produce robust, handsome, happy, and bright children.

Men and women search for a society fit for fellowship, laughter, liberty, and a fair chance at happiness. Most tend to believe they’d “do the right thing” while hoping the daunting challenges pass them by.

One more desire should be added to a potentially longer list. To live in a peaceful world in a country striving for justice and the flourishing climate enjoyed by our grandparents.

Since a guarantee of winning all of the above and the entirety of whatever else you seek is beyond us, I’ll add a more attainable goal.

You can’t have it all, but you can have enough with effort and good fortune. Yes, despite much of it being out of your control in the hands of fate.

No one achieves a delirious, perpetual state of happiness. Even then, it is an elevated mood not because of but in spite of misfortune–looking for life’s randomly distributed good, joyous, incidental kindnesses and strokes of luck even when obtaining joy seems foolish.

Enough depends on rewriting your objectives and discovering a decent share of happiness in a more limited life. It is accepting life’s downside.

Enough is in need of patience with time, friends, (and therapy, if necessary) to return you to the set point of well-being you used to inhabit. Something close, at least.

Enough asks you to empty most of your bucket list and change your goals as you age. You might discover that 4-star restaurants don’t matter to the extent you used to believe, and becoming the chief of the tribe carries more unhappiness than the status it confers.

Enough is recognizing the day is short and choosing a modified catalog of priorities because you realize earthly eternity is out of reach.

Enough means learning to give to others and honoring their value as more fulfilling than receiving riches from them.

Enough is doing your part to repair the world. And being accepted by a few of those with the open hearts you seek.

You have one life. None of us will ever know all the universe’s secrets, win every game, produce a squad of Olympic gold medal children, and never encounter the people who like to fight.

There will always be scoundrels.

Will you rate your life high only if you do and see everything, with a perfect score on each new test?

Shooting for all the glorious targets exists in our imagination but not elsewhere. You, those you love, and the planet depend on a more nuanced set of expectations and efforts.

Modesty, humility, and acceptance provide a softer landing place.

Safe travels.

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The top photo is of A Local Morning Fish Market at Lake Awasa, Ethiopia. Next comes Sunset on the Candian Plains in Saskatchewan in August 2023. They are both the work of Laura Hedien, with her kind permission: Laura Hedien Official Website.

 

March 29, 2024

Knowing What You Don’t Know: Predicting Your Future

There are lots of intelligent people out there. Some believe they know everything and some think they know everything in their specialty.

A smaller number recognize that we are all missing a lot.

Given that we can only be sure about the world as it is (at best), we are particularly challenged by future uncertainties.

If one wishes to flourish in a rapidly changing world, he or she does well to begin humbly, knowing mistakes will happen, but also considering how best to approach the time ahead. In part, this begins with looking at what we can learn from the past and the patterned signals of what worked for us and what did not.

Learning — forever needing to learn — terrifies some. For others, it is a glorious opportunity. With that in mind, Wynne Leon and Vicki Atkinson just released a podcast in which they interviewed me about The Perils of Prediction.

The discussion is based on an earlier blog post of mine concerning the difficulty of making good predictions.

In the last section of the podcast (the video clip below), I discuss how to prepare for lives and conditions we can’t fully predict.

I invite you to read my earlier post or listen to all or part of my conversation with Wynne and Vicki.

Here’s to creating the best possible future for all of us.

March 27, 2024

Healing “The Anxious Generation”

Changes in our children’s lives do not come with a full-blast announcement. The seeds of a mental health crisis in the young can be traced to the early 2010s: the emergence of the virtual world on phones in the hands of children.

According to Jonathan Haidt, an internationally praised social psychologist, the result has substituted play for “a great rewiring,” with alarming consequences.

He writes:

The result was a new “phone-based childhood,” which altered the developmental pathways of children and adolescents, bringing them minimal benefits while reducing the time spent on beneficial real-world activities such as sleeping, playing with friends, talking with adults, reading books, focusing on one task at a time, or even just daydreaming.

He elaborates on this in his just-issued book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

Haidt calls special attention to social media’s particular harm to girls. More generally, mental illness has risen dramatically among adolescents. Depression, social withdrawal, anxiety, suicide, and self-harm are among the consequences.

To the good, Haidt is at the forefront of working to remedy many of the unfortunate results he describes. He proposes solutions to reduce the damage and improve our children’s chances of flourishing.

On The Anxious Generation website, Haidt provides extensive information about his findings and the steps to take going forward. Unlike too many volumes that are better at telling you what’s wrong than what to do, this one includes suggestions for collective action, parents and educators, and what government and tech companies can do.

Links to organizations already pursuing reduced phone dependency and more free play are listed.

I hope you will take the opportunity to learn more. This is a mission for parents, grandparents, teachers, and those who wonder how to free children to be the children and future adults we all hope for.

Pass it on.

March 24, 2024

Alone, Together and Other Social Choices

Has the world become lonelier, or was it always so?

Edward Hopper’s paintings suggest, at least, that he saw the loneliness of his time. Or perhaps what he painted was his solitary nature.

Not everyone wants to join others. The difference between extroversion and introversion is often what fuels us and whether our interests require time alone.

The introvert’s inborn nature tends toward the latter. Depletion is the consequence of spending too much time in groups. The extrovert is different. He is energized by human contact that saps the former.

The one who avoids parties and needs days off from time in public is often misunderstood.

Does he stay away because he thinks himself better than others? He might be shy, but introverts require recharging.

Does he postpone getting together because he prioritizes writing or another solo task?

Does the public element of his day job leave him exhausted?

Serenity, calm, or a meditative state are unavailable in the active and interactive human world. It is a condition many wish for.

How do we understand those not like us (if we understand him at all)?

Consider Hopper’s New York Movie, just below. What do you see? Is the usher daydreaming? Worried? Lonely? Thinking about her boyfriend? Bored? Has she seen this film too many times? 

Is she craving meaningful contact with others, or is she relieved to be by herself?

What basis do we use to determine this? Is it possible to get the correct answer based on this snapshot?

Now study Hopper’s painting Office at Night. It shows two people, one of whom appears preoccupied with his reading. He is turned away from the woman, indifferent to her.

Though opening or closing a file cabinet, the female faces the man. The typewriter suggests she might be the man’s secretary, as would have been a likely occupation for her in 1940.

But there is another consideration: she is young, pretty, and curvaceous, yet the man pays no attention to her.

What does this say about the pair? Again, we tend to make assumptions based on little data and our own history of making sense of the world. Is he married? Is he glued to what the paper says? Introverted? A workaholic? Will either one take action and engage the other? In what way? Will one of them regret what they do, say, or fail to do?

Depending on how you interpret many of Hopper’s canvases, you might believe you have an understanding of who his subjects are. You might be puzzled. Many conditions can be inferred: sadness, isolation, desperation, and expectation.

Ultimately, the observers—including you or me—exist outside of any activity within the art. Instead, we watch, think, and feel. We maintain a respectful distance from our art-loving neighbors because we are focused on the art and its message.

Do we shape ourselves into solitary, lonely, contemplative, active, or passive individuals? For the same price of admission, there might be other individuals who are by themselves. Doubtless, some are intelligent, puzzled, waiting for a companion, attractive, or any combination of these qualities.

And maybe one has noticed you.

The gallery allows you to create the world as you wish it to be. Anyone there has the capacity to bring a social event into being. Is your next best friend steps away? How about a momentary conversation partner, a person ill-suited to a discussion, an art student, or tonight’s dinner date?

What will you make of it? Do you realize it is yours to make? What does your presence, attire, stance, expression, or gait tell those nearby about you?

You are not a painting, but if those on the wall were watching you as you observe them, they’d have the chance to take your measure just as you draw conclusions about them.

The creations on display—their color, likenesses, and forms—wait for you to create what happens next. 

As Shakespeare wrote, “All the world’s a stage … and one man in his time plays many parts.” Introverted, extroverted, or otherwise, it is your turn to choose and read your lines.

Life is not a rehearsal; it is, in every moment, a never-to-be-repeated performance.

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All of the Edward Hopper paintings are sourced from Edward Hopper.net/

From top to bottom, they are Hotel Lobby, New York Movie, Office at Night, and Automat.

March 17, 2024

Questions to Ask Your Future Spouse

When I treated a new couple, I asked what first drew them together. The answer was almost always the same. “She/he was hot, and we had a lot of fun.”

I don’t doubt the truth of what they said. Considering my personal experience, I could have responded with something similar. Still, I can recall those I fell in love with offered more than beauty and laughter; they displayed intelligence, wit, kindness, and devotion.

Let’s remember, however, that the couples I treated came to my office because of their unhappiness. Whatever the value of their sexual magnetism and the fun they enjoyed, those qualities didn’t guarantee bliss. That’s why they sought my services.

What had they missed? The pair often lacked sufficient knowledge of each other before formalizing their partnership. Here are 15 questions offering a chance to recognize flashing red lights before you move in together, share your income, have a child, or get married.

Change pronouns as needed to fit the relevant gender. In each case, you are trying to find out more about your significant other:

  1. What was your companion’s experience growing up? The answer should include parent and sibling relationships, forms of punishment, any abuse, school challenges, changes in residence, financial status, disturbed caretakers, addiction issues, and more. (If you find out the individual has little memory of early life, she may be suffering from the repression of traumatic experiences).
  2. Meet the other’s parents, siblings, and children. While you might be preoccupied with making your own favorable impression, you can learn much about how you will fit into the world of your in-laws and how they treat your future spouse.
  3. Uncover what gives the beloved joy.
  4. Do you and your significant other share interests beyond sex and fun?
  5. If allowed to repeat the best moment of her life, what would the loved one describe and why?
  6. Did the sweetheart ever visit a counselor, and what spurred her to seek therapy?
  7. Is your darling now dealing with addiction, and what is her history of alcohol and substance use?
  8. Does the lady have friends? If not, why not? Are they close and long-standing? Can you meet them?
  9. How does your dearest approach the importance and management of money? Are you in sync with her thoughts?
  10. What hopes do the two of you share? Do you both imagine having kids? How many? When?
  11. What are the other’s life goals? Are your pursuits compatible?
  12. What are this woman’s politics? How will you get along if you are not like-minded?
  13. The same questions should be asked about religion and its practice. What faith, if any, would the children be raised in?
  14. Does your lover expect you to make her happy and solve all her problems? (No one can take on this burden for another and hope to bear the weight of it).
  15. Learn about your partner’s relationship history, including the most significant people. Why did these romances fail?

Be prepared to probe yourself in addition to your potential soulmate. Self-reflection is recommended even if you are celibate for the time being. It is best to know yourself.

If you believe some of the information above is worth pursuing, avoid appearing to be a prosecuting attorney performing a cross-examination.

Before asking too much, get permission, but don’t ignore the need to understand the one you care for. Consider the troubles that follow if you enter a relationship on Cloud 9 and lack a parachute when uncomfortable information reveals itself.

Of course, there are more possible questions than those I’ve listed, and you might obtain some of the answers in casual conversation.

Beware if you say to yourself, “I already know her well, and she would never mislead or harm me.” Approximately 40% to 50% of first marriages in the USA end in divorce. In the case of second marriages, 60% to 67% come to the same unhappy conclusion.

It is easy to dismiss the above because you believe, “Oh, that won’t happen to me?”

Would you bet the best years of your life on it?

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The top image is from an Engagement Photo Session by Arash Hashemi, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

March 10, 2024

How to Find Ourselves — With Help From “Poor Things”

We are launched into this world as if a computer programmer designed us. Nature gives newborns their essence, including hair color, skin shade, gender, and a developing brain.

Unlike built-in software features, however, we can attempt to modify them by living.

Our parents beat us to the job. They tell us to do this, do that, think this, and forbid that.

Their voices direct us to take risks — or not. And don’t forget those who urge us to have faith and then vacillate.

Much as our progenitors wish us well with love, guardians sometimes fashion a fence too high. Not all limitations provide protection; many of our caretakers paint the highway lanes of appropriateness with a narrow brush, policing their domain and ours.

Overseers often aim to mold you into their vision of how you should conduct yourself. Safety first? Sometimes, what is “for your own good” isn’t fitting for your flourishing.

What remains to every adult is widening the horizon of possibilities, removing the blinders, and making ourselves over. Few of us are finished products when college beckons, and we leave the assembly line of homelife.

The master German poet Rilke advised us to change our lives.

The 2023 movie Poor Things offers strange guidance for self-creation, consistent with Rilke’s urging. Emma Stone plays a young woman named Bella, created in part by a scientist we might call mad: Godwin Baxter, a surgeon whose nickname is “God.”

“God” views the young lady as an experiment — with affection as well. Her curiosity leads to adventure, and a bit is allowed. Still, she leaves him to fulfill her interest in a broader world than Godwin’s attitude permits within the home.

She proceeds toward the opposite of a contained, sheltered life. Bella breaks objects, takes risks, offends people, and discovers life by living it in extremes. The naive but intelligent female absorbs everything and grows from all she encounters, from books, new friends, poverty, sexuality, and mistakes, albeit not without temporary injury and setbacks.

Bella is not judgemental and sympathizes with the human condition, touched by the lives of others. When people attempt to take advantage of her, she moves on, free from grudges or thoughts of revenge. You might say she is a kind of feminist icon, a child-woman who searches for the best way to live and transforms into who she wishes to become.

Here is someone without a mask or a bended knee at the sight of a man.

This movie has been widely praised and takes us on a wild ride. It helps to have a stomach for the protagonist’s dangerous decisions, but the film is not a hellscape and is more than amusing. You needn’t enter the theater with a shield to come out pleased with the entertainment.

Many messages and morals can be taken from Poor Things. The one I prefer is not to restrict ourselves so much that life’s riches remain out of reach.

Consider approaching the time ahead as an experiment. Make yourself its only subject. As to others, don’t judge too much, don’t nurse grudges, and be strong — and joyous.

You will do well to be half as strong as Bella Baxter.*

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*Poor Things has received nine Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Cinematography. The awards will be announced on Sunday, March 10, at the annual Academy Awards Ceremony.

The top photo is Emma Stone at the 39th Mill Valley Film Festival. It is the work of Steve Disenhof: https://www.flickr.com/photos/marinsd and sourced from Wikimedia Commons.