Sunday, May 9, 1999
Hi Charlene,
I always enjoy verbal jousting and never get tired of it. I've already used your "enema" crack on someone. It's now one of my all-time favorites. It's amazing though how paranoid some joustees get when you go beyond certain taboo boundaries they've set up in their minds. They expect you to respect these boundaries but they'll never tell you beforehand where they are!
I used to joust with this really fun Asian guy who had just gotten married. Nothing seemed off-limits. After he impregnated his new wife I said, "We're taking a poll to see what color it's going to come out. So far the leading choices are black and green." I was just extemporizing in my preferred absurdist manner and expected him to come back with something even viler. Instead he got up, came over to me, placed his fist in front of my eyes and said, "The next time you mention my wife I'm going to smash my fist into your glasses and blind you." We didn't, er, talk much after that. Later, somebody explained to me that Asians don't make fun of sex. Well, why don't they warn us, then???
I'll let you know what Laurie says, if anything. She likes to win arguments by ignoring her adversary, so I may be responded to with a cold shoulder. My sister does that too, you'll notice. Feminines!
You're right, Laurie wasn't warm and fuzzy in her interview. But I suspect that there's ultimately something whimpy in how she relates to people in her "healing" work. I distrust the way she has focused on dying AIDS patients for the last 15 years, for example. She hovers over them and holds their hands and says things like, "Wow, you're really growing now." If I were dying of AIDS I would want to die with dignity, not with someone whispering sweet lies in my ear. In short, she's one of the new generation of "growth salesmen". You pay her a fee, and she'll tell you you're growing. It's 21st century snake oil. And it's a lot easier to sell this crap to junkies, which most of her patients are, than to intelligent people with a real stake in the future.
Sorry to be so cynical, but I'm kind of disappointed in Laurie sometimes. I try to involve her with my discussion groups and she always comes off to them as being full of herself. I guess having a famous dad could do that to a person, but I still wish she could find a way to be "one of us" and not Miss Thing standing off to one side with her rewards ("You're growing.") and punishments ("You're not growing.").
The truth is I love Laurie a lot. I've put a great picture of her all over the Center's web site. They'll always be a place at my table for Laurie, forever, because however annoying and limited she can be, she's still "out there" where the truth is, even if she herself isn't always able to get her hands on it. And she uses Paul's ideas implicitly in everything she does, even though she sometimes has the appalling (pun intended) gall to claim that she's "gone beyond Paul". When she says that, what she means is that where Paul was a man of science, she likes to believe in miracles and the afterlife. The fact is, she's quite gullible and believes any and all rumors of supernatural events. Such tales seem to comfort her in exactly the same way they disturb me. If that's "going beyond Paul" then leave me behind, please. It's not uncommon, I must sadly report, for the children of communists to become "born agains" in the worst possible way.
Thanks for sharing this problem with me. The fact that you feel you need to "apologize sincerely" for not telling me sooner that you'd be at the online chat group when you know perfectly well that I've never asked people for such confirmations, coupled with your uncertainty as to whether your severe anxiety crisis constitutes a psychological issue worthy of sharing with the group, shows me how much this incident has not only undermined your pride but impaired your judgment.
For starters, you should know that If Paul ever heard you talking like you just did in your note to me he would raise the roof and threaten to kick you out of his office. He would have said, "How dare you bow to society's conformist conventions at the expense of your mental health? Haven't I taught you that taking care of your identity is your first priority??"
And I'll add, how dare you undermine so much in yourself merely to bow to a superstitious custom based on, of all things, NUMEROLOGY? Suffering with anxiety for three months for such a goofy reason would be the most extraordinarily foolish thing you could do at this point in your development. It could unravel years of work you've done to become the beautiful person I've come to know.
There isn't a single good reason I know of, given the reaction of dread you just had, for you to see any of these horrible people. And here's a factor you're clearly not taking into consideration: They must realize by now that the little Charlene they knew years ago has grown beyond the sterile worlds they cling to. Doesn't it occur to you that you might be doing them a favor by NOT coming? Do you really think they want you around, as they struggle to celebrate their false ideals, to remind them how corrupt and demeaned they've become? You're not that important anymore to them, Charlene, except as somebody it was once fun to intimidate and bully. Stop thinking you are and get on with your life.
You're still trying to live in somebody else's world, with somebody else's values. It's time you let go of the intimidation these aggressive people once used to control you. There's nothing you need to be involved with now except people you care for and who treat you well. I'm glad that Dennis has learned about the tortoise-shell mechanism, but that concerns adaptive areas like going to the supermarket, or dealing with people on a job. You wouldn't fight a tornado by walking on eggshells, would you? A maelstrom that threatens to suck you in and destroy you can only be resisted by the withdrawal mechanism, where you tell yourself that "all that is none of my business" and you go on with your daily routine as if it weren't even happening.
Paul talks about the importance of withdrawal for feminines and indifference for masculines when he talks about Odysseus near the end of Psychoanalysis and Civilization: "Only universal love gives men a view of life of sufficient scope to put aggression in its place; only objective power gives men a way of life of sufficient grasp to undo the influence of passivity. Odysseus survived his passage past the home of the monster, Scylla, only through insight given by the gods; modern man dares to expect of himself insights great enough for the task. Odysseus did not yield to the temptation to fight Scylla; he withdrew, allowing Scylla those inroads which he could not prevent. He survived the passage of Charybdis by ignoring her, giving him mastery over this danger. In so doing, he surrendered all claim on feeling in the situation, putting his curiosity aside. In the myth of Scylla and Charybdis the ancient Greeks laid down the fundamental rules of creative dealing with aggression and passivity. Aggression is not to be fought on its own grounds; passivity is not to be permitted to entangle its victim in its own premises of thought."
Yes, by all means, raise this issue at the group. And if you want to prime them for the discussion, feel free to email them beforehand and to quote my reaction to any extent you choose. Their email addresses are included at the end of the note I sent out last week. But leave Scylla to stew in its own juices. That's one monster you don't need anymore.