No Category: The Soundtrack

So, with the New Year here, and with my body and mind feeling pretty alright these days, it seems like a good time to take a break from no category. I've accomplished more with this whole blog thing than I ever could have imagined 8 months and 40 posts ago. I've managed to piece together a bunch of thoughts on adulthood, psychology, art, and mythology. And I found the time and the space to learn a little bit more about myself. I know that I've had at least a few loyal readers, and you guys and gals should know that I'm filled up with gratitude to have had you along for the ride. And thanks to anyone who ever stopped by to check things out. As a final post (for the forseeable future, at least), I'd like to share a few songs that sum up what this whole experience has meant to me...

1. A Praise Chorus by Jimmy Eat World: Here's a song about grabbing adulthood by the cojones.

Are you gonna live your life wonderin' standing in the back lookin' around?

Are you gonna waste your time thinkin' how you've grown up or how you missed out?

Things are never gonna be the way you want.

Where's it gonna get you acting serious?

Things are never gonna be quite what you want.

Or even at 25, you gotta start sometime.

I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go.

Now all I need is just to hear a song I know.

I wanna always feel like part of this was mine.

I wanna fall in love tonight.

Are you gonna live your life standing in the back looking around?

Are you gonna waste your time?

Gotta make a move or you'll miss out.

Someone's gonna ask you what it's all about.

Stick around nostalgia won't let you down.

Someone's gonna ask you what it's all about.

Whatcha gonna have to say for yourself?

I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go.

Now all I need is just to hear a song I know.

I wanna always feel like part of this was mine.

I wanna fall in love tonight.

Crimson and clover, over and over.

Crimson and clover, over and over.

Our house in the middle of the street, why did we ever meet?

Started my rock 'n roll fantasy.

Don't don't, don't let's start, why did we ever part?

Kick start my rock 'n rollen heart.

I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go.

So come on Davey, sing me somethin' that I know.

I wanna always feel like part of this was mine.

I wanna fall in love tonight.

Here tonight.

I wanna always feel like part of this was mine

I wanna fall in love tonight.

2. Ain't No Reason by Brett Dennen: This one's about making the effort to love in this harsh, desensitized and impersonal world.

There ain't no reason things are this way

It's how they've always been and they intend to stay

I can't explain why we live this way

We do it everyday

Preachers on the podium speaking of saints

Prophets on the sidewalks begging for change

Old ladies laughing from the fire escape, cursing my name

I got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the same

A window and a pigeon with a broken wing

You can spend your whole life working for something

Just to have it taken away

People walk around pushing back their debts

Wearing pay checks like necklaces and bracelets

Talking 'bout nothing, not thinking about death

Every little heart beat, every little breath

People walk a tight rope on a razor's edge

Carrying their hurt and hatred and weapons

It could be a bomb or a bullet or a pin

Or a thought or a word or a sentence

There ain't no reasons things are this way

It's how they've always been and they intend to stay

I don't know why I say the things I say,

But I say them anyway

But love will come set me free

Love will come set me free

I do believe

Love will come set me free

I know it will

Love will come set me free

Yes

Prison walls still standing tall

Some things never change at all

Keep on building prisons,

Gonna fill them all

Keep on building bombs

Gonna drop them all

Working your fingers bare to the bone

Breaking your back, make you sell your soul

Like a lung is filled with coal,

Suffocating slow

The wind blows wild and I may move

But politicians lie and I am not fooled

You don't need no reason or a 3 piece suit

To argue the truth

The air on my skin and the world under my toes

Slavery stitched to the fabric of my clothes

Chaos and commotion wherever I go

Love, I try to follow

But love will come set me free

Love will come set me free

I do believe

Love will come set me free

I know it will

Love will come set me free

Yes

There ain't no reasons things are this way

It's how they've always been and they intend to stay

I can't explain why we live this way

We do it everyday

3. Breakdown by Jack Johnson: A song about finding the space in this madcap modern world to slow down and enjoy the view. 

I hope this old train breaks down

Then I could take a walk around

And, see what there is to see

And time is just a melody

All the people in the street

Walk as fast as their feet can take them

I just roll through town

And though my windows got a view

The frame I'm looking through

Seems to have no concern for now

So for now

I need this here

Old train to breakdown

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown

This engine screams out loud

Centipede gonna crawl westbound

So I don't even make a sound

Cause it's gonna sting me when I leave this town

All the people in the street

That I'll never get to meet

If these tracks don't bend somehow

And I got no time

That I got to get to

Where I don't need to be

So I

I need this here

Old train to breakdown

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown

I need this here

Old train to breakdown

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown

I wanna break on down

But I cant stop now

Let me break on down

But you cant stop nothing

If you got no control

Of the thoughts in your mind

That you kept in, you know

You don't know nothing

But you don't need to know

The wisdom's in the trees

Not the glass windows

You cant stop wishing

If you don't let go

But things that you find

And you lose, and you know

You keep on rolling

Put the moment on hold

The frames too bright

So put the blinds down low

I need this here

Old train to breakdown

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown

I need this here

Old train to breakdown

Oh please just

Let me please breakdown

I wanna break on down

But I cant stop now 

4. Tonight, Tonight by The Smashing Pumpkins: A song about trusting, believing & dreaming, even as grown ups.

Time is never time at all
You can never ever leave without leaving a piece of youth
And our lives are forever changed
We will never be the same
The more you change the less you feel

Believe, believe in me, believe
That life can change, that you're not stuck in vain
We're not the same, we're different tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight

And you know you're never sure
But your sure you could be right
If you held yourself up to the light
And the embers never fade in your city by the lake
The place where you were born

Believe, believe in me, believe
In the resolute urgency of now
And if you believe there's not a chance tonight
Tonight, so bright
Tonight
We'll crucify the insincere tonight
We'll make things right, we'll feel it all tonight
We'll find a way to offer up the night tonight
The indescribable moments of your life tonight
The impossible is possible tonight
Believe in me as I believe in you, tonight



5. Pork and Beans by Weezer: And lastly, a song that reminds us all to fly our freak flags.

They say

I need some Rogaine

To put in my hair

Work it out at the gym

To fit my underwear

Oakley makes the shades

That transform a tool

You'd hate

For the kids to think

That you lost your cool

I'mma do the things

That I wanna do

I ain't got a thing

To prove to you

I'll eat my candy

With the pork and beans

Excuse my manners

If I make a scene

I ain't gonna wear

The clothes that you like

I'm fine and dandy

With the me inside

One look in the mirror

And I'm tickled pink

I don't give a hoot

About what you think

Everyone likes to dance

To a happy song

(Hey, hey)

With a catchy chorus and beat

So they can sing along

(Hey, hey)

Timbaland knows the way

To reach the top of the charts

Maybe if I work with him

I can perfect the art

I'mma do the things

That I wanna do

I ain't got a thing

To prove to you

I'll eat my candy

With the pork and beans

Excuse my manners

If I make a scene

I ain't gonna wear

The clothes that you like

I'm fine and dandy

With the me inside

One look in the mirror

And I'm tickled pink

I don't give a hoot

About what you think

No I don't care

I don't care

I'mma do the things

That I wanna do

I ain't got a thing

To prove to you

I'll eat my candy

With the pork and beans

Excuse my manners

If I make a scene

I ain't gonna wear

The clothes that you like

I'm fine and dandy

With the me inside

One look in the mirror

And I'm tickled pink

I don't give a hoot

About what you think

Peace. Mike.

New Years Resolution for a Developing Adult

2012. The year that I'll be celebrating my 36th birthday. And my son's 2nd birthday. And, with my recovery from health problems in full swing and all, I can honestly say that I'm looking forward to this one. So, 2012, I just might like you.

The start of a new year, of course, is also a time to look at one's life and see where a little more effort and attention might be in order (cue sappy, self-reflective blog entry in 3...2...1). In looking at my own life, it's pretty clear that I've got some work to do in the area of existential freedom. For whatever reason - whether it's been my health problems, or just the generally sucky experiences that can build up after 35 years of living - I'm finding that I've become pretty fearful of uncertainty and chaos. In fact, I'd say that I'm outright terrified of not having control over my life. And, what with the world being unpredictable and all, one can see how this might be a problem. I'm even finding that when I encounter some problem I have no ability to control - typically some big, abstract global issue, or the actions and behavior of another person - I get anxious about my inability to fix whatever wrong I'm witnessing.


But the thing is, it's all related to this delusional belief I've got that if I don't control things something really bad is going to happen to me. And I think it's a problem a lot of us adults struggle with in the modern world, perhaps even more so here in the United States, where we seem perpetually inundated with messages of terrorism, drugs, identity theft, cancer, car jacking, genocide, climate change, bird flu, gang warfare, and the apocalypse (you know, just to name a few). It's a wonder any of us get out of bed in the morning.


But, as far as my own life goes, I'm ready to loosen my grip on my need for control and safety, and to accept the limits of my power and control. This year, for me, is all about living again. Giving into chaos and uncertainty once in a while. Not trying and be perfect all of the time. Accepting that I can't control everything. Turning off the TV. Ignoring the newspaper. Letting things take their course. And allowing life to take me where it will.

To let go. To experience. To live. These are my new year's resolutions.

Existential Adult Development

          

          "Every moment of one's existence, one is growing into more or 

           retreating into less."
                                                                  -Norman Mailer

One of my goals with this blog has been to find some perspective on this zany thing called adulthood. I've tried to explore the issue from multiple angles. The biographical. The mythological. And, of course, the psychological. In respect to this latter angle, I've actually been working to develop my very own psychological model of adult development. A lofty goal? No doubt. Arrogant? Possibly, but now that the first draft is up and running, I can't really take that much credit. I've essentially taken a bunch of ideas from other, much smarter, people and put them together in a way that works for me. This first version is a little rough around the edges, but I think it gets the main ideas across. So all of you developing adults out there, be sure to take a look. And for anyone interested in a more in-depth understanding of the model, here are some of my underlying motivations and assumptions...

• I've created this model based on my feeling that a lot of the old guides we have for adulthood aren't particularly applicable to many of the challenges we face in the modern world. A number of new developments - increased cross-cultural contact, the information age, an increased rate of societal change, and an overabundance of choices and options - are leaving many of us adults, I think, with a need for some basic guidance.
• The model is based on the premise that adult psychological development involves both continuity (one's ability to capitalize on strengths and interests across the lifespan) AND change (one's ability to learn, adapt, and grow across the lifespan). This is the basis of a field of study known as Life-Span Developmental Psychology.
• The model assumes that adult development occurs in response to the four big existential concerns of adult human life: Death, Isolation, Meaninglessness, and Freedom. In basing my model on these four concerns, I've tried to capture  pretty much everything the modern adult needs to flourish in the modern world. Our ability to 1) form healthy relationships with a wide spectrum of people, 2) develop a realistic and effective sense of responsibility, 3) find purpose and meaning, and 4) cope with change, loss, pain, and death all develop out of our responses to 1) isolation, 2) freedom, 3) meaninglessness, and 4) death, respectively.
• The four areas of adult development are all interconnected. We can't address our freedom (i.e. take control of our lives) without addressing meaninglessness (developing a sense of direction). And we can't address meaninglessness without addressing isolation (developing confidence in ourselves as individuals). And we can't really work on anything else if we walk around full of death anxiety.
• Adult psychological development is more open-ended and boundary-less than childhood development. There are no stages in adult development. Developing adults do not engage with the four existential concerns in any particular order, but rather, in times of convenience, interest, and need. We may work through a crisis of life's meaninglessness at the age of 40 only to have to do more work in this area at the age of 70. We may find the need to focus on freedom when we begin college and then again when we first become parents. We may take steps both forwards and backwards, left and right.  And there is no one right way to a healthy adulthood.
• And yet there are, I think, some very basic patterns of both function and dysfunction that can be helpful to keep in mind. This is where my model comes into play. For each of the four areas of adult development, I've created a hypothetical spectrum of developmental states. At the polar ends of each spectrum lie the most unhealthy development. The middle of the spectrum, meanwhile, represents an ideal, healthy situation. 
• Lastly, my intention in creating this model has not been to suggest that the goal of adulthood is to attain some sort of ideal state of perfect functioning. It has simply been to create a basic road map through the challenges of adulthood. My hope is to reduce, just a little bit, the chaos and relativity of adulthood in the modern world.

Okay. Well, that's about it for how. Here's the link again. The model is now a permanent page on my blog that can always be reached by a link at the top of the page. Enjoy!


Coming up next, I'll be sharing my New Year's resolution...

Existential Freedom and the Modern World (Part 2): Finding the Balance

"But where shall I start? The world is so fast, I shall start with the country I know best, my own. But my country is so very large, I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No, my home. No, my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself."

                                                                                        - Elie Wiesel

In a recent post, I discussed a few things that make it difficult for the modern-day individual to identify what he or she can control in this ever-confusing world. And yet, I also made the case that appreciating the parameters of one's existential freedom may be more important than ever. So the question now is, given all of the variables of our modern environments that seem perpetually close to swallowing us whole - our social stratification, our genetics, our family histories, the media, politics, advertising - how do we modern adults get in touch with the one variable that matters most: ourselves? Well, essentially I think the answer to that question is two-fold: 1) On the one hand we need to acknowledge our ability to direct our responses to the world and make choices about our actions. The fact is that we all have the tendency to get overwhelmed, and to stop paying attention to what we're doing. And yet, we are not completely at the mercy of the world's forces. We can exert control over our lives. 2) But we also need to make sure that we don't take responsibility for that which is out of our control. Because we also, from time to time, accept the burden for far too much, and develop delusional beliefs and expectations about the extent of our power and influence over the world. We are, each of us, tiny creatures, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Sounds easy, right? Ha. Here's what the modern adult struggle for existential freedom might look like on a hypothetical continuum...

    Existential Freedom 

<------------------------------------------------------> 

    Powerless               Self-Empowered          Overburdened

Powerless: On one end of the spectrum, we become overwhelmed by the world's larger forces. We may constantly go along with whatever our culture, the television, our friends, and our families are doing. We may forget to take the time to identify our own identity, our own values, and act accordingly.

Overburdened: On this end of the spectrum, we actually develop a delusion of having too much power and control. We take personal responsibility for all of the world's problems. We may become depressed by the actions of others, whether they be our family members, state and national politics, or global issues. And yet, the problem is ultimately with us. We are taking on too much personal responsibility for the rest of humanity. We must remember that we cannot control the actions of other people. All we can do is take responsibility for ourselves, and do the best that we can. 

Self-Empowered: The ideal relationship with our freedom, I would argue, would be some place right in the middle. In this ideal state, we take responsibility for the role we play in our relationships, the work we produce at our jobs, and the way we respond to our problems. And yet, we let go of those things we can't control. We realize that we are not at fault for the experiences of injustice that we suffer. We accept that we cannot control the actions of others. And we play our small part in impacting the big global issues that face humanity without carrying the weight of these problems on our shoulders. 

How each individual reaches this ideal self-empowered state, I can't say. We each inevitably have our own challenges, and our own path towards improvement. I am able, however, to speak about my own challenges in this area. So keep an eye out for some upcoming posts on my own struggles with feeling both powerless and overburdened. Until then, thanks for reading.

Existential Freedom and the Modern World (Part 1): The Challenges

Irving Yalom identified freedom as one of the four ultimate concerns of the human condition. The fact that we can reflect upon our lives - look back at where we've been and ahead to where we’re going - and ultimately make decisions about our current actions - this is what existentialists refer to as freedom. And this freedom, perhaps unexpectedly to some, brings with it a great deal of psychological suffering and anxiety. We may feel shame and guilt over past actions, fear over impending consequences, and insecurity over whether or not we can trust ourselves. Adding to this anxiety, a number of factors in this mad-hat modern world make it difficult to say with any certainty where our freedom begins and where it ends and what, if anything, is under our control. And yet, despite all of our anxiety and all of the barriers that we face, I believe that it is perhaps more important than ever that we adults develop an understanding and appreciation of our freedom, especially if we want to develop an authentic sense of its complimentary trait – responsibility. So I'm going to go along with Yalom on this one and include freedom as one of the four areas of my adult development model. But I’m also deeply aware that existential freedom is a difficult topic. So before I discuss what a well-developed sense of freedom and responsibility might look like in the modern world, I'd first like to identify those things that make it really, really difficult for us to understand our freedom. 

• The Self-Serving Bias: Researchers in the field of Social Psychology have found that our brains tend to adjust the level of personal responsibility we accept based on the outcome we receive. For example, when we win a game of Scrabble we might attribute our success to our impressive spelling skills while when we lose we might harp on the lousy selection of tiles we were dealt. Basically, our brains prefer to use reasoning that best maintains our self-esteem. And while this may be a good thing for our mental health, it sure makes it difficult to develop a clear and objective understanding of what is and what isn't under our control. So I would argue that an awareness of our biased perceptions is essential to gaining a realistic sense of our freedom and its limits. We must realize that many of the things we tell ourselves that we have no control over are actually well within our ability to change. Likewise, some of the things we take full responsibility for (good and bad), might largely be out of our control.
• The Just World Hypothesis: Humans have the tendency to believe that our natural and social environments hand out just consequences. We don't like to believe that bad things happen to good people, or that good things happen to bad people. Thankfully, the world does function in a just way much of the time. The hardest worker does sometimes get the promotion. And individuals who've committed horrible crimes are often caught and punished. And nice people sometimes live happily ever after. But the world is also partly chaotic. Every day innocent people are victimized through no action of their own. And in addition to their work ethic, people are also judged based on things like race, religion, gender, and body weight. Given our faith in a just world, we can become deeply troubled when confronted by the world's chaos. Women and children who experience abuse find it hard not to blame themselves. A husband will search for a reason as to why his wife died of cancer. And we all struggle to understand why people who behave badly get ahead. Ultimately, complete faith in a just world leads to a misguided understanding of our freedom. The fact of the matter is that the world contains both order and chaos. And we must take responsibility for ourselves in a world that won’t always reward our good actions or punish our bad actions (although hopefully more often than not this will be the case). Furthermore, we must realize that our own actions - towards kindness, mercy, hatred, resentment - all play a small part in how fair the world is for others.
• The Information Age is providing us with constant updates on the state of affairs across the globe - the genocides, the melting polar icecaps, the poverty, the starvation. We're watching 24-hour cable news programming and being asked what we think (but more often being told what to think) about all manner of issues outside of our training and experience - global economic systems, healthcare policy, international relations. And the more we allow ourselves to be seduced by the news, the more we are at risk to develop delusions about our existential freedom. We can become preoccupied with large abstract issues at the expense our immediate surroundings. We can become frustrated by our powerlessness to make a difference on a large scale. We can feel the weight of the world upon our shoulders. The challenge, in the face of this information overload, is to develop a realistic understanding of the limits of our own power.
• Modern American Politics: This one is more of a semantic issue worth clarifying. The concepts of freedom and responsibility are deeply ingrained in American politics, and are, unfortunately, often used towards hateful and ugly ends. The term freedom, for example, has become a sort of nationalist rallying cry, to imply something special about us Americans in contrast to the rest of the world. Responsibility, meanwhile, is often used by individuals, not to talk about their own responsibilities, but to disparage and pass judgment on those utilizing public assistance. All of this is, of course, against the spirit of existential freedom and responsibility, two terms intended, not to stroke our own egos or judge others, but to empower us to look critically at our own actions. In order to talk about freedom and responsibility from a developmental standpoint then, it is essential that we separate the terms from the politics, and reclaim them in a sense.

Okay, so that's the breakdown of the challenges. The question now is, in the face of our biased thinking, our myths about a just world, and the overwhelming distractions of the information age, how on earth are we supposed to develop any understanding of our freedom, let alone a sense of responsibility? What, if anything, is under our control? I’ll leave the answer to that one for my next post. For now, I'm going to sit with the question.

The Four Existential Concerns of Adulthood

Researchers in the field of Developmental Psychology have historically focused most of their attention on childhood development. While this line of study has yielded great advances in our understanding of how children grow and learn, it has also come at the expense of our understanding of adult development. One needs only to look at the major established theories - those by Freud, Piaget, Bowlby, Vygotsky, and Bronfenbrenner, for example - to see this bias. Erikson's work on psychosocial development may be the most glaring exception, although I've described what I believe to be the problems with his theory here. Other thinkers who have explored adulthood, meanwhile, have either focused on select aspects of adult development (Kohlberg's stages of moral development) or specific circumstances we encounter in adulthood (Kubler-Ross' Stages of Grief). As a result, I've always felt a little shortchanged by the field of Developmental Psychology. I mean, we can't all be doomed to be the people we were in 12th grade forever. Can we?

Consequently, one goal I've had for this blog has been to gather all of my scattered thoughts on adulthood, mix in a few big ideas from some big-wig psychologists, and create a sort of personal theory on adult development. And yet, while I've so far managed to eek out a few posts on particular aspects of adult development (see posts on pain, identity, and differentiation of self), I've been uncertain as to how these ideas might fit into a more cohesive model. Recently, however, in paging through one of my beloved therapy references, 'Existential Psychotherapy' by Irvin Yalom, I may have chanced upon the theory that effectively captures all of the varied ideas I've been exploring. In his classic text, Yalom outlines what he considers to be the 4 ultimate concerns of humankind: 1) Death, 2) Isolation, 3) Meaningless, and 4) Freedom. As a psychotherapist, Yalom was primarily interested in how these existential concerns informed the therapeutic process. He believed that our psychological difficulties stem from an inability to reconcile ourselves with these existential concerns. In order to feel better, then, we need to make peace with these concerns. In reviewing Yalom's ideas with my current focus in mind, it has occurred to me that his concepts may be just as relevant to the process of adult development as they are to the clinical treatment of psychopathology. In fact, one could make the argument that adult development is simply what happens to us as a result of our negotiations with our existential concerns over the lifespan. Depending on how we respond to death, isolation, meaninglessness, and freedom, we either get stuck, or move forward to new levels of consciousness and functioning. But more on this link between existentialism and adult development later. First things first. Here's a description of the four ultimate existential concerns, according to Irving Yalom...

Death: Human beings are unique creatures in that we are conscious that we will eventually die. This awareness causes us a great deal of psychological pain and can lead to the development of pathology. Responding to this reality in a healthy and positive way, meanwhile, is one of the great challenges of adulthood, which I've already begun to write about here. Yalom believed death to the be the biggest of the four ultimate concerns. 

Isolation: We are all, ultimately, alone. We can use language and other symbols to describe our lives to others as best as we can, but no one will ever fully understand our individual experience. Responding to this unbridgeable gap in a healthy way, then, becomes another major challenge of adulthood, which I've written a little bit about here. The difficulties we experience in connecting with others often brings us to either cut off relations with friends and family, or develop unrealistically close, co-dependent relationships. Developing a healthy acceptance of isolation, on the other hand, can propel us towards new heights of emotional and relational functioning.

Meaninglessness: The universe has no inherent meaning other than that which we bring to it. All of this meaning that we create (our understanding of ourselves and our world, our values, our spirituality, our goals, etc) gets captured in our individual identities. Finding peace with the existential concern of meaninglessness, then, requires one to develop a healthy identity, which I've already written about some here. The goal is to develop an understanding of ourselves and the world that is accepting of the full picture, but also affirming of our own unique perspective.

Freedom: This is probably the most difficult and complex aspect of existentialism. Mainly because the word has a great many meanings, and engenders a great deal of political, philosophical, and religious debate. The main thing to consider for this post is that existentialists use the term in a very specific way. The existential concern of freedom refers to the reality that, as humans, we are all capable of a broad range of actions, and that experiencing this level of freedom, and the responsibility it brings, is an uncomfortable reality. While it may seem strange to some that 'freedom' is considered an existential concern (it is often assumed to be a desired state), if one considers some extreme examples - that we can, for example, gamble our life savings away in a game of poker, or try meth for the first time, or cross the median and drive headfirst straight into traffic - the anxiety we all experience in response to our existential freedom becomes more clear. Like I said, though, this is probably the most complicated of Yalom's four concerns, and worthy of a bit more attention than I can devote here. So keep an eye out for a full post on 'existential freedom' in the not so distant future.

Well. That's it for now. The four existential concerns. Pretty intense stuff. Next up, I'll be working on an interactive page for my model of existential adult development.

The Shadow in Popular Culture

Adding to my previous post, I wanted to share a few popular modern examinations of Jung's notion of the Shadow Self...

Fight Club

Fight Club (both the book and movie) is a dark, dark, dark look at the shadow self. And yet, the gloomy tone of the film is, I think, appropriate to the actual terror that we can develop in response to our repressed selves. The unnamed protagonist of Fight Club is an everyman who spends his weekdays working a soulless job and his weekends shopping alone for apartment furniture. Carrying on this isolated modern existence has required the protagonist to repress so much of his humanity that his shadow has become a sort of monster - a hyper-violent instinctual creature. For those who haven't seen or read it, I'll stop my plot overview there. The movie is probably Brad Pitt's best ever performance.

 Black Swan

Some have called Darren Aronofsky's recent film the "female" fight club. And there might be a grain of truth to that. While Fight Club's male protagonist's deals with his repression by becoming outwardly aggressive towards others, the female protagonist of Black Swan responds to her repression by directing her frustration and hostility inward towards herself, as seen in her depression, anxiety, and self-mutilation. While, by no means do the experiences of all men and women fit into these neat categories, I do think that the gender restrictions of our culture result in many boys and girls responding to repression in these predictable ways. In any case, Black Swan is another dark, dark, dark movie. Beneath the surface of a talented dancer's sweet and controlled demeanor lies a monstrous shadow self. I would say that this was Natalie Portman's best performance yet.

video for 46 and 2 by Tool

I'll let this song (with lyrics shown in the video above) speak for itself. It was fun to go back to this song and actually understand it thanks to my recent introduction to Jung's Shadow Self.

About Schmidt spoiler alert

This is one of my all-time favorite movies, and Jack Nicholson is just amazing in the lead. Having lived his entire life in an unhappy marriage and a thankless job, Schmidt has come to think of himself as a failure. Only in this last scene does he finally come face to face with his shadow, which in Schmidt's case is his ability to have a positive impact on another human being. The film is a good illustration of how the shadow self is not all gloom and doom. It's also about finding our repressed human potential.

The Lives of Others

One more amazing film. This one includes a major character change when the protagonist breaks free of his oppressive role as a state spy and discovers his repressed humanity. One could argue, in fact, that all "character changes" involve some level of confrontation with the repressed self. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who hasn't yet seen it.



That's all for now. Coming up, I'll be revisiting my model of adult development.