GUEST POST: HOLLYWOOD ON THE COUCH: For Writers, Patience is Still a Virtue

Dennis Palumbo

Posted: January 28, 2010 12:00 PM

I remember, as a kid, an embroidered sampler my aunt had on her living room wall. It read, "Lord, grant me patience---but hurry!"

I think of this saying often, especially when working in therapy with my writer patients. Not surprising. After all, commercial writing---books, magazines, TV and film---is a present-tense industry. In recent years, its motto has shifted from "What have you done lately?" to "What's next---and make it fast, line two is blinking."

Then there's the pressure, particularly for journalists, of blogging, filing stories as much as five times a day, constantly updating one's Facebook page, Twitters and website. This is not an atmosphere that cultivates patience.

(And not just for professional writers. In such a media-saturated climate of urgency, it's no wonder that Americans, to a great extent, have become impatient with the government's response to our critical economic issues.)

As a result of this current frenzy for speed, for quick results, patience---with oneself, one's work, and, more importantly, one's way of working---is a somewhat devalued commodity. Particularly among those who ought to know better---writers themselves.

Nowadays, few writers are advised to cultivate patience. There's a lot of pressure to just write, to get it out there, to strive mightily to come up with the next high concept ("You got anything like Iron Man?" "We're looking for another Harry Potter-type book." "How about a police procedural show on Mars?"). We live in a competitive, consumerist culture, and there's tremendous urgency to perform.
A virtue like patience---sort of in the same homey, humble category as gumption---can get lost in the manic rush to produce material.

It seems too that the word patience has lost some of its calming assurance, its reference to longevity, endurance, and the slow growth of technical skill. Rather than thinking of it as the quality that enables a writer to explore his or her material, growing more competent by small, even measures, patience has taken on the attributes of a necessary evil. When a writer who's struggling in his career or with his creative process tells me, through clenched teeth, that he knows he "needs more patience," what he's referring to is an arms-folded, foot-tapping-nervously-on-the-floor kind of impatience, waiting for things to get better.

When seen in this way, having patience becomes the sorry equivalent of having to eat your spinach: it's supposed to be good for you---it's a damned virtue, isn't it?---but nobody really likes it.

Patience, then, rather than having a calming, nurturing function, becomes strained, a tortured version of "waiting your turn" until you, too, make it as a writer.

Stephen Levine, a well-regarded meditation teacher, once described the cause of suffering as, simply, "wanting things to be otherwise." I think this is the key to understanding the value of patience for a writer. If a writer thinks she is being patient by, symbolically, gritting her teeth and waiting for "things to be otherwise," then she will in fact only add to her suffering.

Believe me, I understand the temptation to envision patience in this self-defeating manner, given the competitive environment writers of all stripes find themselves in now. Write more, write faster, write funnier, write bigger---these are the admonitions writers hear every day. So I'm probably in the minority when I suggest that writers rethink the concept of patience, not as a virtue one has to swallow, like the aforementioned spinach, but as a qualitative state of mind to be nurtured---for its own sake---in oneself.

Writers, like everyone else in contemporary life, seem in a great rush to "get somewhere." But without truly staying "where you are"---without being with your thoughts, feelings and impulses, and really inhabiting them---what is there about you that can emerge to inform your writing? Getting somewhere is meaningless if the writing that results leaves your authentic self behind.

In the film Chariots of Fire, someone says, regarding Eric Liddle's refusal to race on the Sabbath, that the boy's faith needs to be honored; that the Olympics officials made a mistake when they "sought to sever his running from himself." In the same way, you can't separate the writer from the writing. And you can't know yourself---you the person, you the writer---without patience. Patience encourages and underscores the notion that your career is not only a life-long pursuit, but a daily connection to your experience of living it.

Moreover, patience builds faith in one's craft, because craft results only from the slow accumulation of skill---that is, from the mistakes, the breakthroughs, the false starts, the two-steps-forward-one-step-back rhythm that is the writing life. The cultivation of patience---not as a "waiting for things to change," but as a state in and of itself---leads to awareness and self-acceptance, necessary components of artistic command.

Rather than being in a hurry to get somewhere, writers are better served by exploring more fully where they are now---and that requires patience.

In other words, if I were making a sampler to hang on the wall, mine would read, "Lord, grant me patience---and take Your time about it."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com

Guest Post: Holmes and Watson in the Great Outdoors

Dennis Palumbo
Posted: January 5, 2010 11:40 AM


With the success of the new film Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey, Jr. as Holmes and Jude Law as Dr. Watson, I'm reminded of the following pithy little fable. (But I'll be damned if I can remember where I first heard it.)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went for an outing one weekend far north of London. They
pitched camp, ate a rustic meal over a wood-fueled fire, and sat contently as night fell, smoking their pipes and talking about nothing in particular.

Finally, they decided to turn in.

Some hours later, Holmes woke up his sleeping companion and pointed up at the ink-black sky, dotted with hundreds of luminous stars.

"Tell me, Watson," said Holmes. "When you look up at the night sky, what do you perceive?"

Watson blinked awake and contemplated the heavens above them.

"Well, meteorologically, I can tell from the striations of cloud that the weather will soon turn inclement. Astrologically, I can see that Orion's belt has shifted a bit toward the horizon. Astronomically, I understand that those stars twinkling above are actually roaring suns, giving off tremendous energy. Chronologically, I realize that the distances between those stars and our world are so vast, the light we see now actually shone from them millions of years ago. And, philosophically, I comprehend that in the limitless vastness of the universe, man and his works are quite small and insignificant."

Then Watson turned to his friend.

"Now, Holmes, what do you perceive?"

Holmes sighed. "I perceive that someone has stolen our tent!"


I don't think a Zen monk could have fashioned a better story about mindfulness, and the seductions of over-intellectualizing the world we experience. Plus, it's funny.

I'm also reminded of a quote by Fritz Perls, one of the founder of Gestalt therapy, who advised his clinical students to "Dare to be superficial." In other words, when working with a patient in therapy, pay more attention to what's actually happening in front of you than to any elaborate theories you may be formulating in your head.

Anyway, as the current (and certainly post-modern) version of Conan Doyle's great detective character continues to make noise at the box office, I could think of no better time to re-visit this wonderful anecdote about Holmes and Watson. And if anybody has any information about the story's origin, I'd be happy to hear it.



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

Guest Post: A Few Words on Behalf of Doubt...

Dennis Palumbo
Posted: December 16, 2009 04:55 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/


The film prompted me to reflect on our present, divisive times, and the profound role that a similar adherence to certainty plays in the ugliness of our cultural and political debates.

Right-wing idealogues like Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck speak with a certitude that would be hilarious were it not so destructive.

Populists like Sarah Palin and Lou Dobbs, who appear to represent individuality and "common sense," make handsome livings displaying both a certainty about difficult issues and disdain for those who wrestle with their complexity.

Meanwhile, on the left, media darling Michael Moore and intellectual darling Noam Chomsky dilute the impact of their often-valid criticisms by posturing with a certainty that borders on arrogance.

Which begs the question: whatever happened to doubt?

In my view, doubt fuels intelligence. It's doubt that leads to innovation in the sciences, by questioning the theories that have gone before. It's doubt that leads to positive social change, by questioning the cultural assumptions that have gone before. It's doubt that causes us to reflect on both our personal and national choices, and emboldens us to challenege conventional wisdom about "how things are done" or "how things have always been."

In other words, to doubt is to think.

I'm not talking about a crippling vacillation in the face of facts, or a reluctance to defend one's beliefs and values. I'm referring to the ability to consider other points of view as equally valid and relevant.

Moreover, we need to understand that who we are---how we were raised, the experiences we've had, and the meanings we give to those experiences---contributes greatly to our beliefs. And, most especially, to our opinions.

Take those ridiculous "birthers," who flood the Internet with nonsense about President Obama's supposedly foreign place of birth. (Even the above-mentioned Dobbs, to his lasting shame, gives these idiots credence.) This is prejudice masquerading as fact. This is what comes of certainty born out of ignorance, fear and hatred.

Or consider the global warming conference now taking place in Copenhagen. Reasonable people can disagree regarding policy, the economics, even the politics of the issue. But what we have instead is inflammatory rhetoric and political opportunism. The same goes for the difficult issues of immigration, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and health care reform.

Who among us can state with certainty what the best path should be, in terms of dealing with all these dilemmas? Instead of screaming our opinions at each other from behind the barricades of our respective certainty, we should be striving for informed, reasoned debate.

Of course, that would be hard. Harder than pointing fingers, exchanging sound-bites on TV news shows, or ranting on talk radio.

Last week, my wife and I finally got around to seeing the film Doubt, written and directed by John Patrick Shanley. Based on his own play, it concerns the head of a Catholic school, a veteran nun played by Meryl Streep, who becomes convinced that the new priest (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is guilty of sexually abusing one of the students. In spite of his protestations of innocence, Streep's old-school nun has, in her mind, the necessary proof. What is this proof? As she exclaims to a younger subordinate, "I have my certainty!"

Harder than spewing hate on the myriad racist, mob-baiting blogs that populate the web.

Harder than considering and valuing points of view that deviate from our own; or maintaining some humility as to the validity of our long-cherished opinions.

Harder, finally, than tolerating the discomfort of not knowing for sure. About anything.

Which means accepting, valuing---even embracing---doubt. And giving up the comforting illusion of certainty.

Because, like it or not, it is an illusion. In the words of philosopher Charles Renouvier, "Plainly speaking, there is no certainty. There are only people who are certain."

AEI CLIENT DENNIS PALUMBO’S LATEST HUFFINGTON POST COLUMN ON HATE SPEECH

"Reading Frank Rich's recent, gripping essay in The New York Times on the growing frenzy of hate-speech aimed at President Obama, I was struck by one paragraph in particular.

Following Obama's recent address in Cairo, Rich writes, "It was a prominent former Reagan defense official, Frank Gaffney, not some fringe crackpot, who...claimed that the President---a lifelong Christian--- 'may still be' a Muslim and is aligned with 'the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood.' Gaffney linked Obama by innuendo with Islamic 'charities' that 'have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.'"

What's so disturbing about Gaffney's remarks is that, as Rich points out, he's not "some fringe crackpot." But, like some other GOP leaders---and practically every commentator on Fox News, particularly Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and those silly twits on the network's morning show, "Fox and Friends"---he might as well be. Not only are these prominent people and their ilk giving "aid and comfort" to America's lunatic fringe, they're fanning the flames of hatred.

None of this is news to anyone with access to a radio, TV or the Internet. What is news, however, is the unchecked level of rancor, and the seeming lack of interest in how this wave of hate-speech may well contribute to more tragedies like the recent shooting at the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

After all, a case could be made that Bill O'Reilly's relentless attacks on Dr. George Tiller contributed to the atmosphere that spawned his unrepentent assassin. As Rich reminds us, O'Reilly called the doctor "Tiller the baby-killer...likening him to Nazis, on 29 of his shows before the doctor was murdered at his church in Kansas."

No wonder there's a growing concern among responsible citizens that the similar, increasingly acrid commentary and criticism leveled at the Obama administration might very well put the president in mortal danger.

As a therapist, I see daily the fear and frustration caused by uncertainty about the future and the changes it may bring---socially, culturally and financially. However, my patients---indeed, the vast majority of people---work hard to address their concerns with a healthy perspective, and to develop the kind of flexibility necessary to be a viable part of that future. They adapt, change and grow. That's what being an American has always been about. It's one of our nation's greatest strengths.

But a strident handful of Americans don't see it that way. As Rich goes on to write, these people "are irrationally fearful of the fast-moving generational, cultural and racial turnover Obama embodies---indeed, of the 21st century itself."

As research has demonstrated time and again, when people feel threatened by change they don't comprehend, they retreat to the dubious comfort of simple, demonizing slogans and reactive beliefs. They nurse imaginary grievances, give rein to paranoia, and blame all their unhappiness on "the other," on those who are different than themselves.

One likes to imagine these people living in relative isolation, without exposure or access to the larger society. The unsettling reality is that now they have their own shows on right-wing talk radio, or on cable news programs, or in myriad blogs. They're noted people who guest on Meet the Press, give interviews to national newspapers, and hold leadership positions in major political parties.

In other words, like other pandemics, the rhetoric of hate is spreading from the fringes to the mainstream. And, to give Frank Rich the last word, "it is getting louder each day of the Obama presidency. No one, not even Fox News viewers, can say they weren't warned."

NEW HUFFINGTON POST FROM AEI CLIENT DENNIS PALUMBO:

Your request is being processed...

Dennis Palumbo

Posted May 8, 2009 | 04:33 PM (EST)

HOLLYWOOD ON THE COUCH: R.I.P.,

Movies for Grown-Ups?

Well, it's that time of year again, when Hollywood begins rolling out the big-budget "tent-pole" movies. Last week saw the huge opening for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and this weekend brings Star Trek, also expected to deliver big box-office returns. Not to mention the upcoming Transformers sequel, Night at the Museum 2, Angels and Demons, and other high-profile summer fare.

Not that I have a problem with any of these films. I expect to be standing in line myself for a number of them.

My concern here---as both a movie-goer and a therapist who treats many noted Hollywood writers, directors, producers and actors---is that the number of big-budget, comic book-derived, fantasy-oriented films is on the rise, at the same time that fewer mature, adult-oriented films are making it to the screen. And that those which do come out are doing so poorly. Recently, we've seen the release of State of Play, Duplicity, and The Soloist---among others---none of which, despite good-to-great reviews, did much business.

Of course, I'm not alone in pointing out this sober fact. Industry pundits are mostly in agreement that movies have become primarily vehicles for urban teens, who are not only inclined to see their favorite films more than once, but are also avid consumers for merchandise and video games derived from those films. Whether on dates or in fan-groups, these teens are the primary target for Hollywood movies nowadays, which is why we see either big-budget films based on pop culture icons like Spider-Man or Harry Potter, or else low-budget horror films and R-rated comedies.

Not to mention how infrequently adults are taking the trouble to go to the movies in theaters. In this uncertain economy, with prices for everything from parking to theater tickets to baby-sitters on the rise, many adults are opting out of what used to be an almost weekly entertainment excursion.

This phenomenon is on my mind because I just learned that my friend Bobby Moresco (Oscar-winning writer/producer of Crash and Million Dollar Baby) is making a new film detailing the story of Fidel Castro's exiled daughter, Alina Fernandez. The result of a love affair Castro had prior to taking power in Cuba, Alina grew up to become a dissident who spoke out against Castro and the Revolution. Moresco will be producing, directing and co-writing the film with Nilo Cruz, a Cuban-American who was the first Hispanic to win the Pulitizer Prize for drama.

Sounds like a great project, that will probably make a great film. But will adult film-goers support it?
In recent years, we've had terrific films like Michael Clayton, Zodiac and Charlie Wilson's War go unsupported by the very same literate adults who routinely complain about the lack of quality entertainment coming out of Hollywood. Even Oscar-winning Kate Winslet couldn't get people into the theater to see Little Children.

Maybe now it's time for all of us to put our ticket-buying money where our mouths are and show up in support whenever Hollywood provides a movie for grown-ups. Rare as they are---and more rare they surely will be, if current trends continue---it's the least we can do. After all, we've pulled other endangered species back from the brink of destruction. Hopefully, we can do the same for grown-up movies, now assuredly on the Cinematic Endangered Species List.

AEI CLIENT DENNIS PALUMBO PUTS HOLLYWOOD ON THE COUCH

Dennis Palumbo
Posted April 1, 2009 | 07:44 PM (EST)
Huffington Post Blog

Hollywood on the Couch: Part 2

Every once in a while, a writer patient will come into my therapy office and announce, "Well, I heard the other day on the radio that we're all crazy."

"Who's crazy?" I ask.

"Us. Writers. Artists in general. This shrink was on some talk show on NPR, and he said it's been proven that we're all manic-depressives."

"I'm confused. Do you mean that because you're a writer you're manic-depressive, or does being manic-depressive cause you to be a writer?"

"He said it could be one or the other, but it could be both. What do you think?"

"I think I'm going to sit out the next NPR pledge drive."

Apparently, it's still fashionable: the notion that the creative impulse---given the emotional difficulties that often seem to accompany it---is merely the product of a psychological disorder. In case you haven't heard, the current favorite diagnosis for artists, particularly writers, is bipolar disorder---a condition that used to be called manic depression.

A number of well-known books have made this argument, from Kay Redfield's Touched By Fire to Alice Flaherty's more recent The Midnight Disease. But the idea that writers are of a single and highly neurotic personality type goes all the way back to---who else?---Freud. In the 1950's, a guy named Edmund Bergler (credited, by the way, with inventing the term "writer's block") wrote many books on the subject. His explanation for the reason that writers write? "Psychic masochism."

(A psychoanalyst friend of mine not only objects to Bergler's theories, but laments how often he got them into print. As my friend puts it, "Unfortunately, the only person who wrote constantly about writer's block, but appears never to have suffered from it, is Edmund Bergler.")

Obviously, the idea that the artistic impulse is inevitably the product of a psychological condition is
not new. After all, history is filled with examples of the tormented artist stricken by melancholy,
going on drunken binges, cutting off an ear, and generally behaving---as we therapists like to say---inappropriately. But to infer that some kind of "craziness" underlies creative endeavor, or, even worse, that the impulse to create is itself an indicator of some condition, is just plain wrong.

First, to whatever extent a therapist believes in the validity of diagnostic labels like "bipolar," one thing is clear: Labels exist for the convenience of the labeler. How helpful they are to the artistic person is debatable. (I recall hearing a radio interview with a family therapist who claimed that 98% of Americans were co-dependent. I found this as helpful as saying that 98% of Americans walk around on two feet. Ascribing a label to an entire group renders the label superfluous.)

Second, claiming that the creative impulse comes from any one source---whether mania, psychosis, or the moon---is both ludicrous and potentially harmful. Ludicrous because it's over-simplified and inconsistent with the lived experience of countless artists. Potentially harmful because it undervalues the mysterious, indefinable aspects of the creative act.

I'm reminded of a quote by H.L. Mencken, who said, "There is always an easy solution to every human problem---neat, plausible, and wrong." The tendency to see an artist's emotional (or even creative) struggles solely in terms of their being a problem---and thus potentially solvable---betrays a profound narrowness in scope, imagination, and appreciation for the hidden ways of the artistic heart.

The point is, yes, perhaps Van Gogh did suffer from symptoms that we might today label as bipolar. But what is also true---and certainly more important---is that he was incredibly talented. Both facts can co-exist, without one necessarily causing the other.

As always, I'm struck by our desire to take that which defies explanation and try to reduce it to some kind of rational terms. Whether residing in the rules of all the "how-to" books on writing currently in
print, or emerging from the latest analytic theories, or championed in studies from the academic community, we seem to need to "make sense" of creativity, to isolate its source in some concrete, quantifiable way.

And we always fail. Its magic continues to elude us. Thank God.

The novelist John Fowles put it best: "For what good science tries to eliminate, good art seeks to provoke---mystery, which is lethal to the one, and vital to the other."

PALUMBO REPORTS ON NBC CANCELING CHRISTMAS [via The Huffington Post]

Dennis Palumbo

NBC Cancels Christmas!

As you might imagine, the entertainment industry patients in my therapy practice have reacted with shock, disbelief and outrage to the news that NBC has decided to put Jay Leno's talk show on the air in prime time, five nights a week, at 10 PM. That's five hours a week of scripted television literally wiped from the slate.

And what does that mean? Well, according to some industry analysts, the loss of about 1500 jobs.
Not just those of writers, actors, directors and producers, but the hundreds of on-set production jobs, post-production facilities jobs, even support businesses like restaurants, drivers, etc.

Announcing the news right before the holidays, NBC laid a Grinch-like surprise on a helluva lot of people. Talk about lousy timing. Not only is the country in the midst of the worst financial meltdown since the Depression, but Hollywood itself has been suffering from pervasive unemployment at every job level, a severely-reduced number of production and development deals, and---especially in network television---a shrinking viewing audience.

What's particularly foolish about NBC's decision---which, I grant you, will undoubtedly result in considerable short-term savings for the network---is the fact that, in my opinion, viewers still want to see late-night talk shows in the same time slots they've always held: namely, late at night. Since the era of the first Tonight Show, viewers have associated watching late-night talk shows with "winding down" after a long day. It's the time for settling down in bed, or curling up on the sofa, and letting the loose, topical monolgue jokes and fluffy interviews with celebrities ease you into sleep.

Trust me, there's even some clinical support for this view. For those struggling with sleep difficulties, behavioral therapists have long suggested using simple, repetitive routines to create a bedtime habit that the body comes to associate with sleep. Like eating a banana every night before bedtime, or having a cup of tea while reading a book or listening to soothing music.

I believe that late-night shows like Leno's and Letterman's function in the same way. They're part of the habitual winding-down process for adults. They're a post-news-show, post-checking-that-the-doors-are-locked ritual that leads almost inevitably to preparation for sleep. (And after what we see most nights on the news, we need all the sleep aids we can get.)

Conversely, when prime-time shows like CSI:Miami, Law and Order and ER are on the air, people are still alert and engaged enough for a good story. In fact, they want one. The kids are in bed (hopefully), and their parents' brains usually welcome the idea of becoming involved in dramatic narratives thankfully unlike those that have occupied them, at work or at home, during their hectic day. As did their children (and themselves) when young, most adults want to be told a bedtime story.

Now, at least at NBC, the familiar creature-comfort satisfactions of late-night talk shows that actually air late at night (as God intended, dammit!) have been removed. I mean, do we really want to see some hyperbolic movie star plugging his latest film at 10 PM?

Moreover, frankly, I don't believe this new programming ploy will work. Okay, perhaps at first, in the way that ABC found initial success by running Who Wants to Be a Millionaire every night at 8 o'clock. But, as with that show, I think viewers will soon tire of a five-night-a-week diet of a talk show. When that happens, NBC, suddenly faced with five prime-time hours to fill, will have to scramble to come up with new programs.

Funny. When I was a kid, I always liked the NBC logo of a peacock, with big eyes embedded in each of its colorful feathers. Who could have imagined that now, many years later, all of those eyes would end up being so...well...short-sighted?