wisdom

January 21, 2013

What Mindset Should You Have For a Challenge?

Red_Bull_FIM_Motocross_of_Nations_2008_start_line

The great athletes and musicians have something to teach us about preparation. But, probably not what you think.

Yes, they work hard and practice, practice, practice. They have a “day of performance” routine to get enough rest and usually are careful not to eat too much before the event. But as the clock ticks down to the big moment, mindset can be key. Whether competing in a race or playing in a symphony orchestra, “attitude” counts.

For the solo trumpet player who begins Mahler’s Symphony #5, mental outlook is crucial. He plays alone for over 20 seconds and dominates the sound when joined by the orchestra for the next 20. If it goes badly, even the musically uneducated know it. The 70 minute performance has been set on the wrong road and sometimes never recovers. How did the greatest orchestral trumpet player of the 20th century get into the proper frame of mind for this? Adolph “Bud” Herseth, the Chicago Symphony’s principal trumpet from 1948 to 2001, did something very simple.

Adolph "Bud" Herseth

Adolph “Bud” Herseth

According to longtime Chicago Symphony violinist Arnold Brostoff, it amounted to writing a bit on his sheet music. Brostoff happened to be looking at Herseth’s music stand during a break in a Chicago Symphony rehearsal of that piece just as his colleague stepped away for a few moments. What he saw at the head of the solo trumpet passage were two letters, “TP,” in Herseth’s handwriting. There is no musical notation matching those letters, so Brostoff was puzzled.

Herseth returned shortly thereafter and Brostoff asked him what it meant.

The answer? “Think positive.”

If you’d like to see and hear Herseth facing this musical challenge, click on the link:  Mahler Symphony #5.

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The first photo is the Red Bull FIM Motocross of Nations 2008, Donington Park, England by Mark. It is sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

December 29, 2012

Short and Sweet: Getting From Here to Happiness

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Here is something to think about if you plan to turn over a new leaf in the New Year; try a different road on your search for happiness. It comes from a 1967 interview with the movie director Ingmar Bergman for Swedish TV. He told this brief story in response to a question concerning the extent to which he thought about his potential audience as he wrote and directed his movies:

It seems that some time in the Middle Ages a Chinese wood-carver obtained the assignment of making a stand for the temple bells. He was ambitious and talented, so he set about his work. As he began to carve, his mind turned to the idea of all the money he would make for performing his craft. When he was done, however, the wood-carver realized that the stand he had produced was poor. He therefore began again. His head was soon filled with thoughts of how his completed carving would win him everyone’s love. Unfortunately, the second effort also went badly and he again destroyed his sculpture.

While making a third attempt at the wooden stand, the artisan imagined that the finished product would be so fine as to win him immortality. Furious and frustrated when he again failed to do a good job, the wood-carver started over once more. On this fourth occasion he had only a single thought in his head: making the bell stand; and in so doing, he gained love, money, and immortality.

—

The photo is a Temple bell of the Nataraja Temple in Chidambaram, Tamil Nadu, India, taken by Flickr user 3eyedmonsta, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

December 24, 2012

A Most Unlikely Christmas Movie

 

When friends bring up their favorite Christmas movies, I never name the ones they mention.

Not for me, It’s a Wonderful Life or A Christmas Carol or A Christmas Story, much as I like them all.

Return with me to the night before Christmas, 1955, the only time I ever spent out with my folks on Christmas Eve. Perhaps then you will understand.

—

I couldn’t have been more excited.

My folks and I were going to the new movie Ulysses starring Kirk Douglas; more famous these days as Michael Douglas’s father, or the father-in-law of Catherine Zeta-Jones.

I would have my parents to myself. My little brothers (much too small to go) were in the charge of grandparents. More remarkable, we would be eating out, a rare treat for the Stein family, where memories of the Great Depression forever justified frugality, stay-at-home meals, and the second-best of everything else.

I was nine-years-old.

But, of course, the real excitement would continue into the next day — Christmas Day — and all the presents I hoped might come my way. Things like electric trains, rocket ships, and other gifts beyond imagining.

No tree was planted in our two-flat because no religious connection to the day existed there; not Christianity or any other faith. Christmas was simply an occasion for the purpose of showering me (and my brothers) with presents within the limits of our family’s ever-present budget consciousness.

I was well past the belief Santa existed — I understood from whence the loot came: my dad’s departures paid for everything. His work was then vague to me, but his time away vivid to all of us. Milt Stein worked four different jobs in a typical week: his full-time position as a postal supervisor, part-time labor as a bookkeeper for my Uncle Sam’s business; dad’s own small cigarette lighter-repair enterprise which (with my mother’s help) became the object of his after-dinner attention, and one weekend day spent serving as a security guard at some factory or other in the Chicago area.

My Father During His Stint in the Army During WWII

My Father During His Stint in the Army During WWII

Being out with my father was always special. Sometimes, to spend a little more time with him, I’d walk from our place at 5724 N. Talman to the Lincoln and Washtenaw bus stop: the final destination of my father’s journey from work. I’d wait for him to come off the bus in search of an extra five-minutes togetherness walking back. I never felt desperate about this or lonely. Instead I acted without much thought to do what appealed. At nine I was no psychologist.

Once home dad put down the satchel he carried with him, took off his coat and hat, washed up, and sat down to dinner at the kitchen table with mom. I’d then shared him with mom and my brothers; and with the work he removed from the carryall soon after dinner. He laid out the cigarette lighters needing repair on the dining room table, the tools my mom used to fix the most difficult items, the protective tins and cardboard boxes in which he shipped these incendiary devices back to their owners, and the paper trail of invoices intended to produce a little more money for the family.

A rapid completion of the repairs might allow dad to watch TV. We then enjoyed time sitting close to one another on a living room sofa covered in a clear plastic couch-protector designed to make furniture last. I bathed in the warmth of my father’s presence and the glow of the 26″ Muntz TV, one of the few things my parents bought representing any sort of luxury: a behemoth for its time, the largest television screen then available.

Dad would go to bed around 10 PM, and was back up before 5:00 for his 7 AM clock-in at the giant postal facility on Canal Street downtown, repeating the cycle in-perpetuity.

My father survived a heart attack in November of 1958, then three years ahead of us. Some part of me never thought of him or life the same way thereafter. His cardiac nemesis caused me to cherish even more the time we might yet spend together, worried he might be snatched away. But this Christmas Eve would be special and his heart problems were unforeseen. An action movie awaited with swords and spears and bows and arrows and monsters and everything! The treat of restaurant food and the anticipation of the next day’s Christmas haul beckoned!

Ah, the best laid plans …

Ulysses1shWeb

Ulysses is the Roman name for Odysseus, the famous Greek hero who is credited with the idea of using a “Trojan Horse” to achieve the fall of Troy. The tale rendered by the movie is Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus’s difficult return from the Trojan War to his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus on the isle of Ithaca, his kingdom.

Well-fortified with a tasty spaghetti dinner at the restaurant, I readied myself for the movie’s action.

I thrilled at the Cyclops named Polyphemus who Odysseus and his men defeated, the Sirens, and all manner of trial and nemesis he encountered on the way back home. There, Penelope and Telemachus waited for him for 20 years in total — 10 while he fought at Troy and 10 more for his delayed return. Penelope had the additional job of fending off the advances of suitors who wanted her surpassing beauty (and Odysseus’s estate) for their own. The suitors, in fact, lived in Odysseus’s palace, eating his food, drinking his wine, and lusting after his wife, who fashioned excuses to make them wait. The suitors’ incivility is Homer’s comment on what happens when sons are raised without fathers. Their fathers, at Odysseus’s side, fought in the 10-year Trojan War. Some came back, some did not.

My stomach was rumbling a little by the time our hero, disguised as a beggar, revealed himself to his son and enlisted his help to defeat the unwanted, savage house guests. The actual carnage, when Odysseus and Telemachus killed every last man occupying his home, began as my belly full of pasta was turning South. I’ll spare you the gory details of both the final disposition of my meal and the suitors. Neither was pretty.

With My Father in the Albany Park Neighborhood of Chicago

With My Father in the Logan Square Neighborhood of Chicago

I made it to the movie’s end and back home before the inevitable catastrophe, kneeling at the bathroom’s porcelain alter, the most religious position I had assumed in connection with the holiday. The physical event sucked every bit of life out of me. I wished for nothing but to be carried to bed, tucked in, and allowed to sleep off my body’s betrayal.

Sleep I did, in a good enough state of health by morning to enjoy the Christmas gifts. I remember nothing of the presents themselves, only the night before, including the movie and the time with my folks. Christmas 1955 remains the single holiday of my youth, other than generic recollections of July 4th, that stands out in my memory.

As childhood went on I continued to take almost every chance possible to be with my father. Once a week, always on Sunday afternoon, his mother would come to our house and, at dinner’s end, I tagged along as dad drove her back to the apartment she shared with her sister, south of Riverview Park. I couldn’t pass up the dual summer treat of watching the Silver Flash roller coaster as we passed the amusement park on Western Avenue and having my father to myself for the 30-minute drive back home.

Whenever dad and I would take an elevated train ride after his heart attack, catching the Ravenswood rapid transit at its Western Avenue stop, we were never alone: his mortality took the ride with us. Walking up the stairs to the southbound platform, my father stopped at the first landing to take a breather, reaching into his pocket for a nitroglycerin tablet to make sure another cardiac arrest could be forestalled.

On Top of the World with My Dad

On Top of the World with My Dad

Many years passed before I realized that The Odyssey had a personal meaning for me: the homecoming of my father. No, dad never was mistaken for a warrior from Troy. He returned, instead, from whatever adventures he encountered on the road to making a living — a thing that the Great Depression ensured would define him.

Like Odysseus’s son Telemachus I waited for him and kept the faith, as did my mother and little brothers. We knew eventually he would come, if not as soon or as often as we liked. When I needed books for a research project or a book report, he gladly borrowed them from the Downtown library. He often brought a Planter’s Peanut bar with him, too, because he loved peanuts and thought I would. I never did come to like peanuts, but I can tell you I tried hard to enjoy them, as I tried fishing with a bamboo pole (and later with a rod and reel); enough to go out on several frigid Saturday mornings before dawn, bored out of my mind and short of sleep, to do the thing he loved and I hoped in vain to grow to love.

I couldn’t will myself into a fishy rapture, much as I wished to. Does effort alone ever generate passion? Not surprisingly, we both gave up on the project. Still, I am touched by the thought he wanted me to share the thing he enjoyed, even if, in the end, it wasn’t in me. Thankfully, we did share a love of baseball, something that bound us together until death finally took him at the considerable age of 88, almost 42 years after its foreshadowing in the 1958 heart attack.

Christmas for me means (as it does for so many) family and memories. And, very particularly for me, spending time with my dad, even if my stomach was upset, or we watched a very un-Christmas-like movie; or I waited for him on a street corner, or shivered on a lake early in the morning hoping to fall in love with his favorite hobby.

My memory of that long-ago Christmas Eve is now 61-years-old. But at least in my memory, my unsettled insides on December 24, 1955 didn’t make much difference.

In the end, all that mattered was that finally, like Telemachus, I was at home with my dad.

December 19, 2012

The Frustration of Waiting in Line: Idle Thoughts about the Queue

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The folks in the above photo don’t look too happy. They are waiting for a bus in Chicago back in 1973. Just the year before, my grad school roommate Don Osborn told me that he’d had a nightmare about getting into his car, merging into traffic, and thereby creating complete and total gridlock — everywhere and forever. Talk about a long wait.

Earlier this month, a 125-mile traffic jam on the highway from St.Petersburg to Moscow lasted an entire weekend, Friday through Sunday. A snowstorm was identified as the cause.

At least the folks in the traffic jam presumably had access to car radios, music systems, and internet-connected phones. Those in the 1973 photo had none of those things. What might they have done to pass the time?

  • Talked to their neighbors.
  • Meditate (not as popular then as now, however).
  • Think about the things they were grateful for.

Based on their facial expressions, however, it looks as though they were preoccupied. They appear to be compulsively checking the horizon, hoping to spot the bus, forgetful of the old adage “A watched pot never boils.” Some are surely grumbling about the traffic, the lousy public transportation system, the cold weather; or worrying about the appointment for which they will be late.

A more productive activity would have been to think about the countless previous times they’d been late in their lives, caught in lines of one sort or another, and how life went on without tragic consequences. Or, they could have spent the time contemplating those who suffer real tragedies, and realize that waiting in line is small potatoes by comparison.

No one would have stopped them from looking around at the architecture or doing some people-watching. I suspect there were lists to be made, too. Things like:

  • What do I need to get at the grocery?
  • What are the things I need to work on to be a better person?
  • What have I been putting off that I need to put on the top of my to-do list.

They probably didn’t, of course.

Various estimates suggest that we Americans spend two to three years of our lives in line. A lack of control seems to be part of what makes this unpleasant. Many of the same people who hate being in line will procrastinate on tasks that cause them even more agony than a time-wasting queue. I recall my anticipatory anxiety as I contemplated calling a girl for my first-ever date in high school. I must have stared at the telephone (only land-lines existed back then) for an hour or more. I’ve long since learned that getting things over with quickly is not only more efficient, but reduces suffering; and, that the lead-up is by far the worst part of the process. She said “yes,” by the way.

Bowery Men Waiting in Breadline, 1910

Bowery Men Waiting in Breadline, 1910

Another way of dealing with involuntary waiting is to reframe the situation. Instead of seeing it as a problem, you might look upon it as an opportunity to learn a zen-like patience. That attitude would cause you to be grateful to the inefficient checkout clerk at the store or the person in line ahead of you who has 13 different coupons to process and is writing a time-consuming check rather than using cash or a credit card. But, if patience seems a stretch for you, some effort to accept the things you can’t change could work to make you feel less aggravated.

Waiting can sometimes build anticipation in a good way. If the world were filled only with immediate gratification of every desire, I suspect we would value all those pleasures less. Waiting for a first kiss or the chance to attend your first Major League baseball game gives those (very different) events more meaning because of the wait. Waiting for a well-prepared meal leads to more satisfaction than a quick trip to McDonald’s. Indeed, the excitement of Christmas Day for small children is entirely dependent on the delayed gratification involved. The sheer joy of watching one’s children explode out of bed to open their gifts is something to behold.

Issues of fairness and self-recrimination seem to pop-up more in places where there are multiple queues. If you’ve chosen the slowest moving line, you’re likely to kick yourself or to get angry that “your” checker isn’t more efficient. On the other hand, if you happen to make the “right” choice of which line to stand in, you probably aren’t going to think you are the luckiest person in the world. In other words, the movement of your line matters more when it is slow than when it progresses rapidly.

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Funny that few people say they can’t wait to get to heaven. As much as the faithful identify it as the ultimate reward, doctors don’t see too many patients neglecting treatment of life-threatening diseases because they want to checkout faster. And so, most of us do our best to keep our spot in the mortality-queue static; and are happy to let someone else jump ahead, hoping in this kind of column alone, that things move slowly.

Even when we aren’t in line, we spend much time waiting. When you are little you can’t wait to grow up. A bit later, you can’t wait to get your driver’s license and then go to college. Then, too many of us wait for the weekend and are impatient to retire, waiting for the gold watch and the free time that comes along with a Social Security check.

Just perhaps, we are preoccupied with the wrong thing. Whenever we are “just waiting,” we aren’t focused on the present moment or anything that might be of value. We are, like the people in the top photo, looking down the street for the bus that is going to take us someplace better in the future, or so we think. Yet, most would agree, the time is going to waste.

The next time you find yourself in a slow-moving line, it might serve you well to consider another way to use your queue time. There is much to ponder, much to love, much to learn in life. The line might be a kind of study hall or a laboratory to make a new discovery. The queue gives you a chance to change yourself.

What are you waiting for?

—

The first image is called Queuing Up For the Bus, photographed by Paul Sequeira in Chicago, 1973 for the EPA. The final photo is of “Sailors assigned to the phone and distance line detail wait to start a replenishment at sea from the bridge deck of the amphibious dock landing ship USS Fort McHenry (LSD 43). Fort McHenry is deployed with the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group supporting maritime security operations in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility.” (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Kristopher Wilson). All three images are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

December 13, 2012

Toxic People or “The Tale of the Green T-Shirt”

Some people are a jinx. It might be a school mate, an office mate or your brother-in-law. They are the toxic human banana peels of life, preparing you to slip up.

Harvard Grosscup was like that.

The name should tell you a lot. Harvard’s parents expected big things from their one and only child. From before his birth they fancied that he would attend the USA’s oldest and most prestigious university, so they named him after it. I imagine that put a little pressure on Harvard (the kid, not the college), but he was very smart and prepared himself for his Ivy League destination by dominating the intellectual competition early and often.

Everyone knew Harvard was super-bright from the time of kindergarten, but the suitability of his sir name, Grosscup, didn’t become apparent until some time later. More about that anon.

A clever observer of children might have noticed that Harvard was a pretty oily kid. An oily, rich kid, actually. It started with his hair tonic. Depending on the light and heat, there was a kind of incandescence coming off his head that made him look like he had a halo. A few kids called him “St. Harvard,” but the name didn’t stick because his oiliness extended to an overly ingratiating, disingenuous personal style. No saint then, but a major brown nose.

Unfortunately, he was also ultra-lubricated in one other way. Perspiration. Harvard carried an oversized handkerchief everywhere. By mid-day he had to wring the sweat out of it. Between his “used car salesman” personality, the hair tonic, and his profusion of perspiration, Harvard became known as “Slick.”

Harvard did have one saving grace in addition to his intellect: he was actually unusually well-groomed for a kid who hadn’t yet quite reached adolescence. He knew he perspired a lot, so he seemed to take more than the usual care to make sure he wore well-laundered clothes and adequate antiperspirant. As a consequence, for all his mid-day dampness, he never gave offense.

I wasn’t especially close to “Slick,” but my buddy Dwayne was. Their parents were friendly and both were interested in stamp collecting, which might have explained their friendship. It didn’t surprise me when Harvard decided to run for President of our school in eighth grade. But I was just a bit surprised that Dwayne chose to be his campaign manager.

What exactly does it mean to be the President of your primary or middle school class? Mostly prestige, I suppose. You don’t get a salary and have no authority over anything, except chairing the meetings of the student council. Still, like childhood ballgames that have no real value, kids can get pretty worked up about such things.

Dwayne asked me to help with the job of managing Slick’s campaign. While I wasn’t really enthusiastic about Harvard’s candidacy, he was running unopposed. Working with Dwayne and drawing a few posters sounded like fun. So I agreed.

The problem began when our eighth grade teacher attempted to solicit other candidates. He didn’t like the idea of an election that could be won by one vote — Harvard’s vote for himself, even if everyone else abstained. He chose Dwayne to be Harvard’s opponent when no one else volunteered.

What was Dwayne to say? The teacher didn’t care that he’d already signed up to be Slick’s campaign manager, since I would be the next-in-line to replace him in that job. When you are 13 years-old and the teacher tells you that you should do these things you don’t have much of a choice. The instructor pushed and Dwayne and I fell like dominos.

Of course, Dwayne was a much better candidate than Slick. Dwayne had more friends, probably the only criterion of importance. He was also a better athlete than Harvard, whose natural lubrication made catching a ball quite a challenge. Dwayne was also pretty good at giving speeches and generally a decent and smart guy. My dutiful campaign “managing” certainly didn’t seem likely to turn the tide.

I was now campaign manager of a guy I didn’t want to vote for; a guy who was almost certain to lose. I couldn’t back out. But worse was to come.

It started when Slick got testy over the fact that his chances had taken a hit with Dwayne’s flourishing candidacy. He wanted a more extravagant, promise-laden campaign than the one I was providing. His father suggested that he offer the entire school candy bars if elected. The teachers wouldn’t permit it. Then we tried to use pictures of the Harvard University campus in our pre-election posters. This got vetoed too, since Harvard didn’t yet have anything to do with Harvard. I finally suggested that we use a picture of an oil-gusher, with the prominent message VOTE FOR SLICK. Big mistake. This only pissed him off more. Since we were out of ideas, Slick did the only thing left that he could think of: blame me for everything.

Slick claimed that his candidacy was faltering because of my lack of imagination as his campaign manager. He was not open to considering that Dwayne was, just perhaps, a better candidate who had more friends and more charisma. Nope, it was my fault. He said if he lost he would never forgive me. And that there would be hell to pay.

The last part puzzled me. Slick wasn’t a physical threat. I wasn’t worried that he’d try to beat me up. But might his fevered brain concoct something worse than a thrashing? What could that be?

I arrived at school on the day of the election expecting that Slick would give me more grief about his inevitable defeat; that he would tell others that it was my fault. In other words, that it would be a crappy day.

An all-school assembly was scheduled for the second class period. The candidates for office would be giving speeches ahead of the actual casting of ballots. The teacher in charge saw me as I walked into the building. “Come with me,” he said. We went into an empty room.

“Harvard is Slick. Harvard is really Slick.”

What? How would a teacher know Harvard’s nickname? I didn’t respond.

“Gerry, did you hear me? I said ‘Harvard is sick.’”

Now at least I heard the words properly, but I still wondered what this meant. I knew Harvard was a lot of things I didn’t like, but was the teacher suggesting that he had a mental disorder?

The instructor continued. “Harvard can’t come to school.  His stomach is upset. You have to give his speech. His mom just brought it over.”

Although I was to become a good public speaker much later in life, in eighth grade my attitude toward speech-making was the standard-issue for most human beings. In other words, I would have gladly taken poison, tickle-torture, or a bullet over speaking in front of several hundred people. OK, they were kids, but when you are a kid yourself it is all the same.

To the good, there was little time to get to the point of paralyzing anxiety, so I settled for the usual stomach-churning kind. The teacher handed me Slick’s speech and had me practice in the hallway. I wasn’t loud enough, he said, so I got louder. But it was a crappy speech and everyone, it seemed to me, would have been much better off if they couldn’t hear me give it; especially me. If there had been a handy sword to fall on, I would have jumped at the chance to get out of the job.

Finally, as the perspiration accumulated on my upper lip, I went forth “…into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell…” to give a speech on stage for Harvard Grosscup. Even as I write this I can still see all the kids in the auditorium — some whispering to each other, some falling asleep, some just staring blankly — probably thinking that I was the guy who was running for office. True, the teacher had announced that I would be standing in for the SOB Slick (the teacher didn’t use that descriptor), but he didn’t seem to emphasize it nearly enough. In any case, the audience was bored to death and I was dying on stage.

Dwayne won in a landslide. I wondered if Harvard actually had been sick or perhaps that he simply wanted to avoid the humiliation of witnessing his inevitable defeat. But one other possibility occurred to me when he returned to school the next day.

Slick approach me, looked directly at me, and said, “I’m not finished with you yet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I heard about the crappy speech you gave yesterday. I’m going to get you, Stein.”

“But they were your words, you idiot!”

Slick was unmoved by my rejoinder. Grosscup knew that he couldn’t beat me in a fight, but he also knew I wasn’t likely to assault him. I walked away wondering if he’d stayed home from school so that I would have to endure reading his words in public.

I’ll give Slick this much, he was patient and diabolical. And he knew how to hold a grudge. In the winter term of our second year of high school I had the misfortune of having the gym locker next to Slick. The rules said you had to shower both before and after physical education, as it was amusingly called. The same set of directives included the proper attire for class. You know, a white T-shirt, shorts, heavy white socks, athletic supporter, and sneakers of the appropriate black and white color. But they said nothing about washing them.

Slick didn’t. His overly lubricated body perspired into the same outfit for months. I experienced the equivalent of living adjacent to a toxic dump. I begged him to wash his gym duds, I mocked him, I threatened him if he didn’t wash them; but no, he never did. Slick simply smiled slyly whenever I complained and said, “I told you I was going to get you, Stein.” Unfortunately, a gas mask was not available at the school store.

Harvard knew I wouldn’t start a fist fight and he also concluded that I wouldn’t be a stool pigeon and rat him out to the P.E. teacher. And so my nasal passages suffered daily silent searing as I watched a version of the seasonal color transformation unfold a few feet away from my locker. Slick’s T-shirt changed from white, to gray, to yellow, to brown, and then to green. Green did signal that spring had arrived, but the fragrance of flowers was not in evidence. I am still amazed that the toxic fumes captured in the locker didn’t eventually blow it off its hinges.

The usually perspiration-conscious Harvard had turned himself into the equivalent of an olfactory suicide bomber, an unhygienic hazard. It just goes to show you what people will do at their own personal expense in order to vent their rage. Harvard was willing to foul himself in order to foul me. As the old expression goes, he chose to bite his nose to spite his face. Unfortunately, my nose was working all too well.

What can I say? Life happens. It is not orderly, not fair, not ideal. Toxic people exist and when you are a kid, they can get the best of you; even sometimes when you are an adult. The only solution is to stay away from them or hit them harder than they hit you. I didn’t do either. Slick got his revenge on me.

So far as I know, there was no corresponding karmic catastrophe experienced by my nemesis. What goes around DIDN’T come around. Harvard Grosscup did go to Harvard. In fact, he became a surgeon with a fine reputation. Maybe the green color of his surgical gown was a fond reminder of his gym T-shirt.

One closing word of advice. If you allow him to operate on you, just be sure that you pay his bill promptly.

—

The slicked-back hair image is from Fredcamino, cropped by Notwist. The Lakeview Oil Gusher of 1910 was posted by Irwinator.com/ The gas mask photo comes courtesy of Mutante. The surgery photo is the product of  jmelendres. All are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

November 30, 2012

Youth vs. Experience and Maturity: Who Has the Edge?

What would it be like to couple a youthful body with the wisdom of age? It is largely the subject of movie comedies, partially because a serious look at the question would be difficult. Still, everyone seems to be wishing for that imaginary combination whenever they say “Youth is wasted on the young.”

My short response to that statement? I think not. Youth is exactly where it needs to be; age as well. But, just to make sure, let’s take a look at the advantages and disadvantages of youth and experience and why they can’t easily be combined, even conceptually.

To begin, what benefits attach to youth?

I’d include a fresh, eager perspective on things; enthusiasm and boundless energy; and a great capacity for getting excited (in every sense). Remember the enkindling experience of a new great song or a new love? You are likely to hear more wonderful music over time, and probably have later loves, but they don’t quite feel the same to you if you are mature when they happen.

Add to the period of life’s early gifts an openness to new experience, intellectual flexibility and the relative ease of molding yourself into a new shape; quickness of mind and body; great beauty and strength. Finally, youth is more innocent and finds it easier to trust, not yet having been so fooled by life and the people in it to assume that appearances are always the real thing.

On the down side, there is the self-consciousness that particularly afflicts the young and can make it a painful time. If some Eastern religions are correct, freedom from suffering and peace of mind are found in a state called “nirvana,” certainly not to be experienced while self-consciously finding your path in life. And, no, I’m not referring to the band “Nirvana.”

We tend to learn more from pain than pleasure. Thus, early life — the period in which we learn the most — is a painful time, of necessity. “The School of Hard Knocks” doesn’t award you a diploma, but perhaps it should.

Most of us do not enjoy the youthful stress connected with not knowing a thing and having to learn large quantities of procedures, skills, and information rapidly. It is no fun being behind all the bigger, older, and more learned competitors and authorities. But this gives way to a more gradual — less “all at once” process of learning as one ages. Routines are acquired. Practice makes perfect. One discovers “the tricks of the trade,” even though baseball great Vernon Law warned that “Some people are so busy learning the tricks of the trade that they never learn the trade.”

Still, experience does tend to make lots of things easier, so that each day is not quite so challenging as it was when we were growing up. And with that experience and the knowledge acquired along the way comes, one hopes, fewer of the errors that are a part of any learning process, thus serving to increase one’s feeling of self-confidence and security; and perhaps even allowing for less self-consciousness.

The young usually have a greater sense of “possibility” than the mature. It is easier for them to turn around, retrace steps, and start over. They are usually less encumbered by things like spouses and children, mortgages and other debts. However much one loves the spouse and children, they are also a responsibility that constrain you. As Francis Bacon said, “He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”

The fresh mind is more comfortable with change than the stodgy and stuck older person, as anyone who has looked at the effect of technological advances on these two groups. Indeed, one danger of aging is to gradually feel more alienated from the world in which you live, partly because it is no longer the world you knew.

Of course, the fuzzy-cheeked have more time ahead of them in most cases, and much less behind them than do the mature. What is more, the “sense” of time passing is different in the novice and the old hand; the latter can feel it passing with a speed that his junior cannot, even though the clock is the same for both.

I don’t wish to suggest that all the best of life is to be found in youth, but the rewards of the mature time of life are certainly different. If you can avoid becoming frozen in your ideas and jaded by having seen (and suffered) too much, you just might appreciate things more when you are older, not take them so much for granted.

My wife tells me that she never saw the moon in the old days, when she slept through every night. A bit older now, we both find that a trip past the skylight “into that good night” reveals the glorious moon shining down on us, the beauty of which is some compensation for sleep that is not as sound as it used to be. Just so, the love a mature person has its own, perhaps less urgent biological necessity, having to do with knowing that nothing lasts forever, a feeling that is often hard for a young person to fully grasp, even though he knows it to be true intellectually.

The more seasoned individual should have become more comfortable in his own skin, even when that skin undergoes its own unwelcome changes; less concerned with what the crowd thinks (although, obviously, this isn’t true for professions like politics)!

In real maturity there is a steadiness and calm: you’ve seen worse before, you’ve lived through a lot; so you know that not everything is a matter of life and death. Or to quote a famous basketball coach’s advice to his young players: “If every game is a matter of life and death, you’re going to have a problem. You’re going to die a lot.” And so the mature person “dies” less often than his youthful counterpart and is at least a little better at taking on difficult challenges. The man with seniority no longer sweats so much of the small stuff.

If he is more than just chronologically mature and has actually learned from time and experience, he has begun to accept some things — doesn’t rage so often and so easily at the unfairness that is a part of any life. Not surprising, then, that revolutions are usually for the young. Not that they aren’t worth fighting even by those who are older, but somehow the older man is no longer “that person” who is capable of the kind of energy and passion and idealism that fuel most revolutionaries. Life finds him less intense, not so easily worked up. Just look at the way young orchestra members sit on the edge of their seats, while seasoned musicians look more “laid back” and you will know what I mean.

—

Reflecting on my career as a therapist, I think that a few of my patients might have done better with the older than with the younger version of me: the seasoned psychologist who had “seen it all before” and could therefore make faster and more accurate diagnoses and more apt therapeutic interventions; the man who was more secure and more able to keep an appropriate psychological distance from the patient: not too close and not too far away.

But, it is possible that some of my patients would have benefited more from my younger self, one with more energy and a need to prove himself. That less experienced version of me, of course, sometimes had a hard time keeping the right therapeutic balance because he was prone to caring too much. But, sometimes enthusiasm and energy carry the day despite other shortcomings. “Swings and roundabouts” (offsetting gains and losses), as the British like to say. You are who you are at whatever age you are and you try to better yourself. A good therapist and, I should say, a good person should be forever looking to improve.

You would not want it otherwise if you were, as you will be inevitably, the patient of some medical or therapeutic practitioner. Experience does count. You wouldn’t want a surgeon, no matter how talented and bright, who has done the operation you are about to submit to only once before. On the other hand, you wouldn’t want a once great specialist who was worn down by routine and time.

Ideally, whether it is a therapist or a physician, what I think you’d want is someone with a good deal of experience but who approaches you with a fresh attitude; trying to recapture, if possible, that awareness and enthusiasm for the job that we usually associate with “the first time.” The very greatest scientists and lovers, teachers and musicians, friends and therapists “make it new.”

Victor Mature, a famous movie actor of the mid-twentieth century. Was he mature? He was married five times.

Back to the question of whether youth is wasted on the young, can you imagine going back to your childhood or teen years with the knowledge and experience of someone 30 or 50 or 70? How could you possibly fit in? And look at those middle-aged, well-seasoned folks who behave and dress like twenty-somethings. Same problem.

We are stuck with who we are, but there is a lesson in this, I think. No, it is not to spend the rest of your time regretting what you had and lost; or never had and wishing you could go back and try again, armed with all that time has taught you. Rather, the lesson is in living life fully at whatever age you are, because, in part, you will never be that particular version of yourself again. We need to stumble to learn, as we do particularly in our youth; and we need the losses that come with experience in order to appreciate what we have.

As much as change is frightening, it does make the experience of living more interesting. As Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, said 2500 years ago, “You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are ever flowing on to you.”

Embrace the new river and the new version of yourself, at whatever age.

—

On the subject of maturity, you may find this of related interest: Signs of Maturity: What Does It Mean to Grow Up?

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The top image is called Old and Young by Mbjerke. The second one is a New Zealand OFLC Poster. Both of these are sourced from Wikimedia Commons. The Dave Barry ad photo comes from Amazon.com

November 24, 2012

Last Words: Be Sure to Choose Wisely

The elderly Lady Nancy Astor, the first female member of the British House of Commons, awoke during her last illness to find that her family was assembled around her bed. Clever to the end, she said, “Am I dying or is this my birthday?”

Most of us associate the idea of last words with the solemn and quotable pronouncements of great men and women, not the sassy commentary of the once beautiful English politician pictured above. Here is something more typical: John Adams, our second President, alternately rival and friend of Thomas Jefferson, found some relief and gratitude in uttering “Thomas Jefferson still survives” as he (Adams) lay dying.

What he did not know in the pre-electronic year of 1826, was that Jefferson had predeceased him by a few hours. Nor did either of them appear to reflect on the irony that these founding fathers both expired on July 4th, precisely 50 years after the Declaration of Independence that they both signed and Jefferson wrote.

On a less ironic note, those of us in Chicago might have heard of Giuseppe Zangara, an anarchist, who took aim at President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt as he and the Mayor of Chicago shook hands in Miami’s Bayfront Park on February 15, 1933. The bullet hit Mayor Anton Cermak, who reportedly said to FDR, “I’m glad it was me instead of you.” Cermak died soon after and is memorialized to this day by a Chicago street that bears his name.

There are other kinds of last words, of course. And though most of us probably won’t plan out what to say in advance, I think you will agree that you could do worse than follow the example of Ernesto Giulini, an Italian timber salesman born in the 19th century. He gathered his family around his death-bed, including musician-son Carlo Maria, to remind them that the word “love” — “amore” — should guide their thought and conduct throughout their lives. And one can only imagine how many times the words “love” and “I love you,” have been on the lips of both the dying and their survivors at the very end of earthly things. The religiously faithful have been heard to add, “See you on the other side.”

A rather more wry approach to imminent mortality is attributed to Voltaire. Asked by a priest to renounce Satan, he reportedly uttered: “Now, now my good man — this is not the time for making enemies.”

As Voltaire’s comments suggest, timing is everything and it is best to consider carefully what you want to be remembered for — and by whom. Last words from or to our parents tend to linger in the memory of those who survive, sometimes because of what was said, sometimes because of what wasn’t. Too many people — including some of my ex-patients — lament never having heard the words “I love you” from a parent at the time of his death or any time before.

We are often cautioned to part from loved ones on a high note, not a dissonant one, lest someone be left with the recollection and pain of a final disagreement, or the regret of causing an injury in what proves to be the last possible moment. Nearly all of us would avoid cruelty if we only knew when that would be. Usually we don’t. The dead may not care, but those surviving surely do.

Two unfortunate examples from my clinical practice come to mind in this regard. One woman, whose mother had died many years before, had difficulty in shaking her mom’s last minute assertion, “You’re an ass, Jenny (not her real name).” It is not the only such example I can recall hearing from one or another of my patients. But the all-time cake-taker, the grand prize winner in an imaginary “Hall of Shame” of ill-timed and venomously expressed invective, are the words of a rebellious teenager to his severely taxed father.

A long history of mutual destructiveness typified their relationship. It seems that the pater familias was inept and self-interested in raising his son, and the son repaid his parent’s cruelty and clumsiness with as much drug use and petty crime as he could muster. Nor did it help that the family was under financial pressure and that the two adults of the home were a badly matched, fractious pair.

The father had only recently sustained a heart attack when the school reported to him and his wife that the son had once again been suspended. The “mother-of-all” shouting matches ensued between the middle-aged man and his first-born disappointment. And then, the last words: “You’re going to kill me.” And the reply, “I don’t care.”

Not 24 hours later the words were realized. Deserved or not, the father was dead of a second cardiac arrest. And despite the fact that one could easily make a convincing argument that his death would have happened very soon even without the argument as a trigger, it is easy to imagine a lasting sense of guilt in the son.

That said, I’m not opposed to standing up to people who have injured you, including parents, well before they check out of this mortal coil. Choosing to say, “I know what you did (even if you deny it or justify it) and I won’t let you do it any more” is sometimes perfectly appropriate. That act of self-assertion can be therapeutic, even though it is usually not essential.

You can also recover from childhood mistreatment without confronting the offender. Witness those individuals who do so when their abusive parents are already dead and therefore unavailable for real-life discussion. What is essential, however, is to make certain that any continuing mistreatment stops. This usually means that you, the by-now adult child, have to stop it: walk away, say “no,” or hang up the phone — whatever is required.

If, instead, you aim to change the offender, be prepared to be disappointed. Most won’t change or even admit that they did anything wrong. But if you wish to overcome your fear and master the situation, that mastery, at least, is possible. Nor should you usually hesitate for fear of “killing” your parent, as in the example I’ve given, especially if health issues aren’t present. That is the only story of its kind I’ve ever been told.

Better, though — so much better — to live among friends and relatives who live as Giulini’s family lived, with love at the center of their being. That way, even if there is no time for a formal goodbye, nothing will have been left unsaid: respect and affection will be well-known long before the end because of the way each treated the other. I’m told that the old Italian expression for this is “volersi bene” or “voler bene:” an untranslatable sentiment indicating that you cannot be happy without the happiness of the other. Yes, much better this way.

Perhaps it is no mistake that in English and German the words for life and love are so close. Change the word “live” by one letter and you have “love.” In German, change the word “leben” (to live) by adding one letter and you have “lieben” (to love). Not just last words or Ernesto Giulini’s last words, but words to live (and love) by.

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Lady Astor (1909) by John Singer Sargent, is sourced from Wikipedia Commons. The photo of Carlo Maria Giulini comes from the front cover of the superb biography by Thomas Saler, published by University of Illinois Press. The present essay is a revised version of an earlier blog post from 2009: “Last Words: Be Careful What You Say.”

November 17, 2012

What Does Music Tell You About Someone New?

When you meet someone new, you probably don’t begin the conversation by asking “What is the meaning of life?” Nor is it likely that you will inquire about anything “personal” or probe for skeletons in his family’s closet.

Instead, you are more likely to talk about things like music.

We get to know each other by testing the waters and discovering whether we share interests, a sense of humor, a style of living. Usually, it is only later that questions of values are raised. Until then, if the new person seems attractive, intelligent, funny; and roots for our sports team and likes our music, that is enough.

We make assumptions. In effect, we say to ourselves, “If you’re a Cubs fan, then your heart must be in the same place as mine because I’m a Cubs fan. If you like the same music I do, then you must share the same sentiments — the same taste.” From data such as this we predict our potential friend or lover to have an acceptable “sense and sensibility” — one that is close enough to match our own.

But, we don’t always get this right, do we? It turns out that just because Person X likes the same music and roots for the same team, he might not be a good match for us at all.

Here is a very dramatic example that illustrates the point.

Let’s say you like the “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. And, even if your new friend hasn’t heard it, he probably would agree with its vision of a world in which “alle Menschen werden Brüder,” which means “all men become brothers.” Better still if he actually has heard it and enjoys both the music and the sentiment of universal brotherhood. The shared affinity between you and this person might suggest that you will get along well together.

Not so fast. The video link will take you to a performance of the closing four minutes of that symphony that will teach you otherwise: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

Hieronymus Bosch: “The Garden of Earthly Delights” (right panel)

The place is Berlin. The date is April 19, 1942. And the audience is filled with Nazis (the film will show you this), all listening intently to the words “all men become brothers.” OK, they aren’t uniformly crazy about Beethoven. The concert, after all, is celebrating Hitler’s birthday (which would occur the next day), so some listeners are there for the celebration if not the symphony. But, I doubt that many of the Nazi Party Beethoven fans were troubled by the contradiction between those words and their day job: murdering people, including the groups they considered “Untermenschen” (subhumans), comprised of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and Homosexuals.

Just in case you are wondering how anyone in the audience could actually applaud the idea that “alle Menschen werden Brüder,” the answer is to be found in the peculiar Nazi conscience. Simply put, since the Nazis had defined the groups I mentioned as less than human, those who believed in Nazi ideology saw themselves as doing a positive good for Germany by eradicating those same groups. And, since the “Untermenschen” were not thought to be “human,” they couldn’t be the “brothers” to any of those people in the audience who thought of themselves as the very best of the human race. Thus, the words of the poet Schiller which Beethoven used in his 9th Symphony seemed to them perfectly consistent with the Nazi view of the world.

No, I don’t think you will soon run into a Nazi who likes Beethoven or whatever other music might be your favorite. But, if you are looking for internal consistency in people, you are likely to be disappointed. Some “great men” cheat on their wives. Some brilliant writers are terribly troubled. Some good-looking and delightful people don’t know how to handle money.

The moral to the story is this: the next time you meet someone new, don’t assume that superficial things tell you everything you need to know. The way he dresses, the place he lives, or the car he drives might actually be irrelevant. And don’t assume that his love for the same music that you love tells you anything about his generosity, his kindness, or his morality.

Even the beautifully harmonized syllables “alle Menschen werden Brüder” are, after all, just words.

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The top image is called Female Musicians at Aurangzeb’s Wedding, 1636, posted to Wikimedia Commons, as was the Bosch painting.

November 2, 2012

Cosmetic Changes: How Far Will We Go?

http://a4.att.hudong.com/15/66/01300000560404126382666976558_s.jpg

A funny thing happened at this morning’s dental appointment. In the course of a routine cleaning, my lovely dental hygienist mentioned that I might want to consider Invisalign, a clear plastic alternative to metal braces. The reason: to create a greater cosmetic perfection to my lower front teeth.

I had a good laugh when she mentioned this. It’s not that I couldn’t use it, but what I said to her surprised even me: “You know Kristina, rather than do that, I think I probably ought to just replace my entire head!” Why, after all, have a perfect smile and still have the same bald head, the same wrinkles, and the same less than completely even and taut facial contours. “In for a penny, in for a pound,” as the old English saying goes. Don’t just paint the old car, buy a new one!

If you’ve had your car repaired, you will be able to relate. Fixing a damaged vehicle is expensive. The car doesn’t actually have to be beyond repair for it to be considered “totalled.” When the body shop tells you this, they mean that the expense of the parts and labor exceed the current value of the car. In other words, you’d be better off buying a new one. It displeases me to say that my head has reached that point.

Imagine the following conversation with a salesman: “I can offer you a good price on the new head you want, Dr. Stein. But, I’m afraid that there isn’t much I can give for trading in the old one.” God, the humiliation of it!

The picture of me (top, right) is actually pretty realistic. I have some serious mileage on this head and this body. To the good, however, my younger daughter recently commented on my upper body to the effect that (unlike all other middle-aged or older men she has seen) “you don’t have ‘man boobs,’ dad.”

You can only imagine how wonderful this made me feel. But, it is true, my body is pretty fit. Lots of aerobic exercise, a healthy diet, and weight lifting account for it. However, since I didn’t conduct therapy sessions with my shirt off, I didn’t hear much about my physique while I was in practice. Just as well, since I actually wanted to continue practicing. I wouldn’t have enjoyed a professional review board questioning me about the topic of “topless” therapy.

We’ve all seen those TV shows where someone gets a major “makeover.” Teams of surgeons and fashion consultants transform some unfortunate soul who really needs it. He or she never has to pay for this because the services are donated. Retail price would probably be a seven-figure sum. I’m not that vain or that rich.

I would, however, like to look like Jon Hamm or Brad Pitt for just one day. I’d also like to be Beethoven, Shakespeare, Rembrandt, and Willie Mays (a famous baseball player) — each in his prime, also for one day per person. It would be pretty neat to know what it would feel like to inhabit those bodies and brains from sunrise to sunrise, and to receive the world’s approbation for the same 24 hours. I’m not quite evolved enough to say I’d like to be a woman for a day, but I’ll bet it would be even more informative and interesting. None of this will happen, of course.

Yet.

Cosmetic alteration clearly has a future. And, I suspect, all of us who are less than perfect in appearance (in other words, just about everybody) have an appointment with that future. Let me explain.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dc/Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde_1920_poster.jpg/256px-Dr_Jekyll_and_Mr_Hyde_1920_poster.jpg

There will be a time when you won’t have to have a million dollars to make yourself look like a million dollars. I imagine a future in which each person will have the capacity to holographically alter his appearance, even if the actual body hiding behind the holographic image isn’t the world’s most beautiful. Every day would be like Halloween, but with really good — and good-looking — masks. Mail-order catalogues, websites, and brick-and-mortar stores will have a department that lets you pick out the face you’d like to face in the mirror. Computer programs will let you “photo-shop” the image to your precise specifications. Everyone will be stunning! Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

How would that change the world, I wonder? Well, yes, there would doubtless be some who still want to stand out at any cost. Lots of perforations and punctures, body art, wild clothing, that sort of thing. But for the most part, just beauty as far as the eye can see. Jaw dropping appearances. Men would look like Jon Hamm or Brad Pitt if they wanted to, women could be as physically attractive as Marilyn Monroe or Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez or Katy Perry. A movie-star level of beauty all around.

The effect would be paradoxical, I think. In a world without disease or death, for example, no one would think about how he feels or worry about getting sick. In a climate that is always mild, sunny, and clear, no one would care much about the weather. And in a future of endless and omnipresent pulchritude — where anyone could become exquisite just by visiting the department store — the value of physical allure would surely diminish. The beautiful girl or guy would become something of a commonplace.

Other things would correspondingly count for more. The trophy spouse would have to be a Nobel Prize winner or an author; or someone of unusual charm or wit, generosity or kindness. A different world, for sure.

Until then? I think I will hold on to my old head. Despite some relatively high mileage, it has served me well. It is not the head of a handsome 25-year-old, but there are some good ideas and interesting experiences contained therein. I wouldn’t want to be without them. I’ve earned the weathering and learned from the lines. With a little buffing and waxing, it still does its job.

See you at the car wash.

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The top photo is of Jon Hamm. The bottom image is a poster of John Barrymore as Mr. Hyde in the 1920 Paramount Pictures classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

October 25, 2012

Phishing For a Therapist

In the age of electronic scams, no one is safe, not even a therapist. I have now received three or four very similar queries from potential new patients that fit the same model. And I do mean model, since all of the phishing expeditions involve someone searching for a therapist to treat a swim suit model with anxiety problems.

As you may know, “Phishing is the act of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication” according to Wikipedia.

The email messages always follow a pattern similar to this:

Greetings from Transylvania!

My name is Dr. Sucker Fisher. I have been a plastic surgeon since 1993. I do face lifts and breast lifts. I have been looking for a therapist for anxiety for over a week now till I met an old friend yesterday that referred you to me, so I decided to contact you to know if you will be able to work on my client.

My client’s name is Ms. Lana Voluptuous, a swim suit model here in Transylvania who is struggling with anxiety. She will be coming to the U.S in three weeks time for a modeling job and will be residing in your area temporarily until the necessary arrangement for her job has been made before she leaves. She will be needing a one hour anxiety therapy session per day, three sessions per week for six weeks. Ms. Voluptuous asked me to come with her to the States, but I told her that my schedule wouldn’t permit this and also because I do not know much about anxiety therapy sessions, so I promised to help her get a good therapist in your area.

Please tell me a little more about yourself,  how long have you been treating anxiety? And would you be able to provide her with the anxiety therapy sessions requested? I need you to get back to me with the amount you charge per session and also let me know if she can pay you with a certified check drawn from a US bank.

You can view some of Ms. Voluptuous’s pictures from the following link: http://www.lanavoluptuous.com/ 

Thank you,

Dr. S. Fisher

Your Future Patients?

OK, now ask yourself what is happening here and what will happen if you, the therapist, engage in a correspondence with the phisher, Dr. Fisher?

There are several things within the email that suggest that the search for a therapist is not genuine:

1. Isn’t it a little suspicious that (unless you are an internationally famous therapist) someone in Transylvania recommended your services?

2. Why isn’t the patient making the request herself instead of through an intermediary?

3. If the alleged model decided to engage someone to do this search for a therapist, why wouldn’t it be her current therapist? Why would it be someone who professes to know very little about the treatment of anxiety? Given that she wants a very precise number of sessions per week, Ms. Voluptuous (if she is real) is clearly knowledgeable about treatment and is currently in therapy.

4. Why wouldn’t the model wish her present counselor to provide the new counselor precise and detailed information about her background and her needs rather than the very generalized description of her condition (“anxiety”)?

5. Why would any legitimate request for a therapist include a link to photos of the model?

6. Why would the above email include a request for more information about your background and ability to treat anxiety? First, the writer has indicated that he knows little about such treatment, suggesting that he would be unable to evaluate anything you might provide. Moreover, you might (like me) have both a website and a blog site that include information on your background. If he were serious about searching for a qualified therapist, he almost certainly would already have consulted those sites (and in my case, noticed that I am retired).

In the actual emails of this sort, the links to the photos are real. I imagine that the models in question would be surprised to find that someone is using their names and their photos to swindle unsuspecting therapists. The models are always quite beautiful. I imagine that the phisher is assuming that the enticement of working with a sexy young woman will lure some therapists to pursue the email exchange further. Such a therapist might rationalize that since there is the promise of being paid by a certified check there would be no risk of financial loss.

Not so fast. Once the email exchange progresses sufficiently, the “model” typically discovers that her next assignment (after her therapy sessions with you, but before you actually have seen her) will be in another country. You are also told that she is having trouble dealing with the company that is engaging her there and asks you to serve as an intermediary involving a financial transaction. Again, you will be reimbursed by a cashier’s check (which will doubtless be counterfeit).

Do many therapists fall for this? I can’t say for sure, but if they do, here is why:

1. They are being offered the opportunity to obtain a new client who will presumably be paying a hefty fee.

2. The client is very attractive.

3. They are flattered to think that their skill is so great that they are being sought by a minor celebrity from another country.

As P.T. Barnum is alleged to have said, “There is a sucker born every minute.”

In this instance, need I add that we are talking about men?

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The top image is called Fishing by Carl Larsson. The photo below it is from the Miss Kandy Kontest, September 13, 2008. It was taken by Toglenn. Both images are sourced from Wikimedia Commons.