Running On Fifty Back to the Future

In just a matter of days it's "The Big 5-0." Actually, my fiftieth falls on Easter Sunday this year. (And a friend just informed me it's also a full moon. Some pursue a harmonic convergence; I'll settle for a neurotic one.) Will this convergence inspire me to rise above earthly barriers, to craft finally a unique tapestry from the exotic, quixotic and neurotic threads of my life-career? Perhaps I'm ready to discover the woman of my dreams, or is it my delusions (so often it's such a fine line)? Will I nail down a breakthrough book contract...and no longer just be a legend in my own mind??? Will this new decade set precedence or see more decadence? Now does all this mental meandering and wondering seem a bit excessive? Whew, a lot of old psychic stuff and future fantasies can get stirred on a "0" birthday, especially at mid-century.

If Not Eternal Youth, The Fountain of Absurdity

It's weird. In one sense, I feel I have forged some hard-earned wisdom over the years. In another, I still feel like a kid. The horizon still has a mysterious glow. My motto for the future: "I don't know where I'm going...I just think I know how to get there!" I still love being mischievous and slightly outrageous in my workshops and writing. Today, for a lunchtime audience at a federal agency, it was breaking out the Blues Brothers Hat, matching black tambourine and black sunglasses while demonstrating my pioneering work in the field of psychologically humorous rap music. I call it, what else, "Shrink Rap" Productions. Please, no groaning, this is "Aristocratic Rap."

Or, recently, I've been online coaching an aspiring comic and writer in LA (for more info on her gigs at the Improv - Florabell2@aol.com) who is dealing with a stress-related, jaw-related, TMJ condition. I commiserated. You know, people really do want you to feel their pain, especially if you can walk in their blister and corn raising shoes. That's right. The old saw, "Misery loves company," has been updated by social psychology research. Actually, "Misery loves miserable company." So I shared having a repetitive disk problem four years ago brought on by stress (I was still recovering from a year's stint as a stress and violence prevention consultant with the US Postal Service), overuse of Nautilus equipment and an ergonomically incorrect computer chair. Suddenly, an empathic "aha" moment. Maybe her TMJ was basically a repetitive mouth problem. (What a comedian. During today's program, that liner was a definite groaner.) Nonetheless, my mentee resonated with and laughed at my TMJ acronym -- Too Many Jerks! That one got an LOLOLOL! (See, I can be an equal opportunity gender offender.)

This is the key to healing humor: to step back and lampoon ourselves, our afflictions and the "stress carriers" in our midsts. It's the double-edged aphormation. First, a one liner by a psychiatrist and author whose name escapes me: "What was once feared and is now mastered is laughed at." Then, as I discovered years ago, during a summer's confrontation with a thyroid tumor: "What was once feared and is now laughed at is no longer a master." Long live "tumor humor."

The Passionate Edge

But I digress when I want to regress or, at least, reflect on why I still feel kid-like at fifty. Certainly, some of my frisky attitude comes from enjoying what I do. I feel blessed to have been able to create a portable career stage for my wise head and smart mouth, along with being an "intelligent derriere." This stage often feels like my personal sandbox in which I invite over friends. I share my knowledge and experience in, hopefully, a playful and powerful manner through a variety of media and with a range of organizations and audiences. And, today, I get back as much as I give. It was not always so.

Some of my child fire still burns bright because, for the first twenty years or so, I nearly smothered my feeling, spontaneous, aggressive, genuine inner little Mark. From fear, from shame, from being too good, too perfect, too safe...from knowing it wasn't okay to reveal my real self in the family. Never again!

Never again! An expression born out of the Holocaust. I'm reminded of a dream, which erupted nearly twenty years ago, shortly after watching the pioneering television mini-series of the Holocaust. My mother, my maternal uncle and me are part of a tumultuous crowd being herded in a doomsday cattle car. I'm clenching my mother's hand or she's clenching mine. I'm not sure; but we are glued by terror. We're straining to keep up with my uncle who is ahead of us. Out of the corner of my eye, a harrowing sight. My father is slumped over against a station wall, oblivious, helpless, incapable of responding to all that's rushing by.

Maybe such an oedipal memory contributes to my ongoing "passion," as in "Passion Play"; as in pure "suffering," as in the sufferings of Jesus. Maybe it's pure pain that fires the spirit, that enables the spirit to rise and regenerate in phoenix-like fashion. That enables one to be reborn psychologically - in a spiritually universal, not just religiously fundamental, sense.

To Thine Own Self Be True

Well I'm making up for lost time Having fun being center stage But evolution's become a crime Crucified by scorned again rage...

It's a kaleidoscopic nature Blazing my singular path Contradiction confounds the culture And often generates your wrath.

Recovering and nurturing your complex yet pure childlike spirit, sustaining your colorful individuality in a "lean-and-MEAN" world, isn't easy. As the poet wizard, e.e. cummings, observed:

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.

But the historic and chronic struggle and the ongoing battle not only fires and forges your spirit. Alas, over time, it may burn it out as well. Or, at least, consume your capacity to produce serotonin, a vital neurotransmitter that profoundly affects one's mood state.

So, in the final analysis, the aging process, like most aspects of life, is double-edged. In the battle for recapturing or rejuvenating a youthful spirit, we may erode some of our biochemical vitality, especially if there's genetic vulnerability. I'll share my bio-existential dilemma and strategic experimentation in response to such a maturational challenge next time. Until then...Practice Safe Stress!

Special Announcements:

a) email if you'd like to subscribe to my new, free newsletter, b) Leading a "Shrink Rap and Group Chat" for Digital City-Washington, the 2nd and 4th Mondays of every month, 9-10pm EDT. Field questions on stress, relationship issues, school/job problems, career transition, etc. Definitely a lively hour.  Starting a Multi-Media Coaching for Consultants Program, especially (though not exclusively) for allied/mental health professionals, organizational trainers and consultants, counselors and educators. For info on the products and instructional services, including: ** one-on-one online consultation and group chat ** copywriting and humor writing; website design ** bulletin board access... email me at Stress Doc@aol.com.

Feedback Segment: How about sharing your thoughts on how you, friends or colleagues use humor in dealing with stress, conflict or moods, yours or others, in your personal life, at home or at work? HFTE will run the best stories and, of course, credit you.