28 August 2003

Old Friends, Smart Cookies, and Self Help

I’ve been making use of the local library to reunite myself with some old friends.

See, with the prices of just about everything inflating like mad I have noticed that it is now virtually impossible for me to justify the cost of buying books. Call me crazy but the idea of paying ten dollars plus for a paperback novel seems somewhat insane when I can remember paying half that much not that long ago.

So, I’ve been borrowing a variety of books and movies from the library, with a few carefully selected music CDs mixed in here and there. I’ve managed to watch Rob Roy (an underappreciated classic, in my humble opinion, and probably the single finest acting job that Liam Neeson has ever done) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (which had some truly hilarious moments, especially where Mike McShane was concerned) and a couple of the Batman movies. And I also managed to get my hands on The Pink Panther Strikes Again.

I’ve always been rather fond of the Clousseau movies, mainly for the simple fact that it takes talent for one person to act like a complete and total idiot the way that Peter Sellers did. Clousseau was such a delightful twit, an idiot savant with no real talent or intelligence, but an almost infinite capacity for getting in over his head and stumbling his way to a solution that was totally and completely wrong more often than not. Other people have tried to do the physical comedy thing the way that Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards did, but no one can come even remotely close.

Of course, a trip to the library would not have been complete without checking out some of the Spider Robinson Callahan’s books. The Callahan Touch has always been one of my personal favorites as much because of the writing and the horrible, terrible puns as because of the vision of a perfect gathering place where those of us who have never really fit in anywhere can truly belong and feel like part of the family. I truly believe that this world would be a better place if there were more bars like Callahan’s.

Lately, though, I’ve been having a hankering for mysteries, possibly because of all the time I’ve been spending working on Remote Control and The Puppet Master, and no one writes a better mystery than the late John D. MacDonald. I’ve always been a big fan of his Travis McGee series, and I’ve been borrowing them from the library as I discover them. Tonight I am working my way through Darker than Amber.

What I always found amazing about Travis McGee and his constant companion and confidante, Meyer, is how between the two of them they managed to develop a fairly accurate model which demonstrates just how totally completely fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional the human race can be. And yet no matter how screwed up the circumstances surrounding his involvement Travis always stepped in and did the things that no one else could do. He was the epitome of the image of the Tarnished Knight errant with the bent lance galloping out to slay the dragons lurking around the corner.

When you sit down and read the Travis McGee series, the first thing that strikes you is the intelligence of the characters, especially where Meyer is concerned. The man is an intellectual with the mind of a genius and the comic wit of the best British deadpan comedians. And Travis isn’t any slouch in the brains department; he just uses his mind and his strength in different ways.

But above all the characters are truly human beings, heir to the same mental and emotional slings and arrows that the rest of humanity faces every day of their lives. They live their lives and share their feelings, espouse on the mental and emotional impact of the things that happen to them, and then shrug their shoulders, admit that the world is a pretty messed up place, and go on about their business.

Would that it could be that easy, some days.

Now I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I’m a depressive. In fact, I’ve spoken and written about it openly, here and in other forums. And while I know that a good deal of what I feel is due to the delicate balance of brain chemistry, I also know that most of what I feel is the result of an adolescence and maturation that was sometimes downright cruel to me. But I also know that some of what I feel because of those events is my own damn fault.

I was in a therapy session a couple of years ago, talking with a counselor for the Employee Assistance program used by the company I was working for. One of the purposes behind my sessions was to eliminate from my life the panic attacks that had been paralyzing me off and on.

I don’t remember all of the details about the session, but I do remember something that the counselor told me when he was describing a series of simple exercises to help me deal with my panic. “Each of us is in total and complete control of our reactions,” he told me, “we just don’t know it. So sometimes you have to teach yourself that you are the one who is in control, not the situation you find you are faced with.”

What that counselor did was show me a means of reminding myself that I was the one in control. He suggested that when things started getting too much for me to handle and I felt those sensations of panic start to set in, what I should to is stop and take a deep breath and remind myself that I am not going to panic, that what is happening is nothing that I cannot handle. He also suggested reminding myself of that when I would get up first thing in the morning.

I thought it was an intriguing idea, although I really didn’t believe that it could possibly be that simple, but I did as I was told and went home after the session and tried it. Lo and behold, within a matter of two weeks I had completely eradicated the dreaded panic attack from my life.

The point of this is simple: sometimes the only thing that needs to change is you.

I’ve been taking something of a minor interest in Self Help these days, because I really want to learn all the ways that I can fix myself without having to worry about the possibility of being a victim of another breakdown. Once was enough, thank you very much.

The first books I decided I was going to read were written by Anthony Robbins.

I’m sure all of you have seen the infomercials on the television, advertising his latest system for changing your life in seven days. Personal Power, I think it’s called.

Anyway, if you believe the infomercials, then Mr. Robbins and his philosophies have helped several million people of diverse aspect make serious changes to their lives, allowing them to live happier and more fulfilled than they ever were before. Anytime I see advertising claims like this the first thought in my mind is usually that it must be some kind of exaggeration.

But the damn commercials are everywhere. You can’t avoid seeing them, and the more you hear the message the more you have to start wondering if maybe there really is something to it.

So I borrowed a couple of Tony Robbins books from the Library.

I started with Notes from a Friend: A Quick and Simple Guide to Taking Charge of Your Life. I’ve not gotten all the way through it yet, but what I have seen impresses me overall.

First of all, I have no doubt about Anthony Robbins intelligence. His writing strikes me as that of a very intelligent man and it sends a very clear message that you do have the power to make your life better, all you have to do is be willing to work at it. It all starts with your mindset.

Secondly, the suggestions he makes for changing your mindset, the way that you think and feel and react, are very simple, very straightforward, and can potentially have a very profound effect on your life if you actually sit down and do some of them. In fact, a lot of what Mr. Robbins is saying reminds me of that counseling session, when I was made to believe that in every situation I have a choice about how I’m going to react. If you sit down and listen to what is being said then the message becomes abundantly clear. The power to change your life for the better, to promote long term positive change, is within you and all you have to do is awaken it and keep it awake.

There’s something else too. Mr. Robbins doesn’t suggest that his strategies are going to last for the rest of your life. He freely acknowledges that there are times when the Fates are going to conspire to bring you down for no other reason than because they can. He admits that there will be times in your life when events will bring you down, but he also suggest that by applying these techniques all over again you can change your mindset and take control of your emotions, and take control of your life all over again.

Bottom line is, what I like about Tony Robbins is that he isn’t at all preachy about it. I’ve paged through self help books where they try to tell you how you’re supposed to think and how you’re supposed to feel, and he doesn’t do that. What he does tell you is how you can change your mindset, and I can tell you from experience that mindset is everything.

It’s refreshing to see something out there which actually gives some validation to a lot of the things that I’ve been doing to change my mindset, to combat my depression and raise my self esteem, and to take control of my life once and for all.

In a way I’ve been lucky. I’ve had some smart cookies in my life to draw inspiration and experience from. First there was Travis McGee and Meyer, and now I’ve got the mind of Tony Robbins to pick. Life is actually pretty damn good, once you get down to it.