Rambling on the notion of FIRST AMONG EQUALS

Indeed, when we were young some of us may have had (was this the title of the recent movie) The Sherman Show fantasy wherein the world was created as a playground and/or testing ground for "me" ... whoever that "me" may be. God put parents here to birth me, siblings -- and later friends -- to play with "me," a spouse to pick up my shorts or fill the gas-tank, and a whole lot of others to act as background, as extras-on-the-set, as "I" go through my various trials, mischiefs and incarnations.

Perhaps, such a fantasy became necessary when our ancestors developed the capacity to reflect on their own conditions, ..., to be aware. It's not so easy to accept that we're not the Center of the Cosmos. After all, when I twirl around? The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars (young Joseph's dream in Genesis) have all alligned themselves about me. When I listen? All sounds come to my ears. Do we ever get out of the crib where all come to visit "the star" whom the Good Doctor from Vienna called His Majesty the Baby (she-Babies, need I add, are no less Royal).

As we age, moments do begin intruding on this fantasy that "the world was created for me" ... perhaps, first in the recognition that Mom and Dad are not only preoccupied with discussing how best to raise their little Monarch ... "Oh, my gosh ... they have a relationship of their own. They eat, they sleep, they make love, and they may even make other babies." The youngster fights this recognition "toothless but nailed" for years -- some fight the fight for a lifetime. Certain people, those that we think of as ill, create elaborate fantasies in which many are preoccupied with their successes and failures ... we call such fantasies paranoid delusions when they're believed as factual and frighten the 'believer' as potentially destructive to their very being. When they remain just fantasies, we may even be amused by them.

The flip side of this tune (I know CD's don't have flip-sides ... but I'm assuming that all potential readers on this page remember the relationship between the two sides of a 45 rpm) represents folk who are equally self-absorbed. "I'm of absolutely no value. I am the only one, indeed, of absolutely no value." No. Sometime, maybe while Playing in the Third Quarter, we recognize that while we see our joys and pains (Freddie Mercury famously noted that "pain is so close to pleasure") as of great importance in the Universe, our co-travellers have the same experience.

I have used a notion of First among Equals ... Primus inter Pares ... in my own way. I noticed how long a time it takes even for the healthiest among us to recognize that -- while we see our views, children, parents, etc. as Special -- our friends along their own journeys see things similarly -- but with themselves cast in the leading role. I don't know, by the way, if we human-folk could make it as far as we do if we didn't go through phases in which we saw ourselves as the only special ones.

Still, I pause each time I see it in myself and in others. In the playground where fights can break out over who is right. On the playing field. In political and theoretical disputes.

In Latin, in Greek, in Philosophies and in rifts in religious doctrines that caused at least one major split just shy of 1,000 years ago between churches on the position of the Vicar of Rome, the notion of a First among Equals ... a Primus inter Pares ... has been used in many ways, it seems to me. I use it as above, as a means of paying homage to the human inclination to begin life seeing everything related to me ... and a uniquely human capacity to reach a stage in which I recognize that my Firstness ... my Primus state ... is really among Others ... among Pares, among my Peers and Equals ... who see things just the same way.

Shrillness

I finished the writing I was doing ... fondly reminiscing about running a school in the 1970's ... when an online discussion began over someone posting a news article about someone who moved out of the area and became involved in unethical -- maybe even unconscionable -- behavior with a patient. Comments began flying about
-- How wrong it was for the person to post this article ...
-- How both the Dr and the patient required our concern ...
-- How we should be primarily concerned about the patient ...
-- How this was wrong to attack the messenger ...
-- How no one was attacking the messenger ...
-- How 'yes, they were' ....
-- How it was wrong to criticize the person who criticized the messenger --
-- How nobody did ...
-- How this was a gender thing .... men taking advantage of women ...
-- How this wasn't a gender thing, necessarily ....

Geez ... And I thought taming the playground at my school was a job. Reading the postings gave me an itch! Ah! Maybe it's just Winter dryness?

I would think the average age of posters to this discussion was >60 and the average number of years of education held by participants to the kerfuffle was >25. People who spent half their post-kindergarten lives in school and the next half "helping" people deal with a difficult world and are now Playing in the Last Quarter? I think they're playin' too hard.

What struck me was the shrillness of the discussion ... So much like the playground.

Before I took over the school in 1976, I recall an incident:

Randy says -- in code -- to Keith who's looking out the window: "Yo'Motha &^%%^$#@^*&"
Keith throws a chair out the 2nd floor window (no Juliet at the window was he).
Randy runs upstairs.
Keith discusses Randy's Mother.
Fight! Fight!
Teacher enters ....
TEACHER IN FIGHT!

And, by the way, pretty much everybody knew that Keith's Mother hadn't really indulged in solo horizontal aerobics with all of the hometown's National Football team!

In any case .... age, grandchildren and school-bought wisdom don't seem to act as proof against acting shrill ... hey! ... I mean acting like a horse's sphinctor magnum.

WHY AM I PULLING PUNCHES. Age and wisdom don't act as preventatives against acting like a horse's ass.

Lee Hayes in the many years before he grew old, died, and was composted (at his own request, as I recall) ... used to sing a song (How Do I Know My Youth is All Spent) that had some lines in it about gittin' old (something like): Each morning I wake up and dust off my wits/Roll outa bed and read the obits/If my name ain't there, I know I'm not dead/So, I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

Think if I told my colleagues they should give it a rest they'd thank me?

Neurotics suffer from reminiscences?

A doctor in Vienna, a long time ago, famously claimed that 'neurotics suffer from reminiscences.' It strikes me, this morning, that his statement is ambiguous. I don't think he meant that reminiscing is -- in and of itself  -- a cause for psychological disturbance.

No. I think it is quite clear what the Good Dr. Freud meant. It is not the reminiscences that cause depressions and anxieties. Rather, it is the manner in which these memories are utilized to judge and to criticize and to decry the horrors of one's past.

The past week, I had the pleasure of writing a chapter for a series of books to be published on Psychoanalysis and Education. I was asked to think back to the two years that I spent -- nearly 40 years ago -- as a young principal in an inner-city school for disturbed high schoolers. By no means can I recall only positive interactions.

When I took over the school, it was a mess ... with fights, verbal aggression and very poor attendance. But what a wonderful opportunity to think back to a brilliant group of colleagues and a bunch of kids (now in their 50's) who were healthy enough to subliminally realize that the schools they attended before ours was impossibly violent, angry and dirty. The kids figured out a way to get kicked out of their parent schools and come to our safer and -- thanks to the teachers -- loving environment.

Last week, I also got to eat with Marsha and Maxine the Math teacher; Maxine had turned 90 the week before our luncheon.

Perhaps, no one better than Freud realized that we can also pleasure from reminiscences.

I'll write a bit about this ... I hope, tomorrow.