Rocky Goes Down

Our office has a storied past and the staff that work for me have a long history together. In times of stress or when they have a few minutes to relax during the course of our busy office day, the staff love to get together and remember the good old days and to share a laugh or occasionally a tear as they look back on their years together and the memories that they hold dear.

The staff in my office had a sort of communal pet once. He was not much of a pet but he was quiet and resided in the back of the office. He lived in a vase of water. He was a silent, slow moving fish named, Rocky. Rocky had bulging eyes and a hopeful, fishy demeanor and offered constant comfort to his friend, Dave. Dave is our lab technician and who raised Rocky from the time he was just a young fish. Rocky, like most fish had a retentive memory of approximately 3 seconds so in all likelihood, each time he laid eyes on his friend, Dave, Rocky considered him a new friend. To Rocky, the world outside his vase was just chock full of brand new friends every day. He must have felt very loved. He must have been....happy.

One day, Dave decided to change Rocky's water. Since Rocky swam in a vase full of water, the easiest way to get the old water out was to pour the water out of the vase before putting fresh water in. Poor, trusting Rocky. Nobody knows for sure what happened that fateful day. Rocky could have been a little too close to the rim of the vase. He could have thought he was going to get a bit of fish food so he swam slowly up to the surface before the water was to be changed. No matter what the cause, Rocky went out with the water into the office sink near the lab.

In his final moments before plunging down the sink drain, Rocky seemed to come to the realization that his most recent friend (of the past three seconds) was doing him a grave injustice. Rocky went down the drain quickly yet he seemed to look over his shoulder as he disappeared into the small, dark drainhole. As the story goes, Rocky cast one reproachful (yet panicky) eye back up at the disappearing sky and peered directly into the soul of the friend who had cared for him since birth. In a last desparate act, Rocky seemed to flick one of his pectoral fins in the air as though flipping a last fishy 'bird' at the world before descending forever. Then he was gone.

Dave was inconsolable...for about three seconds.

The Mind of a Brain

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that the brain has a mind of it's own. We are in possession of a miraculous organ in our bodies that can reason, act, sleep, create, dream, run a gazillion different bodily functions and cause us to cry when Old Yeller gets killed at the end of the movie. Humans with brains that they are in control of can accomplish anything. Anything. When the brain begins to change or to behave in strange ways then the human it controls also begins to act in strange ways. The forces that act on our brains have great impact on the neuro hormonal 'landscape' that the brain uses as it's triggers and pathways.

One of the landmark behavioral studies was done using beagle dogs many years ago. The dogs were happy and friendly and well adjusted when the experiment started but due to the external forces that the dogs underwent during the course of the experiment the dogs behavior and overall health changed. This experiment called for the dogs to be placed in a cage which had a floor which could have a low intensity shock run through half of the cage leaving the other half without any shock. The beagle would be primed with a flashing light and within a predetermined number of seconds, the half of the cage would have a current run through it for a few seconds. The dogs remained happy and healthy because these variables were predictable and the dogs could control the stimulus by simply recognizing the signs and moving to the other side of the cage to avoid the shock.

The experiment changed after a time and the dogs were put in a chaotic situation. The signals were all mixed up, either side of the cage could now have a current run through it so from minute to minute the friendly beagles were subjected to intense stress. The stress then caused them to be anxious, sleepless, to lose weight and to develop other conditions that we now can find in humans.

Examples of social stress, substance abuse and all manner of insults to the brain have long been documented. We are really at the mercy of our brains and in the final analysis, the brain holds all the cards. This simplistic narrative is one I always consider when treating patients with chemical addiction. The neuro hormonal landscape has changed for these patients sometimes forever. When the brain is repeatedly introduced to cigarettes, alcohol or drugs (including many prescription drugs) it becomes acclimated to the substance and begins to make a place for the substance within the milieu of the brain. Too much substance causes change and change is a bad thing for the brain.

We are uncovering more and more about how our minds work and while I see many people each week for stress related illnesses, it is always important to try and help the patients to get to the root of the problem if possible and reduce the stress or the unpleasant condition that is causing the reaction if possible. People with many types of depression and anxiety, bipolar illnes and a hundred other conditions try to live each day with the neurons and synapses that they were born with. These people did not cause their conditions, they inherited them.

A healthy brain with all cylinders firing correctly can achieve great things. A person who struggles with mental health conditions often has the most devastating type of disease of all. When you can't trust your own internal compass to guide you and run your body reliably, the world becomes a very scary place indeed.

The Gilligan Factor

Gilligan's Island is an American TV sitcom originally produced by United Artists Television. It aired for three seasons on the CBS network, from September 26, 1964 to September 4, 1967. It was sponsored by Phillip Morris & Company and Proctor and Gamble. The show followed the comic adventures of seven castaways as they attempted to survive and ultimately escape from a previously uninhabited island where they were shipwrecked.
Gilligan's Island ran for a total of 98 episodes. The first season (consisting of 36 episodes) was filmed in black-and-white though they were colorized in later syndication. However, the next two seasons (62 episodes) and three TV movie sequels were filmed in color.
Enjoying solid ratings during its original run, the show grew in popularity during decades of syndication. Today, the title character of Gilligan is widely recognized as a comedic American pop culture icon.

Executive producer Sherwood Schwartz believed in avoiding exposition, and so he composed the sea shanty-style theme song, "The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle", as a capsule summary of the castaways' predicament. This was done so that first time viewers would instantly understand the premise. He took the same approach with the themes to "The Brady Bunch" and "It's About Time".

Quoted from Wickepedia

Gilligan's Island almost never made it past the first pilot episode. The shows creators had latched onto a great concept and had produced the show well, the character development was there but the audience was not drawn in and the early audience tests floundered. The key to the success of Gilligan's Island lay in the theme song. The producers discovered that the audience needed to be oriented each time the show aired so that they could have that 60 second explaination to allow themselves to be transported to the remote desert island. Without that psychological push, the audience could not make the emotional journey to join with the castaways. Without the theme song, the show began too abruptly and the audience could not get settled into the plot.

When Sesame Street was getting ready to air, the producers and consultants felt strongly that the puppet elements should be separated from the 'real' street and human elements of the show because the child psychologists who were involved with the concept felt strongly that mixing these two elements would confuse the child viewers. As Malcolm Gladwell details in his book, 'Blink' with only six weeks to the air date of the first show and with six episodes of Sesame Street already taped, their early testing was disappointing. Children would tune into the program when the puppets came on and would become disinterested when they saw only children and adults interacting.

These are not just stories about television shows, they are also a reflection of how humans engage and are brought together to experience a common idea. Teachers, doctors, parents, police officers, social workers and all of us who work fundamentally in the communications business, in direct contact with people as caregivers and communicators need to pay attention to finding the key that unlocks the message for the audience. For doctors, finding that key element to communicate the standards of health care to our patient makes the difference in the health of the patient. Empathy, active listening and compassion are part of this rapid communication strategy. Using the space within the treatment room, recognizing and disarming patients' preconceptions and biases are also keys to the success of a good communicator.

If it had not been for the theme song, audiences may never have been drawn to Gilligan's Island. If the puppet elements had been left off of Sesame Street and large, interactive puppets such as Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch had not appeared on the same set as the human cast, then the empire that would become the Children's Television Workshop might never have happened. Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood relied on close intimacy to join with the small children who constituted his audience. Fred Rogers was a gifted communicator and visually utilized the space within his home to physically stay close to the ground (where children spend most of their time) so as to appear less threatening. If you watch tapes of the show you see that he values direct eye contact and brings himself up to his full height physically when he is proud of something or wants to convey a message of the importance of self esteem and self worth.

Sometimes when I am speaking with a child I recall the demeanor of Mr. Rogers. There are times when I am trying to find ways to communicate with a difficult patient, I think of the creativity of the Sesame Street producers.

(I'm still pondering the many facets of Gilligan's Island.....)

"Most Peculiar, Mama"

John Lennon is considered by many to be one of the greatest performers and songwriters in our modern era. His work will live on for generations for it's creative and inspired lyrics and imaginative progressions. I was listening to a compilation of his songs this morning on the way to work in my car and something struck me as....odd. John Lennon seems to be able to say almost anything in his lyrics and get away with it, even if it sounds, well, not like a real song lyric.

Let's review lyrics from some of Lennon's most popular songs;

"Instant Karma's gonna get you"

"When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years,

then they expect you to pick a career"
"Yoo Hoo!"

"O' sanity, o' sanity, What am I to do with you"

"Rocky Raccoon, fell back in his room"

"When you get to the bottom you go back to the top of the slide"

"We all live in a Yellow Submarine"

"Ob-la-di, Ob-li-da life goes on"

Lennon and the Beatles created music that spoke to a world of listeners on a visceral level and this is evidenced by some of the strange music they produced and made wildly popular. As I listened on the way to work this morning I found myself thinking that the music and the arrangements were so well constructed that poor old John could have sung the lyrics to 'Do You Know the Muffin Man' backwards and it probably would have sounded really snappy.

I often think that John was playing his little joke on us mere mortals and it must have amused him to create great music and then populate the tunes with really strange lyrics. He would smile and put on his round dark glasses and stand in the back of a music festival and listen to thousands of young people sing out with all their hearts, holding hands together, eyes closed and tears streaming down their faces;

"Happiness is a warm gun...bang bang, shoot shoot..."

If I were to try and write a memorable lyric it might be something that I could sing to my wife on our 60th wedding anniversary. Lyrics that I could be proud of. My song (dedicated to my wife) would go something like this;

"Grow old along with me

Whatever fate decrees

We will see it through

For our love is true

God bless our love

God bless our love"

(Oops, these lyrics were also written by Lennon. Damn!)

Mary Poppins' Baby

P.L Travers is the creative author of the children's book, 'Mary Poppins' and the sequel books about this famous character. In the story, 'Mary Poppins Comes Back', a newborn baby in the Banks home named Annabel delivers a detailed description of her own recent birth experience. Keep in mind as you are reading this transcription that the narrator is a newborn baby girl and that the book was first published in 1935. In the story, the newborn is actually talking with a bird who has lighted on the windowsill and that the narration is being overheard by Mary Poppins who understands the language of animals, birds and, apparently, newborn babies.

Annabel moved her hands inside the blanket. "I am earth and air and fire and water," she said softly. "I come from the Dark where all things have their beginning. I come from the sea and it's tides, from the sky and it's stars. Slowly I moved at first," said Annabel, "always sleeping and dreaming. I remembered all I had been and I thought of all I shall be. And when I had dreamed my dream, I awoke and same swiftly. I heard the stars singing as I came and I felt warm wings about me. I passed the beasts of the jungle and came through the dark, deep waters. It was a long journey." Annabel was silent.

What is amazing to me as I read this story to my young daughters before bed is that the description is one that they can visualize even if they are really too young to fully understand the birthing process. At storytime tonight, my daughters looked curiously over at me but did not really ask specific questions like they usually do. The girls simply closed their eyes and accepted this unusual narrative as told by a baby to a nanny and a little bird in an English nursery long ago. The elegance of this type of fantasy storytelling and the gift of P.L Travers is that by creating a very simple dialogue, the reader is transported, abandoning reality altogether. As I read the story to my daughters, I became aware that this simple narrative was believable and compelling even though it was only a few sentences long. My girls believed it and enjoyed hearing the story for its prose and grace and are sound asleep as I write this entry.

Note: P.L Travers (1899-1996) was a drama critic, travel essayist, reviewer, lecturer and the creator of Mary Poppins. Travers wrote eight Mary Poppins books among her other works for adults and children.

The Buddhist Family Christmas Letter

Close friends of ours have a son who is in graduate school to earn his advanced degree in Buddhist Studies. I have changed the name of the student but have recreated the family Christmas letter.

"The last time Joshua had a grip on reality occured when he was beginning high school and agreed to eat a plate of pancakes, even though one pancake had a clearly visible blueberry protruding from it's edge. For the last year and a half, Joshua has been living on the upper west side of Manhattan while taking courses in Tibetan, Sanskrit, and Buddhism, and earning an A+ on his recently published paper, entitled, 'If There is No Reality, How Can There Be Reality Shows?'. To create the illusion that he is earning money, he has been moon-lighting as a Buddhist country and western song writer. His most recent song, 'Take This Reality and Shove It' promises to be a big hit in the Red states and with his mother although she encouraged him to change the title of the song to 'Take This Reality and Maybe Don't Think About It So Much' in order not to offend anyone. Joshua's father feels that the song title should be changed to, 'You Can Take Your Reality and Shove It, But Keep Your Hands Off Mine'.

Reprinted without permission (but I'm sure it's okay). 2009

Fall Down Seven Times, Get Up Eight Times.

"In dealing with disappointment we build strength and character. How we approach life's disappointments is just as important as the victories, and it occurred to me in Kona that maybe the two aren't so different after all. We humans like to label things as "good" and "bad." In reality, there is just stuff that happens, and we must deal with it. There is no intrinsic positive or negative value to events, only to our own interpretations."

Ironman Triathlete Samantha McGlone

In 2003, I completed the Ironman triathlon in Lake Placid, New York. I crossed the finish line after swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and running 26.2 miles 15 hours and 20 minutes after the race began at 7am. Racing from 7am to almost 10:30pm is a humbling experience and when I say 'racing' this means going as fast as I could go even if it was a slow walk at times. The Ironman triathlon is the premier distance event in the world. Those months spent training and sacrificing the time and energy to get to the starting line, compete and ultimately finish the race constitute one of my best achievements. This race offers the chance for an athletic 'nobody' to toe the line and compete with some of the finest athletes in any sport. It is a chance to achieve a level of personal gratification that goes beyond almost any other accomplishment I have attempted. Finishing the Ironman was my finest moment as a 'nobody athlete'.

Special olympic athletes, wheelchair athletes, athletes racing in memory of their loved ones, for fund raising or racing toward their personal recovery from an illness such as cancer bring a whole new dimension to sport and competition. The photo you see above is of a brave Ironman triathlete named Jon Blais from Seekonk, Mass. Jon raced the Ironman in Kona, Hawaii in 2005 and finished his race in the most memorable way possible, he rolled his body across the finish line and was met by his sobbing mother and father waiting for him at the end of the race. You can watch the You Tube video of his amazing story at the Ironman World Championships by clicking on; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vrjp2P0GlE. Bring a box of kleenex and prepare to watch a true athletic hero race and complete the premier endurance event in the world while suffering from Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Jon passed away from ALS on May 27, 2007 and while he is missed dearly by those close to him, his spirit and the lessons he has taught us all live on. Jon always believed in ending your story with a quote. Others have already said it best, so it's better to remember those and go out strong. So here goes… “The meaning of life is to live life”.

http://www.alswarriorpoet.com/