Imagine by Jonah Lehrer: A Book Review

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Update, July 31, 2012.

On July 30, author Jonah Lehrer admitted fabricating quotes in Imagine. He resigned his position as staff writer for The New Yorker, and Houghton Mifflin suspended sales of the book. You can read my full post on the topic here, which contains a link to the newspaper story. http://wp.me/pYql4-2hg

It is with much sadness that I’ve decided to remove the text of my review. Some of Lehrer’s observations on creativity remain insightful. At the same time, I think it is vital to stand up for ethics wherever we can find it in public life.

The Muppets Get Their Star

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On March 20, the first day of spring, The Muppets received the 2466th star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.  The cast, which has charmed TV and movie viewers for 50 years, now joins a select group of “fictional” stars, which includes Mickey Mouse, Godzilla, Shrek, and The Simpsons.  Miss Piggy pointed out during the news conference, however, that all movie stars are fictional.

Photo by Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

Lisa Henson, CEO of Jim Henson Enterprises remarked that The Muppet’s star, in front of the El Capitan Theater, is very close to her father’s.  Henson created Muppet prototypes in 1955, for a show called Sam and Friends, which ran for six years on WRC-TV in Washington, DC.

Jim and Jane Henson with the cast of "Sam and Friends"

Henson died in 1990, at the age of 53, of complications from a severe strep throat infection.  Associates and family say he was so busy working, he didn’t seek medical help until it was too late.

During the last year of his life, Henson negotiated to sell the Muppets to Disney. The sale was finalized in 2004. The latest Muppet movie was released to DVD yesterday too, a seemingly successful effort to revitalize the cast and introduce Walter, a new character, who was present at the dedication ceremony.

Kermit received his own Walk of Fame star in 2002, but Henson’s little frog would be the first to say The Muppets are a group effort. The group finally has the recognition it deserves.

Blogging Reflections

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Have you noticed how people use the word “whisperer,” where they once used “guru?”  Both terms imply a super-normal expertise, in some cases justified.  I’d love to have the Dog Whisperer visit our home!  Meanwhile, a quick check revealed you get 13,800,000 hits when you google on “blog whisperer?”

Last year, at a local writer’s conference, a “social media expert” who I think called himself a blog whisperer, offered to critique the blogs of those willing to come for the pre-session and pay $20.  That’s a bargain compared to the first blog whisperer to pop up on google, who charges $900 for a 90 day course on how to speak with “the voice of your soul.”

Think about that.  Though we might balk at the price, we live in a world that accepts the idea of hiring a coach to teach us to speak from our soul.  Afterwards, I guess we can look for a seminar on how to reclaim our power.

We live in a world of specialization and necessarily rely on experts in every phase of our lives.  In many cases, I think it’s a boon.  Those who long for the good old days are not in the throes of a toothache or facing surgery.

I have nothing against experts.  I like to have them around when the car breaks down or I break down.  For the garden, or home repairs, or internet security.

Yet something within us demands room to make our own discoveries and mistakes.  To come to our own conclusions.  To find out where we stand on things, what we really believe, regardless of the experts.

I used to think of writing as such an activity, but no longer.  Google on “writing, how to” and you get 1.9 trillion hits.  That’s a lot of whisperers!

The one little niche that is still free and clear, as far as I can see, is blogging, a medium that is unique because it allows us to think out loud in public.  For me, it is like a journal, a place to explore ideas, but the threat and promise of the “Publish” button forces me to go a step further.  When I pull the weeds from a first draft, I may find the seed of a new idea, or two, or three, or none.  Sometimes a draft lies fallow for weeks, and sometimes I publish within the hour.  More than a few get deleted.  One time I hit “Publish” when I meant to “Save” and got some practice in really fast editing.

I’ve heard some expert advice on blogging, and tend to ignore it all.  Before you say, “I knew it,” let me tell you what I mean – tips like:

  • Don’t write more than 250 words in a post.
  • Do not write about politics or religion.
  • Pick a single theme for your blog and stick to it.

The feedback I really take seriously comes from readers.  First there are simply the stats; people vote with their eyeballs.  Beyond that, is the power of even a single comment.

I’ve recently gotten enthralled, as I have in the past, with looking at old stories and legends.  When Adam, who blogs at Reviews and Ramblings http://blizzerd03.wordpress.com/ said he likes such posts, that was all the confirmation I needed.  “Yeah, this is road I have to follow.”  I value some of your comments more than 1.9 trillion articles on how to write.

As I have quoted more than once, as Joseph Campbell told the legends of the Holy Grail, he said every knight sought their own path into the forest; it would have been shameful to follow another’s trail.

This post is a way of thanking you all and a wish that we may all find our own way through the forest.

Doh! Now we (guys) are in for it!

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NPR reports that in response to you know what, Democratic women legislators in six states have proposed new limits to male access to reproductive health care. http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/15/148695307/in-protest-democrats-zero-in-on-mens-reproductive-health.   Consider:

House Bill 116 in Georgia states that:  “Thousands of children are deprived of birth in this state every year because of the lack of state regulation over vasectomies.”

An Oklahoma state senator proposed new legislation to regulate sexual acts:  “Any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”

In Ohio, a female state senator sponsored a bill requiring men seeking drugs like viagra to:

  1. Have a cardiac stress test to ensure they are ready for sexual activity.
  2. Obtain written certification from a recent sexual partner that they are indeed experiencing erectile dysfunction.
  3. See a sexual therapist who would explain certain nonprescription lifestyle choices, such as celibacy, as alternate treatments for the problem.

***

It’s the very passion that people bring to these issues make them such effective smokescreens.  If “they” can get us asking the wrong questions…

We slide toward a third war in a decade with no hint of a national debate.  Recent news on Citigroup and Goldman Sachs reveal that the players who brought us the last financial meltdown are on track to do it again.  People know about Rush Limbaugh.  How many have heard of Greg Smith?

It used to be that “Nero fiddling while Rome burned” was the ultimate paradigm of irresponsible leadership.  Now it’s the 2012 presidential election.

The Water of Life, Part 2

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If you have not already done so, please read the first part of this article in the preceding post.

The Water of Life by Rogasky and Hyman, 1991.

Marie-Louise von Franz, a close colleague of Carl Jung, wrote extensively of fairytales.  She believed that these “simple” stories reveal the core of the psyche better than the great myths and sagas, shaped by poets and spiritual thinkers.  Reading these tales with the same respect the young brother shows the dwarf can reward us with nuggets of wisdom shaped by generations of storytellers sitting beside the hearth fire.

The opening of The Water of Life reminds us that when we don’t know the way, it pays to admit it, at least to ourselves.  We need to pay attention to everything, listen to everything, for we don’t know the shape of the messenger who may show us how to proceed.  Here is the rest of the story:

The dwarf told the third son where to find the castle where The Water of Life flowed.  He gave the prince an iron wand to open the gates, and two loaves of bread to appease the lions who guarded the entrance.

The third son throws the loaves to the lions

In the great hall, he found men turned into stone.  As he left the hall, he spotted a sword and another loaf of bread and picked them up.  Venturing on, he met a beautiful woman who welcomed him.  She said he had set her free. “This realm will be yours and all the enchantments broken if you return in a year to marry me.”

The woman directed him to the Fountain of Life and urged him to leave with the water before the clock struck noon, when the gates would close again. The young man hurried on until he came to a room with a freshly made bed.  Realizing how tired he was, he settled down for a nap.  He woke at quarter to twelve, and just had time to find the fountain, fill a cup with The Water of Life, and race back to the gate.  As it swung closed, it sliced off a piece of his heel.

The dwarf was waiting and told him the sword would defeat any army, and the loaf would feed any multitude and never be diminished.  The young prince then begged the dwarf to free his brothers.  The little man said to forget them, his brothers would only betray him, but he gave in at last to the younger brother’s pleading.

On the way home, the brothers passed through three kingdoms plagued by war and famine, and the youngest used his sword and loaf to save them.  At the same time, he told his older brothers about his success and his betrothal to the Lady of the Fountain.  Before he could give his father the Water of Life, the older brothers swapped it for sea water, which made the king worse.  The older pair then gave the king the true healing draught and claimed the young brother had given him poison.  The king ordered a huntsman to kill his youngest son in the forest, but the huntsman could not bring himself to do it.

The kingdoms the young prince had saved sent riches by way of thanks, and the king began to reconsider.  As the year drew to a close, the Lady of the Water had the road to her castle paved with gold.  She ordered her servants to chase off anyone who walked up the side of the road but welcome the one who strode up the center.  The two older brothers, anxious not to scuff the precious metal, walked beside it and were driven away.  The young prince, able to think of nothing but his love, had no care for gold and walked up the middle of the road.  

The Lady of the Fountain. Detail of an English tapestry

The Lady ran out to meet him.  He became Lord of her realm, freed all the frozen men, and reconciled with his father.  The two older brothers sailed away and were never seen again.

***

If the start of the tale presents a fairly clear dynamic, what follows is more obscure.  The question of how and when to interpret folklore goes far beyond the scope of one or two blog posts.  Folktales may be more primal than myths, as Marie-Louise von Franz suggests, but they leave more open questions.  I tend to follow James Hillman’s advice – “stick with the image.”  When scenes in movies and books, or events in our lives leave us puzzled, we may turn them over in memory and imagination for years without rushing to ask what they “mean.”  In doing so, we let them nourish us without draining their power by settling for simple answers.

For instance, the Lady of the Water of Life gives the youngest son clear instructions to find what he came for and get back through the gates before noon.  So what does he do?  Hits the sack when he spots a bed.  Strange behavior for a lad who has gotten as far as he has through doing what he’s been told.

I’ve come to believe the bed is another trial on the way to the Water of Life.  It took warrior courage and dwarf tricks to get by the lions guarding the gates.  Here the trial is staying awake – not always easy in life.  At the wrong time, if you “look neither right nor left,” you miss the chance of renewal.  At the right time, it’s essential.  If the prince hadn’t made it out by noon, I believe he would have turned to stone like the others in the courtyard.  There is nothing in this text to support this a view; my opinions are based on other stories.  One is a fuller account of stone people in a tale from The Arabian Nights.  The other is a trial-by-bed that Sir Gawain undergoes on a mysterious “Isle of Women.”  When he succeeds, he too becomes the champion of the Otherworld queen.

Such hunches are tentative and subject to change.  It isn’t answers but wrestling with the questions that draws my imagination again and again to this kind of story.

*** 

Two decades have passed since I found The Water of Life, and since then, “Look for the dwarf by the side of the road,” has become something I tell myself every time I’m stuck.  Such renewal is open to everyone – it’s our birthright, though certain attitudes, embodied in the older brothers, will chase inspiration away.  Older brothers pretty much run the world:  they are the movers and shakers, the ones who get things done, which means they keep going even as the walls close in.

That’s one reason I love blogging.  It’s an excuse to discover and celebrate people who talk with dwarves:  those who build little libraries.  Those who buck the trend and open small bookstores.  Those who publish their own books, in the grand tradition of Walt Whitman, who initially sold his poems door-to-door.  People, in other words, who try to occupy their own lives, which is what this story is really about.

A world where the Water of Life flows is filled with individual acts of courage.  A world where the waters are choked off looks very different, for as Michael Meade observes:

“There is something incurable in this world that makes the soul long for the healing and beauty of the otherworld.  Each visit to the other realm requires stopping the business and busy-ness of the daily world in order to listen to the questions being asked from the inner-under-other sides of life…Unless the inner voice and the little people are heard from again, the world will continue to drain of meaning and will keep turning a cold heart to the immensity of human suffering.”

The Water of Life

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“Amidst a world increasingly disoriented and at war with itself, each person carries with them the seeds of a unique and valuable story trying to unfold. The youngest part of each psyche still longs to find the holy waters that can ease the pain of living and make life whole and meaningful again.” – Michael Meade

The Water of Life is a German folktale collected by the Brothers Grimm.  It shares a pattern with stories found all over the world:  the youngest brother or youngest sister, the one whom everyone else regards as incompetent, succeeds in a task or quest where the “wise” siblings fail.  In doing so, they bring new life to themselves and to the land.

Carl Jung analyzed The Water of Life in detail because it so neatly aligns with his theory of the four functions – thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation – which are known to many through the Myer-Briggs Personality Profile.  Jung believed that at critical points in our life, renewal comes through “the inferior function,” the one that is least developed.  This “least competent sibling” lives closest to the unconscious where the healing waters lie.

The story has been a favorite of those who write about folklore from a psychological perspective.  One of these is Michael Meade, who wrote, Men and the Water of Life: Initiation and the Tempering of Men in 1994.  The original version, which analyzed six classic folktales, was based on the work he did hosting large men’s gatherings with James Hillman and Robert Bly.  In 2006, he revised the book and renamed it, The Water of Life:  Initiation and the Tempering of the Soul in an effort to broaden the scope to include both genders.  One more update preceded Meade’s release of an ebook last year.

A new urgency informs the latest version in light of the economic and ecological crises we face.  All along, Meade emphasized that the story speaks to cultures as well as individuals, for both can become rigid and stuck.

So let’s look at the story.  Here is the whole text for those who wish to pursue it: http://www.authorama.com/grimms-fairy-tales-51.html).

A king lies dying.  He calls his three sons and tells them only the Water of Life can save him.  The oldest sets out, looking neither right nor left and soon passes a dwarf by the side of the road.

“Where are you riding so fast, looking neither right nor left?” asks the little man.

“What’s it to you, runt?” asks the prince.

The dwarf is furious.  He speaks a few words, and before long, the oldest son finds the valley walls closing in on him.  He keeps going, looking neither right nor left, until he and his horse are wedged in the rocks unable to move forward or back.

The second son sets out, disrespects the dwarf, and soon he too is stuck.

When neither of his older brothers returns, the youngest begs permission to go on the quest.  Figuring his last son, who has  reputation for being odd, has no chance if the clever brothers are lost, the king is reluctant.  At last the third son wears him down and wins permission to venture forth.

When the dwarf asks where he is going, the youngest son gets off his horse and says, “I seek the Water of Life for my father who is dying.”

“Do you know where to look?” asks the dwarf.

“No,” say the prince.  “I have no idea.”

Because the youngest son is humble and shows him respect, the dwarf points out the road and gives him magical implements he will need to win the Water of Life.

The dwarf helps the youngest son

Others have written long chapters about this part of the story.  I could do the same but I don’t think I need to.  People who live with stories – most readers of this blog, in other words – are going to pick up the gist pretty fast.  Still, a few points that others have made bear repeating.

  • Jung used the dying king to illustrate the changes that come at midlife.  The energy that propels us into the world through our first three of four decades is often exhausted and in need of renewal.  Everyone knows the cliche of the business exec who turns 40 and buys a corvette and a trophy wife.  Most people are wiser than that, but it is the time when renewal comes from the parts of ourselves that we have ignored or suppressed while looking neither right nor left.  As Michael Mead put it, “Only when we are at the end of our wits do we turn to the deeper wit of the youngest brother.”
  • Students of folklore know that success most often hinges on finding a magical ally, and in many stories, the older and “wiser” brothers and sisters blow it as they do here, with arrogance.  It makes little difference whether we understand the dwarf as an archetype of the deep psyche or as our ancestors did, as a creature of the Otherworld which is never far away.  Respect is essential.  The unconscious can bring inspiration or neurosis; magical beings can bless or curse.
  • Meade calls the first two brothers, “the ego brothers.”  These are the “well adapted” parts of ourselves, the inner movers and shakers who get things done.  There are plenty of times in the modern world when you don’t want to look right or left, when you need to charge ahead.  But when our best ideas get us stuck, as they eventually will, we need the humility of the younger brother.  Free of ego, the first step he takes toward healing, both for himself and his father, is to admit, “I do not know the way.”

I read Michael Meade’s first version of this book in the early ’90’s, and it came to mind very powerfully last summer, when our government ground to a halt – as stuck as the brothers pinned between the rocks.  Wouldn’t it have been refreshing to hear even one of our leaders speak the truth and confess, “I don’t know which way to go?”  Unfortunately, no one gets re-elected that way; our leaders are still charging ahead, looking neither right nor left.

Intuitively we know there are times when business as usual no longer works.  As Meade puts it,“Once it has been lost, the Water of Life can only be found by wandering off the beaten path.”

To Be Continued


And We Have A Winner!

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That’s right, a winner in the: Caption the Condom Cartoon Contest  (announced here last week http://wp.me/pYql4-1MT).

There were at least a few positive outcomes after Rush Limbaugh’s slur of law student, Sandra Fluke, which inspired the contest.

1) One positive result:  I got to use some great alliteration in the contest name. 

2) Another bit of good news:  eleven sponsors bailed on Rush after his outburst.  Unfortunately, a Republican Super-Pac stepped in with bailout money.  Apparently some consider Limbaugh’s mouth too big to fail.

3) And best of all, at least for this blog, Camille w1ns a $10 Amazon gift card with her caption:

If only Rush’s parents had known how to use me properly… 

Please stop by Camilles blog and see what other clever things she is up to: http://poppycockandsomesuchnonsense.wordpress.com/

And thank you all for your entries and for stopping by to share a laugh!

Justice Department Goes After eBook Price Fixing

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The Wall Street Journal reports that the Department of Justice warned Apple and five major publishers that it plans to sue them for “allegedly colluding to raise the price of electronic books.” http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203961204577267831767489216.html

The publishers include Simon & Schuster, Hachette Books, Penguin, Macmillan, and HarperCollins.  The suit centers on Apple’s plan to move ebook pricing from the “wholesale model” to the “agency model,” as it prepared to release the first iPad.  Biographer, Walter Isaacson, quotes Steve Jobs:

“We told the publishers, ‘We’ll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that’s what you want anyway,'”  

The publishers were then able to impose the same model across the industry, Mr. Jobs told Mr. Isaacson. “They went to Amazon and said, ‘You’re going to sign an agency contract or we’re not going to give you the books,'”

William Lynch, CEO of Barnes & Noble, testified in a deposition that abandoning the agency model would effectively transfer even more power to Amazon, since they can afford to sell ebooks below cost to build market share.

Everyone who intuitively knows that an ebook is not “worth” as much as a physical book must wonder why the two are so often priced within a dollar of each other.  If ebooks were “fairly” priced, would traditional publishers fall farther behind?  Would more brick and mortar stores disappear?

I don’t know…

But I do know that everyone who has a stake in the issue, or is just curious about the upheaval in publishing, should read this article to keep up on the latest events in the ongoing drama.