Archive for March, 2011

THE GOD TEST! IT’S HERE!!!

Wednesday, March 30th, 2011

The Huffington Post thinks that since I wrote THE BOYFRIEND TEST and THE GIRLFRIEND TEST, then I am qualified to write THE GOD TEST. Who am I to argue with the most read blog on the world wide web? I also noticed that many of the comment posters on the Huff Post’s article and on the attached YouTube video think that I am currently dating Jesus. So it makes sense that I submit him (and the other God’s lurking around) to my boyfriend test. Only to satisfy the Huffington Post, here is an excerpt from THE BOYFRIEND TEST adapted, as instructed, for God.

THE GOD TEST

(The following is meant as pure humor and not meant to slander any particular believer. If God didn’t give you a sense of humor, do not read this.)

1. Does this God disrespect relationship boundaries? If you already have a God and this God is hitting on you, disqualify him fast!

Come to think of it, Buddha has been flirting with me lately. If Jesus really is my boyfriend, should I disqualify Buddha?  Buddha’s a bit old though.

2. Does he take too long to call after meeting you? The industry standard is 2-7 days.

I don’t remember the first time I met Jesus. My parents were playing matchmaker before I was even out of the cradle. I’m not excited about arranged marriages, although their divorce rate is 4% compared to 50% for romantic marriages. No matter. My cell phone never blasts with the word “Jesus” on the screen. And please don’t use my faulty iphone as an excuse. I have Verizon.

3. Does he seem vague? Are there gaps in his history? Is he dancing around some of your personal questions?

Yah Jesus, how about those missing thirteen years? Were you shacking up with some Hindu in India, or maybe doing time with a hottie in London after the Roman invasion? Inquiring girlfriends want to know.

4. Does he have a plan? If he calls for a date and has no idea what he’s inviting you to, he’s a bad God bet.

So what is the plan, Jesus? Huh? Huh? How about you Moses? Buddha? Muhammad? Allah? Anyone got a plan here? Or am I arranging all our dates? Must be true, that the rise of women in the west has made male Gods downright lazy. I’ve heard it’s because all those hook-ups flood the supply side of the sexual economy. So the price goes down.

5. Does he allow you to pick up or split the check?

As far as I know, I have been picking up the tab for everything since we met. Even when I’m at your place, you’ve got your hand out. C’mon dude. A collection plate on a first date? Not cool.

6. Has he displayed any anger? Displays of uncontrolled agitation in the early stages of a relationship could signal an anger management problem.

Oh man. Haiti. Japan. Snooki. Why are you so angry, God?

7. Sex! Is it kind, loving, and complete with foreplay and afterplay? Expect a good God candidate to get the warm towel to clean up, snuggle you for as long as you want, and sleep on the wet spot.

(Pause) Umh… well… Okay, so you’re doing one thing right. You seemed to have removed cultural barriers against girl-on-girl. So there’s hope we’ll be treated better in bed. Thanks, I guess.

8. What kind of relationship does he have with his mother? This will eventually mirror the relationship he has with you.

Well, he had a single mother to start off. That’s good. I bet she taught him to respect women. Then he was part of a blended family. So I’m sure he can really understand today’s modern family.

(For those who wonder which God I’m actually dating, uh, praising, I’m sorry to say that most of the God fan clubs would bar me from membership. Sigh. Apparently the Atheists have too. Such a lonely world. Maybe Fox will take me in.)

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Japan: Can Fear be Inherited?

Monday, March 21st, 2011

In the months ahead, after the physical wounds in Japan are attended to, the food supply restored, and life returned to “normal,” tremors will be felt throughout the culture as widespread psychological injuries remain.

First there will be the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a disorder than can last for months or even years. Those fortunate enough to have survived the massive earthquake may experience thoughts, dreams, and hallucinations that intrusively recall the horror of the events. Others will exhibit a kind of numbness, an inability to enjoy life and connect with others, a pattern designed to avoid thoughts that might trigger memories of the event. Now imagine those symptoms as dominant operational behaviors for an entire culture. PTSD may very well become a dysfunctional way-of-life when daily life picks up again — a shadow that will lurk behind every school teacher’s lesson, every shoppers decision, every family dinner table.

But as dismal as that may sound — and children may be greatly affected the worse by PTSD — far more heart wrenching will be the survivor’s syndrome. First identified as “survivor’s guilt” among Holocaust survivors, today the syndrome is known to affect anyone who has survived a massive catastrophic event, and is even common among emergency room personnel. It can involve anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, and emotional numbness, a loss of drive.

The insidious thing about survivor’s syndrome is it’s subtle ability to impact a family for generations. Through silent messages, glances, back turns, and distorted warnings about danger, parents and grandparents with survivors’ syndrome can unknowingly instill the idea that pleasure cannot come without pain, that pain should be expected in life, or that pleasure is not worth risking at all.

Psychological injuries will be a grim reality of future daily life in Japan. And at this time, mental health workers are as vital to survival as the triage units on the ground today. Yes, fear can be inherited and a disaster like this has the ability to change an entire culture forever.

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Why’d I do that? Ask Your Unconscious.

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

How many times have you asked yourself, “Why did I do that?” I should have learned that doesn’t work.

The answer may be what psychologists call an “unconscious motivation.” I have a favorite metaphor to explain how unconscious processes drive our behavior. Imagine that you have grown up, away from your troubled childhood, and have created your dream adult life. You are in the back of a limo. You have cash. And you look great. The only problem is your limo driver. You can’t see his/her face and no matter how often you order them to take you to the finest restaurant and most beautiful mansion, that darn driver keeps turning that car around and going back to some dirty bird restaurant you ate at as a kid. And rather than taking you to a mansion, your driver keeps pulling up to the house you grew up in. Urrgh!!!

Yes, we often choose relationships and behaviors that bring up our most unresolved childhood issues. And we tend to keep repeating those patterns until we’ve worked things out. The classic example is the single woman with an absentee father who is continually being attracted to abandoning bad boys.

Whether you are a layperson like most screen writers, and use the term “sub”-conscious, or have training in Psychology and like to look smart by saying, “un”-conscious, the meaning is the same. We all have early life feelings that are out of our awareness, yet drive most of our conscious life.

So, are we a slave to our unconscious, or can we break the shackles of early life programming and think, feel, and behave as an adult? The answer is yes, but not without help. If we’re super lucky, we have a love relationship that both contains us and challenges us to grow. The rest of us pay for therapists to do that.

Sigmund Freud may have been a victim of his Victorian era, but he was a genius when it came to understanding the unconscious. He believed that by helping the unconscious become conscious, people can be relieved from psychic pain and bad behaviors. He also believed that dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious” in that they contain “pre-conscious” material. Not that dreams are literal. But that dreams are feelings with pictures. My advice: If you are choosing a therapist, ask them if they do dream therapy. There is plenty of material in the nocturnal theater of our minds.

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