A Manifesto Regarding Sexually Explicit Movies and Modern Medicine – by Gary S. Smolker

Updated November 3, 2014

Our Challenge

Our challenge is to answer the following questions:

1. What drives “demand” for sexual content in movies?
2. Why are people so hungry to see “sex in movies”?
3. What are the action implications, ramifications and impact of having sex, drugs, alcohol, and sexually explicit dialog and visuals in movies?  What does having those elements in a movie tell us and tell future generations about how people feel, what people want, and/or what is currently going on in the world?
4. What are the impacts of modern medicines/movies on mental state, sex drive, creativity, human health, human conduct and relationships?
5. What do recently released movies show us about human culture, the state of society, what is going on today and the history of mankind?
6. Are current movies a mirror of our times?
7. Are movies propaganda?  Are movies being used as propaganda?
8. Are movies medicine?
9. How do movies impact behaviors?

Consider the following possible answers:

• People are interested in sex.
• People like sex.
• Sex is a basic human instinct.
• “Having sex” is a basic human need.
• “Sex” is a robustly marketable commodity.
• Sex is evident in almost all behavior with regard to how all people live their lives.
• Sex is critical to life as we know it.
• “How would you like your sex?” is an important question to persons “selling” a product or service or ideology.

Consider the Role (Being) Played by Western Sexually Explicit Films in Provoking and Inflaming the On-Going War Being Raged by ISIS in The Middle East

Consider the social and political ramifications of sex in the movies, i.e. consider the possibility that a large population of Arab/Muslim men in the Middle East are in a constant intense rage against the depiction of sex and sexual freedoms in Western Movies because they fear that women in their countries will become “sexually liberated” as depicted in American movies.

People everywhere can’t resist watching sexually explicit movies because (a) men and “their women” are sexually insecure and/or (b) men and “their” women are sexually repressed, and/or (c) men and their women are horny.

Consider the Role Being Played by Western Sexually Explicit Films in Promoting the Woman’s Liberation Movement and/or the Feminization of Men

Also consider the possibility that the biggest current things happening in Western Civilization – which are totally repulsive to many people – are (a) the realization by women that they don’t “need” men and (b) the feminization of men in Western countries.

Relatedly, consider the possibility that the thought that women don’t need men is having traction among women in economically depressed Arab and Muslim countries where men can not support (their) wives or families and young men cannot pay for shelter for themselves and have to remain living at home.

In economically depressed Arab and Muslim countries, as well as in many Western developed countries, women have to “work” to earn enough money to pay for food for themselves and other members of their family.  Some of these women are coming to the conclusion that men cannot support them or their children and therefore they do not “need” men.

The Role of Evolution

Assuming a “feminization of men” is taking place in Western societies, is the feminization of men in Western societies part of an evolutionary process leading to the “modernization of the human species” through a long-term evolutionary selection of less aggressive and more “family” oriented men by women which will turn humans into a more cooperative species?

Roles Movies Play in Society

Lastly, ask yourself the following three additional questions:

1. What functions do movies perform?
2. What purposes do movies fulfill?
3. What process do movies further?

Then, consider the following potential answers to those three questions:

Movies (can) do more than entertain us.

Movies are evidence. What a movie depicts is a historical statement (a clue) of what is going on in society.

Movies can positively enrich and further human development.

Insight

With respect to movies we watch and everything else in life, all of us need someone with enough expertise, knowledge and intelligence to tell us what we are looking at but can’t see or understand.

My Challenge

My challenge for the past month has been to figure out the social message(s) film makers such as Chris Rock and Seth MacFarlane are conveying in their movies, “Top Five” and “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”

About three quarters of the movies I have seen in the past two months had graphic sexual content, albeit not one of those movies was a “girly” or “sex movie”, nor did I go to any of those movies to see a depiction of sex in any movie. I believe no-one went to any one of these movies to see “sex in a movie.”

My Personal Big Picture Questions

Sexually explicit dialog in movies doesn’t seem right to me.

I have asked myself:

1. Why is that?
2. Why has the sexually explicit dialog in current movies I have seen in the last two months seemed “wrong”?
3. What are the action implications and ramifications of the extensive amount of sexually explicit dialog and sexually explicit visuals in movies I have seen in the past two months?

Are We In the Midst of A Third Sexual Revolution?

One friend has written:

I think the sexually explicit dialog is an old thing, just getting much worse now, unfortunately, maybe some reaction will come against it.

Less than a year after we were married I was away for 3 weeks at a training course soon after starting with the State of North Carolina.  That was very early in the days of MASH.  I watched one episode that I thought so full of sexual innuendo that I never watched it again; now the shows and movies are much more explicit.  Anyway, MASH became so popular that it became part of the culture that I missed.  Someone once said I reminded her of Radar and I had no idea what she was talking about.

Another friend wrote.

This is so funny – several of the longest lasting TV shows such as MASH and FRIENDS and perhaps CHEERS (hum all one name shows) don’t have much sex in them at all, re movies go back to “Star Wars”, “Spaceballs”, “Wizard of Oz”, “Gone with the Wind” and others … no to low sex … who says its wanted anyway?  Might be just a bunch of sales hype.

That is the past.  Now is now.

Another friend recently told me:

We are now witnessing the feminization of men in Western civilization. (a) As women in the west realize they don’t need men for financial support – that they can and/or will need to support themselves – they come to the realization that they (women) don’t need men.  (b) Men need women more than women need men.  Men in the West realize they need to be more attractive to women.  In order to be more attractive to women men in the West are being “forced” to become more feminine.  (c) Male chauvinism among educated people in the West is in the process of becoming extinct.

“A Million Ways to Die in the West”

The big name establishment critics panned “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”

I have nothing but praise for “A Million Ways to Die in the West.”

As a comedic documentary “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is a work of genius.

“A Million Ways to Die in the West” is not merely a comedic work of art.  It is also a social study.

In “A Million Ways to Die in the West” the main woman character (played by actress Charlize Theron) has (the stereotype) characteristics associated with males  and the main male character (played by Seth MacFarlane) has the (stereotypical) characteristics associated with females.

The social point this movie makes is that men and women both have the ability to succeed in business and to stand up to bullies.

In “A Million Ways to Die in the West” the main male character (a sheep farmer named Albert Stark, played by Seth MacFarlane) is dumped by his long time girl-friend Louise (played by Amanda Seyfried).

The main character (Albert) is a coward who is “dominated” by Anna after he has been dumped by Louise.

Anna becomes Albert’s new girl-friend as a result of a series of events that result in experiences they share with one another.

Anna has all the characteristics normally associated with male “stars” – i.e., she is a noble, strong, talented, intelligent and brave person.

Anna is like Malala Yousafzai, the woman who just won the Nobel Peace Prize.

In many clever ways, “A Million Ways to Die in the West” is an extremely clever parody of women’s liberation, the women’s lib movement and of liberated women in Western society.

It is a dramatic presentation of the on-going feminization of men in Western societies.

The main character’s best friend’s girlfriend Ruth (played by Sarah Silverman) is a prostitute.

Ruth works in a saloon where she has sex with ten different customers on a slow day, but hasn’t had sex with her boyfriend Edward (played by Giovani Ribisi) because Ruth and Edward are Christians who believe it would be wrong for them to have premarital sex with one another.

This movie makes the point that weak people take drugs to increase their courage.  During the course of this movie, cowardly sheep farmer Albert Stark (played by Seth MacFarlane) takes drugs to increase his courage before a scheduled gun fight is to take place.

This movie also makes the point that women are often “trapped by conventions.”

In that regard, in one comedic scene, the weak main male character Albert asks his strong new girlfriend Anna: Why did you marry him — referring to the main bad guy in this movie, he man outlaw Clinch, played by Liam Neeson?  She [Anna/Charlize Theron] replies: “I married him when I was nine years old because I didn’t want to be a fifteen year old spinster!”

Although the things that happen in this movie are implausible, they make sense.

The characters in this movie are plausible and charming characters.  In their own magical way they are each likable and engaging.

If you watch this movie, at all times you will want to know what will happen next.

In many ways, this film accurately portrays how life in the United States was lived in the past and how life in the United States is lived today.

Recent Sexually Explicit Main Stream Movies

I attended the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September, 2014.

The movies I saw at TIFF were made by film makers from all over the world:  USA, Belgium/France, South Korea, France, Canada/Germany, China, Jordan/Qatar/United Arab Emirates/United Kingdom, and United Kingdom.

Three hundred ninety-two films from seventy-nine different countries were shown at TIFF.

Eighteen of the twenty films I watched at TIFF had significant sexual content.

“Top Five”

Among other sexually charged films, I watched the world premier of Chris Rock’s USA movie “Top Five.”

“Top Five” turned out to be a film about the sex life and career of a character played by Chris Rock (Andre Allen) who is a successful comedian and comic.

The story in “Top Five” revolves around the interaction between a female New York Times critic (played by Rosario Dawson) who savages Andre Allen’s work and Andre Allen.

Andre Allen “discovers” himself (learns that he can be a creative artist and a funny comedian without taking drugs) and also learns about the New York Times’ critic’s sex life while she is interviewing him.

“Top Five” is also tangentially and gratuitously about Andre Allen’s reality show star fiancee (played by Gabriele Union) who wants Andre Allen to boost her reality TV show.

“Top Five” boasts scenes which are obscene to me.

However, each one of those scenes are a representation of the current state of human affairs and a statement regarding the current state of our culture in America.

I don’t know what audiences’ (including black people’s and hip people’s) reaction to those scenes will be.

Will audiences think those scenes are obscene, false and insulting – a slander to the dignity of black people and/or a slander to the dignity of the comedians and entertainers showcased in that movie – or, will audiences think those scenes are erotic or will will audiences understand that those scenes are a social criticism, a parody, a satire about fame, sex, family, making money and insecurity in America or will audiences have a different reaction to those scenes?

I think Chris Rock did a good job (a) of making fun of making money, (b) of making fun of  reality stars, reality stardom and reality shows, (c) of making fun of “sex” in America, (d) of making money in America, and (e) of the on-going feminization of men in America.

My Philosophy

My philosophy is: For a movie to be a (financial) success it must first be a moral success.

I prefer movies that have a message, an idea and/or information that makes people think and talk – movies that say something to me.

I love learning:  I like to come away from watching a movie knowing more than I knew before and I like to come away thinking about something I never thought of before and/or thinking about something in a new way.

Movies that have screenplays like that lead to actors so immersed in the proceedings that they seem to forget themselves at times and to become so real as to be almost unreal.

Just as an embalmed mummy in a museum tells the tale of ancient Egypt, so will our movies portray human conditions to future generations.

 

 

Copyright © 2014 by Gary S. Smolker

Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin – by Gary S. Smolker

Copyright © Gary S. Smolker 2014

Updated June 28, 2014

The only thing that matters is how one feels in one’s own space.

It is very important to be comfortable in your own skin.

As a result of people striving to be comfortable in their own skin -to enrich their own lives- many significant changes are taking place.

 

ONLY YOU CAN BE COMFORTABLE IN YOUR OWN SKIN

We are living in a time of large scale social change, marked by creativity, innovation, questioning of authority, rugged individualism, concern for self, the emancipation of women, changing demographics, wide scale use of smart phones and many other significant life style transformations.

Today, people are devoting significant amounts of their personal time and energy focused on themselves.  Many people are making strong efforts to take charge of their own individual future.

Today, a developing emphasis on the individual and individual responsibility is growing, the power of authority over the individual is constantly being questioned and reassessed, the traditional authority relationship between men and women – granting authority to the men – is undergoing change and scrutiny, and there are significant changes in the racial educational and economic composition of the population in the United States.

The increased emphasis on the individual cannot be over emphasized.

Concern for individualism has vigorously appeared.

Today, compared to times past, women have attained a great deal more responsibility and freedom.

As a result of having more freedom and responsibility women have themselves come to question their traditional family and social roles and reciprocally, males have raised similar questions about male-female relationships.

As women move out of confinement to the domicile, they experience new outlets and opportunities, demand power/empowerment, respect and “equality”, and are more and more interested in change.

Improvements in methods of contraception and the increase in experiential access to opportunities outside of the home have released women for participation in new roles and functions as never before.

As a consequence of “women’s liberation”, on-going debates on issues of gender and racial equality; the government’s ever growing increase of public debt and social change, including laws regarding contraception and birth control; a cascade of new technologies; and, being bombarded by an avalanche of messages, visual images of massive disintegration of society, a steady stream of information and misinformation and ideas; and, as a result of being constantly exposed to loud acrimonious debates over different points of view, it has become impossible for anyone to live in solitude or in the past.

People Are Tired of Being Talked To, They Want to Be Talked With

The mega-trends that are shaping our times have massively accelerated.

One mega-trend is that there has been a seismic shift from presentation to participation in many areas of daily life.  People are fed up with being talked-down-to.

The shift from presentation to participation means that the days of the Gods, sitting up on Mt. Olympus and telling us how things are and what to do, are long gone or rapidly coming to an end.

People are tired of being talked to they want to be talked with.

Today, people can use technology to search for information and to have a global conversation.

People are hyper-connected: As a result of our use of the Internet and other communications technologies we all engaged in a global conversation.

We are using technology to connect with others – not just with people we already know, but with people who have similar or related interests that resonate with us – and not just to search for information.

In fact, it is estimated that 3 billion more people will join the Internet’s community by 2020.

Everyone’s perceptual space, expectations, life style and peace of mind has been shaken up.

Taking Care of Your Body and Mind

People want to feel cared for.

How does that play out in the practice of medicine?

Consider being told by an MD to put an eye-drop in your child’s eye or in your own eye.

Have you ever been told to do so by an MD?

Have you ever noticed that the eye drop falls onto your eye and/or onto your child’s eye then off your [child’s] eye and wondered how much (if any) of the eye drop actually got in the eye?

Health is “emotionally charged.”

If you are told by your physician to put an eye drop in your child’s eye and you see the drop dribbling down your child’s cheek you are going to be stressed out.

Did your physician tell you that is supposed to happen?

The moisture of an eye drop is too much for an eye to handle; part of the eye drop will ALWAYS dribble down your face or down you child’s face!   That is what is supposed to happen!

MDs, for the most part, have no clue that they should tell you that an eye drop you apply to your child’s eye will always dribble down off the eye.

Is your physician or you partially “brain dead?”

It is not “easy” to know what to communicate, or to know how to communicate or to have empathy or to show empathy.

Being “smart” is not enough.

Always ask questions if you don’t understand something!

You are in charge of your own health.

If you have a young child, you are in charge of  your child’s health.

You are in charge of your own life and your child’s life if you have a young child.

Understand Your MD’s Behavior

One of the large scale social changes being experienced today is that many people are appalled at their personal experience of how medicine is being practiced today on a day to day basis ; they are appalled at the lack of scientific curiosity, the lack of social skills, the lack of humanity, and by the medical profession’s lack of understanding of what is required and expected in a physician patient relationship and the money obsessed focus of the mindset of their MDs.

A galaxy of feelings and impressions is involved in a healthcare encounter.  The medical profession has a name for this: “patient experience.”

There is a human dimension to medical care.

If you are one of those people who are disappointed by the way your current MD practices medicine, understand why your physician acts the way your physician acts and get over your disappointment by moving forward.

If your physician is not adequately addressing your educational, emotional, spiritual needs and feelings, doesn’t make you feel cared for, move on.

You have lots of options.

Move forward because only you can be comfortable in your own skin.

We create ourselves in the everyday choices that move us in life.

It is up to us to create our own lives; it is up to us to create the life we want to live.

If you think you are not deriving “value” from your office visits with your physician: Ask your physician questions. Tell your physician you want answers to questions and/or changes in the way your physician treats you.

Demand your physician’s personal attention.

There are many physicians vying for your attention, bringing medical information to you and exposing you to them and their ways of thinking.

Magazine stands and book stores are full of publications which claim to tell you how to take care of your health.

Newspapers and TV shows and radio shows and the Internet constantly publish information on how to take care of your health.

If you can’t have a forthright conversation with your physician and/or you don’t get any satisfaction or enough satisfaction or enough value from seeing your present physician, look for another physician who is amazingly brilliant, touchingly humane, highly trained, superbly skilled, up to date on the latest research findings and medical thinking and who has a great personality, warmth, empathy, great people skills, is practical and puts you the patient first, puts your concerns, your feelings, your condition (physical and mental conditions) first.

Physicians need to treat the soul and spirit of the patient, not just the body.  In the olden days, when most doctors were solo practitioners ministering to patients, the offered patients communication and empathy as well as technical proficiency and excellence.

There are physicians that still do that: there are physicians who care about how well they communicate with patients and conduct themselves as professionals.

Caring, nurturing, knowledgeable, educated, skilled, brilliant and helpful people exist; some of them are physicians.

Even if you are not trained as a physician, you know whether or not you feel cared for.

Move Forward

Take responsibility for your own life.

Accept your “freedom.”

Don’t behave like a helpless puppet.

You are in charge.

REASONABLE EXPECTATIONS

 

Creative talent is a highly adaptive one and involves specific and complicated processes of thought.

Creativity requires an open mindedness and removal of inhibitions.

Practicing medicine, the stress on conformity in the medical profession and psychodynamic forces inherent in the practice of medicine do not encourage open-mindedness.

Many physicians have mental limitations as a consequence of studying to become a physician which are exasperated by their training and which become severely debilitating as they get further and further experienced in the daily routine of practicing medicine day to day.

A MD friend of mine recently mentioned to me that most physicians lose their dynamic sensory and information processing capabilities.

He explained to me that the memorization demands of the natural science/life sciences courses taken before and while attending medical school destroys their capacity to solve problems by thinking creatively. 

According to this friend: A physician’s creative orientation and ability, if they had any, diminishes and finally goes away as they practice medicine.

While practicing medicine their mental capability due to following standard methods which are recipe book like protocols they follow while they are engaged in their day-to-day professional work.

He explained that very few lectures, in medical school, engage a student’s mind. 

Relatedly, he explained that physicians are not taught to think innovatively so that as they work, they can gain insight into patients’ needs and strive to find new solutions. 

In summary: Young doctors are not educated to be curious researchers and inventors as well as knowledgeable, compassionate, and effective healers. 

They are not trained to be physician-investigators. 

Mind Expanding Experiences

Medical training is not entirely a boring brain deadening experience. 

Throughout basic clinical education small groups of students are presented with a realistic case study (in a hospital or elsewhere) of a patient showing special symptoms. 

The students work together to figure out what is wrong with the patient and what to do about it. 

Tasks are assigned by the instructor that allow the medical students to discover the skills and knowledge any doctor needs in treating a patient that is ill, in traditional areas such as pharmacology, anatomy, and physiology.

“Diagnosis” of medical conditions (i.e. problems) does require a limited amount of analysis, called “differential analysis” [a hit and miss way of determining the cause and/or existence of a medical problem], AFTER the problem already exists.

Because medical training revolves around lecturing and the rote presentation of facts and the practice of standard diagnosis techniques it does not foster the curiosity and inquisitiveness that great innovators commonly display.

As a result, in their every day medical practices very few physicians reach or come to medical conclusions on a particular case after completing many studies and giving a matter much thought; instead, they come to their “medical conclusion” re diagnosis and treatment by following a “one-size-fits-all” a recipe in a recipe book. 

Physicians not been trained to become lifelong learners – strong thinkers who are curious and who work proactively to satisfy their curiosity.

They have been trained (some might say programmed) to follow standard procedures – they are in effect highly trained robots, that is why the standard practice of medicine is in the midst of a huge change, it is being overtaken by innovations. 

A willingness to innovate (which is totally lacking in the standard practice of medicine) will determine the clinical, social and economic futures of medicine in the United States. 

The vast majority of the current set of physicians are not willing to innovate.

Instead, the vast majority of  physicians feel compelled to stay within “standards of medical practice” and do not question, or analyze whether such “standards of practice” make “scientific sense” or not. 

They do not experiment or have a willingness to innovate or to explore challenges to currently accepted “medical truths.” 

They are not curiously engaged humans who want to help patients by pushing medicine further.

They are discouraged from making, recording and acting on their own clinical observations which could or would lead to the establishment of new and better medical care, and new standards of care.

Being curious and then designing and caring out experiments to test ideas is one of the most satisfying uses of a mind. 

Most physicians give up their ability to engage their minds in the pleasurable and satisfying activity of doing research when they begin to practice medicine – because to them the practice of medicine is like playing a broken-slot-machine which always pays – and they “think” they will get great pleasure out of making a lot of money and that is why their focus is on making as much money as possible as quickly as possible.

In that regard, almost all medical doctors practicing medicine in the United States today tried to go into whatever medical specialty would make them the most money in the shortest period of time and are obsessed with making the most money they can make from the practice of medicine.

Another one of my MDs friends further explained to me why there is such a pronounced lack of creativity and innovation in the medical profession as follows:

• “Most MDs are one trick ponies.” 
• This friend (a highly acclaimed MD – who does not practice one trick pony medicine) further explained to me – “If you only know how to use a hammer, everything is a nail.”

Energizing the Minds of Physicians

Research projects energize students, engage them in serious science, and generate the kinds of questions that lead to new discoveries. 

A focus on medical research in the training of medical students and in medical practice would give medical students and physicians a richer, fuller appreciation of how their clinical practice fits into the larger world of scientific knowledge and which would enrich and refine their decision-making capabilities.

Adding a research requirement to their education and to maintaining their license to practice medicine would dramatically enhance medical care – help patients by pushing medicine further.

In my opinion, everyone would benefit.

Is It True that Physicians Are “Poor” Businessmen/Have No Business Sense?

Many successful business people have told me that MDs have no “business sense.”

Have you wondered why it is the general feeling among many successful business people that MDs have no business sense ?

Here are some questions I have asked myself in order to gain insight into that issue:

• QUERY:
• (1) How many physicians practicing medicine have thought about what practicing medicine has done to the functional capacity of that “muscle” in their head called their brain as a result of lack of mentally stressful mind-strength building exercise in their daily lives?
• (2) How many care?
• By the way: “Scientific” experiments demonstrate that use of the brain builds neural networks that enable the brain to process information faster and more efficiently.  In other words, using your brain makes you smarter, increases brain function.
• The old saying “use it or lose it” applies to brain function.

GIANTS IN THE MEDICAL PROFESSION

There are giants in the medical profession who are human wonders.

Also, the conventional make-up of the scientific and educational background, personality, values and world-view of a growing number of people in the medical profession is changing.

I am meeting a physician this afternoon at the check in area of jetBlue at Logan Airport in Boston before I fly back to LAX, Los Angeles International Airport.

This physician has an open mind, but that description seriously understates the reality, which is that he is totally curious and eager to learn and asks question after question.

This morning my daughter and son-in-law took my ten year old grandson to be examined by a retina specialist and a trauma eye surgeon for a follow-up examination.

The first thing the retina specialist and eye surgeon said when he saw my grandson was: “I know how to make toys.  Would you like to see me make toys?”

The surgeon then proceeded to make an origami hopping frog and a flying helicopter.  He precisely folded pieces of paper and precisely tore pieces of paper with his own fingers.

When he was done those pieces of paper had been transformed into a hopping frog and a flying helicopter.

This is a true story – someone with that dexterity and people skill actually practices medicine as an eye surgeon in Boston.

He is an expert in the retina of the eye.

The rest of the members of the clinical medical team have extraordinary expertise and are just as kind and as extremely accomplished and competent physicians as the toy making eye surgeon who made toys for my grandson just before examining his retina early this morning.

Males Being Rebuffed by Stunning Women

One young woman friend of mine [a beautiful and smart woman] rejected her parents desire that she marry a doctor because she thinks the single MDs pursuing her (young Ferrari driving money making obsessed male physicians) are too lacking in substance, she thinks they are shallow self-destructive individuals and if she dated any of them or married anyone of them she would be doomed to living a tasteless meaningless life. 

This young lady doesn’t want to have the emotional burden such physicians put on the women who prostitute themselves to gain that type of physician’s tasteless attention.

She considers their lack of “substance” to be a “sick” situation which will lead those shallow people to “self-destruction” and being in a constant state of extreme unhappiness. 

She is concerned about their mental health.

It is her opinion that those Ferrari driving young MDs did not go into medicine to help people but instead went into medicine because they are insecure and feel worthless as human beings: they will always be striving to compensate for their feelings of worthlessness and insecurity through fantasies of “greatness” which they have striven to realize by becoming a physician.

It is her opinion that her Ferrari driving young MD suitors

•  Believe they will prove their worth to their parents by being an MD.  They psychologically are not well formed or mature adults.  To the contrary, they will have a never compelling need to obtain their parents’ approval, the approval of the rest of their family and of their community and her approval by being a money making machine.

• The feeling of lack of worth has been so consuming in their lives that nothing short of overwhelming financial success will make them feel acceptable.

 

It is her opinion that those young men are unhappy and will always be unhappy.

 

For all the reasons listed above, she doesn’t want to have anything to do with any of those young suitors.

Other, dynamically accomplished women (who coincidentally are smart and stunningly beautiful) I have talked to are totally turned off by the phoniness they are being subjected to in the business and social world they inhabit. 

They feel they are “prized” by successful men as status symbols and are not adored or appreciated prized or cherished for being the warm caring persons who they are or for the good companionship and loyalty they have to offer —

• One beautiful smart successful woman explained her mindset:  She is revolted at being cast in the role being a dynamic businessman’s Gucci purse. 
• She is revolted at being a prestige high status decoration. 
• Another beautiful smart successful woman explained to me that the pressure of being phony – while accompanying her successful husband at ‘society events:  While at parties and social events the amount of phony interest she must display and being forced to be entertaining she is is too emotionally exhausting. 
• She would rather stay home and watch TV than go to another party in the star studded world she lives in.  The routine of being a member of high society is maddening.  Doing the same thing day after day, year after year, is maddening to her.  She cannot imagine anything more boring than living her present high society life. 
• The routines people in her social circle have taken up are tasteless. 
• She is a rugged individualist, who is physically fit and intellectually cultured, who can’t stand the “over-civilized life” she is forced to live. 
• The boorishness and meaninglessness of her existence tests the very limits of her endurance. 
• She is resolved to escape her present life.

 

• These women know who they are and who they want to be in a very fundamental way.
• They have self knowledge.
• They are dedicated to protecting their dignity in their money-driven every day world where their souls and status as a person are constantly under attack.
• They realize how precarious the balance is between creation and annihilation and destruction in the life they lead and in the business world they and the men in their lives inhabit.
• In that world everyone always is seeking investors and to make more money.
• In such a world everyone feels they must “look” successful.  They must spend a lot of money on clothing and cars and houses and jewelry, etc. etc. etc.
• However, the “thinking” women described above – who are moving towards becoming the persons they want to be, and have understood who they are and the psychodynamic forces at play in the world work – don’t want to be emotionally and financially dependent on a man or to be his “eye candy.”
• They are not hostile or bitter or resentful.
• Nor do they have destructive feelings.
• They know what they want.
• They want to be loved and to love; they want to receive bliss and to give bliss.
• They want to give and receive care and nurturance.
• They are not fickle.
• Their sexuality and emotions are inextricably intermingled.
• Their bodies wear the smile of accomplishment; they emote a subjective sense of freedom.

SOCIAL STATUS AND NUMBING OF A PHYSICIAN’S BRAIN 

The practice of medicine [which is viewed by brilliant people as a “game” of association] attracts “smart people” but overall does not attract or hold the attention of people with the most “brilliant” minds.

I recently flew from Los Angeles International Airport to Logan Airport in Boston.  

The person sitting next to me on my flight from LAX to BOS told me that 4 out of his 6 closest friends/classmates – fellow students at Cal Tech – “wanted” to be MDs during their freshman year at Cal Tech.

He also mentioned that after taking pre-med courses for a year or two, half of them decided they didn’t want to be MDs. 

He implied that his fellow Cal Tech undergraduate student closest friends saw the handwriting on the wall:  “Brain Death”  would happen to their brains if they continued to prepare for the practice of medicine and “heaven forbid” if they actually became practicing physicians they would lose their acute highly developed ability to think.

He concluded and his friends concluded that practicing medicine would be an act of self-destruction.

He expressed his understanding to me that he and his friends at Cal Tech have hyperactive dynamic thinking alert minds that are always on the go and which need to be fueled by and are energized by having constant new challenges and experiences.

That Being Said: He concluded that being a MD would be too boring an existence ant that being an MD would cause his hyper-active highly functional brain to atrophy.

He mentioned that the smartest people in the world attend Cal Tech —

• Cal Tech students have the highest SAT scores —
• Additionally, it is a small elite school.  There are only 1,000 undergraduates, 1,000 graduate students and a faculty of 1,000.

• This leads to lots of interaction between students with one another and with faculty which is prized by everyone.

• The faculty wants to teach the most brilliant students.

• The most brilliant students want to be taught by the most brilliant faculty and to interact with other brilliant students.

THE BABY BUST AND ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET OF THE SO-CALLED “SMARTEST, BEST AND BRIGHTEST”

Recently, while visiting my eldest daughter Terra, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, I read the Winter 2014 issue of WHARTON Magazine.

“Wharton” is a prestigious business school in the United States.

One article described a study which compares Wharton graduates who graduated in 1992 (the class of 1992) with the class of 2012 in terms of the number of graduates who plan to have children.

The study found that the number of Wharton graduates planning to have children has dropped nearly by half over the past 20 years.

These averages are equal for men and women.  They are both dropping out of parenthood.

This change in plans is not unique to young business professionals.  It’s part of a larger trend: a nationwide baby bust.

Across the United States, births have dropped precipitously.  In 1992, the average US woman gave birth to 2.05 children over the course of her life.  By 2011, it had dropped to 1.89, well below the replacement rate of 2.10.

Another article in the Winter 2014 issue of WHARTON Magazine reports that:

• The amount of interest in entrepreneurship at Wharton is just crazy.

• Historically the school has been associated with careers in finance and consultancy.

• For the first time, more Wharton students are interested in starting companies than in buying them.

• A growing number of Wharton graduates are willing to trade wing tips, three-star Manhattan restaurants and Tribeca lofts for sneakers, take-out pizza and sleeping under their desks as they race to get a product out the door.

• In fact more members of the Wharton graduating class of 2013 started a company than joined a hedge fund.

Our civilization has reached a tripping point.

Many people want to exercise freedom by (a) expressing who they are, (b) by experiencing who they can be, and (c) by living their life to the fullest.

They have concluded that the most important thing in their lives is to be comfortable in their own skins.

GSS