Professionalism and the American Soul

My computer says I started writing this on 10/26/07. That's quite a while ago, but the subject matter was compelling for me then, and it remains so today.

I haven't published it because the writing is far from complete, and I'm not sure it's entirely clear what I'm driving at- the place of emotions in professionalism when the profession itself is based on emotion. But that's my concise 2008 version. Please post if you have something to contribute. Would welcome any feedback or elaboration.
D




This one's going to be a work in process, the thoughts not yet completely formed. Would welcome input from readers as you are inspired.

(In my (extremely brief) research for this article I discovered that there exists a word - metempsychosis. Man that sounds like fun. . .)

So the crux of this has something to do with my fascination with "prodigious" youth, their exploitation, and the challenges of alienation and anxiety endemic in (and perhaps inherent to) American culture.

My first thoughts were in the course of a recent massage course I was participating in. In the course of my (growing more extensive) studies, I have worked on many different people, all shapes and sizes, and most genders. By and large I get excellent feedback from people and am pleased to bring my best to the table when I approach any new client. However, there instances when, well I just don't like the person. Sometimes it's personal, like the person rubs me (excuse me) the wrong way, but often it's because the person is so disconnected and lacking in presence that I feel that my best work will simply not be appreciated.

In these last instances I have wrestled with a question that plagued me during my musical career- does one dial down the energy one puts out to meet expectations of the situation at hand? My answer then was a resounding no- bring it no matter who is there, at the very least out of respect for the potential that person has to appreciate what you are offering. While difficult to execute, this was in many ways a very easy answer- absolute, lacking in fluidity, and predictable. However in looking down the road at a potentially new career path, I chose to re-examine my attitude towards what I would have to label "professionalism."

In short, Professionalism I define as being able to bring it even when you don't feel like it. In fairness to me as a younger man, I don't feel my attitudes were really professional in this sense- in a way they were more transcendent-professionalism (I would have liked the sound of that). For classical musicians, professionalism was really just that- getting it up night after night at least outwardly to play the right notes with an adequate display of feeling to convince the proverbial blue-hairs that you were the real deal. My feeling at the time was that this pretense of feeling in an art form based almost entirely on feeling was a sham. So my version of professionalism was that one had to whip oneself genuinely into the emotion one was intent on transmitting to the audience. By and large I'd say it worked pretty well. . .but there was a byproduct of resentment that was undeniable- the exchange rate between giver and receiver could become way out of whack and leave one feeling drained and exhausted (NB- let me say here that my audiences were generally amazing and a delight to perform for, but during those dead-hall performances I recall feeling this imbalance poignantly.)

But at the root of this was my then concern with professionalism in fields (such as music) in which feeling was essential. Professionalism is being able to sell the car, flip the burger, convict the defendant with complete disregard for one's personal feelings about the matter. But if one's job is to access feeling directly (such as in music, dance, theater, or massage), how can one be honest with one's own integrity and still deliver the real thing- or worse, if the fake is accepted as reality, then what does it say about the valuation of one's own subjective experience which is at the core of the work- am I making myself clear? If people are happy to clap for the Emperor with no clothes, then why devote any energy to design anyway? I would say that these questions plagued me endlessly during my career as a young musician.

And there's the rub (again)- a young musician. A young musician has not yet her or (especially) his emotions to the point where such detachment is really healthy. So premature professionalism, i.e. detachment is degrading to the individual's health and development. Strangely, classical music and other art forms such as ballet, are some of the only careers that young people can engage in legally in America, and yet they are the ones that require the most emotional dexterity (or sinisterity perhaps). What generally comes across, though, is that highly passionate, over intense sensitivities of children are channeled through adult emotional frames. This is similar in a way to the way that many porn stars who were victims of childhood sexual abuse exude an extraordinary sexuality that would seem to be the channeling of youthful feeling through prematurely activated adult sexuality (and I would say that the similarities between adult film stars and classical musicians do not end here- more later).

However, regardless of their twisted origins, both fields produce performers that can be hugely compelling. Of this there can be no doubt (except maybe in classical music, just kidding).

So I hope I've made that point clear.

Looking at bodywork as a career in which real intimacy, sensitivity, and personal touch are at the core of quality work, how does one exhibit detached professionalism? Anyone who has received many massages has somewhere experienced the spa-style, 10-minute oil change style of massage: impersonal, formulaic, and generally unhelpful if not actually stress producing. But this is what is required of certain professionals in this field. Hopefully massage recipients will have, over the course of their lives, experienced exceptionally attuned bodywork from highly sensitive practitioners. These experiences are incomparably superior in almost every way.

But how does such a practitioner "pay the rent"? Does he turn into a Carlos Kleiber Massage Therapist, performing one or two massages per year for half a million an hour? It's an intriguing thought really. . .

But this profession-aversion that the most sensitive artists, performers, and healers have - almost as a rule - seems to be directly connected not to the execution of their craft - or even the earning of money for their crafts - but to this concept of professionalism itself. So let me look at it a little further. Because this goes beyond simple Capitalism, which itself demands the subjugation of personal feeling to market efficiency. It has to do with an attitude of systematic denial in the very showing up to work. Bad mood, unhappy, fight with girlfriend- these are all the motivators of art - particularly for the young who have not yet worked out what these feelings are about - and their direct subjugation risks leaving one without the font of what makes one a professional in the first place. No wonder artists are so willing to give away their work for free so as to avoid the whole process of destroying what makes them who they are.

But much of this is capitalistic in argument. What is it about American Professionalism that is so particularly itself? It helps, I think, to compare it with European modes of professionalism.

Anyone who has worked or lived in Europe can not but be struck by the general lack of professionalism- willingness to serve the customer to his satisfaction, willingness to achieve a high level of expertise above and beyond what is called for, and general efficiency. This is largely due to culturalism there and the general homogeneity of the individual European nations. The American system is open to anyone to compete, whereas the European system is mainly open only to people who are already more or less like you. It's as if you could only work with people you went to high school with instead of anybody from anywhere in the country. If your colleagues were limited to your high school group, the pecking order would be pretty clearly established, and people would have no real reason to strive for excellence outside of their own pre-fab cultural niche. This is how the work system appears in Europe- a sort of fraternity-style working environment in which the mammalian comfort of place takes priority over achievement - what we in America would call working for the greater good of which there need be no concept in a closed system.

And that's America- cold hearted, sink or swim, and there's always somebody nipping at your heels to make you irrelevant. So that's the obvious part about why we're so fierce in our professionalism, it's at the very heart of our non-culture.

But what are the perks of Professionalism for us, besides competence, consistency, and quality? Well on a social level in a culture where we supposedly have no class system and in which we are all equal under the law, that leaves a pretty enormous social circle to have to deal with. Other cultures have ways of discriminating between people like me and people not like me- people I want in my circle and people I don't. A formal class system (such as used-to-but-still-sorta-does exist in England) is one way to maintain these distinctions. A formal and familiar 2nd person helps as well- It is hard to appreciate as an American what a difference it makes when you call somebody Sie rather than du in German. A "Sie" can be a lamp post, someone about whom you couldn't care a lick and still sleep well at night. A "du" is likely a friend for life. But for Americans, we are perpetually bombarded with each other without any great barrier other than, Hello sir, how can I provide you with excellent service today?

Class systems and social systems are themselves based on emotions- that primitive pecking order business which is pre-verbal, pre-intellectual. So by shutting that level down through dead-pan professionalism we can somehow "relate' to one another in a consistent way. . .


Emotionally prepared for capitalism. . .

How to Floss

I never thought I’d become a conspiracy theorist.

I wasn’t really around when Kennedy was shot, and I don’t really think Bush had anything to do with 9/11. If there are aliens walking around our planet, that’s fine with me, just as long as they don’t drive too slow in the left lane.

And the last thing I thought was that I’d become a Medical conspiracy theorist. But here I find myself, bam, squarely in that camp with no desire to leave.

The only thing that differentiates me from the rest of the conspiracy theorists is that I believe that something is only a conspiracy if you expect things should turn out differently than they do. That is, it’s only a conspiracy if you call it a conspiracy.

I am more an economist or a Taoist and believe that there are natural streams of energy (and capital) flow that, when interrupted or blocked, cause great destruction. If you expect to interrupt this flow and not have some backlash that looks dark and conspiratorial, then you’re just not getting the flow of life.

Most serious economists know that when you ban the flow of capital, say to something like drugs, the energies of supply and demand – or desire - must find other channels to flow through in order to be satisfied. This natural flow, now becoming ‘perverted’ turns into a tangled web of suffering, abuse, and criminality. It has weird side effects like swelling the prison industry and its power. It causes the rise of criminal organizations at home and abroad as well as unnatural sterilization of the earth where plants and flowers would otherwise grow naturally (through pesticide spraying campaigns). The blocks to the free flow of capital create the corruption.

In a parallel vein, mandates also create corruption, because rather than forcing the flow of capital, ideas, and energy in a certain direction they stop the flow completely. In nature, lack of flow creates a kind of festering- usually fungus, mold, and “scum” take over the stagnant area, such as in a swamp or in a pool along the edge of a stream. These organisms serve the function of feeding off of death and flourish in the places where death is prevalent – in those places lacking in flow. It is only a revival of the flow-through that relieves the stagnation, and that can only happen through the lifting of the mandate.

So (to take a non-leftist position) something like mandated child support from unwedded fathers creates the conditions for a sort of “scumminess.” It creates incentives for unmarried women to conceive children because it guarantees them income for a minimum of 18 years per child. Most civilized people would consider this abuse of life the lowest of the low in terms of humanity’s treatment of itself. But it is an occurrence that is very common. And one can decry the behavior, but one must also realize that the conditions of mandate set up a situation in which such behavior is inevitable: it is the nature of stagnant energy to rot. And mandates create stagnation. Only through the lifting of mandates can the natural flow through cleanse out the sickness. (This leads to a longer discussion about what to do about young, semi-orphaned children, which I am open to having at another time and place. There is an article about legal adjustment and gender on the way. This one is about flossing.)

So going back to conspiracies, the economist or the Taoist throws his head back and laughs, knowing that these things are inevitable when there is no flow, no transparency, or when mandates and restrictions are enforced through incarceration or financial ruin (jail and lawyers).

So for example, when the nation mandates that 50% of its budget be spent on doctors through Medicare, Medicaid, and various other programs it guarantees that the medical industry will become corrupt. The industry becomes a de facto monopoly and an autocratic state, independent of democratic oversight and review. We the citizens are expected to “trust the authorities” who know better than we what is good for us and what is not. This reeks of totalitarianism, but like all totalitarian systems, we the totalitarianated have elected to give our power (our money) over to the tyrants- in these cases through half of every dollar we pay in taxes. There is often a great outcry from the left when the government gives endless no-bid contracts to Halliburton and other war “profiteers,” but there is no outcry when Doctors and Hospitals are guaranteed half of the federal budget to do what they please. And the current round of debate that suggests forcing (mandating) every American to buy health insurance will increase the problem exponentially. This makes the Halliburton scandal look like a drop in the bucket.

So my feeling about medical conspiracy is that – of course there is one. But it’s not really a conspiracy since we have chosen to have it. Citizens are fearful for their lives, fearful of death, suffering, and pain and will gladly hand over their authority to anyone who will (at least claim to) protect them from same. This is like any other totalitarian system- the alpha-boss will protect you from the neighboring tribes, so you give him your allegiance, your land, your labor, and your service- all out of fear of losing your life. The paradox is, of course, that you give up your life in order to save your life. This is perhaps the deepest paradox of the fearful mind.

So we have, as a culture, generally done just this to our doctors, pharmacies, hospitals, and of course the insurance companies that lube the whole thing. Prostate check anyone?


But this is just the prelude to the prelude of this post’s topic of discussion, which, I hope you will find, is a very useful and pragmatic one- one that relates to the post on Toby’s Ring (which I have not yet written but hope to scratch out some time in the near future).

The prelude to this post’s topic of discussion is this:

Dentists. I hate dentists. I have always hated dentists.

As a kid I was forced, literally kicking and screaming, to be drugged and tortured by them, and the damage has left me more or less indentured (indentured, yes!) to them for the rest of my be-toothed life.

These sub-doctors have made a profession out of amputation, implantation, chemical poisoning, disfigurement, mutilation, and vile torture. All the while charging huge sums of money and feeding us candy when we’re done to ensure that we keep coming back for more. (My crack dealer should have it so good!)

Through the impermanent fillings that maimed us as children we seem to be doomed to a life of constant refilling for the holes which I believe were in the first place wholly unnecessary.

But for me, I will resist. . .I have made a (semi-)firm commitment to seek a new path towards dental health, trusting in the body’s power of self-regeneration and healing to provide me with the teeth and gums I need to live a happy and chewy life.

Down with the dentists. They may be the worst of the worst. Loading our bodies with heavy metals, which cause depression, suicide, dementia, Alzheimer’s, Cancer, and all manner of preventable ills whose effects destabilize families for generations.

And for what? A tiny hole in a bone? Aren’t teeth bones? Do we open up our femurs and fill them with guck if there’s bacteria in our legs or if we have a fracture? Bones grow back. That’s their nature, given a healthy environment and adequate minerals. Why should teeth be any different? Of course when they’re stuffed with Mercury and Nickel (goes right to the prostate, boys) the bones don’t fare as well- but then again, neither does the rest of the organism, so who will notice?

So I’m through.

But this means taking my dental health into my own hands, and to the best of my understanding, one component of that responsibility is going to have to be flossing.

Now I hate dentists, but I really hate flossing. It hurts, it gives me a headache, it’s bloody, it smells gross, and it’s 5 or 6 minutes of my day I’d rather spend doing almost anything else. It seems tedious, pointless, and an uneconomical (in terms of man hours spent) means of maintaining health. Also, if God had meant for us to floss It would have made it a whole lot easier. (But perhaps the same thing could be said about enemas, so hmm.)

I haven’t done too much experimenting with flossing vs. non-flossing while I’ve been totally raw in my diet, but I suspect it would become less of an issue then. We’ll see.

But in the mean time, I have decided that flossing will have to become part of my lifestyle, at least for the foreseeable future.

I took many months recently treating my teeth “badly” by medical standards. Infrequent brushing, no flossing, no check-ups, etc. So I think I’ve gotten most of the hate out of my system (karma-burn, as my friend Mark likes to call it) regarding teeth and teeth care. So I’m ready to begin my flossing regime.

I started about a week ago.

I was at Esalen in Big Sur, soaking in the hot springs and sitting in the sunshine. One day I sat in a brilliant afternoon sun that turned my head the color of my beard, and that color is red. Serious red. I was sunburned and dried out from the baths and had a splitting headache for about three days. No amount of water or skin oils would seem to re-hydrate me, so I just suffered through it. Around the same time, I tried flossing, forgetting that flossing gives me a splitting headache also when I start up after a long period of non-flossing. So the headache was extreme this time, and I said, basically, Screw this, no more flossing.

So just the other day, things were getting kind of funky in the mouth tasting department (blame it on the Jumping Monkey in Santa Cruz), so I started out again with the flossing.

Now here’s where it gets interesting.

I thought to myself, if I start flossing again now, I’m going to bleed like a son of a bitch and have a big headache at least for the next few days. I’m going hang gliding in the morning, so I want to be comfortable and of sound mind and body. But I also wanted to floss.

So in a flash, I remembered a technique I learned in the manual from my Sonicare toothbrush ---

That’s the other thing – do you know how much crap I’ve bought from my dentist over the past 20 years? Special toothpaste in tiny squeeze bottles for 40 bucks, vibrating toothbrushes, special mouth rinses, strips for measuring bacteria, and whatever other crap they were hawking at the last dentist junket/convention in Tahiti sponsored by Colgate. My Sonicare, by the way, vibrates its plastic head against my upper teeth while I’m ‘brushing’ my lower teeth, ensuring that I’ll wear down my enamel just as I’m trying to save it on the lower deck, then in reverse for the next set. Maybe I’d just do better to suck on a few lollipops and then go to bed with some gummi worms in my mouth.

Excuse me. But the Sonicare directions tell you to brush in quadrants of the mouth. And a helpful (pedantic) beep lets you know when Dr. Statistical Average thinks you should move on to the next quadrant.

Well like I was saying, I realized that I could apply this approach to my flossing- so on day one I would floss only the lower right quadrant of my mouth. That would be it. It would be just enough to cause a little bit of pain and lots of bleeding, but on the next day I would not have a full blown headache – at most it would be quarter blown which I figured wouldn’t interfere too much with my hang gliding.

But flossing only part of your mouth leaves you feeling incomplete, kind of like the flossed quadrant would be out of sync with the unflossed quadrants, and the Male Problem-Solver part of me was chomping at the bit (more teeth references for the astute) to finish the job. But no. I would force myself to rattle around in my cage until the following night when I would only floss the bottom left quadrant of my mouth. Are you feeling me here? I’m creating a flow-through around my teeth, combining Yang accomplishment with Ying incompletion and motion to create a circular flossing rhythm which could keep me interested for years.

Now how about that? For all you stubborn, guy, non-flosser, Libertarians, this might be the program for you. Keeps it interesting, mixes it up a little, but in the end you get your flossing done without the headaches and without succumbing to the will of the Man or his dumb-ass subjects. Sounds good to me.

Long live the King!

D