One of the common and most important components of law enforcement is not what some may think. Psychology, though not often immediately associated with such roles, is essential to becoming a great law enforcement employee.

Law enforcement has always drawn on the principles of psychology. Each of the various departments and their staff have, at least some level, an interest and a necessity to understand basic psychology. Detectives sort through mounds of disconnected facts and clues attempting to link information together to sketch suspect motives; emergency operators need to be trained to handle often frantic callers, keeping a sense of calm and direction; patrol officers need to make split second decisions on how to approach and communicate with suspects.

These are just some broad examples, but in recent years the importance of psychology’s role throughout the law enforcement ranks has become even more prominent and essential to maintaining public safety. With ever-continuing advances in the fields of science, medicine, psychology and the neurosciences, psychological research and studies are beginning to paint clearer pictures about what motivates criminal behavior.

Here are some reasons and examples as to why psychology is a core component in law enforcement.

Training Officers

There is not a single day or interaction that does not involve at least some aspects of psychological reasoning when being a police officer. That is why training law enforcement officers in even basic psychology is crucial to thorough preparation for their work. Officers should be well equipped with components such as human behavior, cognitive development, personality prevalence, and cross-cultural communication. Without an understanding of such things, conflict resolution would be very complicated and messy.

By training officers in the principles of psychology, police and support positions can be confident that the work being done is better informed to deal with the challenges faced in law enforcement. Not only does psychology aid in the ability to do the job of deterring or catching criminals, but it’s very useful in helping employees as well.

Many of the situations which occur under the watchful eye and care of law enforcement personnel can be very stressful and traumatic. The ability to emotionally self-regulate, process, and understand cues which may be designative of emotional instability helps to maintain officer morale and emotional health. Having such training aids in an individual or co-workers’ ability to recognize concerning signs of stress, fatigue, or burnout which, when not caught, can lead to an impairment of judgment. Split second decision making with compromised reasoning can have detrimental effects on the public and officers.

Detective Work

Detectives can use their broad skill sets not just to discern what objective evidence may be pointing to in a crime but can implement psychological profiling as a means of estimating and even predicting criminal behaviors. Information gathered from crime scenes, interrogations, and forensics all have a common thread of influence from the motivations which are predictable in human behavior.

Drawing not only from years’ worth of personal experience but decades worth of case studies and examples, police can piece together how and why crimes are committed. The information gathered throughout investigations, when run through the lenses of various departments and the tools of psychological reasoning is much of what makes up the ability of a department to narrow down the list of suspects.

Improving Policy and Procedures

Policy and procedures make up the core of operations in law enforcement. They dictate and regulate what are appropriate courses of action for nearly every situation imaginable, helping to keep the public and law enforcement employees in check. Psychological research has demonstrated that the public is more likely to comply with laws and police orders if the individuals giving the orders are legitimate representations of respectable authority.

When law enforcement personnel follow predictable and humane courses of action to uphold the law, the public will be more comfortable to acquiesce and comply with the law. Using decades worth of data helps department officials determine appropriate courses of action that seek to maintain social wellness.

Summary

Regardless of the department, the city, social demographic, or decade, law enforcement has been a critical component of public order. The services provided and maintained by the men and women of law enforcement agencies are made more effective when informed by the understanding that accompanies components of psychology.

Departments that maintain training in this field better equip their employees to render good judgment in the field and even in practicing self-care. Psychology is an essential component of law enforcement in a civil society.

Photo Credits

Image by BodyWorn by Utility from Pixabay

Guest Author Bio
Sarah Daren

With a Bachelor’s in Health Science along with an MBA, Sarah Daren has a wealth of knowledge within both the health and business sectors. Her expertise in scaling and identifying ways tech can improve the lives of others has led Sarah to be a consultant for a number of startup businesses, most prominently in the wellness industry, wearable technology and health education. She implements her health knowledge into every aspect of her life with a focus on making America a healthier and safer place for future generations to come.

STAGE 1: OH, THE POSSIBILITIES!

Maybe you’ve been here before: “This audition just came in. It’s going to change my life! If I get this (fill in wildest dreams).” Or: “Holy shit! This idea is incredible. I know how I want the whole story to go — the world, the characters, the conflict!” The start of almost any creative project is intoxicating. You know your capability and the results will be golden. Forget sleep — you’re gonna’ work all night, baby! You have a sense of power, talent, and the feeling of being unusually upbeat. But then…

STAGE 2: THE CRASH

Somewhere in the later phases of the work – running your lines, outlining a story, finding the right chords– there is a sinking feeling that sets in: a “crash.” Replacing that voice of power and potential is a new one that says,

“You don’t have what it takes.”

“Look at (fill in name of nemesis), they always get the gig – why am I even trying?”

And finally, “I’m not cut out for this. I should probably just quit.”

You’ve gone from top of the world to bottom of the barrel. You feel worthless, find it hard to motivate, and isolate from friends and loved ones. This can be a very destabilizing and painful process. But before I discuss how artists can empower themselves, let’s acknowledge a few things about that roller coaster.

SETTING THE STAGE

– You are not alone. Those living a creative life — especially as a professional pursuit — often go through a process of feeling absolutely empowered and absolutely defeated. This is why there are acting coaches, books on writers block, and sometimes eight writers on that hit pop song – it’s hard!

– No, that other person does not have it all figured out. It’s easy from the outside to look at a colleague and feel certain they are not struggling. But believe it or not – they wrestle with the same fears and insecurities. Even people at the “top of their game” battle low confidence and self-doubt.

– Societal pressure is real. We live in a society where success is equated with wealth and regularity, but a creative life is often an unpredictable one of feast or famine. It’s important to acknowledge how society (and maybe even your family) addresses your “unconventional” lifestyle. These attitudes can wriggle their way into your mind and negatively impact your self-esteem.

But let’s be real: despite these challenges, you still have the dream, drive, and need for expression to forge on. So…

HOW TO FIND BALANCE?

– Know your value. When times are tough in our society (like oh, I don’t know: a pandemic), where do people turn for comfort? Art. They turn to books, television, music….Remind yourself you are an integral part of our culture. You provide a laugh in times of sorrow, or an escape to a different world when the realities of this one are too harsh. It is a noble and healing pursuit to dedicate oneself to the Arts, and it takes guts.

– Keep your power. Often times, how artists feel about themselves depends on their latest validation or rejection. Giving this power to others forms a slippery slope where your happiness is contingent on getting a “yes” or “no.” And hey – of course validation feels good! Especially when you’ve poured yourself into something deeply personal; but try to set your own standards of achievement. At the end of the day, you are doing this for you, not for “them.”

– The need to make money is real. As a creative, you’re often told you should donate your work or work for less (or nothing!) because it fuels your passion. You can be made to feel like less of an artist if you expect a paycheck like everyone else. Well, you do deserve a paycheck. But obtaining one can be difficult. This is why so many creatives hold down a day job, sometimes even two or three. These jobs are not a sign of failure, but necessary to pursuing your goals. And none of us can be summed up by one part– so even when you serve tables, tend bar, dabble in real estate, or walk dogs – you are still that artist. Not to mention this can help pay for headshots, studio time, or that next project.

– Seek support and do things just for you. Find others who understand your passion, and value you regardless of output. Form a writers group, read scripts for fun, jam with your buddies. Find a therapist (yes, I’m biased) who you feel understands your experience. Create a project without the intention of showing someone else and see how it feels. This can empower you and put you in touch with your original love for the work.

– You are not “whining” if you talk about how hard this is. Trying to live a creative life is really hard and it does take a toll. You have the right to feel sad or pissed off. However, you also have choice. While you can’t control outcomes, you can control your internal process and relationship to what you do. You can also choose how you express your creative passion – pursuing it professionally or weaving it into the fabric of your everyday life in other ways. Which brings me to…

– Having a “fallback” or choosing a different path does not make you a failure or less of a creative. Artistry and creative work are not defined by your job title and where your salary comes from. Lawyers, Accountants, Mechanics…they can all live a creative life. If you need to change course, or integrate something new, you have the right. Pain and artistic worth are too often paired together, but there is no evidence that ‘pushing through’ leads to success or happiness. Set boundaries, define your personal goals, and do what you gotta’ do.

During the pandemic this roller coaster may be even more volatile. The inability to perform live or generate material may feel like a tragic loss. This difficulty is understandable – many artists’ greatest strength is being in tune with the world, and right now there is a lot of heaviness to hold. But in the spirit of this article, I hope creative professionals can explore the notion that they are more than just output, external validation, or social expectations.

Here are some books that further support and explore creative living:

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Photo Credit

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

First posted at Silver Lake Psychotherapy

Guest Author Bio
Jason Karasev

Jason Karasev is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (#118653) and Writer based out of Los Angeles. As a therapist, Jason works with adults, children, and families, with a focus on Anxiety, Depression, Generational Trauma, Bi-Polar Disorder, Parenting, Creative Struggles, and Relationship Concerns. As a writer, Jason’s work has been recognized by WritersDigest, The Sundance Institute, The Eugene O’Neill Conference, PsychCentral and more, and his stage-plays have been seen in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. To connect with Jason, or learn more, please visit www.jasonkarasev.com

Primates are basically tropical animals. The genera Homo and Macaca (rhesus monkeys and their allies) are the only representatives that penetrate much into the temperate zone, and only Homo sapiens thrives above the fortieth parallel. This is due largely to behavioral adaptations. The basic primate life strategy is adapted to uniformly warm temperatures, and, more importantly, to a lack of dramatic seasonal variation in food availability and daylight.

This contrasts with bears, for example. Some bears exhibit notable genetically programmed adaptations to seasonal climates near the Arctic Circle, which are lacking in tropical species. Even within a species like the American black bear (Ursus americanus) with a wide latitudinal range, boreal populations exhibit stable high latitude traits which are absent in Florida and Louisiana. Black bears in Canada hibernate. In Oregon (latitude 45 degrees) they den up and are much less active in the winter, and in Florida, where temperatures and day length do not fluctuate nearly as much on an annual basis, activity levels fluctuate correspondingly less.

It would be surprising if humans did not exhibit an innate change in activity level in response to fluctuating light levels, weak in the case of populations that have lived for countless generations in the tropics, strong in the case of populations that have lived for countless generations in the North Temperate Zone. Historically at least no area far south of the equator supported dense populations of humans (there is very little land below 45 degrees south latitude) and until recently the only densely populated areas north of 45 degrees were central and Northern Europe and the northeast coast of Asia, with smaller foci around Puget Sound, Lake Baikal, and the American Great Lakes.

Returning to my Viking ancestors, they lived and built up large populations around the Baltic sea during periods of relatively benign climate, migrated to the North of England during the Late Antique Little Ice Age (536-680 CE), again built up populations during the Medieval warm period and the 15th-16th centuries, and finally migrated to New England in the 17th century, always doing best economically at high latitudes.

Being able to adjust activity levels seasonally was a key to success in the north: one needed to be able to summon bursts of energy in the summer to store enough food for the winter merely to survive in Denmark in 400 CE, or Nottingham in 1300, or Connecticut in 1630. In the middle of winter people slept a great deal; total energy output on an annual basis was most probably comparable to that of people in warmer climates, and that particular adaptation conferred no notable advantage when Vikings ventured into low latitudes.

The Industrial Revolution and particularly the invention of efficient indoor artificial lighting changed all that. Throughout history, at least until about 1700, wealth, power and civilization developed in warmer climates where large populations and surplus resources accumulated – around the Mediterranean, in India and Southeast Asia, in Mexico and Peru. With artificial light and machines, high-latitude adapted individuals could maintain their high activity levels for longer periods of time, generating additional surplus wealth and power for themselves or for those who employed them. Tropical people lacking the light-response adaptation got the reputation for laziness and a lack of work ethic.

Taking advantage of high-latitude light response comes at a high price, particularly if an individual is caught in an endless cycle of enforced productivity, with the bulk of that productivity being siphoned off to benefit others. I believe that a certain amount of down time is necessary for optimum mental and physical health, and that we are born with an instinctive pattern of allocating that down time which is tied to our ancestry. North Europeans like myself are notoriously prone to bipolar “disorder” and seasonal affective “disorder.” Are these really disorders, or are our minds and bodies telling us that we are forcing ourselves into a pattern of summer productivity which is ultimately unsustainable? Is this making us sick in ways that an array of pharmaceuticals can mask without ultimately effecting a cure?

In the eighteenth century George Cheyne described what would now be called bipolar disorder as a distinctly English malady; at the time, and into the early 19th century, the competitive nature of English life during the commercial and early Industrial revolutions meant that England was also foremost in the mental pathologies attendant on pushing individuals past the limits of light adaptation. At the time the Scots were particularly noted for their industry and hard work, compared to people from the South of England or immigrants from Mediterranean countries.

Mental health professionals profess to be puzzled concerning why people experience mental breakdowns and severe depression just when they appear to be succeeding at some long term endeavor requiring almost superhuman effort. This happened to me as I was trying to springboard into a career after having completed a doctoral dissertation in biology, and I now think that it was because I had already exceeded what my mind and body could sustain for a long period of time – several years in this case – and that the effect was exacerbated by a “payoff” that was far less than what I had been led to expect.

Photo Credit

Photo is Wikimedia Creative Commons
See also Life on a Viking Farm for a good description of farming conditions in Scandinavia in the Middle Ages.

So what distinguishes the amateur from the professional? A study by partypoker set out to answer the question. Six players, two beginners, two intermediate and two experts were observed playing forty minute sessions of Texas Hold’em poker. All the participants wore electroencephalography (EEG) headsets by Emotiv and the data was then converted to colour coded brain maps. The brain activity of amateurs and experts were then compared at key stages of the game.

Deal

When cards are initially dealt is when the amateur is most focussed and their decision making is led by logic. The experienced players, however, are making less mental effort but reaching quicker decisions.

Flop

This is when the first three cards are put out face up, altogether. The amateurs exhibited minimal brain activity but this is the stage of the game at which the experts were most engaged and they spent far more time than the amateurs processing information.

Turn

When the fourth card is dealt, face up, amateurs responded with emotional decision making, whilst the decisions of the experts were dictated by logic and intuition. The brain maps show increased activity in the front right side of the brain for the amateur (an area associated with emotion), but an increase in both sides of the brain for the expert (associated with solving mathematical problems).

River card

A key phase of the game when the fifth card is dealt, face up. Again, brain maps show a striking distinction between the amateur, whose decisions are the result of intuition and the expert, whose decisions are dictated by logic.

Check

This is the decision to not bet, with the option to call or raise later in the round. It is a meditative phase of the game, but where the amateur is passive and disengaged, the expert brain is engaged in logical, critical thinking, highlighted by the increased activity in the left side of the brain.

Raise

Excitement peaks when stakes are raised but whilst the brains of both amateurs and experts show heightened alertness, the amateur brain reveals much higher levels of emotion.

Call

This is where a player puts into the pot an amount of money equal to the most recent bet. It is a more relaxed phase of the game than the raise but once again the brain maps of the experts suggest a much lower level of emotional activity compared to the amateurs.

All in

Running out of chips while betting or calling is a crucial moment for a player and the brain maps for both amateur and expert are very similar, indicating high levels of engagement and increased emotional activity.

Conclusions

Sports psychologists characterise emotion style in a variety of ways. At one end of the spectrum is ‘the seether’, a player whose anger and frustration bubble beneath the surface and threaten to disrupt the quality of the performance. At the other end ‘the Zen master’, a player unperturbed by the vagaries of play and consequently always able to perform at the highest level. The findings of the partypoker study would support this model of emotions. Expert players did not dwell on bad hands and were led by intuition and logic, over emotion. They demonstrated consistent engagement, self-control and patience, they were not distracted by emotion, frustration or excitement.

Photo Credits
Emotiv headset – from Emotiv
Brains – from partypoker

Contributing Author Bio
Richard Sheppard

Richard is a film, travel and literature enthusiast and freelance writer who has written for a range of online publications.

Golden Buddha

The fear that a young person who is bullied experiences – albeit in varying degrees of intensity – morphs into a sly, shape-shifting demon in adulthood. The demon is constantly lurking, performing his dark deeds from the shadows, his presence felt but his nature rarely identified. He is darkly powerful, able to thwart career and relationship, undermining confidence and stoking self-doubt, draining positive and creative energy, and kindling the fires of anger and resentment.

Joseph Campbell tells us, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” This statement could not be truer for those who have been bullied in their youth; the greatest fear we experience as adults, a fear that is the source of all our insecurities and phobias, is that of being ourselves. As children we were ridiculed and assaulted because of our timidity, our sensitivity, our sexuality, our physical or psychological anomalies – in other words, for being ourselves – so we withdrew; we tried to hide in order to escape the torment. When we are adults, however, we cannot always hide from the world; we must interact with those in authority or with peers in order to make a living, get a higher education, or enjoy a social life. So we present what we hope to be a pleasing face to our boss, to our professors, to our neighbours, to minister or priest, to many or even most of our friends, even to our potential life partner. The fear of ridicule is manifested as a desperate need to please and to be liked, and we unconsciously become like chameleons of identity, automatically adapting our personalities to every situation in which there is a danger of our being “found out” and put down.

There is a kind of paradox here in that the chief consequence of a life of hiding who you are out of fear is that in the end you don’t know who you are. You are in a state of confusion but you have no idea why you are confused. Your true nature has been so repressed that when you finally realize that you must be who you are in order to be happy, your authentic self is buried under so many layers of who-you-are-not that peeling those layers away one by one seems like an impossible task. And still you may be afraid to remove entirely the armour that has been your “protection” for all of your adult life.

I have written elsewhere about my lifetime journey of struggling to be someone I was not.

The good news is that rebirth is possible, even in later life. At the age of 56 I finally came to the point at which I realized that the life I had been leading for over thirty-five years was in its essence circular; rather than growing and evolving, I had been repeating the same behaviour in different forms. And I was simply weary of beating my head against the wall. I knew that I had to effect a radical transformation if I hoped to be happy, if I wished to be fulfilled. I have spent that past ten years struggling to break through the shell of fear and resentment I had grown over three and a half decades of adult life. While the work has not been easy, it has, for the most part, been a joyous adventure.

In a delightful and insightful film about the work of Joseph Campbell, called Finding Joe, the story is told of a golden statue of the Buddha in a Thai village which was in danger of being looted when the village was about to be overrun by a hostile neighbour. The villagers quickly covered the statue with mud and concrete in order to deceive the invaders and as a result of their quick thinking the statue was left un-plundered. But the golden figure under the mud was forgotten by the people and stood unremarked for many years “until one day when a young monk was sitting on the Buddha meditating on his knee, and as he got up a little piece of concrete happened to crack off and he saw something shiny. He realized it was gold under there and so he ran to his fellow monks and said, ‘The Buddha’s golden! The Buddha’s golden!’ They all came out and they realized he was telling the truth and they took their picks and hammers and eventually they unearthed the golden Buddha.”

The point of the story is that each of us is that golden Buddha – “we are born golden.” If only we could chip away the mud and cement that has been caked, as a form of defence, on top of the gold over our lifetimes – by our childhood experience, by our parents, by our church, by the media, by our teachers, – we would behold our true selves in all our stunning beauty, in all our divine potential, in all our natural serenity. I feel as if my crust of mud is thick and the process of chipping it away is laborious, but I do live in hope that one day soon, my chisel will strike a vital point in this armour and the entire coat will fall at once to the ground in a spray of shards and a cloud of mud dust.

In spite of the work I have done on myself, I am not completely free. I still experience anxiety, insecurities, and fear. I still too often fail to answer “Yes” to the call when I know that I should in order to fully embrace life. I am too often ruled by anger and resentment instead of compassion and patience and forgiveness. It is clear to me that much of the thick layer of mud remains to be chiselled away. I understand also that my childhood experiences caused me to lock my heart away in order to protect it; thus my newfound passion – my bliss – is predominantly intellectual – in the head – and so has not been allowed to fully blossom. I am not yet enjoying the privilege of being who I am.

In Robert Redford’s gem of a film, Ordinary People, the psychiatrist, perfectly portrayed by Judd Hirsch, helps both the son, Conrad, and the father, Calvin, to unlock the door that is obstructing each of them from experiencing the freedom to be who he is and to love without reservation. I wonder now if a skilled and empathetic therapist might help me to strike that final hammer blow that will release my heart from its iron casing and allow it to soar joyful and free.

 ***

Many who read this essay will agree with Joseph Campbell: “You didn’t have the guts to bring up your full moon and live the life that was your potential.” And they would be right: I did not have the courage to slay the dragon guarding the entrance to the cave and make my way inside to seize the treasure. But they would also have missed the point: internalized fear caused by years of bullying had resulted in psychological paralysis; I was not even aware of the need for courage.

But little of this would be of concern, and indeed it likely would not have been necessary for these words to be written, if fifty years ago some disinterested but compassionate adult – a teacher, a priest or nun, aunt or uncle – had noticed a boy lost in the woods and afraid and had given that boy a light so that he no longer need fear the darkness. The boy might then have used the light to discover a unique pathway to his bliss and thus been able to realize his potential and live a fulfilled life.

The cover story of the March 30, 2014 Food and Drink issue of the New York Times Magazine featured 15-year-old aspiring chef Flynn McGarry, who, the piece revealed, was more than passionate about cooking. At the age of eleven, having begun cooking seriously one year earlier, he threw a dinner party for his mother Meg’s friends, using recipes from Le Bernardin Cookbook; the experience (the guests all applauded at the end of the dinner) led him to decide that cooking was what he wanted to do with his life.

McGarry, who had long been bullied at school … asked his mother if he could be home-schooled in order to focus on cooking. “I was actually relieved,” says Meg, who at that point had spoken to several principals about the bullying. “I don’t want him to be unhappy. And I want him to do what he likes to do.”

Meg’s awareness of both her son’s victimization and his passion profoundly influenced Flynn’s life. Had she failed to take the bullying seriously and remove him from an unhealthy environment, the fear he experienced as a victim of bullying could have stifled his creativity and his passion and led to an adulthood of social dysfunction and unrealized potential. Moreover, Meg and Flynn’s father encouraged and supported their son as he embarked on his own hero’s journey. As a result of their vigilance and concern, this young chef is already experiencing life fully.

Now that research has shown that childhood bullying produces long-term detrimental effects, it is even more urgent that every effort be made not only to put an end to bullying but also to seek out and embrace and protect its victims, to help them summon the courage to be who they truly are, to find and follow their bliss. In the article “The Biological Underpinnings of Peer Victimization: Understanding Why and How the Effects of Bullying Can Last a Lifetime,” cited above, the authors state: “It is not clear (as yet) if the biological scars brought on by peer victimization can be reversed – putting people back on a healthier trajectory, although there is evidence suggesting hope.” If it is this uncertain as to whether the biological scars can be reversed, what of the long-term emotional or psychological effects?

It is, therefore, the undeniable responsibility of every parent, of every teacher, of every minister or priest – of every adult whose life touches the life of a child – to utilize the entire array of personal and professional resources at his or her command to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to recognize and reach their potential and to experience life to the fullest. There are countless versions of Flynn McGarry out there in the world, young people whose talent and passion are in danger of being smothered by bullying and fear. Who will show them that they too can bring up their full moon?

Image Credit

“Golden Buddha at the Golden Triangle, Thailand” by Rex Gray. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Lonely Beetle

A few months after my return from Christ the King, my parents announced that they had arranged for my accordion lessons, which had stopped prior to my entering the seminary, to resume – with a new teacher. My previous instructor had been Mr. Wilf Trim, a kind, if rather earnest and humourless man who worked out of the Bob Dressler Accordion Studio on Marine Drive in North Vancouver. I liked Mr. Trim because he never criticized my playing, even when I hadn’t practiced, which to my recollection, was often. I was displeased that I would not be returning to Mr. Trim and sulked until the day of my first lesson with the new teacher, a Mr. Bill Collingwood (not his real name).

Mr. Collingwood, a pianist, gave music lessons in a converted garage behind the old house in which he lived with his mother. The studio was surrounded by flowering shrubs and vines, and beside it was parked a late-1950s model VW Beetle. A friendly and enthusiastic keeshond greeted my father and me as we approached this rustically welcoming little scene, and already I felt my resentment begin to melt away. Mr. Collingwood himself, in his mid thirties at the time, short, with a round smiling face and dark-framed Dave Brubeck/Bill Evans glasses, dressed in a brown corduroy sports jacket and holding a burning cigarette, disarmed me utterly with the warmth of his greeting and the casual nature of his appearance and demeanour. Mr. Trim vanished from my consciousness.

Over the next couple of years my weekly music lessons in that cozy wood-paneled, smoke-filled little studio were like a bowl of Ken-L Ration offered to a starving dog. For thirty minutes Mr. Collingwood – “Call me Bill!” – showered me with kind, non-judgmental, encouraging attention. Before long he convinced me to switch from accordion to piano, and every week he dazzled me with rollicking boogie-woogie or note-perfect arpeggios on the jazz standards he rolled out of his repertoire and onto the keys of that beautiful old upright like sleek locomotives leaving a stately urban railroad station. I do not remember exactly at what point in those years of lessons it happened, but he eventually began to intimate that I had the talent to be a musician like him.

Bill Collingwood found his own bliss as a young teenager and pursued it with discipline and passion. His passion was jazz piano – in the style of Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, George Shearing, and Errol Garner – and he devoted the requisite ten thousand hours to mastering the instrument and the genre and to making the art his own. Curiously enough, however, he was not interested in a career as a jazz musician, a career in which he could easily have achieved great success; his dream, rather, was to have a steady gig in the lounge of one of the finer local hotels, a dream that he was never able to fully realize.

The teenager that showed up every week at the backyard studio clutching his binder of handwritten tunes was a deeply troubled young man – socially awkward; passive and unmotivated in school and at home; desperately lonely; both fearful and resentful of his parents, his brother, his teachers, and his classmates; and sexually naïve and immature. Bill Collingwood was the father, the older brother, the teacher, and the friend I needed so badly, and naturally I adored him for the seemingly unconditional love he gave me. When I was with Bill I felt safe.

As I got a bit older Bill began taking me out to some of his favourite haunts: to the Tomahawk Restaurant on the Capilano Indian Reserve in North Vancouver for breakfast, to Isy’s Supper Club on Georgia Street to see Errol Garner, to Vye’s Steak House in Chinatown for steak and fries cooked in chicken fat. We smoked Dunhill cigarettes and we drank whiskey from a mickey he kept in the glove compartment of the Beetle as we drove through Stanley Park. He talked to me of music and of the meaning and value of friendship and loyalty.

I was too naïve and too (platonically) smitten to understand that Bill Collingwood had another dream, one that was perhaps related to that hotel lounge gig dream. Too late did I realize that he saw in me the personification of his vision of a life partner who shared his love of and commitment to music. I was unwittingly being groomed as both musician and lover, and by the time the sexual overtures began, I was already in a psychological snare. I was neither physically attracted to nor in love with this man, but the trap had been well baited and there was no escape. The fairy tale turned into a nightmare.

I cannot say for sure that I had been led on with calculation; it is quite possible that Bill was unaware of how troubled I was and took my passivity and apparent enthusiasm for his attentions as an invitation to nudge our friendship to the next level: sexual intimacy. Perhaps by the time he realized that having an intimate relationship with me would be problematic at best, he had already fallen in love. Like many artists he possessed a powerful personality, one that entirely overwhelmed my weak and fearful and inhibited character, and when he began to realize that the path to his ideal was not going to be a smooth one, I experienced a new form of bullying – accusations, recriminations, hectoring, guilt trips, and more.

I could tell no one of the emotional and psychological torment I was experiencing. Talking to my parents about my dilemma was about as far from my mind as Jupiter was from our home on Delbrook Avenue, and I had been drawn so deeply into Bill Collingwood’s circle that I no longer had close friends of my own. The thought of suicide did enter my mind but of course I was too weak and timid to seriously consider taking my own life.

The sexual intimacy (such as it was) did not last long; I eventually found the strength of character to end that aspect of the relationship and to move out of Bill’s house. I gave up the idea of becoming a piano player and made the decision to return to university. But I did not have sufficient courage to disassociate myself entirely from this powerful man; in fact, I allowed him to maintain a degree of psychological control over me for another twenty-five years, until his sudden death in 1996.

The fear engendered in this relationship was far subtler than the fear of physical assault or of ridicule resulting from bullying or intimidation by my brother or my teachers. I had been set up to demonstrate unstinted loyalty to an idol I worshipped; failure to live up to that standard – or at least to make every effort to do so – meant that I was displeasing that idol. I knew his displeasure and I feared it.

 ***

One of the immediate effects of being bullied, especially in adolescence, is a loss of motivation. From the time I left the seminary and entered Cartier College, I had little interest in schoolwork, even in the subjects at which I naturally excelled. My grades, while not bad, were lower than I could have achieved with some effort. At the end of grade twelve I received the French and Spanish awards for being the top student in those two subjects, yet I can recall doing very little sustained work in either. I entered university at age 17 but left after one year, having failed forty percent of my coursework and hardly having excelled at the rest. My plan to be a high school language teacher was placed permanently on a shelf.

I was also musically talented, but I was not motivated to practice with any diligence, even when my parents sent me to a teacher who took what appeared to be a genuine interest in me and encouraged me to develop my talent, even when I “decided” to become a jazz pianist. The utter dysfunction of my relationship with Bill Collingwood destroyed whatever desire I might have had to pursue a career in music.

Years of bullying had built up a wall of fear that obscured the pathway to bliss; I was not to find it again until 35 years later.

Image Credit

“VW Beetle” by pyntofmyld. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Schoolyard Bully

On the drive home, in early November 1964, from Christ the King Seminary in Mission, British Columbia, after the rector had informed my parents that I was not yet ready to pursue a vocation to the priesthood, my father announced that he had enrolled me in Cartier College (not the real name of the school), a venerable boys school run by the Christian Brothers of Ireland, and that I would begin classes there the next day. I was thirteen years old and in grade nine, and I had been in the seminary for only two months.

I was familiar with the “venerable institution” as I had been a student there in grades four and five and in those two years was introduced to the brutality of the brother-teachers and the general penchant of boys to bully their weaker or more sensitive peers. A sensitive, timid, shy child, afflicted with an eye condition that causes one to appear vague or mentally challenged, naturally I was bullied by several of the “stronger” boys in my class. I do not recall that the torment they inflicted was physical; it consisted more of name-calling, taunting, and of course, ostracism. Boys who are bullied in this way are all aware of the ever-present, if only imagined, threat of physical violence, however, and live in constant fear of it.

So when my father informed me of the arrangements he had made for my post-seminary schooling, I was less than happy at the prospect of returning to an environment I remembered as a hell. I had spent the first three grades and the last three grades of my elementary education at the school attached to our local parish, and while the Sisters of St. Joseph and lay women who taught us could be strict and stern, this small school, close to home and filled with my friends, was a vacation in Disneyland in contrast to the cold and terrifying halls of Cartier College.

The return engagement at Cartier College, which lasted two years – for grades nine and ten – turned out to be more terrifying and traumatic, and far more miserable, than the two elementary school years I spent in that venerable institution. I was still the sensitive, shy, timid child I had been in those earlier grades; I was still being bullied by my older brother and by my peers at school; my father remained a remote, fearsome figure; and the teachers at College were, for the most part, even more intimidating and threatening (unregulated corporal punishment was the norm) than they had been when I was an elementary student there. But suddenly I was experiencing the heightened emotional reactivity of adolescence; thus the fear was more intense, the loneliness more acute – and both of these were now sharing the stage with surly resentment. The emotional turmoil was rendered even more disturbing by a growing realization that my sexual attraction to other boys was a secret that had to be maintained at all costs, causing me to become even more fearful, withdrawn, and isolated.

 ***

I believe that I was a naturally sensitive child; for better or worse, sensitivity was a characteristic I brought with me into this world, most likely along with my homosexuality. I am not convinced, however, that I was innately shy or timid; these traits were “learned.”

The learning process began early as my brother, three years older than I was and larger and far stronger, determined that I was an easy and convenient target and commenced a campaign of bullying that lasted well into my teenage years. I learned early on that to try and fight back was useless because had I earnestly attempted to do so, my brother would not have hesitated to break an arm or shoulder and claim that the injury was inflicted accidentally or in self-defence. There was a meanness in him in those years: he enjoyed tormenting me and knew that he could do so with impunity because my father believed that I should learn how to stand up for myself. Apparently my mother concurred as she did not seek to mitigate the bullying in any way.

Experts who study bullying, like University of Warwick psychology professor Dieter Wolke, have determined that parents’ relationships with their children are the most significant factor in the degree of sibling bullying that occurs in a family. There is less sibling bullying in households with parents who are “warm, who are fair, who had very clear rules in the family.” This was certainly not the case in my home. Parenting expert Barbara Coloroso (The Bully, the Bullied, and the Not-So-Innocent Bystander) would refer to my family as a “brick-wall family, that very authoritarian family, who often will use verbal or physical restraint or shame a child…. [Such a family] is at high risk for bringing out two kinds of kids in that same family, and one would be the bully, who realizes ‘I can mimic Mom or Dad’ with a younger sibling and the targeted kid who feels like they can’t be safe anywhere.”

The torment inflicted by my brother was physical and psychological, and he got better at it as we got older. Physical assaults included headlocks, arm twisting, punching, slapping, and sitting on my chest (he knew that I was claustrophobic and this type of constraint caused me great distress). Psychological torment consisted of ridicule (especially in front of my younger sisters); the taking of various possessions, usually while I was using or playing with them; confinement under threat of physical retribution if I attempted to escape; and numerous other acts calculated to make my life miserable.

While these forms of bullying may appear somewhat benign when compared with the abuse some children endure, the fact that they were carried out with almost psychopathic calculation, that they often came suddenly (in many instances immediately after some friendly act or interchange), that they persisted for a number of years, and that my brother appeared to derive immense enjoyment from the suffering he caused me and expressed no remorse or regret for his actions kept me in a state of fearful distraction for several years.

My father, without being overtly violent or abusive, was a fearsome man; one of his withering looks would paralyze a charging bull with terror. He was neither warm and affectionate nor communicative; there were no father-and-son outings to the baseball stadium, no family afternoons at the movies (except on our birthdays), no pleasantly inquisitive conversations about how we were doing, what we were interested in, or what might have been bothering us. There were, however, expectations, especially of our doing well in school, respecting elders, and completing chores at home, and stern disapproval if these expectations were not met.

My father once issued a warning, shortly after my brother and I began attending Vancouver College, that we had better not come home whining about any corporal punishment we received there; if we did, we would receive the same at home.

(None of this is to say that we were not well cared for. My father worked hard and provided faithfully and generously for his family; we had new clothes, delicious and healthy home-cooked meals, a beautiful home, wonderful vacations, and rich Christmases. Our family ate dinner together every night and my father was home for nearly all of the weekend – he did like golf.)

Professor Wolke points out that “the worst outcomes we found [were] for those children who were bullied at school and bullied at home. Just imagine the child: you go to school and you get victimized there, and then you go home and the same thing happens there – because these are children who don’t have a safe place anywhere.” So at the age of thirteen, I was afraid of my teachers, afraid of my classmates, afraid of my older brother, and afraid of my father. I was a sensitive gay teenager desperately in need of affection and affirmation, and security. And whether I realized it or not at the time, as we drove away from the seminary that Sunday afternoon, I was in many ways utterly alone.

It was not long before I was to experience a subtler but equally frightening and ultimately damaging form of bullying.

Image Credit

“Bully” by Thomas Ricker. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Anti-bullying colouring page

And more important, all the life-potentialities that we never managed to bring to adult realization, those other portions of ourself, are there [in the infantile unconscious]; for such golden seeds do not die. If only a portion of that lost totality could be dredged up into the light of day, we should experience a marvellous expansion of our powers, a vivid renewal of life.

 Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

In his seminal work on mythology, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell introduced the concept of the monomyth, or the hero’s journey, a journey that involves heeding the “call to adventure” given by the unconscious mind, a journey that all must take in order to have truly lived and experienced life. Refusal to answer the call will result in a life of dysfunction at best, disaster at worst.

Campbell, who taught at Sarah Lawrence College for 38 years, always encouraged his students to “follow your bliss,” to pursue the dreams that come from the heart rather than obeying the dictates or suggestions of parents, teachers, and peers that sought to lead them into lives of safety and security. He liked to tell a story that seemed to him “to embody the essential image of living one’s life, finding it and having the courage to pursue it.” It is the story of Arthur and his knights sitting at the round table and deciding to “all go in quest of that [Holy] Grail to behold it unveiled.” The part of the tale that so interested Campbell was this: “They thought it would be a disgrace to go forth in a group. Each entered the Forest Adventurous at that point which he himself had chosen, where it was darkest and there was no way or path.” To Campbell, the message of this story was that each of us must choose his or her own path in life; in doing so we release ourselves from dependence on our parents and begin to realize our own potential.

As for those who refuse the call to adventure, Campbell offered this rather severe judgment: “Marx teaches us to blame society for our frailties, Freud teaches us to blame our parents, and astrology teaches us to blame the universe. The only place to look for blame is within: you didn’t have the guts to bring up your full moon and live the life that was your potential.”

Stephen and Robin Larsen’s superb biography of Mr. Campbell, A Fire in the Mind: The Life of Joseph Campbell, reveals, however, that young Joe did not require a great deal of courage to answer his call to adventure. Unlike many of us, he was not bullied as a child; despite the fact that the Campbell family had its problems, Joe grew up in an emotionally and financially supportive environment. He was outgoing and naturally athletic and he possessed innate musical talent and a certain intellectual brilliance; all of these attributes were nurtured by family, friends, and teachers. So Joseph Campbell did not have to carry a heavy load of psychological baggage into adulthood, a burden that very well could have held him back from the stellar career and long and happy marriage with which he was blessed.

There may indeed be a tendency among some of the less fortunate or the more profligate members of society to lay blame for their misfortunes or for their failures on agents other than themselves, thereby abrogating responsibility for bringing up their own full moon. And many victims of bullying express the desire, even well into adulthood, to see their tormentors suffer in the way that they were made to suffer, as if such suffering on the part of the perpetrator would bring comfort to the victim, especially so long after the wounds were inflicted.

This essay is not about blame or lust for revenge, however, just as it decidedly is not an invitation to a pity party or a litany of excuses for a life of failure. It is rather a plea, sent out to all who witness a child in torment from bullying, a plea to not only consider the child’s immediate suffering but to understand that ten or twenty or forty years in the future, the adult that child has become will likely still be suffering, still living in fear.

 ***

The term “paralyzed by fear” is often used in a hyperbolic sense, in movie trailers, novels of suspense, and in the news media, to describe an individual who finds – or perceives – himself or herself in a situation of extreme danger of being injured or killed by another person, by an animal, by a force of nature, or by some other agent beyond the control of the potential victim. Many of us, especially as children, have experienced this paralysis, when, for example, we thought we saw a sinister hooded figure lurking in the corner of the room as we lay in bed or heard an eerily shuffling footstep in the dark when we were alone in the house at night.

There is, however, another kind of paralyzing fear, one that does not last for a terrifying, adrenaline-charged moment, but in some cases endures for as long as an entire lifetime. This fear paralyzes in a far more insidious way, often with the result that the victim does not even know that he or she is experiencing fear and its effects. Doctors and other health professionals like to call this fear “generalized anxiety disorder.” But that term does not, in my view, begin to describe its long-term paralyzing effects.

And where does this fear come from? In my case, it had its genesis in an unfortunate combination of several years of relentless and unmerciful physical and psychological bullying by my older brother; a stern and remote old-school father who believed that only babies or sissies cried and complained of being picked on; taunting and ostracism by classmates in an all-boys school; and intimidation by teachers in that same school who regularly employed physical punishment – sometimes brutal – to enforce rules of classroom behaviour.

The American Psychological Association defines bullying as “a form of aggressive behavior in which someone intentionally and repeatedly causes another person injury or discomfort. Bullying can take the form of physical contact, words or more subtle actions.

The bullied individual typically has trouble defending him or herself and does nothing to ‘cause’ the bullying.”

A person who has been bullied does not “grow out of” the fear that unremitting bullying causes; the fear simply goes underground, quietly working its poison into the nervous system of a life, shutting down passion, stifling creativity, mocking love.

 ***

Recent research has shown that bullying in the family and bullying by peers, usually at school, is not simply part of growing up or of normal competitive behaviour between siblings or classmates. Nor is it, as some parents and teachers might believe, a necessary step in the process of “toughening up” for children who are weak or over-sensitive. Bullying does, in fact, have long-term detrimental – we might even say devastating – effects on the victims.

In one study, the results of which were published in the April 1, 2013 issue of the journal JAMA Psychiatry, subjects were assessed several times between the ages of 9 and 16 and again at the ages of 19 and 21, and finally between 24 and 26. The researchers found that “victims of bullying in childhood were 4.3 times more likely to have an anxiety disorder as adults, compared to those with no history of bullying or being bullied.” This research project focused on victims of peer bullying (as well as on the bullies and the so-called bully-victims).

Another study, on sibling aggression, published in the July 2013 issue of the journal Pediatrics, reveals that “those [subjects] who were attacked, threatened or intimidated by a sibling had increased levels of depression, anger and anxiety.” A New York Times article reporting the study quotes clinical psychologist Dr. John V. Caffaro as saying that “the effects of sibling abuse often continue into adulthood.” The article reports that Dr. Caffaro “has treated patients who struggled with emotional issues and sabotaged themselves in their careers because of repeated humiliation they experienced at the hands of a brother or sister.”

There is even an increasing body of evidence to show that bullying has long-lasting physiological effects. In a 2013 article entitled “The Biological Underpinnings of Peer Victimization: Understanding Why and How the Effects of Bullying Can Last a Lifetime” appearing in the journal Theory into Practice, the authors review research in neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, and genetics which “indicates that … the experiences of peer victimization become biologically embedded in the physiology of the developing person, placing him or her at risk for life-long mental and physical health problems.” The study focuses on peer victimization but one might reasonably speculate that similar long-term physiological effects will be felt by victims of sibling aggression as well.

These studies render an invaluable service to educators, parents, physicians, mental health workers, and most of all to the victims of bullying, by underlining the serious harm – now recognized as long-term – that results from childhood bullying. One positive outcome of this research might be that more adult victims of childhood bullying will seek an appropriate form of therapy to help them overcome the debilitating effects of the torment they suffered as children.

But each of the subjects in this impressive and ground-breaking body of research is more than a statistic; he or she has a story to tell, a story that can breathe life into the database entries of research projects, a story that translates clinical terminology like “generalized anxiety disorder” and “antisocial personality disorder” into the reality of the bewildered disappointment of a life shunted to the sidelines. They are stories of talented – often brilliant – and sensitive people held back by paralyzing fear from the passionate pursuit of their bliss or from healthy, emotionally satisfying relationships – or from both.

Mine is one of those stories.

Image Credit

www.free-for-kids.com

Canadian Terrorist

More than at any other time in recent memory, I am hearing the lament that the world is in a terrible state and that things just seem to be getting worse. The media is full of stories about terrorist acts committed by rogue organizations like ISIS, Al Shabaab, and Al Qaeda; of planes shot out of the sky, deliberately crashed, or simply lost and never found; of apparently innocent men of colour being shot dead by police officers; and the old local news-hour standby: stories of stabbing deaths, shooting deaths, beating deaths, and fatal acts of arson.

Modern communications technology brings us these stories swiftly and often in horrific detail, and constant updates as well as saturation commentary by television and radio hosts and their expert and pseudo-expert guests ensure the relentless exposure of these events to our willing and vulnerable psyches.

Media coverage of war, terrorism, and crime is a gift to politicians seeking a banner under which to parade to their next election victory. We only engage in a war on terror or a war on crime because we have been convinced that we must fear terror and crime.

The sad fact is that we do not ask why the media and politicians are hammering us with these stories, and we do not consider the importance of looking beyond the story of the day or the political sound bite and placing it in a larger historical and statistical context. In other words, if we actually thought for ourselves and dug around a little bit, we would come to the conclusion that we are not as badly off as certain elements would like us to think we are.

And perhaps we will also conclude that there are stories we are not being told.

CBC News, July 25, 2013:

“’The police-reported crime rate has followed a downward trend, and, in 2012, reached its lowest level since 1972’, Statistics Canada said in its latest report.

“Although there has been a trend toward a reduced crime rate and fewer severe crimes, spending on criminal justice continues to rise. Also, the Conservatives have introduced at least 30 bills designed to crack down on crime since Prime Minister Stephen Harper won power in 2006. Per capita spending on criminal justice — including federal and provincial jails, court costs and policing — climbed 23 per cent over the last decade, the Parliamentary budget office reported in March.”

Is no one asking why we are spending increasing amounts of taxpayers’ money cracking down on crime when it is on the decrease?

CBC News, March 6, 2015:

Re: Stephen Harper’s proposed law that will keep some offenders in prison for life.

“Canada’s prison watchdog, Howard Sapers, told CBC News in January that 99 per cent of offenders released on day parole last year did not reoffend, and 97 per cent of offenders released on full parole completed their parole without reoffending.”

Is no one asking why we need to trumpet the requirement for draconian punishments when statistics clearly indicate that the need for such punishments does not, in fact, exist?

Psychologist and author Steven Pinker, in his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined, presents a similar picture of American crime rates:

“[After 1992] not only did people cut down on killing, but they refrained from inflicting other kinds of harm. In the United States the rates of every category of major crime dropped by about half, including rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, and even auto theft. The effects were visible not just in the statistics but in the fabric of everyday life. Tourists and young urban professionals recolonized American downtowns, and crime receded as a major issue from presidential campaigns.”  

Larger-scale conflicts and acts of aggression, such as interstate wars, civil wars, genocide, and terrorism, all of which result in significant loss of life, have decreased precipitously since the end of World War II. This decline is the result of increased democratization of nations around the world, greater trade among countries, and increased involvement of states in intergovernmental organizations, like the EU.

Since 9/11, terrorism has been a regular news item and has sat high on the list of governmental concerns. One only has to observe the rhetoric swirling around the Canadian governing party’s proposed – and now passed – anti-terrorism bill, Bill C-51, to conclude that paranoia, whether real or manufactured for political expediency, is the tone of the times. The popular joke among sceptics of the legislation is that statistically one is far more likely to be killed by a moose in Canada than by a terrorist, so why are we not tabling legislation to prevent “acts of moosism”?

As for terrorism and its threat to U.S. security, Pinker proffers the following dose of reality:

“Compare the American death toll [from terrorism], with or without 9/11, to other preventable causes of death. Every year more than 40,000 Americans are killed in traffic accidents, 20,000 in falls, 18,000 in homicides, 3,000 by drowning (including 300 in bathtubs), 3,000 in fires, 24,000 from accidental poisoning, 2,500 from complications of surgery, 300 from suffocation in bed, 300 from inhalation of gastric contents, and 17,000 by ‘other and unspecified nontransport accidents and their sequelae’. In fact, in every year but 1995 and 2001, more Americans were killed by lightning, deer, peanut allergies, bee stings, and ‘ignition or melting of nightwear’ than by terrorist attacks.”

Pinker’s detailed and exhaustive study, and those of many others cited in his book, reveals that the post-World War II decline in violence is only the tail end – albeit a sharply turned-down tail end – of a trend in overall lowered rates of violence that has been occurring for an extended period of time, for centuries in fact.

Despite a general state of peace of unprecedented length among the world’s great powers since the end of World War Two, the pundits are gloomier than ever. This gloom can be mainly attributed to “the innumeracy of our journalistic and intellectual culture.”

Pinker again: “The journalist Michael Kinsley recently wrote, ‘It is a crushing disappointment that Boomers entered adulthood with Americans killing and dying halfway around the world, and now, as Boomers reach retirement and beyond, our country is doing the same damn thing’. This assumes that 5,000 Americans dying is the same damned thing as 58,000 Americans dying, and that a hundred thousand Iraqis being killed is the same damned thing as several million Vietnamese being killed.”

The facts, then, are available to us if we will only seek them out, yet we continue to bewail the miserable state of the world.

In the brilliant 1976 film Network, news anchor Howard Beale, fired because his ratings have slipped, appears on television for the last time to deliver a mad, raging tirade against the falsity of the medium in which he has enjoyed a long and rewarding career. The rant rings with truth.

“But, man, you’re never going to get any truth from us. We’ll tell you anything you want to hear; we lie like hell. We’ll tell you that, uh Kojak always gets the killer, or that nobody ever gets cancer at Archie Bunker’s house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don’t worry, just look at your watch; at the end of the hour he’s going to win. We’ll tell you any shit you want to hear. We deal in ‘illusions’, man! None of it is true! But you people sit there, day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds… We’re all you know. You’re beginning to believe the illusions we’re spinning here. You’re beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you. You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even ‘think’ like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God’s name, you people are the real thing! ‘WE’ are the illusion! So turn off your television sets. Turn them off right now. Turn them off and leave them off! Turn them off right in the middle of the sentence I’m speaking to you now! TURN THEM OFF…”

Maybe we do not have to turn off our TV sets or our electronic devices; instead we might think about turning on our critical, discerning minds, to see the world around us as it really is, and to make wise choices based on an active pursuit of truth rather than a passive acceptance of a cynically created reality.

Image Credit

“Moose in Yellowstone,” by Tapulak. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reservedu

The Perceiver Collection depicts wave-particle duality in Quantum physics.

This is the first in the collection.

Image Credits

 Image © Cameron Liam Isaacs

Cameron Liam Isaacs Artist Bio

My work as an abstract artist explores a diverse set of subjects such as Science, Philosophy, Technology, and Fiction Theory. Using an experimental, open-minded approach to creating collections of images and sound based around a specific concept, it’s my aim to move viewers into spaces with minimal recognizable form.

Despite a lack of qualifications in art I have spent the last ten years educating myself as an artist. I believe that this lack of formal education has benefited me in being able to work outside of the established rules and regulations that govern the art world.

Blog / Website: Isaacs Abstract

Follow Cameron Liam Isaacs on:  Facebook