Tag: Dr. Hare

“Dear Dr. Hare,

I spent last weekend at a philosophy conference at Princeton University, furthering and enhancing my American experience. Ironically, the night before, I saw the movie “A Beautiful Mind” about the life of John Forbes Nash, a math student at Princeton in the mid 1940ies, who later in his career was diagnosed with “paranoid schizophrenia”, came back to Princeton, was somehow tolerated on campus regardless, and went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 for his “Nash Equilibrium”, which applied to Game Theory (out of curiosity, I just looked it up: as of 2007, Nash is still an active member of the Department of Mathematics at Princeton). So now I have a feel for this side of the country—a not unattractive mix of elitism and irreverence, I think. However, both the movie and the, occasionally, rather fierce conference, gave me pause with a view to my own life. While the act of photography itself does not necessarily leave your brain unused, the things that follow (the gallery scene, the art business, etc.) seem to. So where does that leave me with respect to the beauty of the mind?

But I’m writing to you about a somewhat more immediate question that I have (and, as you know, I do appreciate so much that, apart from our appointments, you do communicate with me by email, and have allowed me to post some of this on Notes From Nowhere [see here or here]). So my question is: Can one ever feel at home again as an expatriate? I hesitate when I write ‘again’, because I’m not sure that I ever felt at home, or ‘rooted’, anywhere in my whole life. You might think that it is suggestive and interesting—and I would love to hear your ideas on it—that when I think of ‘roots’ here I think of the mountains, which visually doesn’t seem to make sense. We’ve talked before about my fantasies that Manhattan’s skyscrapers are mountains, I know, and that I perhaps just should get over it. But something about mountains is deeply reassuring, and skyscrapers just do not have this effect on me. I do know that you have a number of patients from overseas––so, in your experience, can expatriates ever feel like being truly at home?

Thanks so much, as always,

J.”

“Dear Jens,

it is good to hear from you, I had a sense that something wasn’t quite right—you didn’t show up for our last meeting, and rather than emailing me directly, you emailed my assistant. My sense is that it would be helpful if we could meet for actual sessions more regularly, rather than corresponding in this somewhat erratic fashion. But I know that you are traveling most of the time, so this is what your life is like.

Forgive me for saying that, to me, your fascination with mountains seems to point to deep issues. We talked about this before, and I guess I thought that you might get over it in some way by working on your Mountain Project in the Dolomites [here…]. But I now see that you haven’t, and that your fixation on the mountains is only getting worse. What is going on with you, Jens? I think that you will find what you seek not by moving to the mountains, but by understanding why you do not have the kind of stability in your life that the mountains seem to suggest to you. Feeling at home need not be a matter of where you are—it might be a matter of not doubting what you are doing, and embracing your life. And do remember that, in the past, you have sometimes felt very much at home here, and that there are some who would miss you dearly if you left for a life lived entirely in the Alps.

Let’s talk soon at my office. It’s true that you can write to me, and that I am happy to write back. But I’m not sure that this can take the place of a real conversation.

Regards,
Dr. Hare”

As you know, my therapist Dr. Hare has agreed that I may post some of the issues we are dealing with relating to my little Manhattan life. Except for her name, everything else is very true. This from our latest e-mail exchange:

“Dear Dr. Hare,

I am so sorry that I had to cancel this week’s appointment. It always takes me a little, or rather, a little too long, to settle in again when I am back in the city.

Last night I went to a dinner party near Broadway and 85th. Had to. You know how much I hate parties. Mostly brainy, Upper West Side intellectual types. Quite a contrast to the Italian mountain folks I’ve been dealing with recently. There was a well known New York art critic present who could actually make or break (well, maybe not break) my career with a stroke of a pen. Literally. He’s retired, but still rather active – his verdicts are all over the place. Well, instead of promoting myself and sucking up to him, I seriously started a debate about Pop Art and was my dismissive self re contemporary photography. Which he of course finds – as he told a charming and increasingly mystified woman innocently standing next to us, with an odd, indulgent smile on his face – “so interesting, but maybe a little pornographic” (I kept thinking, every man needs a good friend who reminds you to shoot yourself once you hit an age where you find parking lots pornographic). While we both hated each other right away, I actually enjoyed that at some point he got upset enough to leave the party prematurely. Another bystander later tried to tell me that things hadn’t gone all that bad, but he was in denial – it was truly horrible.

Then, and this is why I’m writing to you, there was this young woman (apparently she had just graduated) who kept telling everybody how much her fiance is going to make in his first year as a dentist (USD 185.000, according to her). She really seemed excited about this and oddly reminded me of the old man talking about the parking lots. Now, there are many things that I don’t understand about women, and I certainly don’t understand the last thing about American women – especially those from well to do backgrounds: Why do they spend the first 18 years of their lives consuming approximately 1000 movies about “true love”, cry their hearts out watching “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” or “Sleepless in Seattle” even if they’ve seen those a hundred times before, then get a great western education in some ivy league college to sharpen their minds – and then marry someone for his salary? Is this a case of genes winning over culture? I do see the inherent logic of course, but I still want to understand all this more fully. (I am aware that this is kind of a practical question, and a general one too. You may not be interested to go there. Still, the issue bothers me quite a bit.)

Also, recently I’ve picked up an old habit and started to take pictures of animals again.

Hope to see you as soon as things calm down a bit. I do appreciate that I can write to you, as of course you know.

Jens”

“Dear Jens,

the subject of American women tends to come up with all my patients from overseas – men who in some ways love the US, but simply cannot get around the fact that they could never see themselves loving an American woman. Which of course causes great psychological turmoil, so no need to worry that you are raising the issue. For how can anyone consider coming to this country for good if there is no prospect of love?

However, here are a couple of points. First, it may seem pedantic to remind you that, according to your own – rather nebulous, I admit – account, you do have a girlfriend. Perhaps this is why you are presenting the issue as theoretical and academic, rather than practical and immediately pressing. But be that as it may (and I repeat what I have said before: I am not sure whether you are being completely frank with me when you mention this ominous girlfriend, who supposedly is, of all things, a philosophy professor, this being a detail which does not make your story any more plausible).

Second, and somewhat more to the point: Go and spend some time with American women, and you shall come to appreciate one of the deepest truths ever – we love what we know. European men have come up with what seem to me rather wild constructions (the ‘victory of genes over culture’, in your case) in order to mask an experience which all of us find bewildering and unsettling: encountering what we don’t know and don’t understand. More than in landscapes and buildings, this experience shocks us when it concerns other human beings. And worse than anything, other human beings whom we would like to think of as potential lovers! You think you see an overly materialistic outlook. But really, believe me, you simply see something you don’t know. Only time can heal this, and this means, only time spent here, rather than with your European mountain friends.

So I hope you settle in fast, and shake off the memories of by-gone cultures, seemingly still alive in the Alps! I find your shots of animals lovely (I know that’s not what you like to hear, but after all, I’m not an art critic), and I do admit that they make me see things a little from your point of view. But I worry that they are part and parcel of your escapist tendencies.

Let’s talk soon, and as long as you don’t feel like you’ve regained your inner balance, perhaps it is better to stay away from the big shots of the art world. You may need them! And like us American women (yes, I live here too!), you might come to see them differently at some point in the future.

Speak soon,

Dr. Hare”

Did I mention my therapist? I think not. She’s sort of expensive, hence I cannot see her that often. But it’s definitely worth it. She is this rare, extremely elegant, but non-flashy Upper East Side type that you can’t seem to find that often anymore, now that most Upper East Side women have lost any female attributes, with their screeching voices and that horrible mix of Moschino and Ralph Lauren draped around their tanned, X-ray bodies. There’s rumor that she comes from an Austrian-Hungarian family that left Vienna in the early 1920ies. She’s a Yale graduate and sometimes wears caramel-colored, thick-rimmed glasses. I’m not sure if she really needs them though, her eyesight seems to be perfectly fine without them. Her voice is dark and soothing, with an ironic touch, and despite the fact that she knows her profession inside out (there seem to be Senators amongst her clientele, and one famous art critic), she also has this fragile aura about her.

Since I travel all the time, much of our communication has to be done by e-mail. Here is what I wrote to her yesterday, with her response below. She actually encouraged me to start this blog (and now, several months later, she says she has already drawn quite a bit of material regarding my state of mind from it) and has agreed that, if I’m not going to use her real name, I can publish excerpts of what we’re dealing with – particularly the photography related issues:

“Dear Dr. Hare,

this morning I woke up from the following dream: I was one out of 12 judges on a photography panel. The photos, mostly black and white, were all taken in Lebanon by a group of international photographers. Interestingly we, the judges, had to be there while the photos were being shot. And our tasks were not limited to the jury duties. For example, we had to get up early in the day and clean up various sites of a battle that was going on, and collect ammunition, shells, empty cartridges. I distinctly remember that we had to sift through the ruins of what seemed to be an old fortress, on a sunny hill right next to the coastline, while Turkish battleships were firing at us, and one of the guards got mad at me because I overlooked a tiny, empty cartridge in the dirt.

There were 12 photographers to be judged. One of them, strictly speaking, was not an individual but a group of (yet again) 12 people, all of them ‘amateurs’; in fact they seemed to be referred to as the “Flickr-Group”. In the evening, after the judging for the day was done, I met with another judge in an empty bar. He ordered coffee and “Quadratini” (a kind of cookie from Southern Tyrol). I sat on a sofa with the other judge and he enjoyed his Quadratini. Of the twelve competitors, I had the Flickr-Group come out on top.

What is this about?

J.”

“Dear Jens,

we’ll have to talk about this when speak next in person. I keep finding your dreams remarkably realistic, and if I hadn’t heard you tell me similar dreams before, I would wonder whether you are making this up. But I know you don’t, so don’t worry.

Let me just say a couple of things. First, I like the fact that you see yourself, ultimately, as a peaceful person – someone who is on the side of picking up the weapons rather than using them, and who prefers a cookie to a fight. But second, and on a more serious note, I think you should try and see life in a somewhat more positive light. I know that you are deeply concerned about all the terrible things that happen around the world, and that you are trying to use your art to show a different, a beautiful side of things. I also know that you worry about the role of the artist in this kind of world, about the ways in which the artist and the critic alike exploit the experiences of other people. But it’s not your job to take care of all the damage that is done! And even more basically: *Your work* is not a battlefield!

A final note on the group of 12 photographers you mention. I am not sure that I know well enough what Flickr is, even though I remember that you mentioned the name. I actually think it is a nice aspect of your dream that you love the amateur. If you are willing to take my advice, I think you should try and focus on that idea: That good things can come from unexpected places!

Let’s talk more when you are back, and I hope you are finding the peace of mind that you need for a productive summer.

Dr. Hare”