I'm so excited -- but I'll try to hide it

Just got off the phone with my filmmaker, TV producer pal and sometimes creative partner who was passionate to tell me that two national TV networks are interested in financing a documentary project of which I am – albeit in my own small way – to be a part of.

Needless to say she was just peeing her pants over the news and pantingly said: “I just had to call you – I just had to call – I want to shout it from the rooftops!”

Without question that is good, good news, especially for her because she realizes that her ‘credibility’ isn’t just in her mind, and that she, dammit, may just finally be going somewhere. Not a bad thing for a 40-year-old single mom who has been toiling in the television trenches since she was 21.

Not a bad thing for me, either. All going well, she has earmarked a sum of money for me that is of a nature to not be sneezed at. No, it’s not a fortune by any stretch, but it will help with the mortgage, and that sort of thing. If my car breaks down I can get it fixed, but the Porsche Carrera will have to wait for a while.

I know I should be utterly over the moon about all of this – and I am – but in ‘my own’ way. My own way – so what’s that all about? Well, it goes like this: I have a built-in wariness about being ecstatic about something that hasn’t yet transpired. I’m mindful of the adage that goes: “If you want to give God a laugh, make a plan.”

My first wife used to accuse me of suffering from anhedonia – a resistance to feeling the same sort of pleasure that others feel about certain things that should give ecstatic sensations. I mean, she didn’t use the word anhedonia, but I got her drift.

And, maybe in a broader sense she was right. I find that I am not a cartwheel turner, and I’m not certain why. If I run up against one of those things that I know should make me feel really good, it tends to make me 'cautiously' pleased.

I suspect it has something to do with disappointments in childhood wherein assurances were given by parents that a certain thing was going to happen, and then it didn’t. Consequently, when I kept hens, I did count the eggs under a broody mama, but never relied that if there were eight eggs, there would be at least seven chicks. There might be three, or there might be none. So, I guess it’s a kind of built-in armor against disappointment. I’m sure Dr. Deb could sort this all out in a trice.

Anhedonia is a multi-faceted term, actually. It also means not necessarily taking pleasure in stuff others find pleasurable. I mean, sometimes I do, but it varies, and I am especially wary of ‘popular’ pleasures in the sense, as I suggested before about the Olympics, that somebody tells me I ‘must’ take pleasure in this particular thing because everybody else is. Well, everybody isn't, and I won't be bullied into taking pleasure about anything.

I mean, I’m not a killjoy. I love having fun, and I do have fun, and can get as raucous and jubilant as can be, but only if 'I' am tickled in a particular manner. I have a terrific sense of humor, and am even frolicsome. But, only if the feeling is genuine in the sense I can't constrain myself. If I’m not so tickled, I just can’t fake it. It’s like pretending to be in love with somebody in order to get into their pants. I mean, the sex act with that person might be very pleasant, but it’s not going to be the same as it would be if the ‘love’ quotient existed. Now, that’s when I feel ‘hedonic’.

As for the film project, I shall keep you posted. And yes, I am excited about it, and I wish I could tell you much more, but right now the nature of the venture has to be kept under wraps. Stay tuned. Isn’t that what electronic media people say? Guess I’ll have to get used to that over the next while.

Don't Bogart that joint, my friend ...

Blogger favorite, and deservedly so, psychologist -- glad she’s not my shrink because I think I’d end up falling in love with her in one of those Freudian ‘transference manifestations -- Dr. Deborah Serani http://drdeborahserani.blogspot.com/offered a perceptive and thought-provoking piece on Feb. 7 that looked at the impact of the cerebral insula on addiction.

The addictions connection comes about, so a study indicates, from observed situations in which the insula area of the brain has become damaged, and smoking patients reportedly lost their cravings to light up. Dr. Serani suggests, and I agree, that more study of this connection between the Insula and addiction could rid society of many of its psycho-social woes.

There is one consideration that must be regarded, though, when looking at addiction. While a craving can be killed in a physical sense, there is also a psychological one that is agonizingly pervasive.

Many smokers (despite the fact the practice is deemed, aside from being unhealthy, also to be loathsome, dirty, icky, smelly and yucky in the eyes of non-smokers) really, really like to smoke.

“Oh, yeah. I should try to quit (yet again), but my problem is that I really like to smoke. I wish it wasn’t so unhealthy because it’s truly one of my pleasures in life.”

Smokers like the ritual. They like breaking open a fresh pack and unwrapping the cellophane. They like looking at the cigarettes all neatly in a row in their little (coffin-like?) pack. They like lighting up and seeing the smoke wafting into the air. They think of Bogey in Casablanca, or Mitchum in countless ‘noire’ flicks, and they somehow feel, in their heart-of-hearts that they look sexy and sophisticated.

There is a similar connection with other drugs. Many people successfully kick alcohol addictions via counseling, rehab, and involvement with AA. But, there are countless others who don’t. It’s not that they can’t, they just don’t want to. Again, they are seeking the psychological solace and esthetics of the ritual. They like pouring a fresh scotch into a glass and swirling it around; they like the look of a frosty bottle of Corona with that slice of lemon or lime stuck into the neck. Of course they do, and the advertising racket caters to this human impulse.

“Each time I crack open that bottle, I vow that this won’t lead to a binge,” clients would tell me. Each time, of course, it did. But such individuals were determined not to give up something they ‘liked’ so much, even if it was ruining their lives. They just wanted to learn how to drink without the woes of the addiction. Good luck.

With illicit drugs it was the same. There is an inviting process in rolling a doobie and passing it around, a distinct ritual with cocaine – the mirror, the razor-blade, the lines. A female friend once told me that she, in her cocaine days (she has been clean for many years now) would come very close to orgasm just watching the ‘blow’ ritual. That part was more important and stimulating (even sexually stimulating) to her than the rush that came from the drug itself.

That’s the problem with all addictions; people do them because they ‘like’ them. And as long as they like them, the therapist has an intolerable problem to face because somehow he or she has to convince the client that there is nothing to like in what is being done.

I once asked a former colleague, who was in the later stages of terminal lung cancer, if he had quit smoking.

“Of course not,” he replied. “Why would I bother now? Anyway, I still enjoy it.”