Took a brief trip back to Northeast Georgia this weekend. Saw family and an old old friend. But mainly I reconnected with my inner geek as my son and I have started trying to collect the new Marvel Universe figures that have been in stores for a year or so by jaunting across comics shops in Athens and Atlanta. I also (among other more suitable readings) have started reading comic books to him on the IPAD. We have thus far gotten through the entire World War Hulk series and the DC limited series Kingdom Come (I will only read DC graphic novels, refuse to read ongoing series because everyone is basically in the same costume with different colors....plus Wolverine never shows up). Granted he likely has no clue what's going on in these things other than perhaps thinking that if you paint yourself green you are allowed to lay waste to Manhattan, and that Superman might, just maybe be a fascist. We also got the Toy Story interactive children's books for the IPAD, which he loves and we reread several times, and I think probably can follow better.
I used to have a professor that said, to be a therapist you have to be interesting.....and be unashamed of being interesting....in fact "you have to be the kind of person who reads comic books" (J.D. - 2004). At the time me and my cohort didn't quite get that (OK I think I got it, but I know others were thoroughly perplexed), but now that sentiment makes much more sense to me. Not so much about being a good therapist, but being a good human being. No, no you don't have to read comic books to be a good person, but you do, I increasingly suspect, have to unabashed about the things you love and the things (particularly the art, literature, people, philosophies etc.) that constitute your quirks and idiosyncrasies. These are not things to be hidden away and protected from the world, but rather things to be celebrated and cherished. So for me, among those things, is a tendency to completely geek out and suspend disbelief in regards to patently infantile obsessions (as my psychoanalytic supervisor on internship would have referred to them). While comics are clearly a projection of the insecure male adolescent psyche, they're a pretty darn cool projection as projections go. If you must delve into projections they might as well have unbreakable claws, a healing factor and a penchant for cigars. So I find myself worrying whether my son (particularly as he gets older) will realize his father is a complete geek, and I stop and think "Bigger fear - what if he NEVER realizes that...worse what if he NEVER finds his own idiosyncrasies, and never finds anyone to share those with?" --- the horror.
So all this is to say that I am happily and contently rediscovering a MAJOR, and I mean MAJOR distraction of my youth and trying to share a bit of it with my kid. Hopefully, if becomes an "interesting person" he will someday divulge his own weird idiosyncrasies to his old man, and I can still hope that said idiosyncrasies will involve a strange obsession with Alan Moore and the Marvel Legends series of 6 inch action figures. But failing that I'll be stoked with whatever weirdness he comes up with. As William James said in regards to religion (and I think he would agree in regards to comics) "the most interesting things about a person are their overbeliefs", by which he meant our secretly held beliefs about ultimate concerns. More generally I think he's saying - what makes us strange is what makes us interesting and what makes us human and are the things others ultimately attach to in us. But of course you can go too far with the strangeness....like say reading DC comics or rooting for the Crimson Tide. All things in moderation :)
- T
Posts