12-23-01, Sunday Journal
PROBLEMS ARE IDEAS
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Features
PROBLEMS
ARE IDEAS
Yes, I know that's a
startling statement. When Raymond Charles Barker first said, "A problem is
an idea to be met and handled with serenity," I, too, was splashed with a
little cold water. New ideas are always that way.
I was equally startled to
find out he's right. And it completely changes the way you approach a problem.
We tend to look at
problems as "things." Something with an independent existence
requiring our invasion. We speak of "grappling with a problem," as if
it is sitting at the table waiting for us to arm-wrestle with it.
We speak of "coping
with a problem." Again, there's the connotation of struggle.
I think one of the
funniest things I've ever done was a series of taped sketches about problems.
The main value to me was turning dealing with problems into a subject for humor.
Like death. Death is not
a problem. It is a solution to overpopulation. And a solution to increasing
disability and pain. When it hits someone you love or is imminent for you, it
may not be easy to handle with humor. So we should go ahead and play with it now
while it is not looming on our horizon. Then maybe when it arrives, we will be
able to bring back a touch of the humor and handle it more easily.
But whether or not we can
manage current problems with humor, it is essential to see them as ideas. It is
a fact that you only manage a troublesome idea by introducing other corrective
ideas.
Not the least advantage
of seeing problems as ideas is the depersonalizing of them. It takes you out of
the blender and enables you to look at it. Instead of you being in the blender,
you simply toss ideas in the blender with it until one of them starts to
neutralize or dissolve it.
THE GURU
SYNDROME
We have had a double
serving of pop psychology about the "inner child." For a while, you
couldn't buy any self-help magazine without seeing an inner child teaser on the
cover.
I am not pooh-poohing the
concept but after you have re-powdered his little hind end, re-diapered him, and
re-burped him, it is time to start helping him to grow up. Staying frozen in
childhood anxieties and abuses produces a dependent personality that is always
in search of a perfect mommy and daddy.
The inner child likes to
make people into gods. He does this for protection. Anytime we make anyone into
a guru, we diminish ourselves.
Tell your inner child you
will be his guru. No parent has all the answers but the better ones admit this
to their children and work with them to find answers. That's the only kind of
guru worth having.
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