Getting Back in the Game

I was shocked when I realized how long it had been since I did a blog entry. I have been doing so much at the computer: designing the brochure for my practice; learning LinkedIn; answering e-mails; writing reports; doing research etc. Surely in all that computer time I had written a blog entry?

It seems that my resistance to writing my own thoughts had used my Internet industriousness (and reading and thinking) to accomplish its end---no creative writing. Clever! What woke me up?

I have to give credit to the late Joan Erikson. I have been reading Erikson on Development in Adulthood by Carol Hren Hoare. Professor Hoare explored Erikson's published and unpublished works to discover his theories on adult development and how these evolved. She had also been conducting many interviews including some with Joan Erikson, then in her 90's. Joan Erikson, looking at her progress, said: “If you don't stop going around talking to people about Erik...this book is going to come out of your ears instead of your pen!”

I confess to the same tendency. One more article. One more book. One more exciting conversation. It doesn't look like procrastination... Still what people are writing and talking about today is so interesting and important.

People are starting to talk seriously about the realities of illness, aging, dying---the challenges and the costs. More people are questioning some of our basic assumptions like “do everything.” In my opinion even the “death panel” folks are providing a service. They are wrong, of course, but their extreme position is challenging those of us in the middle and those of us at the other extreme to state our positions/values/concerns.

Just what we need to have a healthy debate.