BFF? RARELY, UNLIKELY, IMPROBABLY.

Of course, the myth is that a really good and loving and substantial friend will be a Best Friend Forever. But reality is quite a different matter. When I wrote my book on the subject of friendship and the importance of supportive interpersonal environments, FRIENDS: The Power and Potential of the Company You Keep, I used several examples of what seemed to certainly be everlasting friendships. None of them survived. This is not to say it's impossible to keep a close friend for a generation or longer, but in our increasingly changing world, filled with transient living and short term attention spans, it gets more difficult to hold onto the same values and interests that tend to glue us together.

I am still in touch with five friends from the 1970s in Miami, where I wrote that book. That seems amazing to me. Two of them are very close, even though we are separated by substantial geography. But emails, phone calls, and Skype video chats keep a sense of intimacy alive. Both are former lovers, but I'm not sure that has anything to do with the longevity of the relationships. Both were faithful correspondents during my entire twelve year term of incarceration. Since my release, several people have reached out to me in friendship and then fallen by the wayside--I suspect they thought I could do something for them that it turned out I couldn't. A couple of others seem like they are in it for the long haul. We may not be in frequent touch, but I have no doubt they would be there if I needed something they could provide, as I would be for them.

In prison, one learns to let go of friendship. There are kind, smart, supportive friends to be found and made behind those stone walls, but you never know when a friendship will suddenly end because one of the other of you will be suddenly transferred to another prison, or another yard at the same institution--and communication in that event is almost impossible. So you put yourself forward just a little bit, knowing it cannot possibly last. I've kept up with just one friend I made in prison, Keith, with whom I shared a cell for over two years. I joined he and his family for several holidays since my release.

Several of my friends going way back in the Human Potential Movement have become superstars and multi-millionaires. They're still cordial, but I wouldn't call them friends.

General speaking, I am proud and pleased at the quality of the friends I've attracted over the years, even the ones who are no longer part of my life. I think what constitutes success in the realm of friendship, isn't how long someone stays your best friend, but how organic the flow is from friendship to acquaintanceship and back again.

Time to go, I just got an email from one of my newest best friends, a lovely and successful movie actress in Europe. I'm not sure I'll ever tell the story of how we made contact, but that too is what gives some friendships their juice. As I look back, a lot of my friends came into my life in strange and wonderful ways. And the more strange and wonderful that beginning, the longer the friendship seems to have lasted. Maybe I'm onto something here. Are you open to a new friend arriving in a strange and wonderful way?

Jerry

Check out my Prosperity blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

TEACHING PAP, RAP, AND CRAP

Everyone talks about the decline of American education, but very few innovative ideas have emerged and been implemented in recent decades. Much of what is taught today is pap--material lacking real value or substance. Sure there are some great teachers still out there, and some kids who are moved to greatness by what those teachers do. But the numbers are seriously declining. When I was a schoolchild, almost any student could name one teacher they really admired, looked up to, and learned a lot from. Today that isn't easily found.

When prison guards in California make an average of over $100,000 a year with no skills or education beyond high school, and teachers make about $60,000, the trend is clear in what our current society values. Of course, with more good teachers, the prisons would not be filled to overflowing. More Americans are in prison today, 1 in 100, than in any other country. China is a distant second with 1 in 1000 Chinese in prison.

When you listen to some of the stuff coming out of political candidates' mouths today, you can clearly see that they are less well-educated and well-read than those of a generation or two ago. Of course, they are speaking to an equally dumbed-down electorate, so perhaps it all works to their advantage.

I don't think it's going to be very easy for government, local or national, to change the status of teachers. But there was a time when it was considered a prestigious, honorable profession.

This can happen again with the help of the private sector, which would be the beneficiary of an upgrade in teachers, schools, and students. My suggestion is a merit award for teachers beyond any yet tried. If some of the billionaires who are now so committed to help cure Malaria and other diseases overseas, would put some of that same energy and capital into the U.S. education system, I think we could see dramatic changes. We could start with a series of grants to exceptional teachers, perhaps styled after the MacArthur Foundation genius grants.

The criteria would be that the person had to be selected by students as being a wonderful, inspiring influence. And referees would sit in that teacher's class for some hours to determine if this was truly a fantastic teacher. I think a $200,000 figure split between the teacher and the school would have a big impact. And not just a handful of these grants, but dozens in every state. This would be a strong incentive for truly gifted students to consider teaching as a career choice once again. Expensive? Yes, but well worth it. And it could be financed just by Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Ted Turner and perhaps a few other big and very rich givers.

Would it solve all the problems? No, not by a long shot. But it would get the conversation going, and definitely inspire some new, creative ways to make the great leap forward our entire education system needs.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

A STAR IS REBORN

As a theatre-lover, I've been privileged to see a few earth-shattering, stunning performances in my time. In 1962, at an out-of-town tryout of a Broadway-bound musical, I Can Get It For You Wholesale, I saw a nineteen year old Barbra Streisand in a minor role stop the show with her featured song, Miss Marmelstein. It is hard to believe the performance I saw last night at the Berkeley Rep was done by a woman exactly sixty years older, Rita Moreno.

It almost does her a disservice to mention she will be eighty on December 11th, because by any standards she deserved her standing ovation in the first public performance of her new one woman show,

Rita Moreno--Life Without Makeup.

She held the stage with zest and majesty for two-and-a-half hours, with the assistance of some brilliant staging and two male dancers probably one third her age. Rita calls the energetic dancing she herself does, SKD, "sorta kinda dancing." This is certainly true of many aging dancers who sorta go through the motions, but what this Puerto Rican beauty did was way beyond that, despite recent knee replacement surgery.

As I launch my own solo performance career, I am inspired and intimidated by this Oscar, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy winner's virtuoso display. Of course, it doesn't help build my confidence that I don't sing or dance, act, or have as still gorgeous legs as Rita Moreno--nor as colorful a life as this woman with 74 years in show business and still counting. She recently took on the role of Fran Drescher's mother in the new sitcom, Happily Divorced--and there's no doubt in my mind, or in the mind of any other audience member last night, that her first solo performance will eventually sellout on Broadway. Brilliantly piecing together segments from the tapestry of her life is her co-creator, the Berkeley Rep artistic director, Tony Taccone, whom she credits with talking her into the project two years ago, after she originally turned him down five years ago. He convinced her that, at 77 then, she had better get on with it.

The mark of success in any performance art is to leave the audience wanting more. Afterwards, I was Googling like crazy, trying to fill in some of the rest of the story. But I guess I'll have to wait for Rita Moreno's promised memoir. Though I admire her classiness and grace in refusing to dish very much dirt, I really would like to know exactly how she went about trying and succeeding in making Marlon Brando jealous by dating Elvis Presley. I never knew she was in a tumultuous five year relationship with Brando while still in her twenties. She eventually had a forty-five year marriage with Leonard Gordon, who died last year at the age of ninety.

The most astonishing thing about this one woman show isn't that a woman who will be eighty in three months is starring in it, but rather than for most of her commanding, adorable presence on stage, you can't even remember how long she's been around. There's a newness, a childlike sense of wonder, the energy and charisma of someone who is immensely talented and just starting out in a fantastic career that will lead to inevitable stardom. I'd be willing to bet that in the next few years, many performers half her age, seeing this show will be saying to themselves, "I wish I could walk out on a stage and do that."

And Rita Moreno also gets off some great one liners. At one point, she talks about Betty Wand, who dubbed one of her songs in West Side Story because Rita couldn't hit the lowest notes, but then went on to claim she did all of the other songs, too. With an arch of her eyebrow and ironic shrug of her still beautiful shoulders, Rita Moreno says, "May she rest in peace.." hold for a sweet pause, then, "Of course she's still alive."

Since she has already won the four top entertainment awards, they really have to invent a new one for this.

I'm not even sure I'm going to try to explain, or even could if I wanted to, my rather contradictory reaction to this amazing performance: It has made me feel older than I really am, and at the same time, a lot younger.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog, too, at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

A STAR IS BORN!

Well, yesterday was a marvelous trifecta for me. First off, after being released from Folsom on August 22, 2008, I officially was released from parole status after three years. Serendipitously and symbolically, I received my new passport ahead of schedule, and I debuted the short works-in-progress version of my one man show about my prison experience, to a rousing reception at The Marsh theatre, the nation's premier showcase for one man and one woman shows. It was the culmination of a longtime aspiration and a wonderful class by superstar solo performer and artist-in-residence Charlie Varon.

A description of my segment of the five solo performances:

The Great Escape. The most outrageous, moving, inspiriting, and hilarious description of a bestselling self-help author’s 7 years at Folsom State Prison.

One piece of my work-in-progress involved the audience, as I told them that one of the greatest blows to my emotional equilibrium in prison was the periodic arrival of a new cellmate. A stranger entering your cell to spend hour after hour, sometimes 24 hours a day, seven days a week, locked in this tiny space with you. You have no idea how long you will be cellmates, or even what his crime was, and prison protocol dictates you don't ask, unless they volunteer the information. I suggested audience members look around and find their own stranger nearby and imagine that this person just arrived as their cellmate and had some of the characteristics of a few of my real life cellies, like:

"Charlie, who has an obsession...his fancy breed pet chicken back home. Something i still remember was called a feather-footed, bearded and muffed black-breasted red Cubalaya chicken..and he even brought a stack of photographs of the chicken...and he constantly talks about the chicken and how much he loves it....and now considers you his best friend because you foolishly reveal that you don’t like eating chicken in any form."

I have considered myself free since long before I left Folsom, thanks to the rich internal world I created for myself, but it is nice to now have the physical reality of freedom from all parole restrictions, like not being able to travel more than 50 miles from San Bruno, California. But since I was released, I've enjoyed an even greater freedom, to choose the company I keep. Back in 1976, I had a book published, FRIENDS: The Power And Potential of The Company You Keep. At that time, I couldn't have imagined not being in charge of the company I kept. And now I count that blessing every day. The ultimate freedom is to be doing what you love to do and want to do, when and where you want to do it, and with whom you want to do it. Without that, anyone is a prisoner.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog, too, at www.MoneyloveBlog.com

NOT OLDER BUT BETTER

So there is more and more evidence that the old saw, "I'm not getting older, but better." is based on fact. Several recent reports have come out that talk about how creativity increases with advancing years. One in Psychology Today was especially insightful on the subject in an article by Shelley H. Carson, Ph.D., which said:

The aging brain resembles the creative brain in several ways. For instance, the aging brain is more distractible and somewhat more disinhibited than the younger brain (so is the creative brain). Aging brains score better on tests of crystallized IQ (and creative brains use crystallized knowledge to make novel and original associations). These changes in the aging brain may make it ideally suited to accomplish work in a number of creative domains. So instead of promoting retirement at age 65, perhaps we as a society should be promoting transition at age 65: transition into a creative field where our growing resource of individuals with aging brains can preserve their wisdom in culturally-valued works of art, music, or writing.

Since I've long suggested that retirement is a bad concept, I was pleased at the idea that since we get more creative in certain ways, (being less inhibited in our thinking as well as more easily distracted), we transition instead of retire. Move into some more creative field of endeavor at age 65. A lot of seniors have been doing that in recent decades, but since it is not considered the societal norm, they often get criticized, "What was he thinking at his age?"

I am very grateful that I came out of 12 years in prison with a more open and disciplined and uninhibited and creatively productive mind. I have so many creative projects lined up on my back burner, that I will have to live to at least the 150 year mark I predicted in my book, Psychological Immortality. Right now, I am writing this blog and my prosperity blog as well, plus twenty or thirty cartoon gags for several successful magazine cartoonists, and material for a one man show about prison life that I hope to take to off-Broadway in 2012, and bits and pieces for a stand-up comedy act, and notes for a prison memoir that will probably be published next year, and coming up with innovative, new ideas and strategies for my Moneylove Club monthly audio series on prosperity consciousness.

And I am definitely not doing this in any frenzied way, but living a rather leisurely lifestyle, and doing a lot of catching up on the twelve years' worth of good films I missed while in prison via Netflix, plus getting somewhat addicted to some great British series like Monarch of the Glen, Coupling, and New Street Law, plus great cable series like Saving Grace and several shows on TNT, as well as some of the best Hulu.com has to offer.

And I don't even have a TV! I watch it all online on my 24 inch high definition LED monitor, so that I can easily switch back and forth between engrossing entertainment and exciting creative efforts, which my mind does seem able to do with increasing ease and alacrity. And as just an example of my always exploring new things, the preceding sentence is the first time in my life I've ever used the word "alacrity," which I just looked up after writing it to find it means, "cheerful readiness." Don't you love that phrase? Imagine everyone you meet for business or pleasure greets you with cheerful readiness.

I'm walking a lovely woman to her door after a delightful date and ask if I may come in, and she says, "I welcome you with alacrity." Oh well, maybe that's a bit much. Then again, as I am now older and more "disinhibited," why not expand my expectations?

Speaking of gratitude, and my cartoon gags, I'm going to close by sharing a favorite from the newest batch I sent out just this weekend.

SCENE: WOMAN TO DATE WHO HAS JUST WALKED HER TO DOOR.

CAPTION: "I'd invite you in for my nightly Gratitude Ritual, but tonight it's about being grateful I don't have to ever see you again."

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog at: http://www.MoneyloveBlog.com

A HUMAN BANDAID

A friend was really complaining about how miserable she was since her daughter went away to college. She said that being a single mother so absorbed her that she was able to bury some of her doubts and fears and anger, which were now coming up as she no longer had her daughter nearby to draw her attention and energy. I realized that this woman had been using her daughter as a human bandaid to cover up the symptoms of inner despair. And I began to wonder how many of us do the same thing--use our devotion or obsession or infatuation toward another person to escape confronting our inner demons and pain.

Of course, the big difference is that when you remove a bandaid, healing has often occurred. This is not true with a human bandaid. When someone you have been using in this way disappears from your daily life, by moving or dying or even going away to college and leaving that empty nest behind, instead of healing, the festering wound is reopened--worse than ever. Some people use a sequential set of relationships to keep covering up those symptoms, and this is done in many different forms. Some years ago, I did this by getting involved with a very beautiful, very sexy, and very happy, nurturing woman. The only problem was she was extremely high maintenance. She required constant attention day and night. I thought it was a pretty good trade-off at the time, as she provided a lot of pleasure. But it gave me a great excuse for not dealing with some major issues I should have been dealing with, and probably indirectly led to my ending up broke and in prison.

Sometimes even work acts as this kind of temporary bandaid--men particularly sometimes use intense focus and commitment to work as a way of avoiding commitment and responsibility in other areas of their lives.

One of the oddest manifestations of this bandaid effect is when someone uses personal growth programs and workshops to avoid dealing with the pain deep within them. I remember some years ago there being a very popular series of weekend workshops that required total absorption of participants with a very rigid structure. So much so, that someone attending would have no time or emotional energy left to deal with any depression or issues buried deep within their core.

It almost sounds like a joke, but my friend attends a grief group to deal with the absence of her daughter, now happily attending college in another state. All the other members of the grief group are dealing with the death of a loved one. But my friend says her pain is just as real, and the counselor has told her it may even be a deeper sense of grief because the person she is mourning is still alive. I suppose it is harder to let go of someone who still exists but is no longer in close proximity.

Sometimes it hurts to quickly tear off a bandaid, but that is a small price to pay for the healing impact if we take the opportunity to seek a more permanent solution.

Jerry

Check out my prosperity blog: http://MoneyloveBlog.com

I CONFESS--I'M A BOOK ADDICT

It suddenly came to me as I prepare material for my solo performance class at the famed Marsh theatre in San Francisco with teacher/director/solo performer Charlie Varon. The focus of this piece is a humorous/serious look at my 12 year prison experience. I mentioned that one of the events that really upset and depressed and angered me, and was the biggest challenge to my ability to go within and ignore external adversity and deprivation, were the regular book raids.

This is something that happened every several months, when a functionally illiterate corrections officer (what a laughable title!) would bang on my cell door loudly, unlock the door and barge into the small 6 X 8 foot space, announcing, "Gillies, you have too many books--you have two minutes to get it down to the maximum of ten books allowed!" Since I often had 30 or more books, thanks to the Amazon.com account provided by my old friend Mark Victor Hansen, this was an almost impossible task.

I could send some of the books to a friend, but this would cost exorbitant postage (no book rates available) and the friend couldn't send them back to me at a later date. All books had to come from publishers or recognized retail entities like Amazon or a major bookstore chain. Or I could donate them to the prison library, but from experience, I knew that the officer rarely took the time to do this and just threw them away or gave them to some of his pet inmates. All of this was running through my head as I frantically tried to decide what I couldn't do without. I had to keep at least a few mystery novels and the dictionary. It was the rest of the keepers that I had trouble picking.

I usually took more than two minutes and the guard would stand there muttering obscenities, saying he was too busy for this, that if I didn't hurry up, he would just take all the books. I had to make quick choices, and sometimes regretted them as soon as he left with his bagful of loot. I remember one time when I couldn't decide between Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life; Allen D. Bragden's Building Mental Muscle and James Jay Masters' Finding Freedom: Writings From Death Row. I kept the Quindlen book and still haven't read the other two.

After an hour or two, longer than it usually took me to recover from negative events, I calmed down and realized that any book was eventually replaceable, and it didn't have to affect my usual upbeat mood and optimistic outlook. And I immediately wrote to Mark's assistant with a new order, including at least a few replacements in the ten maximum books we could have sent in. This taking of action got rid of any residual bad feelings. But on a couple of occasions, a special visualization exercise I created for myself also helped. I pictured myself at a 12-step program for book addicts, standing up and saying, "Hello, I'm Jerry and I'm a bookaholic, and have been one since my mother taught me to read at the age of three. Today I realized I only need one book at a time, and don't have to pile them up to feel secure."

I've never been "book sober" a day in my life, and except during certain brief periods when I was in a holding cell after transfer from one prison to another, I have never lived a day without a book in my hand. My stockpile in prison made me feel a sense of abundance. The fact that I read some 1000 books in those 12 years gave me a strong sense of accomplishment.

I still am a voracious reader, but limited space in my current living environment prevents me from having hundreds of comfort-providing volumes surrounding me. So I suppose I am partially rehabilitated from my obsession/addiction. The ultimate test will be when I get a much larger budget and living space. One major sign of progress: I no longer think or feel, "So many books, so little time."

Jerry

P.S. I think being the insatiable reader I am had to inevitably lead to my being an author. I still find it amazing that two million people bought Moneylove. My new audio club and prosperity blog are both inspired by that work, and you can check out both at http:MoneyloveBlog.com