Welcome To The Human Zoo
I live in Los Angeles. There’s a dream and a murder around every corner. So many secrets. Shadows and perfectly coiffed lives. I love LA, and I love it because it’s drenched in what we’ve learned is called the Shadow.
Our Shadow trails after us. It follows us wherever we go. Why? That was always a question I had as a boy. Why did the dark parts of life intrigue me so much when was a truly buoyant boy? I loved Hollywood movies and happy music and at the same time, the dark side of life always intrigued me.
For many years prior to my life in LA, I lived for three decades in New York City. NYC is Shadow Central. It’s why I was always drawn to Manhattan. Shimmering lights, tough people, unrelenting weather. I lived a fantastical life there. Even then I was drawn to darker things, the Shadow (as Swiss madman Carl Jung famously wrote about) haunted me. Consumed me.
Today it doesn’t consume me because I’ve learned how to integrate it into my life. How to see it and not let it run my life. Fuck up my communications.
I am forever telling people we must observe ourselves observing us in our lives. It’s an odd concept, until you do it. And then you see how you don’t need to ‘think through a strategy with this fucking assole in this meeting’ but instead, be aware that the Shadow/Ego controls us in our communication, unless we are aware of it. Then we disengage it. We don’t say or do things we later regret.
It’s how we don’t end up in court.
The power of my unrelenting optimism and bluntness is based out of my darkness. My Shadow is my North Star to my true self. Wild idea…and true.
It helps me know where not to go, which is just as important as knowing where to go.
Some people think LA is all sunshine and happiness. The truth is there are dark, dark pockets of pain here. There’s a reason so many famous murders have taken place not far from the Hollywood sign. I’ll walk down one block and my senses will scream out, “Turn around, Michael” and I do. I know if I don’t turn around something bad will happen.
And yes, my senses scream out because, yes, I’m dramatic. There’s a reason I live in Hollyweird.
My dad knew a lot about Shadow work. He’s the one who introduced me to Jung and Desmond Morris. I was 9-years-old when I first read a book called “The Human Zoo”. It was by famous biologist Desmond Morris. The book fascinated me. Naked people on the cover. A family. The weird landscape. All in a cage. Surreal.
Morris wrote about humans in cities and how we’re similar to apes. His bottom line was that we’re caged because we refuse to embrace the darker aspects of our behavior as necessary and positive and evolutionary to our lives.
In other words, what we resist persists. I hate rhymes. But this one is right. And right now, with our Covid-19 beginning to wane, nothing matters more.
All the shit we try to suppress and hide we throw onto others. We project like a motherfuck.
Show your pain with trained professionals like me, and watch how your personal and professional life changes. Employees listen to you. Stockholders trust you. Wives stop saying how distant you are. Husbands listen. Your workaholic lifestyle becomes balanced because you are not run by your Shadow…you are running your Shadow.
