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Gravity…You’ll Get There

Wait for It

Several years ago I changed careers. It was not some easy shift to the side, but a radical and completely wholesale change. Not like going from making cars to selling them. Or even, from scrubbing floors to selling flooring. Or, from selling brushes to painting. You get it, yes? More like, “and, now for something completely different,” as the Python’s used to say. It made it an even more exciting transition for me that my divorce was also in play at the time.

Toward the end of my twelve year career as an AdBiggie on MadAv—my soul almost completely co-opted to commerce—I woke up. There’s the classic advertising joke about a guy who dies and his contemporaries in the business are talking over drinks about his passing…”Oh, yah, so he died, did he? What did he have?” “Oh, Over-The-Counter from J&J and Business Travel from AA.” As the much beloved Bob Crandall, former President and Chairman of American Airlines would say to move the meeting on from some squashed idea…”Dumb! Done! Next?” I realized that a future in that business would come to an inauspicious end and, at best summed up with a quick toast from the boys at the end of the day at Sardi’s.

I have to get something clear before going on. The Ad Biz was not where my heart was. Continuing on any longer would have only guaranteed me a seamless transition straight to hell. Whether that is true for anyone else is not for me to say. I have my thoughts on that; but in these post-modern—dare I say, nihilistic—times, as my old friend Toby Needler used to say, “Everything is loosey goosey.” So don’t listen to that quaint old fashioned Pope Benedict XVI when he excoriates current trends saying, “We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires...” To each his own. Whatever, dude. (In Woody Allen’s Stardust Memories (1980): the scene opens with Allen sitting on a stationary train. A ticking clock and a man openly weeping. The carriage is full of the most sober and miserable. He looks out of his window and sees that the train opposite is full of beautiful people, dressed in their best, having a party. One gorgeous woman (why, it’s Sharon Stone!) blows him a kiss. As his train departs, Allen struggles to get off; but, to no avail. He is trapped with the other depressed souls for the ride (of his life?). Then, at long last, both trains arrive at the end of the line simultaneously. At a garbage dump.***

If you are losing faith that this is going nowhere, well, you may be on to me. Drop out whenever. Whatever. But, are you so sure that nowhere is so bad? Consider.

But, for those still with me:

Part of my waking up experience was the simple recognition that I wasn’t taking such good care of myself—physically, mentally, or spiritually. For the immediate pinch (ouch!) I sought out a top Rolfer in NYC, Roshanna Evans. If I was awake before I started, well…the series of Rolfing sessions really opened my eyes. It was like landing on planet earth, literally. Half way through I got back up on my feet after the session and felt my consciousness gently drop down into my body. Like honey pouring off a spoon. It was like I had been living in some sort of thought bubble over and to the side of my head. There was a shift. Now everything lined up. The straightforward feeling of basic physicality. I danced with joy. Frisky monkey! Home!

As you should know by now Rolfing—or, better, Structural Integration (The “Rolfing” comes from the originator, Dr. Ida P. Rolf)—has to do with balancing the whole body along the line of gravity. It doesn’t sound like much, at first glance. But, the proof is in the pudding. Most of us live with only a rough approximation of true balance and (still!?) don’t seem to get that how the body stacks up structurally MAY have some effects on health and performance. You surely notice if that pricey painting on the wall is off kilter. Take a look in the mirror. Now go for Structural Integration. So it shouldn’t be a total loss. Do some good for a change! And, please, before “something” happens.

OK, so now I’ve seen the light. And, now what? As a marketing guy looking for something to get behind to make a living, Rolf Structural Integration had the most bang for the buck. I knew it in my bones. Time has taught me that bringing Structural Integration into the mainstream is not really a marketing proposition. Balance. Who’s not for that? But, doing something about it in one’s own life takes some doing. Alas, poor Yorick, there’s the rub.

I have become completely disillusioned to the notion that getting Structural Integration across is a function of le mot juste. Regardless of how obviously sensible something may be, acceptance of it isn’t a done deal on logical grounds alone. Look at the current political scene…one man’s garbage is another’s prune Danish. You say Potato. I say…off with your head! (Completely off the point…Oh, where can you get a really good Danish, anyway?)

And when it comes to Structural Integration, we are not talking some simple fashion change. When your body gets balanced, that’s permanent. I once discussed Structural Integration with his nibs, Garrison Keillor. He wouldn’t get into it because he said he was concerned that he “wouldn’t be funny” [any more]. Well, Mr. K…as if. He explained that he knew too many laid back, do nothing California types who lost their drive after doing all that “working on yourself” stuff. He had a point. As I got it, he was saying that he was capitalizing on his eccentricity. Like the folks in Pisa, Italia. “Don’t you dare straighten that thing. It’s a money maker the way it is.” To put a point on it, Mr.Garrison Keillor, if you had the benefit of Structural Integration, did you ever think you might be funnier. Hah!

Now here is where I am tempted to get into an extended riff to sell you on bringing a good dose of plain old basic structural balance into your life. Forget it. I trust you’ll do the right thing, regardless of what that may be and especially regardless of what I may think. But, remember, everyone has the right to their own opinion; no one has the right to be ignorant of the truth. Verbum Sap Sat. Consult the nearest mirror. As Mr. Jackson said:

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror

I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways

And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place

Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change

*** For all you nihilists out there...



Rolfing New Jersey
Rolfer New Jersey
Structural Integration New Jersey
Rolfing Montclair, New Jersey
Rolfer Montclair, New Jersey
Structural Integration Montclair, New Jersey