Adam Blatner

A friend wrote me and was wondering what to continue with and what is to be regarded as a closing chapter.  It got me thinking: Wow! Have I done enough? (I’m aware that the answer is a rousing YES! But I ask myself maybe for the first time: Can I stop now?

I don’t want to stop. I have one more project: Psychodramatic methods are a sub-set of a class of operations called "simulations." The top generals do "war games" to rehearse—but mainly to discover what has been taken for granted or overlooked. War is very, very complicated, and rises to the frontiers of what even top generals can anticipate. In the late 19th century some German generals realized this and created war games. They thought, “Let’s do it (sort of) and find out!” The idea was to put other really top generals on the other side and they both try to outwit the other! It was a new technology, setting up situations so that people don’t really get hurt.

I realized that’s what psychodramas are: Mini-simulations. But this idea applies way beyond psychotherapy!  I don’t choose to use the term “psychodrama” for this new application—leave that for psychotherapy. I call these exercises "action explorations"!

But after this next anthology, I’m turning toward creating a science-fiction fantasy with my wife. A e-friend—one whom I’ve never met but we correspond—her sentence reminds me that I’m asking a similar question!  Ultimate existential question, that: Have I done enough?

For young people, and involves the implicit answer, no way! But it’s another question for people who have indeed done "enough." When can I stop?  It’s obviously between one and one’s higher self.