My keyboard-free August holiday is over. Time to get back to work. September is here. And while the bounty of a NY summer rolls into markets—time for tomatoes!—I’m gathering my own rich harvest of topics from summer events. So many opportunities to grab a cultural moment to illustrate strategies for increasing mental wealth. I want to start with one of the summer’s big movies, Lucy, with subsequent posts working through a backlog of national tragedy, emerging research, and a horrific accident.
Lucy, another Scarlett Johansson star turn, hinged on the myth we only use 10% of our brain. Her character, a boozy party girl at the start, accidentally, and then purposely, ingested a drug that allowed her to access the rest, the supposed 90% of unused brain potential. This gave her unlimited powers allowing her to transcend all human limitations. Fun, but total nonsense.
But don’t worry. This post will not be yet another psychologist pointing out the utter absurdity of the myth at the center of the movie. The fact is if someone really only used 10% of their brain's potential they would be dead. And some less than flattering reviews not only pointed out that the premise of the movie was flawed, they felt everything else was pretty flawed as well. Nevertheless, by the end of the summer Lucy has grossed over $217 million. Clearly, it tweaked something in our psyche, a something that also accounts for the persistence of the 10% brain myth.
I frequently treat people in my psychotherapy practice trapped by fantasies of unlimited potential, what are called grandiose omnipotent fantasies. These are people who think life is about never compromising and always getting exactly what they want when they want it. Other people are simply purveyors of satisfaction or obstacles to be overcome, not people in their own right. These people are frequently diagnosed as narcissists. In addition, those trapped by these fantasies also suffer and present with other diagnoses, like significant anxiety and depression (they don't just cause suffering in others like narcissists frequently do).
But it is not just part of pathology. Such a fantasy of possessing unlimited potential and power lurking underneath the limitations and compromises of everyday life is probably universal, or at least near enough to help account for the popularity of the movie. The difference is the degree to which one makes life choices, like whether and who to marry or where to live or what career to pursue, based on such a belief in unlimited potential. The more one does the more trouble ensues. I say that because the basic human fact is that potential is not unlimited. We don’t have 90% of anything in reserve waiting to be tapped by some guru or practice or self-help manual—or psychotherapy or drug. Some in the slipstream of the human potential movement might dismiss this as overly pessimistic. But they would be wrong. Not only is accepting, even celebrating, the limitations of simply being human a crucial platform for self-knowledge, it is also a pre-condition for loving and being loved.
That’s right, love—as well as being friends, colleagues, and even an excellent manager. Omnipotence has a long history in every life. It goes back to those early infant experiences of wanting a feeding or a cuddle or something. And then, like magic, your own personal powerful magic, what appears but a breast or a bottle or some wonderful something giving you just want you want. Of course, we come to learn that the magic comes not from self but from an attuned parent sensitive to what’s needed in the moment. But for the infant the satisfaction includes that feeling of unlimited power. It’s like being able to imagine the winning lottery ticket and because you imagined it (and hopefully bought the ticket) you won. Only better.
A child also sometimes does not get what’s wanted and needed. They get frustrated because the bottle or breast or whatever is not under their control. There’s another person out there, another person who gets to do what they want. One’s power, one’s omnipotence, stops at the boundary of another separate person’s wants and needs and abilities. And being able to see someone as separate, as a person in their own right and not just as a satisfier of one’s needs, is the first step to loving that person.
In other words, without limitations, without frustration, there is no love. There is only the lonely trap of seeing other people solely in terms of whether they give you what you want when you want it. Now, of course, that’s a wonderful experience when it happens, this getting what you want. But love rather than omnipotence means you are getting what you want because you are loved by someone else, and not because you have unlimited power to control the people in your life.
Luc Besson, who wrote and directed Lucy, seems to get this. He just might be a bit smarter than some of the snark he’s received for the nonsense of his neuro-pseudo-science. There was even an exchange between Lucy and her French lieutenant sidekick (played by Pierre Del Rio) when her powers were exponentially increasing and they share a quick intellectual kiss. She tells him she wants him around so she “won’t forget,” meaning she won’t forget human relationships and other people as she becomes omnipotent. Exactly.
Not everyone will agree, but I think trading an awareness of limitations for the capacity to love and be loved is a pretty good deal. And Lucy gives me the chance to make that point.
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