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Integral World: Exploring Theories of Everything
An independent forum for a critical discussion of the integral philosophy of Ken Wilber
Elliot BenjaminElliot Benjamin is a philosopher, mathematician, musician, counselor, writer, with Ph.Ds in mathematics and psychology and the author of over 230 published articles in the fields of humanistic and transpersonal psychology, pure mathematics, mathematics education, spirituality & the awareness of cult dangers, art & mental disturbance, and progressive politics. He has also written a number of self-published books, such as: The Creative Artist, Mental Disturbance, and Mental Health. See also: www.benjamin-philosopher.com.

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The Creative Artist, Eccentricity, and Mental Disturbance

Part 1: The Journal of a Struggling Actor—my Actor/Writer Son

Elliot Benjamin

I have included "eccentricity" in the title of this article as a possible balancing act between the creative artist and mental disturbance.

Where does one draw the line between creative art and mental disturbance? Perhaps “eccentricity” is a term that we may use to bridge this gap in certain ways, where I am using the definition of eccentricity as “deviating from usual or recognized form.” In my previous Integral World article Integral Psychology and an Artistic View of Mental Disturbance [1] and in my more extended Journal of Humanistic Psychology article "Art and Mental Disturbance" [2], I discussed what I referred to as an “artistic view of mental disturbance.” I used the term “creative artist” in a very inclusive sense to incorporate multiple kinds of creativity—visual arts, music, writing, theatre, dance, mathematical creativity, social creativity, etc., and I defined a “successful creative artist” as a person who has been able to express his/her creativity constructively in his/her society and has received a favorable response, and who also has been able to make a “satisfactory adjustment” to living day-to-day life in her/his society. I utilized various perspectives and theories from psychology to put this idea of “satisfactory adjustment” into what seemed to me to be a reasonable working perspective, and I then developed what I referred to as the “Artistic Theory of Psychology,” which I summarized as follows, using Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs and potential [3].

  1. The successful creative artist resonates with the highest levels of Maslow's hierarchy of human potential.
  2. There are some people labeled as mentally ill who have the potential of becoming successful creative artists.
  3. A sensitive, understanding, and supportive educational environment may be conducive to enabling a mentally disturbed person with creative artistic potential to significantly develop and actualize this potential in life.

In my present article and the series of articles that may follow, I have decided to give a very personal account of how my ideas about the creative artist and mental disturbance are currently being lived out, through the balancing mode of “eccentricity” in the lifestyle of my 31-year-old son Jeremy Benjamin. Although my son Jeremy is not what I would consider to be “mentally disturbed,” he falls under the heading of eccentricity with a capital “E.” He moved to Los Angeles about seven months ago to pursue his lifelong goal of “making it in Hollywood” as an actor. I am going to let Jeremy speak for himself through his blog: The Journal of a Struggling Actor, that he has persistently and conscientiously kept up with every day that he has been in LA [4]. I am including excerpts from my son's blog entries for the purpose of vividly illustrating some of the philosophical and psychological ideas that I have described in my above articles (c.f. [1], {2]). I will comment about each of his various blog excerpts that I am including, which I believe shed some amazing insights into his state of mind, perseverance, determination, exceptional creativity, life challenges, eccentricity with a capital “E,” witty and outrageous sense of humor, resilience, intensity, high energy, continuous physical activity and endurance, resourcefulness, extroversion, shyness, and mental health challenges. Although a blog by its very existence conveys that the author has decided to already go public with material that may be very personal, I have discussed with my son Jeremy the inclusion of such personal material from his blog in this Integral World essay, and he is very agreeable to me doing this.

Along the lines of a number of my previous Integral World essays [5], I will use the term “integrated” as a term to describe an approach that unifies diverse perspectives—in this case that of a creative artist, eccentricity, and mental disturbance—which is consistent with the basic framework of “integral,” but without utilizing the particulars of Wilber's theory of four quadrants, eight perspectives, levels and lines, traits and types, etc. Although I do not think my son Jeremy is “mentally disturbed,” I do think that the incredible life challenges he has undertaken to pursue his deepest dreams and ambitions in life are skirting the boundaries of the creative artist, eccentricity, and mental disturbance—and therefore I think that portraying some illustrative excerpts from his blog will describe much of my ideas about all of this far better than anything I could describe to you “philosophically.”

In this first part of my possible series of articles, we will see illustrative and colorful revelations of Jeremy's first month in Los Angeles, where the kind of preliminary intensive challenges facing every potential successful creative artist are in full gear. We will also see how my above description of the Artistic Theory of Psychology is being lived out, tenuously to begin with amidst a turmoil of ups and down, but moving in a preliminary positive direction of emergence into the potential of a successful creative artist. After giving a number of vivid excerpts from Jeremy's first month in LA to illustrate firsthand the relationships between the creative artist, eccentricity, and mental disturbance, I will summarize what we have learned about these relationships from the illustrative descriptions of Jeremy Benjamin's first month in Los Angeles as a struggling actor.

The Journal of a Struggling Actor: Introduction to Jeremy Benjamin

I will begin by giving a brief introduction of who my son Jeremy is and what led him to move to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of becoming a professional actor. Jeremy's mother and I got divorced when Jeremy was four, and I remained a very involved father throughout Jeremy's childhood, but most especially during his teenage years when he lived with me in Maine. I sent Jeremy to a free-style private school for his three years of middle school, and it was during this time that Jeremy developed his unique creativity, lifelong interest/passion for writing and acting, intensive interest/obsession with working out at the gym, and the beginnings of his outrageous sense of humor. Jeremy grew up with famous horror writer Steven King as his hero, and it was a momentous occasion for Jeremy when we met Steven King, who lived not too far from us in Maine, at a writing conference at the University of Maine, and when I subsequently gave Steven King an informal personalized math enrichment lesson—but that's another story. Suffice it to say that the artistic beginnings of Jeremy's unique personality was substantially formed in his teenage years living with me in Maine.

Jeremy's passion was always writing, and he wrote continuously wrote science fiction and horror novels and short stories, some of which he got published in his early twenties [6]. But gradually Jeremy became more and more interested in acting, as he went to college at the University of Los Angeles (USC) and immediately got himself an agent with the goal of breaking into Hollywood. I can remember how utterly disappointed Jeremy was when he was 15 or 16 and wanted so much to be an extra in a film for the movies being made right in our neighborhood in Belfast, Maine, but the film director said that they would only use him if his father agreed to play a part that was supposedly perfect for me—a balding “forties something” relatively tall and thin physician. But when I learned that this involved 9 or 10 hours of “hanging out” on the film set during my day-to-day mathematics teaching world, I chose to turn down the offer. I did not understand Jeremy's deep inner core of how much acting was a part of him, and Jeremy was devastated—but true to his character of genuine good-natured holding no grudge personality, he apparently soon forgave me (well I think he did).

I could go on and on here about how Jeremy's personality was formed, but let me cut to the chase and just say that after completing three and a half years as an engineering major at the University of Southern California, Jeremy realized that his grades were not high enough to get his engineering degree and that his passion was for writing, and he spent an extra year to successfully obtain his college degree at USC as an English major. Then for practical reasons he worked for a few years as a mechanical draftsman, starting out in New York State and moving to Portland, Oregon in 2006, for reasons related to an intensive romantic relationship he was involved in. It was during this time that acting became more and more of his passion, gradually overtaking writing as his primary creative outlet, and about three years ago he decided to devote himself to his Portland life in acting, obtaining flexible work as a gym trainer and aerobics instructor (Jeremy is quite short—about 5'4”; he's also very muscular and has red hair) which allowed him to be available for various acting gigs at all times of the day and week. Jeremy was relatively successful in terms of being minimally self-sufficient through his work and having continuous acting gigs, including directing some of his own plays. But he also gradually realized that he had gone as far as he could go with his acting goals in Portland, Oregon, and he finally made the big decision to go all out for his dreams with every ounce of determination inside of him, buttressed by a family inheritance that would enable him to survive with minimal income in Los Angeles for about a year, and this brings us to Jeremy's first blog entry—which describes his first day in LA.

The Journal of a Struggling Actor: Jeremy's Blog Entries

On Sunday April 15th I got in my car and bid farewell to Oregon, the state I had made my home for the previous 5 and a half years. On the night of Wednesday April 18th I arrived in the city of Los Angeles. Prior to making the trek, I had answered myriads of ads in attempt to procure opportunities in 3 categories; #1: acting work, #2: employment as a fitness instructor and #3: an affordable—and agreeable—place to live. My efforts in the 3rd category had proved fruitless. My efforts in the first two categories had resulted in more phone calls and emails than I could keep straight in my head....About 20 students were watching with rapt attention as a single student in the front of the room was having an intense conversation with the teacher, a gray-haired man with an exotic accent I couldn't identify and a powerful presence that filled the room. A cameraman was taping the conversation and it was being projected live onto a large screen in the front of the class. Over the next 3 hours, the teacher—whom I later learned was Martin Donovan, a distinguished filmmaker—had an intense conversation with each student one at a time, developing their characters which would later become the cast of an ensemble television show in the early planning stages. The class ended at 11pm, after which Xavier summoned me into his office wherein he invited me to join the class, which cost around $200 per month, participation in which held the unwritten promise of a television role. I told him I would think about it. Hungry and exhausted by that point, I finally met up with my friend Kate for a midnight dinner at a 24-hour café and then spent the night in her apartment. I was too excited and anxious to sleep, so I stayed up all night.

And so Jeremy is catapulted into LA in a free-whirling style that would become his continuous existence for the next seven months. His next blog entry excerpt gives us an early glimpse of Jeremy's continuous temporary “highs” that initially looked to him like good experience and possibilities that could eventually lead to success in obtaining professional acting gigs.

Day 5....I set my alarm so that I would be ready for the news from the talent agency at 9:10 a.m. sharp. The news was good news: I was accepted, contingent upon me getting new headshots. So I made an appointment that afternoon to get new headshots. The photographer took my pictures under a freeway overpass, in a spot where the natural light was just right. He and I quickly became friends; he is also a filmmaker who produces an ongoing comedic webisode show that I dig. This was my first recognizable instance of successful networking—thus I pat myself on the back....That evening I had my first [rehearsal] of sorts. A film student at CSUN had hired me—based on an ad I'd answered—to act in a short scene he was directing for a class project. The scene involved me saying farewell to the corpse of my best friend who had died on my couch from a cocaine overdose and then proceeding to steal his truck.

In Jeremy's next blog excerpt we see some of the early obstacles and pitfalls that he must learn to overcome in order to pursue his big dream, and which result in many struggling actors giving up on their dreams of “making it in Hollywood,” and going back home. These obstacles are representative of what I have described as “The Reality Argument” that challenges every potential “successful creative artist” (c.f. [1], [2]).

Today I suffered my first misfortune in LA: I got a parking ticket because I neglected to notice a sign for street cleaning. This will alarmingly set back my finances....My next stop was the talent agency to review with them my headshots. It unnerved me how rushed they were; I can never talk to my manager there for more than 4 words without her getting interrupted by a phone call she has to take, and then she gets 4 words into that phone conversation when her boss barges in with a more pressing matter, then she returns her attention to me for just long enough to tell me “Bring the prints here tomorrow 1:30 p.m. without your name printed on the border, 8 by 10” and quickly shoos me out the door to process the next client. I guess this is Hollywood....It just occurred to me that I forgot to add a detail to my Day #1 entry. For some reason it came to mind now: at the end of that night, after being awake for 38 hours, I somehow wound up in downtown LA at night singing The Doors tunes with a homeless man. It was one of the more genuine human connections I have had this week.

Jeremy's obstacles and challenges continue throughout his first week and a half in LA, but he is also starting to show some of the signs of resourcefulness and adaptability that will enable him to persevere for the next seven months.

On other fronts I'm beginning to feel an encroaching sense of futility: the jobs I've interviewed for all went well, they all emphatically said they would be in touch, I've followed up with most of them via emails and voicemails, and have not heard back from any of them. With acting I'm prepared for rejection, but as regarding fitness employment, I am not accustomed to being ignored, and it is beginning to worry me. In the very least, I need a membership to a commercial big-chain gym so that when things get busy, I can conveniently squeeze in workouts in any given geographical region between auditions and whatever else. I can't afford a gym membership, nobody's hiring me and the miscellaneous free trial memberships I've been enjoying are on the verge of running out. The clock is ticking....Navigating this city can be gutwrenchingly inconvenient unless you meticulously strategize every errand with expert knowledge of the lay of the land. It's time to step up my game.....As a general note, I'm starting to learn some basic rules to live by. For instance, never go anywhere without at least one copy of my headshot and resumé in my backpack. And never trust anybody who asks me to spend money on something acting related. And when in Hollywood, if you park north of the 101 freeway you don't have to pay any parking meters. As I write this outside at Starbucks on Sunset, there are at least two faces in view that look familiar, as in, seen'em-on-the-tube-or-in-a flick familiar. I am in the right town. That is clear to me.

I have included “eccentricity” in the title of this article as a possible balancing act between the creative artist and mental disturbance, and the following is an early glimpse of why I have characterized Jeremy as “eccentric with a capital E.”

Ever done pushups with a rabbi standing on your back? It was a first for me. A metaphorical/psychological repenting for my sins, perhaps?....My first morning in my new apartment I was up against a traffic jam that was quite possibly the worst I've ever battled. I left plenty of extra time to get to the fitness studio, but still arrived to class 5 minutes late. Nothing infuriates me like being late to a group exercise class. Turned out everybody (the instructor included) was late due to the same traffic jam. Nevertheless, after class I went outside and performed 50 pushups to atone for the 5 minutes that I was late (10 pushups per minute is my rule). I asked a burly man—a stranger—if he would kindly stand on my back for the first ten pushups and the last ten pushups. Note: this is an effective way of making friends. He handed me his business card and invited me to his synagogue.

But coupled with Jeremy's “eccentricity” we can also see an early glimpse of how he is developing his resourcefulness, determination, assertiveness, physical endurance, and resilience.

On a more practical note, I've learned another rule about this town. Whenever somebody says “I'll call you,” and particularly if they specify a certain day and time they will call you, they are actually speaking in a code language, and a direct translation of that phrasing is, “I'll forget you exist in two minutes, and if you want to follow-up on this interview/audition/correspondence, you will have to bug me relentlessly.” So I set off on a mission to visit a couple of the commercial gyms that I applied to, that said they'd be in touch and have continued to blow me off, I marched right in and talked to the most influential people I could find and pushed my resumé. One of them even gave me a free workout this afternoon, after which I stayed for a delightful yoga class. I'll be barking at all those doors until one of them opens, or until ten of them open; whichever happens first....Turned up the heat on my job-hunting endeavors. Did some snooping and found out that the head manager at my current target gym taught a 9:30 a.m. class this morning, so I strategically utilized the last day of my free trial membership there to take his conditioning class and schmooze with him. I naively thought I could beat the traffic if I left home at 6:30 a.m., but the traffic was one step ahead of me, so I ditched my car and bicycled from Sherman Oaks to Century City (11 and a half miles)....I stopped into another big-chain gym on my target list to bug them. After yoga, I biked over to yet another big-chain gym to remind them I exist. Then another 9 and a half miles to my evening acting class. Doing the math, my total mileage today was...28. 28 is my lucky number.

As Jeremy begins his third week in Los Angeles, his determination and persistence to find paid work as an aerobics instructor begins to show a preliminary concrete sign of success. This is a very important step in Jeremy's process of trying to survive in the LA jungle, as it means he is being acknowledged for his aerobics teaching skills and it gives him the motivation to continue to extend his work in the way he wants to, the kind of work which will allow him the freedom and time to pursue his primary goal and dream and reason he made his big move to LA: to become a professional actor. Thus we see our struggling creative artist making his first concrete dent in the Reality Argument.

Struggling actors in LA are too poor to afford gym memberships yet it is imperative that they stay in tip-top shape, and they can't work full-time jobs at gyms because they need to be widely available for auditions on short notice, therefore being an aerobics instructor seems to me the only sensible occupation for a struggling actor in LA....I attended a 6 a.m. outdoor boot-camp with a small group of committed people in a public park on Hollywood Blvd atop a hill with a sweeping view of the Hollywood Hills. The leader had asked me to prepare a 10 minute leg workout to lead, as my audition, so to speak. I took them through some variations of squats, hip raises and donkey kicks, similar to my typical routines from the conditioning classes I taught back in Portland. It felt incredibly refreshing to be leading exercise drills. In Portland, I taught 7 days a week, usually 3 to 4 classes per day, and in my moving transition, it was rather disorienting to go so long without teaching. It has been exactly 20 days since I last taught a class. I was on fire this morning, and people dug it! As soon as the class wrapped up, I got offered the job! I'll now be teaching boot camp every Wednesday at 6 a.m.. Hurray!

However, as Jeremy gradually gets acclimated to his new lifestyle in LA; he starts to also get in touch with how much he has given up—he had a rich social life and many friends in Portland, and he misses this very much.

It hit me for the first time how much I truly miss Portland social life; the wild nights of karaoke and dancing and silliness and free expression...Does LA's nightlife include something comparable? Probably. Will I find it any time soon? I'll have to earn my fun.

Although for the most part he is not earning money for his acting gigs, Jeremy does experience a growing positive and enthusiastic response to the many acting auditions he arranges for himself, and this kind of acknowledgment and appreciation from his peers is a crucial ingredient in my description of the “successful creative artist.” It is especially rewarding for him when he occasionally does get paid a little for his acting gigs.

LA is proving to be a much friendlier environment than I anticipated (with the exception of one pesky parking ticket). Just received notification that I've been offered one of the short film roles I auditioned for. I also got a response from one of my theatre auditions; it was a rejection, but a very kind and complimentary one, and they offered me a free ticket to see the show I auditioned for!....They were very pleased with my performance. The next scene we shot was driving down Mulholland Drive with me bound by duct tape in the back seat of their car. The end result was, I had a great time, made some new friends, made a robust handful of cash, got a terrific scene to add to my reel, and wrapped just in time to get a bite to eat before my midnight call-time for volunteer extra-work. Will sleep through the morning and afternoon and set my alarm for my 5 p.m. rehearsal, and then use the evening to prepare for a big day on Wednesday: teaching my first boot camp at 6 a.m., then I need to find and prepare a monologue for an open casting call at the agency in Venice, then I need to do some character work for my evening acting class. Additionally I need to start learning my lines for the student film I'm doing Thursday. Los Angeles is to my liking.

As Jeremy approaches the end of his first three weeks in LA, we can see how his self-confidence is growing, along with his identity as both an actor and an aerobics instructor, and the high priority he places on his physical “kinetic” artistic creativity as an actor.

This morning had an exhilarating start: taught my first boot camp at 6 a.m., and my style and format resonated fabulously well with this group: 7 attendees, mostly middle-aged professional sorts....I've always been very physical in my approach to acting; something about repeating words during physical exertion has a very powerful conditioning effect—that's my technique for getting in character in a hurry....High intensity physical exertion has a therapeutic effect of clearing the mind, and if harnessed to focus one's energy on a single thought or ambition, it can bring a singular intent to the forefront of one's being. That's what acting is all about, as I see it: focusing on that singular goal, why the character is in the scene, what he needs and how he's going after his goal, and focusing so intently on that one thing that every atom of my being that is not that character with that need and that goal in that moment ceases to exist.

We continue to see Jeremy's eccentricities and idiosyncrasies develop in LA, and these kinds of unusual personal characteristics is what I believe can put the creative artist in danger of being perceived as being “mentally disturbed.” However, Jeremy appears to accept himself for who he is without labeling himself, and refuses to succumb to society's ways of going about things when it conflicts with his own and when he knows that he is doing no harm and breaking no laws.

I had the pleasure of playing a stern and serious detective in a student film today. On my morning commute I kept a slip of paper in my hand with all my lines of dialog scribbled on it, and rehearsed with myself at every traffic light. In was in that way that I learned my lines....I locked my bike to the street sign and raced up the staircase and back into the studio and proceeded to hurl my body around the dance floor, letting loose a hundred and ten percent, rocking out to Jimi Hendrix. Before I was aware of what by body was doing, I had gone and made myself the center of attention—how about that. Dancing the night away....I was smart enough to take my bicycle out of my car and lock it to a pole during the shoot, but I was stupid enough to lock my helmet to my bicycle. When I came stumbling out at 5 a.m., my helmet had been stolen, and somebody had jammed my chain into the gears rendering the bike unridable. Of course all that needed to be done was loosen the wheel to pull the chain out, but in my delirious state of mind I didn't think to do that and instead rode my bike around all morning by kicking off the ground with my right foot for propulsion, cursing the predicament of the pedals being stuck. New mission: acquire a free helmet ASAP. I've already got a lead. New rule: when working overnight in South Central, take bicycle onto set and never let it leave my sight.

One striking aspect to Jeremy's personality that may very well prove to be one of his primary attributes for his potential success as a professional actor, is the extreme amount of energy that he possesses, constantly juggling myriad amounts of creative activities into each and every day, functioning effectively in spite of being continuously sleep-deprived. And with this blog excerpt we will conclude Jeremy's first month in LA as a struggling actor.

There are so many projects happening in this town—and I've only glimpsed the halo of condensation surrounding the very tip of the tip of the tip of the iceburg's offspring that guards the actual iceburg—that if you blink you miss three opportunities, if you go to the bathroom you miss ten, if you're driving in traffic and are away from your computer for an hour you miss a hundred, and if you're on a movie set all day you miss a million and one opportunities to see about other movie sets that might hold pizza in your future. It's staggering to think of all the auditions that pass you by because you weren't available to pounce at just the right moment....
Somehow I wound up in 2 different film projects this weekend and they both waited till the very last minute to tell me my call times (causing me to panic that I may have double-booked-excuse me, triple-booked, because I also have an audition to squeeze in tomorrow), and if there is such a thing as a last minute that occurs after the last minute, that would be when I received the scripts. Now in the hour between the fun-filled cardio-dance-fusion class I just took and play rehearsal, I have to learn lines to play a double-agent villain in a farcical short film shooting tonight immediately after rehearsal, and I also have to learn a few phrases in Mandarin Chinese for a film shoot tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, I have to learn a monologue for Monday's acting class, and I have to learn lines for the new scene I'm doing with my new partner....My next project is getting my part wrapped in time to hop on the freeway and race over to the yoga studio where I'm scheduled for my very first volunteer shift so that I can vacuum the locker rooms and clean sweaty mats once a week in exchange for unlimited free classes. I'm crossing my every bodily appendage that's crossable I can fit both in!

Assimilation and Assessment: Jeremy's First Month in LA as a Struggling Actor and Creative Artist

What have we learned by the above colorful and illustrative blog excerpts from Jeremy's first month in Los Angeles as a struggling actor and creative artist? Of course to fully understand the process of the potential creative artist that Jeremy represents here, more time is needed to see how his potential develops amidst more severe challenges where the Reality Argument is playing for keeps. Eventually Jeremy's money will run out, and he will need to find a way to support himself, i.e. to satisfy Maslow's basic needs on the needs hierarchy that Maslow has described (c.f. [3]). Does Jeremy have the wherewithal to survive the continuously intensive and challenging ups and downs of the life of a struggling actor in Los Angeles, amidst all the thousands of other struggling young actors competing with each other in the frantic race to obtain those precious few Hollywood roles to remove them out of oblivion? Is Jeremy able to walk the continual tightrope and balance his eccentricities in favor of his artistic creativity and avoid the pitfalls of mental disturbance? Will the comraderie of his growing community of support from fellow actors and artists be enough of a buttressing force to help him overcome the many obstacles that stand in his way of achieving his goal of becoming a successful professional actor and creative artist?

These are all questions whose answers currently remain unknown, but what I can say at this point is that Jeremy has maintained his dedication to his dream and goal, and has now been in LA for over seven months. My reasons for focusing on my son to illustrate my ideas about the creative artist and mental disturbance are primarily because I think that his wonderfully descriptive experiences are illustrative of my philosophy and psychology of the creative artist, in a striking way that effectively balances out the intellectual descriptions that I have previously given (c.f. [1], [2]). I am in the process of putting together my philosophical and psychological ideas about the creative artist and mental disturbance into a book that will include the intellectual ideas from my above articles (c.f. [1], [2]), illustrations from my own experiences as a potential successful creative artist—utilizing my creative artistic abilities and accomplishments in the areas of mathematics, music, and philosophy, the inclusion of the mental disturbance side of what I am exploring from the background of my own family heritage, and illustrative excerpts from my son Jeremy's blog of a struggling actor/creative artist. In the meantime, if there is sufficient interest on the Integral World site, I will be continuing to describe my ideas about the relationships between the creative artist, eccentricity, and mental disturbance, through a series of articles that utilize the development of Jeremy Benjamin's pursuit of success as a professional actor and creative artist.

Notes

[1] See Elliot Benjamin (2006). Integral Psychology and an Artistic View of Mental Disturbance. www.integralworld.net

[2]. See Elliot Benjamin (2008). Art and Mental Disturbance. The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 48(1), pp. 61-88.

[3]. See Abraham Maslow (1962). Toward a Psychology of Being. Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand.

[4]. See Jeremy Benjamin (2012). http://journalofastrugglingactor.wordpress.com/2012/05

[5]. See Elliot Benjamin (2012). Science, Consciousness, Spirituality, Evolution: A Confusion of Integral World Perspectives. www.integralworld.net

[6]. See Jeremy Benjamin (2006). After. Richmond, KY: Wings ePress; and Jeremy Benjamin (2009). If I Catch You Reading This. Portland, OR: Inkwater Press.






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