Down But Not Out
A few months ago I read with considerable relish a lengthy article that appeared in The New York Review of Books. Entitled “‘Ol Blue Eyes,” it focused on the legendary actor Paul Newman, who died in 2008. Newman was known as well for the not-for-profit line of specialty foods (Newman’s Own) that he created, and for his progressive political activism – not to mention his long and happy marriage to fellow actor Joanne Woodward. Fourteen years would elapse before Newman’s posthumous biography – The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man – titillated the reading public with details of this reticent celebrity’s private life. Here Newman shares his experience as a youngster living with well-to-do but emotionally unavailable parents. He spent much of his adult life dealing with this early deficit, and it left its mark on at least some of his more notable roles as an actor.
”The Hustler” (1961), in which Newman plays the professional pool shark “Fast Eddie” Felson, remains one of my personal favorites - in part because I, too, enjoy the game. Jackie Gleason (a talented pool player himself) was cast as his worthy opponent in that story, to be succeeded by Tom Cruise in its sequel, “The Color of Money,” released a quarter of a century later. What strikes me is that both films have something to say about resilience which, as the cognitive therapists Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatte tell us, “transforms hardship into challenge, failure into success, helplessness into power. Resilience turns victims into survivors and allows survivors to thrive.”
In “The Hustler” the young and brash Eddie Felson challenges the iconic Minnesota Fats (Gleason) to a match which drags on through the night. Initially, Felson has Fats on the ropes, until the latter’s manager (played by a young George C. Scott), fingering his cigarette, looks Felson in the eye, and declares him “a loser.” The brash hustler bristles at this assessment and demands that play continue. In the end, Felson proves his critic’s point by drinking himself under the table and losing badly to a patient and savvy older adversary.
Things go downhill from there, with a pair of broken thumbs courtesy of two toughs Eddie tried to con, a love affair that turns sour, followed by a sustained period of grief and recrimination. But Eddie does get his act together, returns to the scene of his humiliating defeat, and takes Minnesota Fats to the cleaners. Hardly pleased with himself, he packs up his cue and walks away chastened but unbowed. “The Color of Money” is a different story (Eddie is now a manager of young talent in his own right), but it follows a similar trajectory: over-confidence, humiliation, soul-searching, and redemption.
Resilience, some might say, is a character trait that a few have and most lack – an un-besought gift that enables a person to surmount obstacles, rise above their difficulties, and bounce back from failure rather than adopt a posture of helplessness or victimhood. It would be more accurate, however, to see it not as an endowment but a practice – as the mature Eddie Felson clearly demonstrates in “The Color of Money’s” closing scenes.
What, then, does this “practice” look like? The American Buddhist teacher Norman Fischer provides one clue when he advises us to commit to values rather than results. Be clear about what matters to you and stay the course, even if success (in worldly terms) proves elusive. “Having faith in your values…no matter what, will always lead your where you want to go.” Fischer writes. “You come to trust this after awhile.”
Efficacy and persistence are also part of the mix. For the process to work we have to develop confidence in our own transformative potential, and then make our peace with incremental rather than dramatic gains. Resilience can’t be hurried and it requires the steady application of well-placed effort. Above all, the late Tibetan teacher Chungyam Trungpa taught, “you need to see every situation as somehow workable.”
Humor is useful because it has the power to release tension and provide relief from chronic worry. In this clearer space, fresh insights and new possibilities can emerge. Truth be told, there is usually something funny or absurd about one’s difficulties, so it becomes a matter of reframing. As the 18th century Irish novelist Laurence Sterne observed, “I have learned to fence against the infirmities of ill health, and other evils of life, by mirth.”
Finally, it’s a mistake to think that we have to go it alone, stumbling through difficult and unfamiliar terrain without the benefit of supportive hands. While resilient people do possess a sense of their own agency, they are realistic enough to ask for and accept aid from others – something Harvard psychologist George Valliant found to be true in his longitudinal studies of well-adjusted middle age men.
Helen Keller – a woman born both blind and deaf yet whose story was one of remarkable achievement – put it well, I think: “The world is full of suffering, but it is also full of overcoming.”
