From a profile on Barry Michaels, the Hollywood therapist who treats screenwriters, actors and movie execs:
“By far the most common problem afflicting the writers in Michels’s practice is procrastination, which he understands in terms of Jung’s Father archetype. ‘They procrastinate because they have no external authority figure demanding that they write,’ he says. ‘Often I explain to the patient that there is an authority figure he’s answerable to, but it’s not human. It’s Time itself that’s passing inexorably. That’s why they call it Father Time. Every time you procrastinate or waste time, you’re defying this authority figure.’ Procrastination, he says, is a ‘spurious form of immortality,’ the ego’s way of claiming that it has all the time in the world; writing, by extension, is a kind of death.”
Previous Blog Fight Song installments here.
Image: Chronos (aka Father Time) and Gaea from the opening spread of D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths.