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“I’ve got writer’s block,” said my patient, Geoff. “I can’t imagine the future anymore.” Geoff writes science fiction and inhabits the future for a living. Cosmic wormholes, parallel universes, the Heat Death of the sun—he loves the stuff. He’s there.
He came in last week with “Hey, did you read The End of Everything (Astrophysically Speaking)? It blew me away.” But it all went downhill after that. For Geoff, the virus makes the future unintelligible. It’s opaque. “Who can say anything about tomorrow? It’s a blur as far as the eye can see.”
Think about that. According to a guy who imagines whole geospheres (or whatever he calls them), the prospects for humanity are so dicey that no speculation—however well-crafted—will allow a reader to suspend their disbelief.
As Geoff observed, science fiction only works if it’s plausible, if maybe it really could happen the way that an author suggests. “You know, like in The Andromeda Strain, or Prey. Crichton makes you believe it’s possible.” But Geoff doesn’t think he can get anyone to take his plots seriously, because the virus could be mucking us up for the next several generations. “Either the virus is the story, or I become a journalist and write about yesterday.”
As a psychiatrist, my job is to listen to people and help them . . . not to listen and become so fascinated that I want to hear more just because it’s fascinating. I have to be curious in a way that allows me to make sense of a person’s story and help them see their situation clearly—and then see a way forward. Geoff did not have an ordinary problem. He was depressed, in his way, and even debilitated.
But I sensed something more complicated. He was afraid that nothing would be possible from here on out without accounting for the virus. He spoke as if it had parked here, and however much we went about our business, our “business” was only possible insofar as the virus permitted it. For Geoff, the virus was an occupying army.
Unless we kicked that army out, he couldn’t imagine any future that wasn’t controlled by the virus, and couldn’t imagine a reader who didn’t see the future the way that he did. “If I write about SpaceX going to Mars, I have to put the virus onboard. You know, NASA is actually interested in how viruses behave in space.”
When I finally got us back down to Earth, I realized that if we were going to tackle his writer’s block, we’d have to think about it as a form of despair. But I couldn’t just say, “Oh, come off it. We’ll have a vaccine next year.”
Geoff didn’t think so. He also claimed that the virus would mutate, maybe exchange genes with the flu and make the flu turn into even more of a killer. It was possible.
Then he really threw me. “The real problem is the culture. I think it will be dystopian.” Translation: Geoff didn’t see people as venturing out much, let alone to Mars, and he thought we’d stay focused on the personal, the parochial, the immediately gratifying. “The only plausible future is boring,” he declared.
So how do you get around that? How do you even begin?
I asked if he’d talked with other science fiction writers. There were lots of Facebook clubs and dozens of dedicated organizations (how about Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America?). He hadn’t talked with anyone, in part, he said, because he saw no point. “I can’t shake this. It’s what I think.”
In a way, being a psychiatrist requires Stanislavski-like preparation. In empathizing, you imagine yourself as your patients; you get into their head, think the way they would . . . so then you can think around them and help them get past their impasse. I turned myself into a would-be science fiction writer and asked: What would I do if I thought the virus would blight humanity for the foreseeable future? Answer: I wouldn’t write about humanity. So, I asked if there were other places that he might write about.
He perked up.
After staring for maybe a lightyear, he said, “Look, I could write about the future on some other planet. Maybe they’re checking us out; maybe they don’t like what they see.”
I never thought that I would suggest a plot to a blocked-up science fiction writer. But reality can be even stranger than (science) fiction. I was enjoying this . . . adventure.
But I had another objective. I thought that if I could get him thinking in new directions, he’d experience himself again as a creative guy. Maybe then he’d turn back to his natural subject: human beings. Maybe he’d see that he had a supple enough imagination so that if he could write about aliens eyeing us, he could write about us eyeing aliens. There would be a transition. He could, perhaps, get used to thinking about his own kind once again—and, in the process, find a way forward.
I was intrigued to know how Geoff would ultimately respond. A psychiatrist’s worst fear is that you’ll suggest a path that isn’t right for the patient, and he’ll follow it. I like when a patient second-guesses me and penetrates my modus operandi for bringing him around. Would Geoff take my suggestion, but then fix it? After all, Geoff was a great inventor of plots, always thinking five moves ahead so that no character messed up any other (until they were supposed to).
In any case, something was happening. I sensed we were leaving gravity behind.
Sometimes being an amateur—or in this case, a total novice—has advantages. You approach a problem in ways that the pro would never hit on (they’re so practiced doing one thing that it never occurs to them to try something radically different). Geoff went for it. “You know,” he said, “if I escaped Earth’s orbit for a while, maybe my head would clear out.” He often spoke in cosmic terms, so I picked up on him: “A few lightyears’ perspective couldn’t hurt.” I was enjoying the ride.
What I was really enjoying, however, was seeing Geoff realize that in this crazy time, where all he could see was absurdity forever, he still had a sense of purpose, even a calling. We started talking about this plausible alien planet—their society, their technology, and whether they’d be so disappointed in us that they’d leave to await our Heat Death in a few billion years. “We don’t have to settle that now,” I suggested.
I’m cautiously optimistic that Geoff will get past his pessimism about the looming ravages of the coronavirus. I hope he does; I hope that circumstances allow him to—or he’ll find in himself more realistic optimism. But that’s not the point. During this period, where we are venturing out but unwilling to project too far into the future, we still have to remain effective or at least function as well as possible. My initial objective with Geoff was not, simplistically, to change his mind—but, rather, to allow him to see possibility even amidst all doubts and uncertainty. He was beginning to doubt himself, and if I could help turn that around, I was doing my job.
A lot of our fixes feel provisional now. They’re not, necessarily, aimed at the long haul and at who we are in some fundamental sense. They’re aimed at getting us to the next day. Do you remember that old Kris Kristofferson song, “Help Me Make It Through the Night” (1969)? It offers a fitting time-frame. If Geoff can’t imagine the future of humanity, he can—I hope—at least manage to keep himself together and productive for now.
