Why Are Young Men Bored? -- Part 3 -- About Suicide by Cop

Boredom and Gambling

We have seen that when a young man finds the world dull, meaningless, not good enough to excite him--he will try to do things to "pep it up." But because these things often arise from and result in his having even more contempt, he feels inwardly desolate, and his drive to be reckless accelerates.

I believe this is true of young Moshe Pergament who some time ago tragically instigated his own death by threatening several policemen with a gun outside his car on the Long Island Expressway--it turned out to be a plastic toy revolver--causing one of them to shoot him. This is a phenomenon that has come to have a name: "Suicide by Cop." ANewsday headline read "'Suicide by Cop' Little Understood. Teen could clown to make kids smile; why did he lure police into killing him?"

Moshe Pergament had been attending college, and had a job working as a clown and doing magic tricks at children's parties. A later article on November 23 reads:

He appeared to float through his life as if hitched to some grand party balloon, bouncing from place to place, from pal to pal, with a seemingly bottomless sense of joy, a soul upbeat. His friends were shocked: "'I guess we have to look beneath the mask,'" said a co-worker: "'Someone who is always such a clown...I guess, underneath, you have to look under that.'" And Newsday quotes one friend, saying: "He had everything going for him. He had a great family, great friends, who loved him. He's always had a girlfriend. He had what most people would want." But another friend... painted a...portrait of a young man who was constantly battling a quiet unhappiness. "On the inside he was depressed and he was sad. He used to tell me he just wanted to drive into something." What made for this "quiet unhappiness," this terrifying desire "to drive into something?" Aesthetic Realism has the answer. I say this with conviction--this didn't have to happen--had Moshe Pergament been able to have Aesthetic Realism consultations, he could be alive today.

What seems to have precipitated this tragedy is that the young man had incurred over $6,000 in World Series gambling debts. Meanwhile, Moshe Pergament's parents were well-to-do, and, it seems, would have been willing to give him the money to pay these debts. But, in a note he left for his father, a wealthy Manhasset developer, he wrote:

You warned me about gambling. Look where it took me. Make sure you always remind Doron [his older brother] where gambling put me. I am sorry I didn't have what it takes to ask for your help. There must have been many things distressing Mr. Pergament--how he saw his father, likely how he saw women, what he felt about the future, with its tremendous economic uncertainty.

Moshe Pergament was very good at magic tricks. And I have seen through Aesthetic Realism, there is a relation between magic and gambling. In both, we seem to defy the laws of reality and have things go our way, and when you gamble you feel you will outwit and beat the odds, and at the same time, as Mr. Siegel explained in his essay, "Why a Man Gambles," get the world to show it approves of you. And of magic, Mr. Siegel explained in his lecture "Aesthetic Realism and Scientific Method":

"[It] is a way of having the world through despising it, through thinking that you can manipulate it....Everything will be changed: the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of astronomy...the laws of motion themselves will change....If you don't want to know the world, say "bye-bye" to ever liking it. You may manage it, and you'll possess it, you'll ride high for a while...but you won't like it." Moshe Pergament, like many young men, didn't like the world; there was an intense boredom, and the ways he tried to make it exciting didn't work and made him more and more against himself.

Aesthetic Realism would ask: Did Moshe Pergament come to have such a disgust with the world for not making sense, and for himself for trying to fool the world, that he didn't want to be in this world?

In a consultation we might have asked him such questions as: Mr. Pergament, although you can appear very lively, is there something inside you which is very different? Have you ever felt life didn't come to anything? Is there anything in reality you really feel you authentically like? And we might ask:

Do you think that a person can be active and busy in order not to think about himself and other people? Is reality itself exciting--or do we have to supply the electricity for a dull world? In Aesthetic Realism consultations young men are learning to see reality is interesting, exciting--and this includes what we meet everyday. This is what we were teaching Sean Kelly.

He's Learning to Like the World Honestly!

Looking, with Mr. Kelly at the Van Gogh painting, we said: TYM. Sometimes people have something like two window shades that go Zip! Right over your eyes.

SK. Yes. That's what I do.

TYM. But look!--what's the color of this window pane?

SK. Greenish-yellow.

TYM. It's like the color of the outside world. And it's related to the color of the bed! Here the outside world is the same color as the place we can use to get away from the world and people--a bedroom. He's putting the two together.

SK. Yes.

TYM. Is that window open or closed?

"Closed," he said definitely. TYM. All the way?

"No," he said, pointing, "The window is like up and down!"

"So do you want to be like that window, which connects outside and inside, open and closed? And is it sunny and inviting?" SK: Yes!

TYM. Do you think he was excited when he painted this? And was he excited painting all the objects?

SK. Yes, a lot.

TYM. Do you go into your room and other rooms and say, 'Same old thing, doesn't have much meaning, I've seen them for years." Could you go into rooms and notice objects you haven't noticed for a long time?

SK. Yes.

TYM. What do you think Van Gogh is saying about things you take for granted?

SK. That he likes them.

Mr. Kelly was listening carefully and he was excited! He stands for what boys and young men all over America are hoping for desperately. Young men--and all people--will not be bored when they see that this world, with all its confusion, is alive with good meaning, is truly interesting, and is worthy of being known and honestly cared for!

Resources that Show How Much this Understanding of the Cause of Boredom Is Needed

"Why Young Men Are Bored and Angry" by Robert Murphy, Aesthetic Realism Consultant (San Antonio Register)

"Broke, bored or bewildered? Why students fail to complete degrees" by Dr. Hazel Christie & Dr. Moira Munro

The American Psychiatric Association gives statistics for teen depression and suicide: "the second leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 19 years." The need for the Aesthetic Realism explanation cries out from these pages.

BBC report on "Comfort and 'boredom'-eating rife" -- "Almost half of adults turn to food to stifle feelings of boredom, loneliness and stress, research suggests." That is, boredom as connected with eating disorders: "The survey of 2,000 people showed 47% of adolescents aged 16-24 and 40% of those aged 35-44 had eaten because they were bored. "

In an article titled "Nothing to Do" published in Youth Studies Australia, Ian Patterson and Shane Pegg, write in their study of youth suicide: "There may be a causal link between leisure boredom and high-risk behaviours such as substance abuse as well as various forms of mental distress" (v.18, n.2 pp.24-29).

Exodus Newsmagazine, "The Debate In Women Between Boredom and Interest" by Marion Fennell. Discussing the cause of boredom in women in relation to alcoholism, in an Aesthetic Realism seminar, Ms. Fennell describes learning about the place of one's desire to dislike the world as a whole, and how that changes.

"Many youth complain of having nothing to do." -- On the puzzling relation of boredom and getting into serious trouble.

Marvin Zuckerman writes on extreme risk-taking in a study published in Psychology Today online. The devastating results of boredom, though not its cause, are clearly pointed to as one sees what happens when a young man or woman desperately wants "more excitement."

"At school, Steve alleviates chronic boredom by getting high with friends," writes Peter Wallis in "Quest for the Burning Feather: Initiation for Adolescent Males." Through an initiation ritual modeled on tribal rites of passage, Wallis has encouraged some young men to like the world more, as Aesthetic Realism explains it. The results, he writes, include: "Parents report that their [young] teens show increased feelings of self-esteem, greater willingness to take on responsibilities, and a deeper sense of themselves as spiritual beings."

He's Learning to Like the World Honestly!

Links to Aesthetic Realism Foundation