The Indiana Jones Mystique and Barack Obama

Audiences can take many different things from films: values, models to imitate, sheer entertainment, understanding, excitement and so forth. The first of the Indiana Jones series of films  that I saw while on vacation in Salt Lake City, with my wife and then young sons, grabbed me with surprising force. The thing that was most powerful about the Harrison Ford character was the juxtaposition of A MAN OF IDEAS (A professor) and A MAN OF ACTION (adventurer) within a single person.  That, to me, represented one worthy personal goal for a fulfilling career.

It wasn't the first experience of that sort in my memory. While finishing up my undergraduate studies in psychology I took an advanced course offered by a pipe smoking urbane adjunct professor who had a full time practice in psychotherapy in Manhattan. Murray Stall was different than any of my previous professors. All my other teachers had seemed brilliant and offered intriguing ideas but their physicality was something else. For the most part they seemed old, worn out, over weight, bald, or funny looking. They were just teachers. Dr Stahl, on the other hand. was young, handsome, athletic looking and energetic. Beyond all that was the fact that he was a practitioner who applied his expertise to real life situations.

I must have taken it all to heart because my own career spanned both the teaching of theory and the application of those principles to people and situations.

The reason for all this background is because of my evolving belief that Barack Obama manifests some of those very same characteristics. He alternates between ideas and actions with each being informed by the other. His ideas are those of change, transformation, reform and unification while his actions take place in the realm of politics and, unpleasant as it may be, political machinations which are necessary to his overriding goals. As I have found, there are contradictions galore when you attempt to integrate ideas with actions. It ain't neat and there are many speed bumps along the way, but the outcome can be glorious. Ask Indiana Jones, he wrote the screenplay.