Steven Barnes's Blog

“We are Lemmings

We are crazies

We will feed our flower habit

Pushing Daisies”

— “Lemmings” the National Lampoon off-broadway show

I remember driving up to Vancouver B.C. many years back to watch an episode of STARGATE SG-1 I wrote being filmed. And on the set was Jason Mamoa. He was hanging out with the other actors, an imposing hulk of a man, perfectly muscled. I asked him how much time he spent in the gym, and he sort of smiled and said that he didn’t really work out much. I felt my stom...

The “Incel” phenomenon is basically people blaming the world for their own non-optimal habits and damaged emotions.  Confusing ignorance for wisdom.   Clustering in pity parties  and reassuring each other that there’s nothing wrong with THEM, it’s those damned X;s.    I see similar behaviors with physical, mental, and other social arenas.

It is so sad.  They spend more time evolving complex theories to explain their failures (“nothing wrong with US!”) than brainstorming solutions.    They l...

“Love is all you need”–John Lennon

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We are about to wrap up the Core recordings for the SOULMATE PROCESS (you can still join the group at www.soulmateprocess.com) the last recording coming this Saturday.   We’ve explored the basic framework, which is NOT some short term “how to pick up chicks” or “how to make a man fall in love with you” nonsense, but rather the notion that healthy animals don’t have much trouble mating.   While the “pick up” crap is about faking being healthy, sexy, and av...

Maybe I have a problem with Marvel’s approach to space fantasy. Maybe. For half of GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY I sat in the theater not really impressed by what I was seeing on the screen. No one was real. It was all posturing, and call-backs to favorite songs, and archetypes rather than characters, splotched against a world of heightened colors and jokey one-liners. It wasn’t until a drunk Rocket Raccoon was raging about the monster he was that the masks dropped and I saw…people. With hopes and...

There was a young psychiatrist who got into the elevator at the end of the day, disheveled and exhausted, as he was every day. In the elevator was an older psychiatrist, looking fresh and whistling a tune. As he did, every day.

The young guy looked at him in astonishment. “How do you do it?” he asked.

“Do what?” the older man replied.

The young man shook his head. “Listen all day, every day, to the terrible stories of pain and loss, of betrayal and death of dreams, of shattered marriages and...

Watching “Leaving Neverland.” Michael Jackson said he was innocent, and that should settle it. Exactly as much as it settled things when he said he hadn’t had plastic surgery.

Come on, people, you only needed one eye to know there was something horribly wrong with the man. And if you start with the assumption that any healthy, creative, dynamic, physically energetic man is sexual you have to ask where that sexuality was going.

When you can see it clearly, even in retrospect, you’ve awakened a...

One of the things I love about my life is never knowing what I’m going to write about from one day to the next. My favorite thing is when someone asks a question, or offers a problem, or seeks my advice, or criticizes a statement and asks for clarification. That…is a conversation. And that is a wonderful thing. Got a great PM this morning that fits this bill precisely.

“Steven — I’m just going to call you on what sure looks like a violation of your own principles. You’ve said repeatedly that...

The first step in the “Soul Mate Process” is to love yourself.  The second is to love one other person, or to admit that you wish such a relationship.

Once admitted, we step into the danger zone: the “Soul Mate Process” is to make a clear, uncompromised list of the qualities you want in a life partner.  Then to find, within the circle of people you can reach, 1-3 people who come the closest to what your heart yearns for, and ask them what they are looking for in a partner.   If you’ve made...

Arthur Byron Cover and Lydia Morano used to run Dangerous Visions bookstore in North Hollywood on Ventura Boulevard, and among other things used to throw great parties. I was at one of them, about three years into my career, and moved from group to group listening to the conversations.

Out on the patio there were a couple of guys, unpublished writers, complaining about how impossible it was to break into the business, or get anywhere.   My heart immediately went out to them: I remembered ve...

It happened again just yesterday, and I wanted to make something clear.

Yes, I have processed my anger about slavery to the point that I don’t think the people who practiced it in America had some innate moral failing. They lived in a context in which things we now see as terrible were normalized. That’s what human beings do when they think they need something.

I measure them against the average behavior of people in their context.  Rather than hate them, I praise those with the moral clari...