The following idea is not a revolutionary one or a quick fix, rather, it’s an idea to keep in your pocket that may help bring about small therapeutic change when you’re stuck. If nothing else, it’s a simple, little mnemonic device to help you in your daily life.
As the title implies, I like to refer to the idea as “Wile E. Coyote Syndrome”. Some of you are probably too young to remember the Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons so let me set the scene; There’s a coyote (Wile. E Coyote, an obvious pun on ‘wily coyote’) and an unnamed roadrunner that live in the desert. There’s typically no dialogue in the show but it’s very obviously implied that the coyote wants to eat The Roadrunner and The Roadrunner doesn’t want to get eaten. Wile E. comes up with endless crazy schemes to try and catch The Roadrunner, frequently using dynamite and/or some zany “ACME” product but, somehow, always fails to catch his prey. The Roadrunner either outwits the coyote or just simply outruns him, always with calamitous and hilarious results and this running gag was the main, if not only, premise of the entire show.
In this scene, the coyote would be strapped to a rocket. In the next, he’d be using a bow with exploding arrows. In another still, he’d have a large fan attached to a sail while wearing roller skates. With nearly every new scheme, the coyote would almost catch The Roadrunner but would ultimately get smashed into a pancake or get hit by a truck or get blown up or fall off a cliff (with only a tiny umbrella to help slow his fall) or somehow end up under a rock the size of a house. And like most of the cartoons of this genre, in the very next scene, he’d show up, still alive and without a scratch, feverishly working on a new and equally ridiculous plan.
As a kid, I sometimes got frustrated with the cartoon and caught myself on more than one occasion yelling at the tv; “YOU ALMOST HAD HIM YOU DUMMY!! JUST TRY THAT SAME THING AGAIN AND YOU’LL CATCH HIM!!” Regardless of how close he came to finally getting a meal, Wile E. seemed to try out every plan once and only once and then give up and move on to something else when didn’t work. Hopefully, you’ll forgive me and my 7 year old self for being a tad too concrete and for expecting a cartoon coyote to act logically but it always seemed like a pretty big problem with the story line of the show.
And that brings us up to my point here today. Do you have Wile E. Coyote Syndrome? Have you found yourself constantly trying to find the silver bullet that kills the werewolf? Have you tried to find “THE” one and only answer and when you found it but it didn’t work, did you give up? The Wile. E. Coyote, one shot/one kill strategy rarely works in real life and when it does, it’s usually out of pure luck. Gaining control over your mental and emotional wellbeing isn’t a quick fix where you do something one time and catch The Roadrunner once and for all. It’s an ongoing, developmental process; it’s a life’s work that may still be in progress when you die. It’s rarely ever linear; there are starts and stops and circles and backtracks and stalls and speedy progresses followed by complete dead ends. Sure, make changes, make course corrections but you have to keep working at it and sometimes, you have to do the same thing over and over again, in the same way you did it before in order for it to work. Have you started drug and alcohol recovery and failed? Don’t be the coyote! Try it again. And do it in the same way you did before! Are you putting off talking to your spouse because it didn’t go well last time? TRY AGAIN! Did you meet with a therapist for 3 sessions and found yourself unable to mesh with him? Try again! The wonderful thing about Wile E. Coyote Syndrome is that it’s an entirely curable condition that requires no medication or even any real treatment. It requires only free will and effort and a little bit of persistence.
Unrelated Book: The End of Faith by Sam Harris – As alluded to in other blogs, I’m not a fan of religion. This book is a grim reminder of some of the many reasons.
Unrelated Band: Amorphis – Privilege of Evil: An oldie but a goodie all the way from Finland! The vocals are garbage, the cover art is stupid, the blast beats are poorly recorded and I’m pretty sure they misspelled their own band name but there are lots of catchy guitar riffs and memorable moments on this record that make it worth a listen!
“I’ll never be the son she wants and she’ll never be the mom I want”. For my client, who had struggled many years in his relationship with family, this was not a new epiphany but rather a qualitatively deeper dimension of ones he had before.
We all “know” that we’re supposed to love our parents and we all fundamentally understand that they will intrinsically love us back, if not due to our lovely personality then due, simply to genetics. But is it true? Really? Do our presumptions about how a thing is supposed to behave mean it’s actually so? Does a lifetime of being programmed to believe a certain thing really assure the inherent correctness of the belief? When I first heard the definition of nihilism it was related to Nietzsche and expressed as “thereevaluation of all values“. How this was interpreted by my high school brain was: “Nothing is simply a given; take nothing at face value; put everything on the chopping block and see if it remains;“. As I generally do, I’ll admit my occasional ignorance and possible misinterpretations of the great philosophers but let’s give that 16-17 year old Brandonian definition some room to breathe. It goes without saying that the odds of you getting along with every one of your coworkers or loving every work supervisor you’ve ever had or being teacher’s pet with all of your teachers from Pre K to grad school or being besties with, not only every guy at your gym, but also every single person who lives in your apartment building are extraordinarily low and I’ll suggest further that same applies to your relationship with your family. You getting along with your parents has the same potentially low odds of these or any other forced choice relationships and the presence of genes may not go as far as you’ve always believed they do. I’m also suggesting that consistently basing the entirety of or even large parts of your self esteem on this low odds relationship is part of the reason you’re anxious and depressed. Back to my client and early definitions of nihilism, “Reevaluation of All Values Brandon” (and also Slightly Modified and with Greater Depth, Current Understanding Brandon) would say “Of course it’s not working! There’s no particular reason it was supposed to!” Much in the way that Nietzsche said that “god is dead”, I’m here to say that family is a myth and that it’s time to stop worshiping it.
Consider the typical dynamics that are at work in the relationship with your spouse or your friends; you chose them; you were attracted to them. You were drawn to them by some emotional or physical or other quality. Then with consent of all parties, you and that other chose to take that initial attraction and develop it, hopefully with mutual work and care to bring it to its current state. Sure, problems have come, fights have been had but that choice to be with one another has always been there otherwise the relationship would not exist. It was consensual and mutual from the beginning (obviously unless there’s some extreme factor such as abuse or codependence) and this factor remains more or less consistent throughout the lifetime of the relationship. But the same can’t be said of the relationship with your family. You never asked to be in the relationship and when you’re a child, except under the most extreme of circumstances, you don’t have the ability to leave it. Even if you get along great with your folks and you’re currently happy to be choosing to be in the relationship, it was never up to you initially, it was just a thing that happened. It simply was where the you that became you found itself to be at the time. There’s nothing special about it.
“But we share the same genetics, of course we’re going to get along! It’s evolution! Of course this is how it was meant to be!” Unlike most animals, humans require a caregiver at birth and evolution has done a lot of the heavy lifting by naturally selecting for the trait of parental love. Those that leaned towards this trait had offspring who lived and passed that trait to their offspring. To quote Richard Dawkins from The Blind Watchmaker, “genes are not pushed to the next generation purposely. If a body has what it takes to survive, its genes automatically survive because they are inside of it.” Human offspring have a better chance of survival if they are loved and cared for by parents when they are young but what if that’s all it does? What if nature provides just enough to make sure we don’t die; just enough caregiving that our parent’s genetic material is passed down. Perhaps after that then, evolutionarily speaking, your parent’s love has no real biological significance once you’re able to care for yourself. Maybe the assumption that your parents will love you for all eternity and that you’ll automatically be their best bud forever becomes a vast evolutionary leap. Once the passing on of genetic material is complete, what after that?
We see it all the time in the animal world; parents who simply abandon their children right after or even before birth. The “ensuring of survival through parental love” comes more in the form of having greater numbers of offspring and and a crossing of the evolutionary fingers. When 2000 baby turtles hatch on a beach, they don’t worry about whether their mother wants them to get good grades or marry a good husband or if she will praise them for trick they do on their little turtle bicycle and nor does the mother care if any of these things even happen. She simply passed on genetic material and left it at that. Who’s to say that we aren’t the exact same way with some slightly different parameters, combined with a tendency to interpret common biological processes as a cosmic, mystical feeling that transcends all space and time. Maybe the idea a lot of us share that you’d “never end up being friends with your parents if you met them at a party” is the cosmic, mystical equivalent of being left on a beach as an egg. It’s entirely possible for you smug little snots who get along swimmingly with your parents that it’s simply a good combination of pure luck with bits of genetic dust sprinkled in to spice things up. Maybe you’re just an egg who made it past the seagulls and into the water.
By no means though, am I downplaying the role of positive, healthy caregiving in human childhood. It cannot be overstated how important it is to healthy adjustment of a children and the adults they become. I’m certain I’ve said this before and I hate repeating what sounds like such a tired old therapy cliché but it’s true; if I want to know why a person is struggling and therefore, seeking my services, regardless of age or stage, I never have to look much further that that person’s family of origin to find the original source. But, while it is true that a lack of care and affection from your family will almost always cause damage, the necessity of familial love and care does not guarantee of its presence. When we live with the attitude that parental love and connection is a given, we add on an extra layer of suffering by expecting things that may not be sure thing. It lends itself to facilitating beliefs like “blood is thicker than water” and “honor thy father and mother”. We convince ourselves that they will love us no matter what because they have to and that no matter what we have to love them back. This “no matter what” attitude is the free pass that a lot of us give our family to treat us poorly or even abuse us and get away with it, literally for a lifetime. STOP IT. JUST STOP. For many of you reading this, your parent’s don’t love you and they don’t have to. You only love them out of some preconceived notion that you have to and in my estimation, that’s not really love anyway. They don’t have to be good to you. While it’s probably beneficial to have a strong, healthy relationship with your folks, not having one may not mean anything more than not having a healthy relationship with your mailman. You wouldn’t base your self esteem on that relationship so why would you base it on another relationship that you just coincidentally ended up in? It would be great if you all got along great but the fact that you don’t doesn’t necessarily mean there’s something wrong with you or them. Stop making excuses for them and for yourself. Stop allowing them to reign over you with their toxicity and stop beating yourself up because it didn’t work like it was “supposed to.” STOP IT.
And with that, here’s the bottom line for all this as it relates to a psychotherapy blog; If you do love your parents and they love you and you all get along well, cherish it, for you are one of the truly lucky ones. You have and will likely benefit from it significantly. Hold onto that as tightly as you can. For everyone else, don’t sweat it. Yes, the lack of care and affection did damage to you because it’s in the biological best interest of our species to get it. But you didn’t get it and pining for things you were “supposed” to get is only harming you further. If you chose it to not be so, the upset you feel around your relationship with your parents doesn’t have to have any greater meaning. So chose not to assign it that greater meaning and get on with your life.
Unrelated Book Recommendation (that’s kinda related): I’ve already mentioned Richard Dawkins’ The Blind Watchmaker but thought I’d mention it again. Read it punk!
Unrelated Song: Alexander the Great by Iron Maiden – I randomly played this in the car and caught my 10 year old daughter humming it later on and she asked to hear it again several times. The song even inspired her to read a book on the actual Alexander the Great. If I do say so myself, THIS is what fatherly success looks like!
Occam’s Razor; The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. I’m sure you’ve heard of this before and if you haven’t, jeez dude, read a book or something will ya?! More recently, however, I was introduced to Hanlon’s Razor; “Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by stupidity and ignorance”. (Shout out to https://dailystoic.com/email for the introduction. I highly recommend signing up!) I never found out who Hanlon is but in these words, I heard a very clinically powerful and relevant message: people are not bad, they’re just uneducated or unaware. When people do bad things, it’s generally not out of malice, it’s simply a mistake; a lapse in judgment or an act of ignorance. And I’ll add my own piece (Brandon’s Razor?) and suggest that on the rare occasions when malice is at work, it means not that the person is awful but rather that multiple failures have been present at many levels in that person’s life (societally, culturally, familial-ly, etc.) that have enabled and encouraged their malicious state to come into being. It’s the tired, old, hippie, liberal douche argument that says that criminals aren’t born, they’re made; the argument that says that in almost every case, bad people are bad because they’ve been treated badly, not because they’re inherently bad.
As I hinted at, I bring this up in a psychotherapy blog because it’s of great potential therapeutic use. Regarding the practical application of Hanlon’s Razor, I’ll suggest a few things. Firstly, empathy makes us well. Hard stop. Mic drop. We’re talking about a slightly different version of empathy that I’ll call “internal empathy” but I’ll return to that shortly. Secondly, a large component of mental and emotional health entails building strong boundaries and then maintaining these boundaries in a steadfast, assertive and proactive way. After this mission is accomplished, the next part of the job is to return to center as soon as possible. In this model, there is little room for weak, blurry boundaries nor is there much room for guilt or upset after you’ve upheld them. Once you’ve held firm those lines, continuing to be in a state of upset, suspicion and anger is antithetical to wellbeing. Your job is to expect the attack, hold the line and then regain balance as soon as is appropriate. How does one do this? In plain language, I tell my clients “stop the behavior and then show internal empathy.” Prevent the crossing of boundary lines and then attempt in your own head and heart to understand and accept why someone would attempt to cross them in the first place.
This is similar to what I’ve said before regarding the clinical version of “Forgiveness of Parents”. Healing family of origin issues often entails allowing yourself to see your parents as normal, fallible people, accepting the shoddy job they did as likely the best they could do and then ultimately forgiving them for that lackluster performance. The process of forgiving and accepting your parents is where “internal empathy” comes in really handy; it isn’t something you do for them; it’s for you. It necessarily does not involve a conversation with them; it’s an act that you do for you by you and its best completed in your own head and heart alone. It’s not so much a behavior change as it is a shift in mindset. Sure, your parents benefit but that’s not the point. When you work towards forgiveness of your parents, you turn your harmful anger and resentment into the healing emotions of understanding and empathy. Again, empathy makes us well. You forgive and accept internally so that you can live with greater mental and emotional health, not for them but for you. Hanlon’s Razor, in my estimation, works much in the same way. Rather than consistently despising and resenting everyone who does you wrong, you attempt to view them with empathy and compassion. You allow for the idea that the reason they hurt people is because they themselves are hurting. With this more empathetic and accepting attitude, you gain a greater sense of balance and wellbeing. As stated, the people who attempt to harm are benefitted as well but this is simply a pleasant side effect.
Here’s a real life example to illustrate the idea. One morning, while casually observing the courtyard outside my home, I saw a man I’ve never seen before walking down the sidewalk. He had some sort of lanyard around his neck and I initially assumed he was an Amazon delivery driver. But he had no packages; he had no electronic scanning devices in his hand; he had no uniform to suggest that he worked for a delivery service. And unlike most delivery guys, he was casting his eyes around covertly as if he were trying to survey the land without arousing suspicion. When he eventually started rummaging through a bag on my neighbor’s porch and then walking up the steps to the next neighbors porch and scoping it out, I knew for sure he was up to no good. This felt like a pretty clear cut case of “see something, say something” and as my complex is rather small, there wouldn’t be enough time to call the police so I decided to act. “EXCUSE ME SIR, CAN I HELP YOU?!”, I said in the most booming and stern voice I could muster (which likely wasn’t booming or stern). He stopped dead in his tracks but didn’t make eye contact. He pretended to ignore me but his quickened pace and muttering of indiscernible obscenities on his way out of the complex made it obvious that he knew he’d been caught. He disappeared quickly and I haven’t seen him since so I’d say mission accomplished. If this story were told on some social media site, the comment section would be full of “Good thing he didn’t show up at my place, I’d a blown his head off”; too bad the cops didn’t get there in time to arrest that sorry piece of shit!; Ugh, porch pirates are the lowest form of life. They all need to be locked up forever; God will judge him and send him to hell!” (There’d also be some spam ad for boner pills and random negative comments about Joe Biden but that’s beside the point).
This hypothetical comment section is exactly the opposite of what I’m talking about. An attempt was made to cross boundaries, the attempt was stopped but the hypothetical people in the hypothetical comment section have held onto their anger, frustration and judgment and expressed zero empathy. Hypothetical others who hypothetically didn’t comment, didn’t do so because they felt too scared or guilty to stop the attempt at boundary crossing and simply let it happen. This is also the opposite of this interpretation of Hanlon’s Razor. As I attempted to apply the idea in this case, I saw my job as twofold; stop the guy from doing the bad thing through appropriate means and then in my own head and heart, attempt to show internal empathy by trying to understand what it’s like to be a porch pirate; to try and put myself in the shoes of someone who feels they can commit or have tocommit such acts, to try and imagine how much suffering he’s had to endure to get to a point where conscience, fairness and concern for others seem to no longer apply. If correct, these signs all point to a man who was acting out of his own suffering. Again keep in mind, that phrase “INTERNAL empathy”; the version of Hanlon’s Razor I’m suggesting doesn’t mean I allow myself to be taken advantage of. It also doesn’t mean I shoot everyone who does me wrong. It means I take appropriate means to protect myself and then protect myself further by showing empathy in my own head and heart so that I live better despite the world’s attempts to harm me. This is not simply turning the other cheek; it’s stopping the person from slapping you and then showing grace and generosity by understanding why they felt the need to slap you in the first place.
Now imagine the large scale implication of this: You practice this in your life with everyone and in every situation you encounter. You proactively set and hold fast your boundaries and then then reward yourself for keeping them by showing empathy in your own head and heart. You do it with the guy who cuts you off in traffic. You do it with your idiot sister. You do it with your wife. You do it with the guy who left dog poop on the sidewalk in front of your house. You do it with members of your local and national government and cultural and other leaders in your life. You do it with everyone. And then PRESTO!!! Mental and emotional health! TADA!!! You win and so does everyone else. Yay you. And everyone else I guess…
Unrelated Song: A Black Rose Burial – A Baleful Aura in the Graveyard or Broken Gears – I know literally almost nothing about this band but this album has frequently been on repeat since I found them on Myspace all those years ago.
Animal Farm by George Orwell – I mentioned to a friend that I was reading this and how it was really good but kind of obvious and on the nose. He replied “that’s why most people read it in their high school English class”. I didn’t read this or any other classic literature in my high school to my recollection! Thanks again 90’s Arkansas public education system!
This blog has always had two purposes: Providing a repository for all my long winded thoughts on philosophy, especially as they relate to psychotherapy and number two, marketing. We’ll be focusing more on the marketing side of things today so it’ll be a tad dryer than usual but I hope you’ll read anyway. Let’s talk business shall we?
Here are the bottom of the barrel facts: I operate a business. I sell therapy. To suggest otherwise is not only comically inaccurate but also a bold face lie. While it’s absolutely true that the art of therapy is so much more than an exchange of goods and services for tiny pieces of arbitrarily valuable green paper, at some level, it is an exchange of goods and services. To not acknowledge this end of things would also be comically inaccurate, so I shan’t do it.
When selecting a therapist from whom to purchase therapy services, people generally want to know only a few simple things to help them make their decision: Can you help me, how will you go about helping me and how much will it cost for you to help me? It’s an inelegant list but it’s a practical and necessary one so let’s attempt to answer those questions.
Can you help me? Short answer “probably” with a but, long answer “maybe” with an even bigger butt (see what I did there?). I cannot, nor can any therapist offer guaranteed results. In fact, my licensing board forbids me from even making such claims and they’re right to do so. Due to the nature of what counseling is and what it isn’t, certainty is never 100%. As I’ve said before, psychotherapy is less a science and more an art form with bits of science sprinkled in. We’re not looking at things with a “cure” in mind like our medical counterparts may be. If you have an infection, you can take a blood test and confirm it. You can then be prescribed antibiotics to eliminate that infection entirely. Mental and emotional illness don’t operate in the same way. You can’t see depression under a microscope. There’s no medication or therapy that “eliminates” bipolar disorder. If we look at things this way, we’re working with a completely different story.The question becomes less “can you help me” in the concrete way and leans more towards a qualitative, “is the psychotherapy experience likely be beneficial for me?”
Just because you go to a museum with priceless works of art doesn’t mean you’ll like even a single painting. Loving a certain song has a million conscious and unconscious factors at work that are as difficult to list and define as they are subjective in nature. Being moved by a poem can be an wholly indescribable and personal experience. A sculptor may use the finest and most “proper” technique when he makes his piece but for some people, the piece will be of no meaning. It will not touch them in an emotional way. For others, the work will speak to the very core of their soul. For better or worse, psychotherapy operates in much the same way. Just like what would be considered the more visual and creative arts, therapy has to hit you juuuust right. The list of factors important to successful psychotherapy is seemingly endless; the client has to be in the right frame of mind, he or she has to have the appropriate motivation, be psychologically minded, be willing to be vulnerable…and even if this unending list of criteria are satisfied and even if the therapist uses the finest and most “proper” technique, sometimes, much like our sculptor example, it’s just not a good fit. There’s no connection. There’s no rapport built between client and therapist and if this is so, very likely elegant and proper technique will be for naught. My lawyer friend Rob once said of the legal system; “Is it illegal? The answer to that is always ‘maybe and it depends'”. Is Brandon Peters, LPC the right therapist for you and can he help you? Maybe and it depends.
How will you go about helping me? Whoo! That’s an even bigger question! I view therapy as having 2 major parts; The Emotions Phase and The Action Phase. In The Emotions Phase, we’re looking at traumas and experiences that have harmed you and the resulting unpleasant emotions that express themselves both consciously and unconsciously that hold you back in your daily functioning and overall wellbeing. One of the things that essentially all counseling modalities have in common is the work done in this phase; feeling difficult feelings with a caring other as a witness and guide rather than simply offering catharsis has been shown time and time again to be one of the major healing factors in almost all forms of therapy. Therefore, our work here is to bring awareness, insight and within the bounds of a safe, nonjudgmental atmosphere, create a holding pattern for the emotions so that the “wisdom of the brain” can then bring about processing of those feelings so that their effects on you diminish.
In The Emotions Phase, we’re focusing primarily on the more irrational parts of you and saving a look at logic for later. Feelings don’t always make sense and very often they’re resistant to you begging them to listen to reason. Once we reach The Action Phase, however, we’ve taken some of the power away from the unpleasant, irrational emotions so that logic and concrete changes have more effect. Here, we work to create behavioral changes and cognitively based coping strategies that take the newfound health gained in The Emotions Phase and build upon it further, resulting in a solidified healthier level of functioning. In The Action Phase, we’re no longer going from bad to good, we’re going from good to better. This phase is like having lost 75 pounds of fat and then turning your attention more specifically towards muscle growth and strength.
How much will it cost me? On average, an individual therapy session, without using an insurance company will cost approximately $150 dollars. I decided long ago to stop working with insurance companies, as I see them as cumbersome and annoying at best and fraudulent, unethical and detrimental to the field of psychotherapy on the extreme other end. Insurance companies dictate what you and I can do in our sessions. They dictate how long you and I can do what we do. They pay me lower rates but don’t give you any discounts on premiums or services and then pocket the difference. Insurance companies sometimes only cover the lowest standard of care and often very little of that. You have been promised to be fed by them and you pay well enough in premiums and other costs to cover a gourmet meal but the only thing that they provide are McDonalds burgers that have been dropped on the floor. Sure, you’re being fed as promised but you’re getting the worst possible version of being fed. The end result is an industry that is incentivized to give the worst version of what the professional has to offer. Providers have to take on more clients to make up for lost revenue and rather than focusing on their clients needs, have to spend vast amounts of time traversing an elaborate bureaucratic maze to make those funds. This continual engagement with the objectifying bureaucratic complex and needing larger caseloads often has the effect of making the clinician more susceptible to treating client’s like numbers and diagnoses rather than actual people. Insurance companies benefit, you the client and me the provider end up with the shortest possible end of the stick.
Yes, your cost to do therapy with me would be slightly cheaper with insurance but due to the factors mentioned above, when working without insurance, you’re getting a higher standard of care. While this may not always be the case with a more medically based provider, in psychotherapy, a counselor who does not accept insurance tends to be a more experienced, more mature counselor, who provides a higher level of expertise and who can focus solely on you. I don’t have to spend any time fighting with corporate giants, convincing them again and again that I and my clients together know what’s best. I simply meet with you, on a human to human level, in a genuine and authentic relationship with no third party interference and we decide collaboratively what’s best for you. Again with the food analogy, it’s the difference in getting a hamburger from McDonald’s or a steak from a gourmet restaurant; sure the steak costs more but it’s a lot higher quality. It wasn’t spit in by a disgruntled teenager. It also tastes way better and is less likely to give you the runs.
Again, on average, an individual psychotherapy session in the United States is around $150 and as of this writing (August 2023) I offer a competitive rate of $120 per session for both individual and couples counseling.
As initially stated, this blog is partially intended as a marketing tool. In that regard and with the information you now have, please consider choosing me as your therapist or referring a friend or loved one today! Feel free to call, text or email anytime and I wish you well!
Brandon Peters Licensed Professional Counselor 2929 Allen Parkway Suite 200 Houston, TX 77019 832.654.3147
The Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre – I “read” this book for free on a Youtube audiobook channel and the voice is done by one of those 90’s speech to text programs where the technology wasn’t so good yet. It’s super creepy and choppy and good lord, you should hear it try to pronounce French words!! Therefore, I recommend this book but I’d say actually READ it, don’t let a robot read it to you like I did.
Unrelated music recommendation:
Prowler in the Yard by Pig Destroyer – Several bullet points here;
1. This album may have been my introduction to grindcore.
2. I stumbled upon the album in Seattle in the attic part of a CD store while my then band was on tour.
3. That same day we searched for and found Kurt Cobain’s house (and sadly took video but no pictures).
4. The intro track to the album is done in that same 90’s speech recognition software voice that I mentioned in the book recommendation so it’s hard not to associate the two.
5. Prepare yourself; this album is not for the faint of heart. The lyrics, harshness of the music, the disturbing album cover and overall tone are a lot to take in if you’re not a fan of this type of music. Be warned but enjoy your sonic journey through one of the all time masterpieces in the grindcore genre!
I recently joined a new gym. I was quite happy with the old one but unfortunately, my bank account wasn’t. The new place was cheaper and offered more classes that I’m interested in so I made the switch. But man was I in for a surprise! The old gym is a family owned place and I felt welcome and respected and received more than adequate levels instruction and value and I can’t say enough good things about it, again, except for the price. Now that I’ve experienced the new gym, however, I can say that the old one is definitely what I’d call a “townie gym”; it’s quietly tucked away in a residential neighborhood and fairly regular dudes go there to take classes. When I say “dudes”, I mean that in the most intentionally vague and generalized way. These are not professionals. They are not athletes. They’re just dudes from the neighborhood who go and do a thing in a fairly average way. No doubt, some of them have extremely high skill and fitness levels but that’s only in comparison with other average Joe’s. These are the best guys on your intramural soccer team; the guy that played baseball in college who now consistently outperforms everyone on the company softball team; the girl at your office who can do the splits and your cousin who has six pack abs. They’re at the top of their game. But their game, is the game of the regular guy; the game of the enthusiast; the hobbyist. If they were to compete against people who do it for a living, they’re not even competition for the most losing-est guy on the team. The best basketball player on the court at your local YMCA would be smashed to bits in a second by the weakest NBA player. The most advanced jujitsu practitioner at your average BJJ school would be choked out in seconds by the lowest roster of the UFC. That dude you see at your gym who’s benching nearly the entire rack is definitely strong but he’s not competing in the World’s Strongest Man Competition because he’s not even as strong as the weakest of the world’s strongest men. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with townies at a townie gym. I’m one and very likely, so are you. You probably go to a townie gym and I did too until recently. It was only after much pain and suffering I realized that my new gym is just the other side of the spectrum; It’s full of professionals. Some of whom are championship title holding people who do what they do not just for fun but as a way to make a living. It’s purely accidental that I ended up in this gym and definitely NOT because I can hang with them in any way. With no false modesty or playful self deprecation I can say that in every class I’ve taken, I’m the oldest, shortest, fattest, weakest, least technically skilled and on every measure, the worst in the entire gym. To say that I’m intimidated, doesn’t even begin to capture it. To say that I’m in over my head is laughable. To say that I’m drowning would be an understatement. To say that I have already drowned and that I float around the gym as a stinky, bloated corpse that acts as an annoyance to others doing actual serious training comes closer to it but not quite.
Despite everything I just said, I can toot my own horn and say they haven’t ran me off yet. I’m a tough son of a bitch and I don’t give up easily and if you’ve read some of my other blogs talking about therapeutic nihilism, stoicism and existentialism, you’ll know where some of this persistence comes from. But as I’ve also mentioned, it doesn’t always work. I accept that I’m a 44 year old dude with dad bod who’s not the least bit athletically inclined but it’s still really hard to go to this gym, get smashed every day, come in dead fucking last on every possible metric and still walk away with some self esteem in tact. One morning before heading to the gym, I attempted to use some of the philosophies mentioned to give myself some motivation and make myself feel a little better about the whole situation. But it just didn’t work. I was slow to move, I was filled with fatigue and soreness and dread. Honestly, I was even a little scared to show up and act like I belong in a place where I so clearly don’t. The only thing that got me moving was my frugality; I had already paid for the membership and come hell or high water, I WAS GOING TO THIS DAMN GYM. That was enough to make me throw on my gym clothes and get in the car but it didn’t make me feel better and neither did anything else. Then the ironic aha moment happened: Give up. Stop trying to make yourself feel good about something that isn’t good. Its okay to feel bad.
Feelings are important. Not just the pleasant and fun ones but all feelings. We evolved emotions for the very same survival reasons we evolved opposable thumbs and upright locomotion. They’re a good and useful thing and they’re part of what it means to be a human. To not allow yourself to experience unpleasant emotions is not only unhealthy but also renders you only a partial participant in the human experience. It’s unnatural to be content and happy all the time and your attempts to be so may be part of the reason you are not content and happy; you’re attempting to live in a manner that goes against your nature. Evolution has endowed you with feelings for a reason and they are neither good nor bad, not positive or negative, they’re just experienced as pleasant or unpleasant. Cutting ourselves off from the “bad” feelings makes no more sense than chopping off our own hands because sometimes we use them to hold weapons. As Americans, we live under the delusion of toxic positivity; “Try your best…Look on the bright side…Just keep a positive attitude…”, etc. It’s one of those cultural traits whose aim is great but completely misses the mark in its current version. Being fully human means accepting, incorporating and experiencing the full range of emotions and the idea that you must still be happy even when things are terrible is a lie and it’s harming you. Sometimes stuff just sucks and to an extent, it’s healthy to feel bad about it when it does. Sometimes life just doesn’t work and you have every right to feel bad and every right to not even try to not feel bad about it. Sometimes things are bad and there’s no deeper meaning to it and you simply have to sit with the misery for a while. Its okay to not be happy all the time. It’s okay to feel bad sometimes.
Unrelated Book Recommendation: To Kill a Mockingbird. A classic that I’m just now reading. Does anyone else remember the movie though? I think it was one of the lawyers who was opposite Atticus…he sat, in a court of law, with his leg flung over the arm of his chair, lounging like a slob during most of the courtroom scenes. It always bugged the hell out of me. Maybe I haven’t gotten to that part of the book yet?
Unrelated Song: Eye on the Finish Line by Pedro the Lion. I don’t know what this song is about but that mournful tone gets me every time!
The human brain evolved an ability to recognize, predict and manipulate patterns and this ability is part of what kept our species alive. If we know that a deer will need water and will come to this water hole and if we know that a projectile launched from an elastic cord will cause death in that animal and if we know we can use tinder and spark to create fire and if we know we can use that fire to cook and then eat that animal, we stay alive. If we know that a thunderstorm can be dangerous without shelter, we can then build that shelter and stay alive. If we know that this plant is poisonous and we then avoid it, we stay alive. It’s all logical and sequential and the effects are cumulative. They’re recognizable patterns. The examples are literally endless but they don’t just apply to our ancestors. Think through a day in your modern, non-caveman life and notice how many if/then situations you encounter; If I get a job, I can buy a car, if I have the key in my hand, I can put it in the keyhole to start the car, then I can then drive the car to McDonalds and I can buy a hamburger…tens of thousands of examples in a given day. And it all started back in our primordial cellular lineage when the tendency to recognize, predict and manipulate patterns was selected for by evolution. Those that had this trait lived on and we now call them “us”. Those that did not, died and we don’t call them anything because they’re dead.
The problem with evolution though, is that it sometimes works too well. It works so well that brain sometimes applies certain tendencies generically and pervasively throughout life and gets a bit stuck when the expected result doesn’t show up. But you can’t blame it for being that way. The early human brain, possibly even before we could actually call it a brain, had to apply rigid, unyielding rules for survival. In survival, there is no margin for error. It’s black and white; yes or no. Do this and survive to pass on your genes; don’t do this and perish. That rigidity remains with us today and may be responsible for a large chunk of the suffering you experience in life.
I’m talking about the shock, horror, upset, resentment, judgment, disappointment, anger and innumerable other unpleasant emotions that you feel when you don’t get the reaction or the results you expected. You expect A+B=C but instead you get A+B=Chicken Salad Sandwich. And when you get that weird, unexpected result, you lose your damn mind! Your brain tells you that if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll get ahead in life. Then when you do it and it doesn’t work, you get depressed. You tell yourself that if you diet and exercise you won’t get cancer…then you do get cancer and you are shocked and distraught. You expect to drive to work with literally thousands of other people at the same time with no issues and then when a guy in traffic cuts you off, what do you do? You scream at him and hope he crashes his car. When government officials don’t conduct themselves the way they promised, you lose all faith in your country. When your team doesn’t win, you get angry. Much further down on this terrible spectrum, you say things like “if she was raped, why didn’t she just go to the police? (It’s the logical thing to do, of course.)” When your “straight” son brings home a boyfriend you disown him. Your primitive little brain that’s hardwired to expect rigid and predictable patterns served you well when you were but a lowly animal on the plains of Africa but in the endlessly complex and varied world of the modern human experience, we have in some ways outgrown this primitive programming and for the sake of our mental and emotional heath, must transcend it. When we get the proverbial chicken salad sandwich, it does us no good to respond like a stereotypical cartoon robot, whose brain sizzles and pops while a computerized voice shouts “ERROR! ERROR! DOES NOT COMPUTE!!”
As a therapist, I’ve literally heard thousands of times something to the effect of the following: “If she loved me, then why would she abuse me?”; “He’s my dad, he would never do that”; “If I were in that situation, I’d never act like that”; “If that happened to me, I’d just do this…”. And in equal measure I’ve seen examples counter to this; people who would never cheat on their wife who did, parents who would never treat their children that way, who did, adults who would never act like their dad who do, people who will always be honest who lie. In essence I’ve witnessed, literally thousands of times when the logical and expected pattern didn’t emerge; when A+B did not = C. In order to be a therapist, I have to recognize and then work around the evolutionary shortcoming of my own brain that tells me to expect logical patterns. I have to be able reconcile the irreconcilable nature of mankind. I have to hear every day about the awful or stupid things that people have done and not condemn them. I have to hear about the times they didn’t speak up when awful and stupid things were done to them and not label them as worthless idiots. I have to hear countless examples of when things didn’t go the way they were supposed to; when things happened that didn’t make sense; when logic failed. I then have to silence that urge of my lizard brain to pass judgment. I have to resist this part of my genetic heritage and instead show empathy, compassion and acceptance and see my client as a whole, valuable and worthwhile being.
As always, this is where I’ll remind you that this is a psychotherapy blog and that the aim of psychotherapy is greater mental and emotional health, aka “feeling better”. And with that in mind, I’ll also remind you of why I’m writing these words: You should apply these ideas in your everyday life. With everyone and in every situation. Expect people to be awful. Expect things to go wrong. Expect the unexpected. Accept that things will not go according to logic and be ready for it. As much as is possible, counter those unexpected things with empathy and acceptance. When you do, it’ll soften the blow. It will make your life better.
Unrelated Book Recommendation: Not Now Cancer, I’m Busy: Facing a Health Crisis in Early and Mid Life by Melissa Trevathan Minnis and Dianne Meeks Brown
I’m recommending this book because it’s a good book but also because my close personal friend wrote it. With very little bias, I can say its both an eye opener and a tear jerker.
Unrelated Song Recommendation: Spire by Glassing. There’s a lot I could say about this song and this band but I think they say it just fine on their own.
I’ve been told my entire life that this would surely be the year that the planet would catch fire and burn itself out of existence, taking all of us right along with it for the fiery ride. You have been too. But somehow, here I am at the ripe old age of 44, still alive, still doing therapy, still making fart jokes with my kid, still playing in a crappy band that no one listens to, still writing a blog that no one reads. Not to scoff at these claims though; I do believe climate change is real and that it could be the end of us all. I do have some fear of what the future of AI could look like. Nuclear war is a possibility. There’s great therapeutic power, though, in the Stoic idea of worrying about things when you need to worry about them and not shortening your life with worry before it’s time to do so. It’s what I do and it works phenomenally. You should try it. You really should.
But let’s be doomy and gloomy for a minute. What if I told you that the world was, in fact dying? What if I could assure you that in the near future, or at least at some point in your lifetime, you would suffer greatly and at length and that the suffering would end in the death of you, everyone you love and everything you hold dear?
I’m reminded of an ex-girlfriend who was from Venezuela. Early on in our relationship, her mother still lived there. As I’m aware, her grandmother and several other family members still live there. She described their lives there as impoverished and difficult and she was very saddened by the fact that they couldn’t yet or may never be able to immigrate to the US. One of the simple yet powerful things that always struck me about that was this: Someone’s granny lives there. Someone’s sister lives there. Someone’s brother, uncle and every other family member and every other relationship designation that exists still live there, in that place, that has been described to me as what might remain after the apocalypse. For now, they carry on. They still go to the store. They still sleep at night. They still go to the toilet and get together with friends and talk on the phone and check the mail and play with their kids. They suffer a great deal but for those who have lived through it, they continue on with their lives and work around the misery as best they can. Their lives are unpleasant to say the least but for now, they continue on with them.
When I was in about 7th grade, there was a guy (who we’ll call Brad) who was the first in my cohort to get in real trouble. I think he was selling drugs on campus or something. He was the first kid I ever knew to get expelled. After that, he just disappeared. In the back of my head there was this unchallenged assumption that if you got in that much trouble, you’d just be annihilated. Life would just cease. Imagine my momentary disorientation when that unchecked, set in stone assumption was debunked years later when I saw him on Facebook. After he got in the worst trouble I could think of at the time, he still had to deal with his parents and work through puberty and learn to drive a car and get a job and maybe find a romantic relationship and eat lunch. It’s easy to just unconsciously assume that when things get really bad in a place far away, or for people who have it really bad and then disappear that things just stop. But they don’t. And if and when they get bad for you, unless it kills you, your life won’t stop either. You may have to suffer through it.
Here’s where I again make the plug for Stoicism and Existentialism; It’s inevitable that America and maybe the world will sooner or later meet a fate as bad or worse than Venezuela or your life may end up worse than Brad’s was when he got in trouble. Even if the Brad-ian or Venezuelan version is not the one that ultimately comes to pass, some other version of suffering and death will. It’s inevitable. Stoicism asks “Can you live through it?” If the answer is yes, then accept your fate and carry on; maybe even learn to love your fate. It asks further, “Do you have any power over it?” The answer is likely “No” or at least very little. Stoicism replies “Then your duty is to treat it with indifference.” Existentialism asks “Will it kill you?” if the answer is yes, then that’s fine; it happens to everyone and you’ll get no special pass. If not this, then something else would have. Whether you die at 18 or 180, it was coming either way, so live your life as fully as you can, while you can, inside the limitations you have.
I have zero desire to live in an apocalyptic nightmare. Starvation is super lame. Zombies are annoying and I really don’t want to deal with them. I like it warm but the temperatures predicted by climate change sound too much even for me. I’m in no mood right now to deal with whatever version of Skynet that AI morphs into and I don’t see myself ever being able to deal with it. But I might have to be. And you might too. And there might not be anything either one of us can do about it but accept our fate and do the best with it we can. And that, my friends, is my message to you. The world may, in fact, be ending and it may be ending soon but it’s not ending today so don’t worry about it. When it does end though and when it really sucks while it’s ending, accept your fate and do the best with it you can. The sooner you can learn to do that, the better your life will be.
Unrelated book: A Matter of Death and Life by Irvin and Marilyn Yalom. Yalom is my favorite author of all time and my mentor by proxy. Through his books and the few times I’ve attended his lectures, I feel like I know him well. That being the case, this book where he and his wife narrate her ultimately fatal battle with cancer, was one of the saddest books I’ve ever read but I still recommend it to you.
Unrelated song: I’m not sure why I’ve been listening to this lately. Check out the album version of the song too but this live version is really good!
Did I crack the code? Probably not but honestly, when I started thinking about this, I felt like I had. As a psychotherapist and general guy who overthinks things and runs his mouth too much, I’ve spent years believing there’s a certain way to live and I’ve spent a lot of time telling people about it. Most of that audience are my paying clients and, by default, asked for my opinion but if you were one of the ones who aren’t and didn’t, my bad.
I’ve struggled, though, to find a concrete answer as to why I should live a certain way. I mean, what’s the point? If my existential/nihilistic leanings ultimately end with thought “none of this matters” then why even bother? If, in the end, we all die and it dies with us and we likely won’t even experience death anymore than we experienced the time before we’re born, then why not just shoot up heroin every day, spend endless hours with prostitutes and be completely gluttonous in every possible way. Why NOT choose hedonism and “enjoy” life, burn out quickly and leave a charred but very experienced corpse?
The easy and obvious, but nonetheless valuable, answer to this is because I’ll enjoy in a deeper way. Not just in the hedonistic way but in a qualitatively better and more fulfilling way. I choose not to drink to excess more than occasionally because life is generally better without cirrhosis of the liver. There are probably lots of criminal activities that are super fun but I choose not to be involved because life is usually better outside of the penitentiary. I hate exercising but I almost always feel better when I do it. I allow myself to feel my feelings because, although sometimes more difficult, it’s a more truthful, pure and honest way of living that almost always results in a net more satisfying existence.
For most of us those are sufficient answers. Do it because it feels good long term. Problem solved. But what about the deeper meaning? Is there a larger, dare I say, even spiritual meaning other than “cuz it feelz guud?” Is there a reason for me to live in a healthy, virtuous, meaning seeking manner that transcends humanity other than the antiquated notion that a man in the sky will give me cake when I die if I’m good? To me, the answer is obviously yes (otherwise why write a blog about it right?).
Despite a growing understanding of how the universe works and despite our searching of this universe for the contrary, we seem to be entirely alone. No green aliens, no Klingons, no Wookies, no bacteria or even one fossil of a single celled organism. Not even a fraction of a hint of evidence of anything that ever was or ever will be alive. Just us. Just humans, plants and animals and out of trillions of planets, only on earth. And of those living beings that reside on that one lucky planet, it’s likely that humans alone possess consciousness in the way we possess it. And of those living beings who posses consciousness in a form that enables us to contemplate existence, you and I, despite the vast problems with present society and government and culture, happen to be living in the most prosperous, well fed, well housed, abundant, tolerant, inclusive, safe, air conditioned, internet-ed, cushy point in the entire history of our species, period. Let us also not forget the billions of accidents and coincidences that got us to that point in the first place. By chance, Earth rests in the Goldilocks Zone of our solar system; not too far from the sun, not too close; just right. Distantly related to this through a series of mostly blind and random mutations, it was our species alone that evolved in such way that we achieved consciousness and became the dominant species. Out of the trillions of sperm produced by every man on the planet, there was only one that made you you and the fact that you survived long enough after conception to be the somewhat hairless primate your are now who’s taking the time to read a stupid blog is nothing short of odds defying-ly astounding. Put all those points together and ask yourself the question; HOW UNBELIEVABLY LUCKY ARE YOU? Statistically speaking, you shouldn’t be here but despite all those odds, you are. Doesn’t that mean something? MIGHT that make you something special? Doesn’t that specialness POSSIBLY give you some responsibility? MIGHT THAT mean some obligation to do this right? It’s said that the possibility of life is as likely as a million monkeys at a million typewriters accidentally writing the greatest novel ever written. If that were literally the case, wouldn’t that book be one of the most celebrated, cherished and awe inspiring artifacts ever created? And wouldn’t that book be treated respectfully and maybe even celebrated as sacred? Well, here we are; the greatest novel ever written and being read by you at possibly the best part of the story.
We are a completely isolated and lonely anomaly throughout all space and time and all signs point to that uniqueness coming by way of sheer chance. Again, statistically speaking, we’re not even supposed to be here. I believe that imbues me with a duty to live well. It obligates me to approach my life with an attitude of humility, respect and gratitude and awe and to live it as fully as I can in and in the healthiest, most life affirming way possible. Human existence is the result of random coincidences spread out of time. We’re accidentally special and that accidental nature is part of what makes us special. You have been given a gift and that gift is a one in a bazaillion shot. It is your job to treat it as such.
Unrelated Album: Let’s get nostalgic for a second. This was one of the first actual CD’s I ever owned. Not my favorite band in the world but still really good. Saw them on a recent tour stop and I can tell ya, they still goT it!
As I’ve read back over this article to make final edits before posting, I’m noticing my discomfort with the many, many holes in the argument I’m proposing. The ideas presented here are not fully fleshed out and need further thought and clarification and in their current state, could be disputed easily. However, as I dive deeper into the world of philosophy, I believe I’m finding at least some support for them. Schopenhauer seems to be suggesting it with his proposition that an object cannot exist without a subject to perceive it. Heidegger seems to proposing a similar idea. Physicists of our time are more and more putting forth a “simulation model” that would also fit somewhat with the ideas below. At the moment, however, I’m unsure of all this. Perhaps I’ve misunderstood those philosophies. I know for certain that I don’t possess enough understanding to fully claim anything physics says. Hopefully, I’m at least on the right track though and will be at the destination some day. For now then, forgive me while I put forth a provocatively titled, tentatively stated, beginning of an incomplete idea.
I’ve heard time and time again that that those involved in organized religion tend to score higher on measures of health and overall wellness and report greater levels of satisfaction and happiness. What’s their secret? Is it really the man in the sky watching over them, ensuring their wellbeing? Unlikely I think. Social support and the resources that come along with it are likely the culprit and the ones that research has pointed to. But if believing in a made up god can make you live longer, why not just do that? Because it’s silly, that’s why. BUT they may be onto something. They may have accidentally cracked the code. Ever heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster) Pastafarianism was explained to me by a friend and although his description of the “movement” gave a little more credit than was due, his idea stuck with me. To butcheringly paraphrase him, “Christians make up a god and in the process also invent meaning and purpose but the brain doesn’t necessarily distinguish between the real and the made up in that regard and so they benefit psychologically and otherwise from it as if it were real. They’ve convinced themselves that someone big up above has a vested interest in their wellbeing and the brain and body accepts it as true and follows suit. As an additional byproduct of this act, they gain a supportive community which further benefits them psychologically and otherwise. The Pastafarians just did the same thing and then said, if we’re going to make up a god, let’s have some fun with it. We’ll make our higher power out of spaghetti and we’ll dress up like pirates when we go to praise him!”
Again, I learned later there may have been a bit of artistic license to that description but the point still stands. What then for those of us who can’t put our lives into the hands of a fairy tale (or who don’t want to dress up like pirates)? Can we can still use a similar line of thought to get a great return on investment through this subtle bending and shaping of reality. The answer is yes and you’ve likely already been doing it every day without even knowing it. Homer Simpson isn’t real. He does not exist, yet he’s had a major positive influence on my life and continues to do so (although the last several seasons of the Simpsons have sucked even more than the “crappy” ones from the previous years). Homer has an effect on us because we act “as if” he were real. Most of us believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy when we were kids and we enjoyed the holidays all the more for it. We thought magic was real and we felt excitement and joy when our uncle pulled a quarter out of our ear. We also felt pure terror because we were sure there was a ghost in our house. There surely is an objective material world out there and humans, like all other creatures, are subject to its laws but there’s also a large part of our existence that’s purely subjective and perceptual. If you chose to believe in a certain way, then for you, it is true in a very valid sense. If I believe you hate me, it matters very little if you actually do or don’t hate me. Every word and action you say or take will be interpreted through that biased lens and I’ll likely always end up with the idea that I am hated. This is my perceptual truth and it has a real effect on me. It may not be real reality but it is the reality I chose to let affect me. It may not be reality but I can fool my primitive brain into believing it is and end up with the exact same result. In this way, like the religious, we’re just working the system.
Keep in mind that this is a psychotherapy related blog. Our goal here is greater mental and emotional health; aka feeling better. If it’s potentially the case that the religious make up “truth” and benefit from it, if it’s potentially the case that we act as if a cartoon idiot is real and get laughter from him then why not put this to use therapeutically? If you believe you’re rotten and unlovable then, why not reverse engineer it and believe good things for yourself? If you feel that you’ll never amount to anything, why keep believing it if you don’t have to? If, as this argument suggests, reality is somewhat perceptual and arbitrary, why then would you chose one that works against your best interests when you have the ability to believe another way? I’ve met sooooooo many client’s over the years who have said things like “I can’t do that, I’m bipolar” or “Nah, I’ll never be able to accomplish that, I’m an alcoholic”. This is the same thing we’re talking about, just in the opposite direction. If your chosen narrative of helplessness can render you helpless, why not, then could a narrative of agency give you more mastery over your environment?
Here’s where we run into a bit of a conundrum though. Am I suggesting you just ignore your feelings and copout by just believing “objectively” untrue things about yourself? Am I really suggesting that the most lowly child rapist on death row just do some mental jujitsu and end up with “I’m a good person”? For better or worse, he can and that is part of my nihilism argument from a while back (https://brandonpeterslpc.wordpress.com/2018/06/16/meet-your-new-bff-nihilism/) and although problematic and worth noting, for our thoughts today this is somewhat beside the point.
The short answer to the copout question above is, of course, no. To clarify that no, we must take a very different track where therapy itself is at the heart of the answer. I frequently tell my clients that there are stages in therapy. Essentially, the first several stages involve healing and cleaning up trauma so that in the later stages we can fool and, in the process, rewire the brain in a positive direction much in the same way that trauma has done previously in the opposite direction. Trauma fools you into thinking you’re terrible and therefore, you act terrible and those actions serve to reinforce a whole circular process. After the trauma is more or less healed, we can then use things like, diet, exercise, sleep hygiene, meditation, mindfulness, etc., to trick the brain into believing you’re good, which eventually solidifies into a new subjective truth; I am good. Trauma forces us to believe terrible things about ourselves and we act as if it were true and get terrible results. Clearing up the effects of trauma then, allows us to make a different choice and we, therefore, get better results. Are we objectively better? Who knows. Subjectively and perceptually, however, we are better and therefore, our brain and body accepts it as true and reacts accordingly. In this way, we’re taking a subjective state, treating it as an objective state and in the process getting more or less objective results. We’re actively choosing our reality. Just like the religious, we’re choosing a certain way of looking at the world and reaping the benefits of that choice. Just like them, we’re just working the system.
With the disclaimers about the holes in this idea noted and the tentativeness established, there you have it. To an extent, reality is subjective and you can bend it and shape it in the way that’s beneficial to you. I say do so. The religious of the world have been doing it thousands of years. Now it’s your turn. Go work the system.
Unrelated Song Recommendation: Meh…given the title of this blog, I guess a band called “God Dethroned” is kind of related? Maybe?
Unrelated Book Recommendation: Totally out of left field here and VERY much unrelated…
The U.S. Army Survival Handbook. I actually learned quite a bit from this book!
I recently rewatched the entire Lord of the Rings series with my daughter. She was not quite 8 at the time of viewing and admittedly, there was a part of me that wondered if it was poor parenting to let a kid so young watch such a violent movie. I rationalized it, though, as being a healthy example of the struggle between good and evil and, therefore, acceptable. So far its been a win. No nightmares, she hasn’t started smoking Old Toby and not a single orc has been beheaded. Even better though, she loved the movies, is now interested in the books and the whole thing proved to be an amazing bonding experience for the two of us. As we watched the 3 part series in rapid succession over 4 days, it was easier to see themes and patterns emerge.
Here’s a VERY paraphrased scene that occurs in all 3 movies:
Aragorn: (Looking from a mountain top at a sea of Orcs) “Holy crap Gandalf, how many do they have?!”
Gandalf: “Meh, its about 400,000 I think?”
Frodo: (Terrified) “DUDE? SERIOUSLY? WTF?! How many do we have?”
Gandalf: (Counting)…”17?”
Frodo: “17,000?”
Gandalf: “Ha! No, SEVENTEEN son, SEVENTEEN”
Aragorn: (Sigh) “Fuck it. Alright. Whatever. Let’s get this over with” (draws sword).
And there you have it friends. Therapeutic Stoicism, Existentialism and several other “isms” all wrapped up into one furry footed little package. Frodo and Co. have given you an example of THE way to do life:
You will die, so go live. It is your duty to do so.
Very likely, you will fail and if you do succeed it is mostly in the hands of fate so just go do your duty and stop worrying about the rest.
Frodo: “But Gandalf, what if doing my duty kills me?”
Gandalf: “Refer back to point number one then my dear Hobbit!”
Pay close attention to that word duty. The first definition of it in this sense could be things like your job. Your position as a parent. You role as a coach. Your spot as a leader. The second definition involves the duty to self; that duty to follow the voice inside you that wants you to be an artist or wants to travel or that part of you that says you’re not good at something but that still constantly nags at you to do it anyway. Millions of examples exist. What they both have in common is action. Action without regard for the results. Frodo and the others never thought they would win and in some ways, never really intended to because they thought it was impossible. They intended to fight and that’s basically where the line of thought stopped. There was no concern for winningand most of the time, they were almost certain they weren’t going to win but they did it anyway. Their duty was to fight and so they fought, end of story. Sure they were all probably hoping they’d win but that wasn’t the important part. The important part was doing their duty; trying even though they would likely fail. All throughout the books and movies, each one of “the good guys” knew they were facing certain death but they did what they were meant to do all the same. They let go of the results and just did their duty. I’ll add my own, possibly less cinematic, examples here as well; I feel called to be a therapist. I obviously hope very much that I’m helping people. But that last part is largely out of my control. My job is to show up each day and try. If I’ve done that, then I can rest my head easy at night. I’m also a musician. Is my band good? Probably not. But who cares, that’s not the point. The point is I feel compelled to make music, so I do. When I ask myself “did you try to help people today” I can answer yes and my duty is fulfilled. When I ask myself “did I make music” and the answer is yes, then I have fulfilled my duty.
The overall sales pitch here is to convince you to get rid of the idea of “moving the needle.” Rather than focusing on results, the point is doing what you’re meant to do and letting go of the results once you’ve done what you’re meant to do. But it doesn’t all have to be beheadings and Goblin blood and ransacking of Shires. Every now and then because you’ve done your duty and focused on on that rather than the results, a strange thing happens; you get good results. Let us not forget that Frodo and the 8 others in the Fellowship of the Ring won the battle. They focused on their duty and as a mere byproduct, they got the results they were hoping for. Imagine putting this idea into practice in your life. You stop worrying about whether you’re good or not at your job and choose instead to just do your job and as a byproduct actually start enjoying it. You stop putting so much pressure on yourself to be a good parent or a good wife and just do your duty and in the process end up living those relationship more fully. You allow yourself to create art. You stop worrying about whether or not it’s “good” and just enjoy the process and in the process get swept away by the joy it brings you. Imagine disposing of that tired old American idea of an activity only being valuable if you’re good at it or if you can make money at it! Imagine just doing what you felt like doing just because you felt like doing it! Can you imagine the freedom and enjoyment of letting go of the results of things and just doing things because you enjoy them? Well guess what; you don’t have to imagine it. You don’t even have to be a Hobbit!
Unrelated song: I guess I’m not really even trying to keep it user friendly or limited to only a song anymore. Oh well. Anyhoo, for some reason, this album helps me go to sleep. Maybe I’M the one who should see a therapist!
Unrelated book: Being and Time by Martin Heidegger
This book is widely known for being one of the most difficult around and I can attest to the truth of that idea. I’m considering a blog on Heidegger’s ideas…If I can ever figure out what the hell they are.
Brandon Peters, LPC 