Therapy For Paranoia (Dangerous)

Paranoia

Part 12 of 30

Of course there’s therapy for paranoia. Although I’ve forgotten the details from the many times I've looked into it. The idea of showing up for therapy in anything -- while I guess it’s a good concept -- is something I’ve never actually done. Why? I'm afraid it’d incriminate me if I said why, so I won’t go into too much detail. But just leave it with a vague, “To each his own.” I don't want to be incriminated, having something like that on my personal record.

So that's it, count me out. As long as it’s a matter of your own choice, I’m good. Although if this is truly a picture of it, it might be tempting. Just looking around the room, everyone seems to be definitely zoned out in a positive way. There’s old Madame Grimaldi at the switch. Then young Flora, Fauna, Frizzy, and Weedette zoned out. With -- what have we here? -- his sleeping bag rolled up and stashed behind him and zoned out in his own way, Danny.

Leading to a question I’ve asked myself many times, When you’re trapped and strapped down in a paranoid fit, is it better to take proactive measures against it or is it an important part of your life that you shouldn’t miss for anything? I know I’m in the minority here, but I think it’s important not to miss too much. There are exceptions, which, if I can keep it together in this moment I might sketch out. Eh, what the hell, let’s get to that first: The exceptions would be if you pose a threat to others.

In this case, if I’m reading Danny right -- and as dull as he looks his condition’s still clear as a bell -- if he scooched one inch closer to Grimaldi, or moved in any direction toward one of the sleeping belles, I’d be on him with the burliest attendants I could rouse. Safety is first and foremost, saving the victims and going as easily on the perpetrator as we can. But as we all know -- any newbies, please step out, this is an advanced course -- sometimes we have to reinforce a perp’s paranoia with a strong response. Taking him out … of the room with all due prejudice, then freeing the victims and getting them safely back to their rooms.

And I don’t like the arrangement one bit. Look at the short straight line between Danny’s dull eyes and Madame Grimaldi’s soft exposed neck. I see a serious threat of displaced identity in his eyes, which can only manifest itself in agitation and a quick lunge. He looks calm. But most wolves look equally calm just before they spring and tear the throat out of their prey. Which is nature’s way, no doubt, with no possibility of institute-threatening lawsuits. If there’s no chance of lawsuits, or inconvenient damage to property, I suppose, let him go. But a real threat, you simply have to take the perp out.

Dear Grandma Therapy Letter

 

The Big City

Part 7 of 28

The same thing happened to me that's happenedd to small town immigrants to the Big City through the ages. I got down in a funk, and had to go to one of the raging hyenas who sit in their ivory palace mental clinics just waiting for easy prey, a quick buck, from supposedly "counseling" us, tamping down our desires toward a popular uprising because we’re so desperate for the old ways.

And, yes, my eyes were closed to the situation, that’s how desperate I was. Then, like sheep to the slaughter -- They still slaughter sheep, right? I haven’t had a sheep and biscuit breakfast in 30 years -- the guy had me with the teary-eyed Big City therapy exercise of “writing home.” In dark moments of life like that I don’t fight back as I should. I wish I would’ve seen through it immediately and literally gone "full terrorist" on that guy’s office, which you can do and get away with it. Counselors love bragging to other counselors about clients who completely erupt and destroy their office. The main problem is that there’s very little you can do to piss off a counselor, so they win.

Anyway, the dude roped me into the simplest, stupidest technique -- what am I paying the guy for when I had to write my own letter -- the Dear Grandma letter they make you write. Since she was the main authority figure in my upbringing. And who could win me over, back to sanity, any more than Grandma? See what the Big City does? I sort of support the idea of writing to Grandma, but the idea that these worms forced me still rankles.

“Just pour out your heart and spirit,” the counselor went on, his straining weasel voice giving me the creeps, like someone or something that just slithered out of Eden, a snake from central casting if I ever met one. Yet with all that, the wool was still pulled over my eyes somewhat. It was a battle royale, really, as I saw the truth that I should reject The Big City, but I also knew that under the circumstances, Grandma’s house being moldy, pulled down and hauled to the dump, I had very little choice. “Go along to get along.” So I did my best, putting the letter in my own words, not copying out of a book:

"Dear Grandma, This is your old sonny boy here, hoping you haven’t forgotten me during your stay in the heavenly palaces. You probably haven’t. You may know more about me than I know about myself, from your perch above, so I’ll tell the truth. The counselor has narrowed down most of my trauma to the loss of our house. Remember, it was already very old. And the construction seemed to be a jumble. Starting like a small shed, then being built on over the years, whenever the mood struck our ancestors. It was always a patchwork. Weird cracks between pieces, and the wind would blow and separate everything even if just slightly. Those places where the roof didn’t join perfectly then took on water. Drizzle was no big deal to the better houses, but in your house it was Public Enemy No. 1. Then you and Grandpa gave up the ghost, leaving me as the caretaker/resident. On a limited income and with no knowledge of maintenance beyond patching the obvious. Which over time can be hard to catch up on. Well, eventually, the city came by and shut the place down, and came in with a court decree that I vacate, and finally carted it off to the dump wall by wall, everything from the floor to the roof, in that order.” My last tender words over the rubble were, 'It was nice while it lasted.' Which was a tribute to you and Gramps. Who probably could've done a better job maintaining the place when it was new."

Art Therapy Didn't Work

 

Part 9 of 30

My Fragile Self-Esteem

It was probably ten years ago that I had the idea of doing art to help my mental outlook, which at the time was also a brief and challenging episode of fragile self-esteem (seven years) that dogged me like a hellhound on my trail. I was jittery, my hands shook, my body succumbed to the cold sweats, I was very irritable with family, friends, loved ones, and even strangers. Even the friendly guy who came around for the cancer drive, I about bit his head off: “Sir, take your book of receipts and talking points on the latest miraculous breakthroughs and leave my stoop. I told you once I can’t give, I told you twice I can’t give, and now I’m telling you nicely for the last time, I won’t give, I simply can’t, sir!” I physically seized him by the scruff of the neck and his pants and flung him to the other side of the road.

Later, trying to help myself recover, I went to an art store and bought a couple small canvases with the wooden slats built in and a box of oil paints. I really expected to dig in and enjoy myself in this new-for-me field, becoming an artist and painting the masterpieces that are typical with amateur painters. What happened next, though, wasn’t what I'd hoped for at all. Instead of painting, then running out and buying new canvases, always bigger and better canvases, I never painted a single stroke. The paints were left unopened. I couldn’t think of anything to paint, I’m not a good painter and drew a blank, and a couple years ago when I moved to The Big City I gave all the paints and canvases to Goodwill.

Recently, then, my fragile self-esteem again took that familiar journey -- it started like a nagging then persistent itch, then transformed into a blank pain which over a period of scant days became a gnawing pain. Once that happened, then, it was busy at the molecular level folding in on itself, reaching out and feeling for new boundaries to surmount, working on me 24-hours a day, taking all the time and opportunity it needed to go rogue. One day it hit me; I looked in the bathroom mirror and was wrapped in the self-esteem equivalent of tentacles, reaching out, curling back, and twisting at random. I swatted at them like swatting flies, but they only swatted back, cowing me.

So it was a south-of-the-border standoff. Making me think again of art and painting. With the brainchild idea that maybe this time the message of the tentacles -- the vision -- was, “Get out there and waste a few canvases. There’s companies just dying to make and sell canvases. With factories geared up for it in league with paint factories. You’re probably a good painter if you specialize in abstracts, no one can really criticize them.

This time, though, I didn't just stay home but went to a studio, thinking the peer pressure might really motivate me. But the time I got there my fragile self-esteem had entered a more viral stage of fragility. The good news is no canvases were harmed; they were all released back into the wild. The bad news is I don’t know what all the other stages of fragile self-esteem might reveal, negatively speaking.

Best Therapy In The World

No. 10 of 30 -- Psycho Squad

Among the great goals of the Psycho Squad is -- raising my right hand and lifting my eyes to heaven -- "To restore precious equilibrium to those unfortunate souls who have had something go wrong with them, be it a short-circuiting, a mainframe failure, the need to mentally update to the latest OS, or trying to compute with punched paper tape in a gigabyte world." It's a huge vow, because think of the tape in those circumstances shredding and catching fire trying to keep up. That's something we hate to risk.

I know, friends, sometimes I come across Machiavellian [an apparent bastard] in the way I describe the things of the Psycho Squad — because, face it, with my level of experience, there’s a certain hardening and even resentment that appears when you can’t just cure everyone and get a decent vacation. But to be completely honest without tooting my own horn, I’m the most compassionate guy in the business. I’ve been told that by some of the patients themselves, the good ones. Because there’s some real dummies who have the wrong idea about me and aren’t afraid to say so, lots of blubbering and one syllable words, most starting with F. Not everyone can be cured, that’s the lesson...

Do I ever finger angrily in their general direction? I'm not going to say I do and I'm not going to say I don't. One guy said he saw me and even phoned it in. But I could've been pointing at a UFO for all he knew. And I could stop anytime I want. UFOs are rare. I'm not that invested in it. I could show the whole lot of them where to get off anytime I want. Or tell them off to their face even with their own grandmother standing there!

Remember, it wasn’t my idea for people to have these mental problems. I just piggybacked on an existing problem that needed workers. And since my dad worked in the Psycho Squad, it was a natural path for me. In fact he’s the one who taught me the great compassion I have. He kept it real. I’ll try to tell you while keeping the blood and gore down to a minimum. He demonstrated it with rabbits. Because we used to do a lot of rabbit hunting and I had to learn the whole gruesome process. Which, on second thought, I better not describe or I won’t have any readers at all… Let's just say that -- blood or no blood -- a certain amount of compassion is good.

And let’s also say I was brought up in a compassionate environment. He lived by those values and that’s the way I operate today. Other guys see our patients and potential patients — if you see a cross-eyed guy staggering down the street you'll also see him later in our ambulance — as just more money, money, money. But I see humanity in a pickle and me as a helper, and the money, money, money comes later. Which I can then righteously frolic in and toss in the air.

It’s charming — looking at the graphic — what little kids can see when they look at the clouds. Some of the things are easy to imagine. I mentioned rabbits. I can see rabbits in the clouds nearly everyday. Because they’re fluffy and their ears might be straight up, at an angle, or tucked back. The key thing in the clouds is nothing bad's happened to them yet. They're fluffed out, healthy as a horse.

But you can see other things, depending on where your head is: If you see the innocent things kids see, you’ll live long and prosper. But if you see guns, knives, grenades, bags of loot, and other nasties, the Psycho Squad will be seeing you very soon. “Hands behind your back, please, this is a plastic tie. It will not hurt you unless you struggle unnecessarily. We are here to help. Please give up and relax, sir, and this will be much easier for you. You’ll be out before you know it, within the next few months if you're lucky. Remember, we passed the quiz, we are certified, we are your friends."

No One Likes The North Wind

Part 3 of 30 -- Psycho Squad

These are the cases the Psycho Squad gets. They say beggars can't be choosers, even though I'm not quite there. It's just when it comes time to pay the bills it's nice to know someone has a problem worthy of the name. "Don't come any closer!" Joe bellows. I put my hands up in the fake surrender gesture, "Whoa, big fella, let's not get huffy. Take a breath -- that's good -- now let it out." Which might've been the wrong thing to say. He blew me across the parking lot.

I know how it sounds -- unbelievable -- but these are the ways a man's mind goes when an evil wind's blowing. Being a mortal man isn't enough for some. He's so whack he thinks he's the North Wind. But I don't have time to judge, especially with that breath. A rancid mix of whisky and Italian breath. Not only were two kids in personal danger, but I had a larger population in the Big City to think about and a toxic cloud.

With long experience, of course I knew the guy. One, that’s a fake beard. And the cape, apparently meant to recall the dark clouds associated with fierce winds, couldn't obscure his features. I’ve dealt with him before. One thing right away, he’s not a pervert, just a poor misunderstood soul. Given that knowledge, a violent response was out. It'd have to be psychological. Take his persona at face value and address him from there. He wants to be the wind, he has to realize even the wind takes a breather, comes and goes, stirs and subsides. It called for a little hypnotic repetition, Breathe in, breathe out. Everything's getting calmer and calmer, there's barely a stirring of even the slightest breeze. Calm and pleasant, getting stiller all the time. Until... peace...

Next the team rushed in, subdued and restrained him fast as ABC 1-2-3, and cleared the scene. Innocent bystanders relieved, the victims returned to mom and dad, leaving us to stand there stoically. "You went a little wacko, huh?" A quick visit to the clinic, get his meds straightened out, restrict him from watching TV weather, as well as the all-important billing process, and he'd be on his way.

But as simple and clear-cut as that is, he still got huffy. “How dare you accuse me of—?” I stopped him right there. “No one accused you of anything.” Then I got strictly clinical: "This craziness may’ve been kosher in the days of Robin Hood, men in tights dropping from the trees, but it doesn’t fly now! All it takes to spoil the charm of life for everyone is one weird clod like you!” What could he do with those condemning words but hang his head in shame...

The fact is the Psycho Squad's clientele is so varied with strange ideas up the wazoo that nothing can be easily dismissed. You learn to suspect the worst, then assume whatever conditions led him to his present behavior would ultimately thwart him. They always go overboard. Say he really is the North Wind. His blowing days are done for now.

I'm Perfectly Normal

 

No. 12 of 30 -- Guidance Counselor series

This isn’t a good day. I’m feeling mucho funky about myself. Usually everything's great and I have the world’s best self image, perpetually, depending on which parts of the world we’re talking about. But not today.

And, yes, this cross on my back -- this guidance counselor series -- is bringing out the best and the worst in me, depending on how it hits me at any given moment. Some days I’m on top of the world; there were a couple fleeting moments yesterday. Then other times I’m sinking somewhat, but still bobbling along like the red red robin. Other times, unfortunately, like today, I’m a wild-eyed mad man, in one of my budget barn Elvis costumes, wild-eyed as I said, bad complexion, and eyes going crazy wild, wielding a sword and swishing it madly through the air, cutting everything in sight!

Call it what it is, some sort of dissociative dysfunction, I think, crabgrass of the brain. I’m having a hard time scooping out memories of the guidance counselor and dumping them before the public. And most of you have been sympathetic and encouraging, don’t get me wrong. But there’s a small group — like always — that comes down on the side of the guidance counselor... The guy could’ve flayed and panbroiled me and these buzzards would see no problem at all: "Don’t question your betters!" Their twisted myopic view is guidance counselors can do no wrong! Let's flip 'em off!

Dredging up any detail of the past for me has karma the size of the Titanic. If I'm thinking of some innocent thing, like us kids threatening a Nude-In in high school, I would associate it now in a negative way. Instead of the great joy it was. Certainly, then, something as tumultuous and negatively memorable as the guidance counselor making me his personal punching bag, all while keeping it psychological and therefore hard to prove, has a hurtful side.

One of my doctors thinks my flailing about with the sword is healthy and one strenuously disagrees. So with one doctor, I’m sitting there with it proudly. With the other I’m a little more reticent, because I hate being judged, as I know this guy is no doubt thinking in his mind, “This dude’s squirrelly. His stupid sword. His stupid guidance counselor issues. How insipid. Let’s move on, pal. Give me a break. Pay the bill and make another appointment.”

And I don’t have the slightest clue how dismissive he is of me and my ever-present traumas. Giving me, unbeknownst to him, yet another grievance that someday if I live long enough I’ll also be working through.

Picking My Spirit Animal

No. 12 of 31 -- Thermometer series

Dr. Vector is an absolute dear. He went to school somewhere, a bunch of places, and now he’s helping me. I would adore having the diplomas he's got on the wall. I actually have a few -- a guy I know will print what you need. In the actual school I was average and sometimes below-average, but I think I got smarter with experience. I don’t keep my diplomas on the wall, though, since I technically still owe the guy around $50, and we had a fight, and I hate remembering him.

But I did take classes. One of my best memories of academia was listening to a guy in Speech class. In citing the various "Types of Breath," he listed Dog Breath and Italian Breath, which stuck with me. If that was education, I was a sponge. If I never learned anything else, that was worth the price of tuition, although I’m pretty sure that guy never got a diploma, nor did I from that particular place. The college closed down, packed up, and moved west, which is the first time I ever heard of that.

But that's all ancient history, this is Dr. Vector’s day! Time for his breath to shine. I just look at him and know he's special. I love a guy like him, a professional. Having all the confidence in the world, and mysterious enough in his training and attitude, there doesn’t appear to be a thing he doesn’t know. Any subject, and with pure insight into your psyche, the soul...

I was sitting in the chair, focused on the sound of my own breath, focused without being focused, honing in on the sound without making a sound, and Dr. Vector came up from behind and lightly massaged my shoulders. His hands melded with my shoulders, like there was no end of me or beginning of him. He’s fantastic, even dreamy, except for one thing: a dental plate that's fully exposed, making true the old saw, “Into every life, a little rain must fall.” His omniscience, though, that has to be the main thing. And that melding, always that amazing melding...

It turned out, too, with Dr. Vector’s indispensable assistance, I would discover my spirit animal. Something to celebrate! Would it be the Rooster as he seemed to hint? It could’ve been. But no, no, no, it wasn’t the Rooster or any chicken. It was Abraham Lincoln, my favorite president of all the presidents I know anything about. And I’m not entirely clear why I like him, except for what they taught us in school, that he was just like us, only better. How he worked his way up from ignorance to knowledge, a child studying at night by firelight, a man splitting rails by day, debating the pants off people, and being charismatic despite the sour look, his hat like a smokestack, and the circumstances of his presidency, the Civil War and a country teetering on the edge of serious trauma.

So until I see a different therapist -- and there's no plans to ditch Vector -- Abraham Lincoln is my spirit animal, winning out over the chicken by only an inch of his hat. The rooster tried to match Lincoln's height, wisely choosing a large barrel for heft, which in the end only showcased Lincoln's greater wisdom in wearing hats in a different zip code from his head.

Spirit animal in place, I shall march boldly on in the thermometer drive for the blog! Solemnly vowing that everything I do will be in accordance with proper Lincoln wisdom and intelligence. Knowing that as I give my all, Lincoln will be there to guide me, assisted by the Rooster, who according to the Chinese restaurant has his own year as the cycles spin silently along.

9/18 -- I Don't Care About 9/11 Day

Editor's note: I realize this will be my most controversial post since the debacle of me reducing Johnny Law to a simmering pile of ashes, when I lost one follower and three others refused to speak to me for two days. That and death threats from every police force in Missouri. But I feel the time is right, and America can now bravely face the plain truth, that it's time to move on from 9/11. If you also think so, and are ready, as I am, to undo the knots our little panties have been twisted in, then join me in celebrating this, the first 9/18, now and forever to be known as "I Don't Care About 9/11 Day."

This is going to be a great thing, undoing the knots America's little panties have been twisted in, and getting America back on track. It's been one week since 9/11, the day that everyone's sadly been conditioned to "really care about," aka Patriot's Day, ignorantly so-called. But today is 9/18, when we declare that we're over it. Imagine how it might be on September 11 next year. No more vigils at the Tomb of the Unknown Stranger, no more reciting the names of people we don't know, no more cheap yellow ribbons, and, best of all, no more replays of George W. Bush and his idiot bullhorn. I feel better already!

Right away, I know the objections. A little under 3,000 people died on 9/11. To answer that, there's more than 3,000 people who die everyday, from one damned thing or another. Or, you're being insensitive, because the nation faced a huge trauma on that day. True, if your little panties are all bunched up and you find a lot of joy in that, you'll want to nurse your traumas along. Or, how about this, 9/11 reminds us to be alert to the dangers facing us in an ever-threatening world. If you need a particular day to remind you to watch out for yourself, you pretty much deserve what happens. Beware always, we don't need a reminder. Minutes ago I was patrolling the shoe store for potential shoe bombers. You know 'em because they're learning to tie their shoes but not untie them.

The original 9/11 is now a long time ago. And just because we "remember" it doesn't mean we need to linger. I remember lots of traumatic things in my life, but if I carve out a whole day for each one, there's no time left for normal stuff. We don't need it, leave it behind. We took a licking, but kept on ticking. We're just giving the bad guys more glory by keeping our little panties twisted in knots over their deeds. Those who do you harm, you should wipe the dust of your feet off against them and press on with your journey.

Therefore, you and I and every intelligent, right-thinking, clear-headed, guts-and-glory, true red, white, and blue American, must advance past this. I know there's some contradiction in making a day in response to a particular day. But sometimes you need to take two steps back to rediscover the correct path, then go around an obstruction. Therefore, yes, after a while, "I Don't Care About 9/11 Day," we trust, will be superfluous. That day has not yet come, with our little panties still so terribly twisted.

At this point, though, proclaiming it on 9/11 itself is not a welcome thing. So many folks are into it, as we see from our Facebook friends. They're putting up the various icons of that day, firemen looking at oddly askew flags or holding children in remorse, folks in prayer, beams of light, tangled girders, yellow ribbons, and the aforementioned Bush and his aforementioned idiot bullhorn. Yes, it makes us gag, but these people can't be reasoned with in the heat of the moment. By the time of a week's passing, though, they've sobered up a little, and, I would hope, they're subconsciously (at least) thinking over the folly of the observance. Bush with a bullhorn ... That evokes something other than complete revulsion?

This is going to start small, OK? You and me and a few other right-thinking Americans. I purposely keep my blog small and insignificant for occasions like this. To address huge mental issues, widespread societal insanity. That way there's no gigantic reaction against common sense. Our better angels can appear and bring hearts and minds back to sanity slowly, untwisting our little panties as we go, which is always how it is in the best therapy.

So my counsel to you is to share this occasion with a few trusted friends, those most open to reason and intelligence. In their strength, and in our strength together, perhaps over years, we will help America find her guts again and methodically untwist her knotted panties. The only people who seriously counsel licking old wounds are themselves feeble-minded, or, more nefarious, profiteering bastards.

We have better reasons than they for not caring about 9/11, so we'll have a generally healthier outlook in life. Join me today, on 9/18, the day we proclaim, "Our little panties have been twisted in knots far too long! We're through! We simply don't care about 9/11!"

The Perpetual Vibrating Bed

Today's post is dedicated to the memory of John Joseph Houghtaling, inventor in 1958 of the "Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed." A quarter brought 15 minutes of "tingling relaxation and ease."

We remember with great fondness the vibrating bed. But unfortunately, most of them have been junked by now. Mostly because the original repairmen, long ago, threw away the schematics in a shortsighted, selfish attempt to guarantee themselves job security. Not foreseeing that they would eventually die and the rest of us wouldn't have any idea how to repair the tricky mechanisms.

Admittedly, a few brave souls, working with only rudimentary electronics knowledge, usually gotten from fly-by-night technical institutes, attempted repairs, but none of it was any good. Beyond that, it became impossible to get parts, and trying to jimmy rig the devices with non-matching parts from soda machines and jukeboxes gave poor results.

But let's say we could somehow get back the original intelligence to make these things work, that would definitely be a blast from the past, and, more importantly, great for the therapeutic value the vibrating bed offered. I'm thinking of something a friend of mine said, that the vibrating bed was the only thing that staved off headaches for him. If he felt a headache coming on, diving into a warm vibrating bed was the only thing that could perk him right up!

As for me, I had an idea for the vibrating bed in a perfect world. Just fantasizing here! Remember, when you put a quarter in you got 15 minutes of "tingling relaxation and ease." That was a great promise, but it also had a downside: 15 minutes isn't very long! If you're like me, you could only enjoy the first seven or eight minutes. Because you knew it was about to run out, then you'd have to interrupt your relaxation and ease to put another quarter in.

My idea is why not have a method of automatically replenishing the quarters! And I'm not saying you wouldn't have to pay for the extra service. You'd be glad to pay for it if you could only be spared having to roll over and put another quarter in. So here's the idea: You have a way of loading a disc, almost like in a laundromat, with multiple quarters, which then would rotate and deposit the next quarter as needed. What a great convenience that'd be!

But how to pay for the extra service? What I would propose seems natural to me, in fact the only fair method. The only thing I'm bogged down on is how to pay for the final service of moving the pennies. But bear with me, I have an idea...

I'm proposing a hierarchical arrangement of coins to pay for the services. First, you've got the rotating disc of quarters at the bed that would take, say, 12 quarters. At 15 minutes apiece, that's three hours of uninterrupted vibrating, a godsend! But to actually rotate the quarters, you'd have a disc above it that is loaded with dimes. So that'd be 12 dimes. Then to pay for the dime disc, you'd have a disc above it loaded with nickels. 12 nickels. And to pay for the nickel disc, another disc with 12 pennies. How you pay for the penny disc is the biggest drawback, which I can't entirely resolve at this time. It might have to be that the nickels be somehow adequate compensation for the nickel disc as well as the penny disc.

The key thing is that original 15 minutes, great but inadequate, has been wonderfully extended to three glorious hours! Meaning, except for the need to replenish all the coin discs at the end of three hours, we'd have a virtually perpetual vibrating bed!

Self-Esteem By Numbers

There's an old theory that life has many complexities and shades of gray. That you could search and search for a needle in a haystack and never find it. That sometimes the harder you search, the more diligently you search, the less likely it is that you'll find it.

I'm setting that theory aside -- mostly in honor of me reading "The Lost Symbol" -- because I now see that the mysteries of the ages can be solved in an single evening with time to spare -- and that life is simply a big "Paint by Numbers" kit -- everything is manageable: Daub, daub, daub, OK we're checking off orange, red, and yellow.

Up till now, in my "Drive for Pride" campaign, as I have pleaded with people to have self-esteem, I've been going on the assumption that individual differences and varying life stories made a difference, that circumstances were at least somewhat determinative of how I needed to respond to them.

But now, I'm working with an entirely different palette of assumptions. It's something I'm calling "Self-Esteem by Numbers." Give me an hour in a cab being chased by the CIA and I believe I could come up with an infallible two layer wheel thing that anyone could dial around to find the problem and the solution.

Like your problem is "Others are better than me," just spin that complaint to the arrow and check the window to read, "No, you're as good as anyone." Or "I'm nothing but a failure," you can easily see it says, "There's different kinds of success." Or "I had a lousy childhood," we can quickly resolve with a spin, to read, "Would you please grow up, already..."

I've heard of therapists who've been nothing but compassion ... to the person's face. The poor schlump is sitting there, a rock solid mass of unhealthy complexes, and the therapist is in professional commiseration mode. "I believe I hear you say that your father killed your mother and you're expecting him back for you at any minute?" In this scenario, the therapist has his eye on the clock, thinking of how much he's making an hour, then will be laughing over the guy's problem later back in the therapists' lounge. "I told him we'd have to meet another 10 sessions at least."

You don't want that. So why put up with it? There's too much baggage with the average therapist. They can't be trusted. But we still want people to be cured. We already have enough Republicans. That's where the new "Self-Esteem by Numbers" steps in!

And it's not "one size fits all." Because you can make small wheels and big wheels. I can picture a very small one, like for mild cases. Let's say it has about four complaints and answers. It's more or less a pep talk. Such as "Yesterday was a bad day," with the answer, "It's past. Live for today." Or "No one loves me," answered by, "Love is highly overrated."

Then we could have really big wheels -- big ones, like three feet in diameter, with however many questions and answers would fit. I think you could solve almost anything with a three foot spinner. A few blurbs there about giving yourself permission to start over. It's a quick fix. And it'd also give you plenty of room to fit in ads for other spinners, like on the subjects of careers, medical advice, and fortune telling.

P.S. -- I'm only halfway through "The Lost Symbol," but this is one haystack where the needle seems larger than life.