TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: So...

THERAPIST: Right. Yeah. That... I never heard anything like that. I mean it's usually... the lowest I've ever seen is 60%. And usually it's about 80%.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's fucked up. I'll talk to Ginny, see what goes on the (inaudible at 0:00:18).

THERAPIST: Yeah. So that's the update.

CLIENT: Okay. Hmm.

THERAPIST: And if you can let me know anything you found out, when you guys find out...

CLIENT: I'll do so, I'll do so. Ah, it sucks.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah, the realities of health insurance...

CLIENT: Are fucking ridiculous.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you got a really good... I guess you used to...

CLIENT: I used to have amazing insurance. Yeah, and even after that I had decent insurance.

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: And it's funny. Ginny works at a healthcare place, and the insurance is shit.

THERAPIST: That's... yeah, right. That's amazing. [0:00:55] They just bought... they're offered really... I imagine [it's taking stocks of the plans] (ph), that's why. (Pause) But who knows? She might have just opted for the... sometimes they'll offer you three or four plans, and she might have gone with the one that seems cost effective.

CLIENT: Yeah. We'll see. We'll see if there's something to actually do about it. Yeah, it blows, especially considering I'm trying to eventually... I think I'm going to finish my degree.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah. I was looking. This friend of mine did it through Boston University. I was looking, I lost heart, because it's between $1300 and $1600 a course. I'm like, Jesus, fuck. Concord does $400.

THERAPIST: Ah, okay.

CLIENT: So, if I can do a few courses at Concord, finish my degree up...

THERAPIST: How many credits are you lack (ph)?

CLIENT: I was lacking four. I was lacking four math credits. So hopefully they'll go through with that, and I'll... yeah. [0:01:59] I'm going to call Harold...

THERAPIST: Yeah, call Harold. You should call Harold.

CLIENT: Just because there's a note in my folder, if that even still exists, that's like, Fred just needs to finish a math credit, and then he gets his degree.

THERAPIST: Of course it's still there, yeah.

CLIENT: I hope so.

THERAPIST: Well, I don't...

CLIENT: It was written by the dean. It's like (inaudible at 0:02:16) this is the deal for you. So we'll see.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: See if they'd still honor that.

THERAPIST: They certainly have your transcript (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Oh, they have my transcript, yeah, certainly. Last time I called was a few years ago to hear about that, and the woman that was behind the desk was very rude to me, like, no such thing has ever happened. I was like, you need to go through the dean, because I know I have this. And it was a new dean. He was like, yeah, I see the note here, so...

THERAPIST: Oh, really?

CLIENT: Yeah, I'm like, okay, great. So I'll have to call him again, just be like, yeah, this time for real though.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Soon to have some time, so...

THERAPIST: That's great. And so four credits mean you have to take four classes or...? [0:02:56]

CLIENT: No, there's one class, one math class.

THERAPIST: Is that it?

CLIENT: Yeah, that's all I've got to do. Concord offers a web seminar, college algebra.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah. You could knock that out online.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You can probably take it online, right?

CLIENT: Yeah, take it online. $400, do it online, and boom, degree. That plus the $90,000. Whatever.

THERAPIST: What's that?

CLIENT: Oh, my student loans. Luckily I have a 3% interest rate, because I locked it in years ago. But yeah, it's like $360 a month, I think, (inaudible at 0:03:29) just for the past ten years. More than that now. No, actually about ten years, because I was deferred and everything until I got a job at Melody, now I'm sort of paying regularly. So it's a pain in the ass, but pay those off until I'm 65, and then I'm good.

THERAPIST: It's the best deal going.

CLIENT: Yeah, it actually is. [0:03:55]

THERAPIST: What $360 will when you're 65 is, it's going to mean nothing.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's true. House was a great (inaudible at 0:04:01), house and student loans. Boom. I just need to start making money. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And I've got some time. With the savings, there's actually some time. It's good. But that's good. I'm like, okay, I can keep looking. I'm not screwed. I'm not going to lose the house right away.

THERAPIST: Yeah. This is why you worked (chuckling), so you...

CLIENT: Yeah, exactly. I'm like...

THERAPIST: [Been saved] (ph), yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. And it's... I've been out of Melody for four years.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: I've been out of Melody almost as long as I was there. I was there for six years. I've been out for four years.

THERAPIST: Is that right? It's been four years?

CLIENT: Yeah, how long have we been seeing each other?

THERAPIST: Well, you were there.

CLIENT: Yeah, so about five years.

THERAPIST: Five years. (inaudible at 0:04:50) you were there for about a year when we (crosstalk). [0:04:58]

CLIENT: Yeah, okay. Jesus. Have we been seeing each other four five years, Carl?

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Is that possible?

THERAPIST: Because what (crosstalk).

CLIENT: I left Melody in 2010. I must have seen you in 2009.

THERAPIST: When did Penelope (sp?) leave? Because Penelope (crosstalk).

CLIENT: I was still at Harmonic when she left. (inaudible at 0:05:18) spring. Yeah, I was still at Melody. I was even...

THERAPIST: You were definitely at Melody, yeah.

CLIENT: But I was getting close to leaving. I was starting to plan to leave, because that was some of the early stuff we talked about.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So (pause) four years, maybe?

THERAPIST: God, that's long, yeah.

CLIENT: Jesus.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: Wow. I was thinking how quickly time flies.

THERAPIST: Hey, post-40. [0:05:54]

CLIENT: Yeah, I don't feel 37.

THERAPIST: What do you feel?

CLIENT: I don't know, somewhere in my 20s, mentally. I'm like, I still think of myself the way I thought of myself all those years ago. It's weird, though, dude. I'm older than my doctor for the first time ever.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Is that right, you're older than her?

CLIENT: Yeah, she's a year younger than me. And that's just going to continue to happen.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah (chuckling).

CLIENT: It's Ginny, I joked with Ginny. She's like, yeah, it's difficult sometimes being such a young reverend (ph). She's like... because most of them are much older. And I said, well, luckily you'll age out of that problem.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Right.

CLIENT: So...

THERAPIST: Only gets better, Ginny.

CLIENT: It only gets better. So... but I'm just like... I just need to be doing stuff. And I keep saying to myself, I need to be doing stuff. [0:06:56] And then I've been retreating into this shell for the past few weeks.

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: It's like, when I'm not doing... I should really be spending four hours a day just making stuff. If I spent four hours a day just making stuff, if I spent two hours a day just making stuff, I would make so much stuff. It's all stuff I want to make. There's all these clever ideas and things. And I was thinking of just... I have all those park (ph) assets from back doing Koala Crash (ph), you've got all those animals and the various animation. I was like, I can just make a little platform called Koala Crush where the koala jumps on things and crushes them.

THERAPIST: Oh, because you own the art now?

CLIENT: Yeah, I've got all that. I'm like, I might as well just... I use... I've got programs for making games, just, [doo doo doo] (ph). (Pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, what...?

CLIENT: And I don't know. It's like, I can teach myself the code. I can do all these things. I have this amazing ability to learn things. [0:07:58]

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: And yet I find myself just sticking to things I'm comfortable with. And (pause) yeah, I think the question is, can I break out of previous patterns? Can I actually effect change in my life? Years of my behaviors and habits and... can I do that? Is it actually possible? Or is my subconscious (ph) just simply set in its path as it learned to make all these choices in the following ways, and now I simply sit back and watch, as I express desire? Yet I have no actual input over the forces that make the decisions for me.

THERAPIST: Yeah. But you know what's important is that... I mean, whether or not it's really... even though it's not under your conscious control, you're sitting here talking about it, which is interesting... [0:08:58]

CLIENT: Hmm.

THERAPIST: With what I assumed is the intention, unconscious in some way, yeah, sure, but intention to kind of work on it or something, or alter it. Just the other thing to say about this is that, when you get a job you're going to... I've seen this with people who go through stretches of unemployment. They look back and they go (sighing), I wish I would have taken that time to really...

CLIENT: Do something.

THERAPIST: Do something with it. And it's something about the business of being in the midst of unemployment that really is hard and is unappreciated. (Chuckling) Just a quick story. This guy I know got laid off from some investment bank. He was an investment banker. They gave him a severance package that was two years.

CLIENT: Jesus. [0:09:59]

THERAPIST: He didn't find another job. He was looking for... he was constantly stressed out.

CLIENT: Wow.

THERAPIST: He was like, this is... even though he had the... stressed out, did not enjoy one bit. At the end of the two years, the same company says, we want to hire you back. So he basically lived for free...

CLIENT: For two years.

THERAPIST: For two years, but did not enjoy it.

CLIENT: Did not enjoy it.

THERAPIST: And he like, oh my God. (Laughing) What I could have done with those two years!

CLIENT: Right, what you could have done with two years rather than being so stressed out about it. There's something to that, I think. If I stopped being so worried about being unemployed and started making stuff, I would actually... I've got so many skills that are monetizable, so many skills which are monetizable. And...

THERAPIST: You've been wanting to do something. You've been wanting to take advantage of having some time to be able to do that.

CLIENT: Yeah, certainly. (Pause) Yeah, I totally wanted that. [0:10:56]

THERAPIST: It's hard though. Yeah.

CLIENT: I don't know. It's... I think part of the problem (inaudible at 0:11:02) is it's such a confidence and self-worth hit.

THERAPIST: Totally. That's totally it.

CLIENT: And so that makes it difficult to get motivation to do something, whereas the last YouTube video I put up, I got a comment from some new dude who's like, you totally deserve way more subscribers.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: I'm like, oh, that's cool. And then I haven't made something since. I'm like, I should just... I've got these series I want to do. Like, I want to play Sky Run (sp?) and interact with the [emphases like I do, which people] (ph) seem to find funny and amusing in my life and then just actually do that. That'd be fun. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Yeah, it's the anxiety, I think, of kind of what happens when you put yourself out there.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It's... yeah. [0:11:55]

CLIENT: Yeah, I'm like... future employers may see these things I do if they dig deep enough. So what do they think about this guy? And part of me is just like, that can't matter. That cannot matter. I can't live my life as I used to, which was sort of like, this is me, and this is who I am to the world. This is me, this is who I am at work. And that can't be the case anymore, because that makes me miserable. So I'm trying to live my life (inaudible at 0:12:27) there's no filter between who I am and who you see...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: This very real, genuine experience of authenticity, right?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And so there's that.

THERAPIST: What is it...? What do you think about a prospective employer seeing you? What comes to mind about them seeing you...?

CLIENT: I don't know, that they'll be like, oh, this guy's kind of nerdy. [0:12:55] Outside the game industry, will people understand what I do? Even in the game industry some people don't understand what I do. There was a little kerfuffle a while ago about Nintendo being a dick to YouTube people who were playing their games. Anyway, I'm tweeting about it with all of our people, like, this is fucking stupid, blah blah blah. And people are like, yeah, people make their living doing this. [Apparently the game industry] (ph) is like, what? People make their living doing YouTube videos? [We feel tons of ridicule] (ph).

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: And we were like, yeah, because he was like, I guess I just don't understand why someone would make YouTube videos for a living. And I just came back. I'm like, are you serious? Why do people do any...? Okay, so here you go. I don't understand why people do a creative thing for money.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: What does that even mean?

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Right.

CLIENT: It's like, oh, it's... yeah, you just marginalized it in your brain as something these weird people do.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It's like, no, we make money doing that.

THERAPIST: If they saw... in this example they're seeing you as having kind of quote nerdy interest, what would that mean to them and...? [0:13:57]

CLIENT: Oh, I don't know. And who knows? I don't know. But I'm saying I can't be worried about that. I can't (crosstalk).

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, no, right.

CLIENT: There's this whole aspect of... like I said, now with everything in the Age of Information that we're seeing, it's live your life like you're being watched, and talk like everyone's listening.

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: And so the way to do that is just to not hide anything, right?

THERAPIST: Mmm. Yeah.

CLIENT: The way not to be embarrassed is just to not do shameful things.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And [something's really to that] (ph). I like back on Twitter tweets sometimes. And they're really negative. It's like, and that's who I am being in the global conversation, someone negative and snarky. And that's what a lot of Twitter's about, is like this negative, snarky aspect. There's also a lot of news, and then there's just hatred and racism. And then there's just all this ephemera. [0:14:57] (Pause)

THERAPIST: What do you see when you...?

CLIENT: I don't know. This is not the person I want to present. It's not who I want to be either. It's this. That guy, who was an asshole I thought, Bruno (sp?), a few years ago, Bruno (sp?) a few years ago. And (pause) he was just a real asshole, being really a sexist, misogynist asshole. It's like, I fucking hate this guy. And his friends are like, no, no. He just knows that riles people up, so he just puts on... pretends to be these things. And I'm like... and this is my thing, if you pretend all the time to be this misogynist asshole, then that's just who you are.

THERAPIST: Yeah, (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah, that's just who you are. So (laughing) again it's... fucking Batman teaches us this, right? It's not who I am inside, it's what you do that defines you.

THERAPIST: Mmm. [0:15:57]

CLIENT: It's like, well, that's... yeah, actions speak louder than words. That's what that is. It's like, oh, I'm not really this guy. Well, then stop being that guy.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: And so that's the thing. I don't want to be that person. I don't want to be like, oh, yeah, whatever, coming off snarky and rude and stuff, like all the people on Twitter, just to be like, oh, look how funny I am. I can be snarky, too. It's like, yeah, but (pause) this is everybody. Only 140 people follow me, but I get retweeted sometimes to larger audiences, and that's how I pick up another person or two. And (pause) I don't want to be like this guy, because some people... people tend to [show off] (ph) more often for my social justice stuff., when I tweet things about shit that's going on, reactional (ph)sort of things, they get retweeted. (Pause) [0:16:57] But then they show up. I don't want them to be around for snark, snark, snarky. It's like, that's not who I want to be. And if that is who I am, if that's being myself, that's not the myself I want to be.

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: Twitter's [real interesting] (ph). I mean, you can go back, and you can look at... like, what have I been talking about?

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: What do I say? And (pause) yeah, talk like everybody's listening.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (Pause) Yeah, snarky. What is it...? Yeah, what are you like? What do you...?

CLIENT: I don't know, snarky can be fun when you think of something negative about... yeah, this is dumb.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: And there's a lot of that. There's a lot of that on Twitter. It's like, oh, look at this, this is dumb. (inaudible at 0:17:44), that's stupid...

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: And a lot of just open criticism. People want to criticize on Twitter. It's like, why are we doing this? [Some people are obviously] (ph), um, can we...? Has enough time passed that we can say The Avengers was just okay? [0:17:56] I'm like, no, not enough time has passed for you to say The Avengers was okay.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: You're just trying to piss me off specifically. The Avengers, just okay.

THERAPIST: (Laughing)

CLIENT: I've seen that movie five times, five times.

THERAPIST: Don't fuck with Avengers.

CLIENT: Yeah, there's one time when Joss Whedon was commentating which I had to turn off near the end, because I didn't want anything ruining the last 20 minutes of that movie, which are fucking amazing, bring fucking tears to my eyes.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: Yeah. This game Ginny got me as an early birthday present. She knows I've been looking forward to this game. And she's like, oh, it's coming out Friday. It's like, yeah, I don't want to spend the money on it, though. And I think she was so impressed that I was like (chuckling), I don't want to spend money on things, that she bought it for me the very next day...

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: An early birthday present. It's called The Last of Us. It's from a studio called Naughty Dog, and they do the Uncharted series for PS... these are all... they do Playstation 3 exclusives. And Playstation 3 has a huge advantage over the X Box now in that part of their ten year plan is having amazing exclusives, God of War and [things like that] (ph). [0:18:58]

THERAPIST: Oh, game publishers just make the games for (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah, only for the PS 3. And you can't get any of those, not even PC. (Pause) But they're really good. They're really good. And Naughty Dog especially has been really working on how to blend games and movies in the most effective way for storytelling and entertainment. You get really invested in these games. I mean, the characters are very well animated. [They're motion cap] (ph), and they're very well animated, to the point where there are flickers of reality watching these CGI characters. And just flickers of your brain is fooled. It's amazing (ph).

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's really good. The acting is incredible. (inaudible at 0:19:46) the acting in this is really good (chuckling).

THERAPIST: What's it called?

CLIENT: The Last of Us. So it's based on... it's like a zombie apocalypse sort of thing, based on this real life fungus that infects insects. [0:19:58] This fungus gets in their brain and starts to spread.

THERAPIST: Oh, I might have seen a commercial for this on a website or something.

CLIENT: Yeah, probably.

THERAPIST: Do they have...? Do they actually run commercials for it?

CLIENT: Yeah, totally.

THERAPIST: Okay, (crosstalk).

CLIENT: And this fungus slowly kills them, but when it's ready to spread it gets in their brains. They go find a warm, dark, moist place to die. And so the bug walks over to that place and lies down and dies. And then the spores spread from his corpse. So anyways in this game, that's the whole spread. And it starts eroding your morality very quickly. They make you really aggressive, and then it comes out through your eyes to the point where you can't see. So you use echo location, and then after that some people get really huge and dangerous. So they end up different types of zombies essentially. And you're fragile, you're incredibly fragile. [0:20:53] If you need to heal yourself, you use a first aid kit, and that takes time. There's no way to stop the action except for pausing it outright. There's no way to actually... some of the games sort of pause, change around inventory items, then go back. You actually drop your backpack to the ground in this game, start rummaging through it looking for what you need. And this all takes time, so you can't only kill yourself in the middle of combat. (inaudible at 0:21;15) find a good place to hide and do it.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: But in any case, the story is about this one man whose job is to get this 14-year-old girl from point A to point B because she may be the keeper of cure. And they do an excellent job of splitting (inaudible at 0:21:33) between this is the part where you're navigating terrain. Like, ah, okay, fun. It's like, this is the part where you're stealthing past zombies or guards. Okay, that's fun. This is the part where you're going on guns blazing. Oh, that's also good. And here's the part where you're running from snakes (ph). Okay, great. And here's the part where we tell you more of the story. So the story's told throughout these things, in very natural and organic ways. [0:21:58]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: And the first 20 minutes of this game are basically just walking and running. It's some of the best walking and running I've ever done in a video game, absolutely amazing, this feeling of, something is wrong...

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: Because it happens the night the thing starts. You're playing his daughter in the first ten minutes of the game. You're playing his 14-year-old daughter looking through an empty house for your father.

THERAPIST: Oh, is that right? Huh.

CLIENT: Yeah. And eventually you switch over to him as he carries her through the woods as (ph) they run.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: But then she gets shot and killed by a soldier, and you sit there, tears in your eyes as you watch this man hold his daughter's corpse and beg her not to die.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: And then it skips forward 20 years. And... yeah. [0:22:55] And then so he has to watch this other 14-year-old girl. But...

THERAPIST: He was to watch his own 14-year-old girl die?

CLIENT: He has to watch this other 14-year-old girl as his charge. So he has to escort her from place to place. And so the parallels between his daughter and this girl are stark.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah, it's another one.

CLIENT: (Crosstalk) yeah, he has to go... so his daughter dies. And 20 years later he has to escort this (crosstalk).

THERAPIST: This other 14-year-old girl, okay.

CLIENT: Yeah. And it's really good storytelling. It's never like, my daughter died and blah blah blah. He doesn't spell it out. You're like... but the symbolism is clear here so we wouldn't have to get it spelled out for us. (Pause) Yeah, really good. Anyway, really good.

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: And I really like the aspect of him caring for this 14-year-old girl who becomes more and more independent as time goes on, as she evolves, because for the longest time she's asking for a gun. She's like, you've got to give me a gun. And I'm like, I'm not going to give you a gun, until she actually saves your life by grabbing the gun you dropped and shooting the guy. [0:23:58]

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: And you're like, okay, now you can have a gun. And once you give her a gun she starts doing stuff. Like, you'll be sneaking past the dude, and she'll leap on his back with a shiv and just stab him in the neck. And she's a 14-year-old girl hanging off the back of this huge dude, just like...

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: And I'm just like so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. It's amazing.

THERAPIST: Huh. Yeah, her coming into her own and...

CLIENT: Yeah. Exactly. And becoming independent and then having her own power...

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: And also seeing that respect. And she's 14, but she's 14 that... she's grown up in an apocalypse. There's never not been this broken world as far as she's concerned. She's 14 years old, these things have been going on for 20. But... so she's really mature for her age in some ways at (ph) stuff that you wouldn't expect in a video game. And she saves his life, and he's really gruff about it. He's like, I told you to stay where you were, and the whole thing. And you shouldn't have gone out there. She's like, no. That's not going to be e-fucking-nough (sp?) for me. [0:24:56] She's like, how about, hey, I realize it's really hard for you. But it was obviously him or me, so thanks for saving my life?

THERAPIST: What did the guy say to her?

CLIENT: He was just really gruff. He's like, you should have stayed where you were, you shouldn't have come out here...

THERAPIST: Oh, okay, uh-huh.

CLIENT: And [that's just really] (ph)... she's like, no. I saved your life, and you need to...

THERAPIST: Acknowledge that.

CLIENT: You need to acknowledge that. She's like, I just killed someone. I've never killed someone before.

THERAPIST: Mmm. Hmm.

CLIENT: And just that sort of thing never happened in video games. You never see a character have to acknowledge and then deal with this sort of stuff. Sometimes it's like, oh, wow, I just killed someone. Puke. But this is actually... there's an investment here. Like, no, that was difficult (crosstalk).

THERAPIST: Well, I can see why the (crosstalk) really resonates for you...

CLIENT: (Chuckling) Yes.

THERAPIST: It's like... God, it's got aspects of Eva (sp?) that you've been talking about...

CLIENT: Yeah, certainly.

THERAPIST: Girls coming into their own, being... walking a line between innocence and kind of worldliness and needing to... [0:26:03]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) And needing it to be... the power to be recognized in some way? Something about...

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) And so I play that, and I play Mage Knight. And I make incremental progress toward solving problems. But ultimately I'm not being super creative. And this game of Mage Knight is a board game, which [I have a PC model of. I can play it] (ph) on the PC for free, which is nice. It's a game that takes between two and five hours depending on how long you're going to sit down and play it. And it's a sort of puzzle essentially, where you're this mage knight in this fantasy here thing. And you move across this board that you discover is different every time. [0:26:54] And you gather these resources which change how you can play your character. Every turn is this new individual puzzle inside of a larger puzzle.

THERAPIST: Jeez. One thing I'm thinking about is that you describe it as... playing these games as like going into a shell. I think it is in the sense that it's a world... it's a realm protected by the snarkiness, the criticism. And that can often feel like a... I mean, I was thinking, it's not just these criticisms and whatever that you deal with. But it's got a kind of a zombie kind of apocalypse kind of feel. It's like a... people are... can be cruel, and especially when they're...

CLIENT: Sure.

THERAPIST: I mean, there's the whole reality of what happens in social media.

CLIENT: Yeah, anonymity, right. (inaudible at 0:27:54) Internet asshat theory, which is, a normal person plus anonymity equals total asshat. Yeah. [0:28:01]

THERAPIST: Total. Yeah. And people will say these things and really try to hit you hard and...

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, and with Twitter now, it's like, this is who you are.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: This is who you are. And people...

THERAPIST: You become a zombie. In some way you do.

CLIENT: Well, to a degree, but, I mean, what... you also become incredibly accountable.

THERAPIST: Oh, I meant the snark that the people that are attacking...

CLIENT: Oh, sure. Yeah, that's true.

THERAPIST: But yeah, no (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Well... (Pause) So someone says something racist or horrible on Twitter. And so then you retweet it with a comment like, can you believe this shit?

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: And now thousands of people are looking at this racist asshole...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And going, what the fuck is wrong with you, and calling them out on it. And people are stupid in getting caught for stuff. There was this woman in Scotland who was driving down a road in her car. [0:28:56] And there were a bunch of bicyclists, and she hit one. And she keeps driving.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: And she tweets about it. She's like, yeah, fucking cyclist.

THERAPIST: [I heard about that] (ph).

CLIENT: She's like, yeah. And the police are like, we're going to arrest you now. You...

THERAPIST: You'd had it...

CLIENT: Yeah, exactly, you just told the world that you hit this guy. (Crosstalk)

THERAPIST: Yeah, she even said something like thump (ph) or something, like (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah, something like, bloody cyclists, and... she was... yeah, she was laughing about it, like, ah... and she's like, he doesn't even pay taxes for the road.

THERAPIST: Hmm. Yeah.

CLIENT: So... yeah.

THERAPIST: But outside of that shell there's a lot of area for critiques.

CLIENT: Well, sure, and it's people who want to attack the things you love...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So you make them unassailable. The whole Avengers thing is ridiculous. It's like, I criticize the... you can't criticize The Avengers. I'm sorry.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: The film is above criticism. [0:30:00] Yeah, it's like, it wasn't very good. It was really very good. And you can't make anything better, so...

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: So what? I'll criticize it in the following ways. That's really easy to do. We can all criticize...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Some of us better than others.

THERAPIST: But to create, that's another thing.

CLIENT: I could make $100 being snarky. Cracked.com, do you know them? People who have...

THERAPIST: You were telling me about that.

CLIENT: Yeah, for $100, six reasons Lost is bad, and you're wrong to like it. Boom.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah, lists.

CLIENT: That's all the stuff they do. There's always some number of reasons. But then it's, yeah, a couple paragraphs per reason. And they're really funny. So...

THERAPIST: No, I see what you're saying, though, that the critic is not taking the chance that the creative is. [0:31:01] The...

CLIENT: Sure, the critic is just doing the easy thing. Like, ah, here's things wrong with your stuff. And... but again it's that problem of... there's a difference. It's like, I also make films. And I think your film is not very good. And then there's, I did not enjoy this film. I thought the pacing was bad. I thought the acting was subpar. And so that's one thing, to be like, I can see... I know enough about this medium to see this was not really well performed. Then there's, this movie was okay. It's like, you're saying that because it was incredibly popular.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: This is more of your hipster nonsense. Like, oh, well, Citizen Kane is better. No, it's not. It's not. Citizen Kane was amazing when it came out. It blew out minds. Like, oh, wow, Citizen Kane, amazing. But that movie is really old now. It's not better than new stuff that's coming out. It just isn't.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) [0:31:58]

CLIENT: The pacing is awful. The acting is subpar by today's standards. The camera work, while brilliant for the time, is now just really old. So it's a great movie historically.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: It's a groundbreaking film, and we should study it and see why it changed the things it changed. But it's like Tolkien. Tolkien's amazing. Tolkien was an imaginative motherfucker. But as a writer he was really plodding and heavy-handed. And at the time the first acknowledged fantasy novel besides the Book of Mormon just...

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Yeah, well, yeah. The first fantasy novel... the first American fantasy novel is the Book of Mormon.

THERAPIST: Wow. (Pause)

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:32:53] So... but really his books aren't very good. I tried reading them. Halfway through The Two Towers I'm like, this is awful. I'm like, this is just awful. I do not care for this. The movies were really good though.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: And Tolkien's son or grandson or whatever is aghast at what Peter Jackson has done with the movies. But he's like, oh, he's changing. I'm like, actually, you know what, he is. And he's changing... he's making them his own. He's making Lord of the Rings his own story now. And I can see how it would piss off a lot of people, but he's making great movies, so...

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: And they tell the story in a better way in some cases. So [it's a good fan] (ph). He made a book shorter than the first book in Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, into a trilogy. It's amazing. How do you do that, adding scenes that never existed?

THERAPIST: Uh-huh. [0:33:54]

CLIENT: Bringing in characters that never...

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah.

CLIENT: (Crosstalk) adding characters that never existed, but telling the story, telling the central narrative theme, bringing it out in a way that Tolkien never could.

THERAPIST: But, yeah, it's creative.

CLIENT: Yeah, and Tolkien had the narrative theme in there. It's just it was buried under all this... and here's what the mountain range looked like. And here's what the forest was like. And the leaves had the following quality to them. And there was this river, and what was nice about the river was... and I'm sitting there like, God, it's been two pages. What the fuck is going on? He's like, yeah, this is what everything looked like. I don't fucking care. Just tell me there's fucking hills and trees. I can see that shit. You don't have magical flora and fauna. I mean, you have some big eagles and spiders. But you can just tell us they're big eagles and spiders.

THERAPIST: But he'd go into a lot of...

CLIENT: Yeah. He's like, oh, and the trees. Like, yes, I've seen trees.

THERAPIST: Painful details.

CLIENT: Yeah, it took forever and ever. [0:34:56]

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: You've seen the movies, right?

THERAPIST: I haven't. I haven't. I'm just not into that. I don't know why.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Fine. Fine, Carl (laughing).

THERAPIST: (Laughing) I really... just for whatever reason... I'm really a movie guy, but I...

CLIENT: You just don't like fantasy?

THERAPIST: Yeah, like, a stretch is Game of Thrones, but I actually like that a lot.

CLIENT: (Laughing) Yes. [Of course] (ph).

THERAPIST: Is that right? I... yeah, it just never held much appeal. I'm not a critic of it, but...

CLIENT: No, fine, fine, very well. Okay, it's fine.

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, never watched any of them...

CLIENT: (Crosstalk) wow.

THERAPIST: Nor The Hobbit.

CLIENT: Totally shit. So there's this great scene at the end of the first one, where this... Sean Bean, this very fallible human, falls prey to the temptation of the ring. He tries to steal it from Frodo to use its power for his own best intentions, which would then become the (inaudible at 0:35:51). And he has a moment of weakness where he tries to steal it from Frodo. [0:35:56] Frodo managed to become invisible and escape. And Boromir's immediately like, oh fuck, what have I done? This shameful thing.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Anyway, then all these Orcs come to attack. And Boromir quite bravely tries to fight off this whole horde or Orcs by himself and, in so doing, saved the lives of these other people, becomes a real hero. And it's this amazing, powerful scene, where Sean Bean... because he dies in everything...

THERAPIST: He what? What'd you say?

CLIENT: Sean Bean dies in everything he's in. You know, Ned Stark.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: And... I'm sorry, have you seen Game of Thrones? Are you caught up?

THERAPIST: No. I'm only on season two. I'm... I stopped somewhere like third... but you can (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Okay. In season 2? Okay, fine. But in season one you know Ned Stark gets his head cut off.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: So that's Sean Bean. So in this he dies as well. And it's this really incredibly powerful scene. And... (Pause) [0:36:54] In the book though, it's a couple sentences. It's like, oh, well, Boromir fought them, and they shot him with arrows, and he died. And you're like, what the fuck is this, man? And look at how Peter Jackson imagines it. And you're like, that's cool. That's really cool.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.

CLIENT: You can see character motivation and why he did the things he did, and why he felt he needed to...

THERAPIST: I see. That's interesting, right.

CLIENT: And that sorrow, disappointment, when he knows he's not going to be able to stop them.

THERAPIST: That... yeah, that's the key, right? He was critical in adapting that to a different medium.

CLIENT: Yeah, to an actual medium.

THERAPIST: That's his art, yeah.

CLIENT: Mm-hmm.

THERAPIST: And aside from that I hear it's just visually stunning. He's got a great eye for his...

CLIENT: Yeah, totally. And New Zealand is amazing.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: He shows us that. I have a friend who snowboarded down Mount Doom, the actual mountain that they used for Mount Doom.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Is that right?

CLIENT: She snowboarded down it. She's like, yeah, I snowboarded down Mount Doom. And she's like, it's funny. They had to add a lot of CGI rocks to it in the movies. Anyway... but...

THERAPIST: Huh. [0:38:00]

CLIENT: But that's... the point being that there are people who hold onto past instances of an art form, and they're like, this is still amazing. And I think it's important to say, no, that was amazing. And we should study it for those reasons. Why was it amazing? What made it amazing at the time? What did we learn from that? What did that teach us about the medium? That's great, that's important. Study Citizen Kane in film school. Don't try to tell me Citizen Kane is a better movie than The Avengers or Iron Man or fucking American Beauty.

THERAPIST: Hmm. Huh.

CLIENT: I mean, Pulp Fiction. Just any number of other Oscar winners since then and... or non-Oscar winners. Just don't tell me Citizen Kane is better than those movies...

THERAPIST: Uh-huh. [0:38:59] Right, yes, yeah.

CLIENT: Because it isn't. There's no way it is. The Pyramids are amazing, and we don't know how they built them. But they did. But do we want to build them? No. Pyramids were amazing. Look at those, study those, figure out what they did. But let's not build more pyramids. They're fucking useless...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: At least now, unless they're fucking super alien technology, and that's awesome.

THERAPIST: But what's almost like the... yeah, that there's some... it seems to me like you're getting at, it's a kind of a retreat. If you're kind of... (Pause) If you're too loyal to the old, it seems like it's more of a retreat from the new, from doing something new and creative, from expanding, from... and it's almost offensive in a way. [0:39:54] What you're sort of saying is... it seems to me is, there's... we're in a world now that that's the past. We're moving forward, and we're wanting to try to create new...

CLIENT: And there will be new, better things, yeah.

THERAPIST: But there's always going to be the critics of those things.

CLIENT: Well, right. But people who are like, oh, this other thing is cooler. And that's not criticism. That's just a sort of social posturing...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: That's like, oh, well, I can tell you things that were better.

THERAPIST: That... it is posturing.

CLIENT: And so this thing... it's like, oh, really? Was that better? Why? Explain why. It's like, oh, because they did it first. But that's meaningless.

THERAPIST: That's right.

CLIENT: That's the problem with our patent system. I had this brilliant idea first. Good, you did, fantastic. Now we all need to use that and build from that (inaudible at 0:40:37) thing.

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: But I own this idea. Oh, do you?

THERAPIST: It's more posturing than it is criticism, right.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's just like, people criticize things because they want to seem intelligent. This is the problem with Inception. This is the problem with Inception, it's an inverse of this. People praise Inception because they want to feel intelligent.

THERAPIST: Oh, the...? Yeah, the movie. [0:41:00]

CLIENT: Inception's not a good movie. I saw Inception once, and I was like, oh, that was cool. I enjoyed that. Like, ah, you and your thing at the end, the spinning top. You idiot. And then everyone's like, Inception's amazing, where they're like, oh, it's so hard to get your head around. I'm like, no, it isn't.

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: It's not... what are you talking about? It's not... so when I saw it again I'm like, no. It's not that good.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: People are like, Inception's amazing. It's like, the media told you it was hard to get your head around this movie. And then you went and saw it. and when you could you felt really smart.

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: And now you want to tell everyone how cool Inception is, because it'll look like you understood it.

THERAPIST: I see. Right.

CLIENT: But in fact here's what happened. He just fucked you. That's all it is.

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: He's like, oh, yeah, is he awake, or is he dreaming? I'm like, well, for a number of reasons it doesn't matter...

THERAPIST: (Crosstalk)

CLIENT: It's like, either no one has made a choice to be, we don't know if he's awake or dreaming, who knows, and left things intentionally vague, or he hasn't. [0:42:08] So he's like, well, we know that he spins the top. And if it keeps spinning forever then it's not a dream. If it falls over then it was a dream. And...

THERAPIST: Yeah...

CLIENT: He spins the top [at the end, but the top goes dzoo dzoo] (ph)...

THERAPIST: It's a very interesting criticism, though. Did you see Memento?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Memento was, I thought a fantastic...

CLIENT: Memento was really good.

THERAPIST: And it was very deep, and it add all the...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But it wasn't too heady. It wasn't like Inception was.

CLIENT: No, and it wasn't trying to fool you.

THERAPIST: It wasn't... yes.

CLIENT: It wasn't trying to give the appearance of trying to fool you, because really Nolan... once something falls out of precision, it falls out of precision. So if that top wobbled that means it was going to fall down eventually. So boom, you showed it wobbling. Clearly he's awake. [0:42:55] Or we look at the fact that he's like, never let anyone else touch your focus. But numerous people have touched his focus. It's not even his focus. It's his wife's focus...

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: Which he got out of the chest in a dream. It's like, so that's totally fucked. So the narrative basis of how he determines he was in a reality or a dream is completely fucked. And so either the truth is at the end, oh, no, it's going to fall, which means he's awake, or the entire movie's a dream and nothing matters, right?

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: So either it's a stupid trick because you gave it away immediately, or your entire movie is bullshit. And it was like, but they were in layers and layers of dream. Yeah, it's simple. There's places in different time. It's okay. He shows you the entire thing, how it's happening in real time. He shows that. That's not confusing. He makes it very clear, with different images on screen at the same time.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. [0:43:56]

CLIENT: So how is that dangerous? And then it's like, why not just fly di Caprio's kids to France? Why not send their grandfather, Michael Caine, to get them and bring them back to France where Leonardo di Caprio is, where he is safe from the American authorities? Why doesn't he get back into the country?

THERAPIST: Huh, [I don't remember] (ph)...

CLIENT: If the idea is to leave the kids, why not just bring the kids back? Anyway...

THERAPIST: You just saw it once?

CLIENT: Twice. I saw it twice.

THERAPIST: You remember all of it (chuckling).

CLIENT: The second time (crosstalk). I remember lots of things (chuckling).

THERAPIST: (Crosstalk)

CLIENT: It's very easy to remember things I love or hate, right?

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: Well, because you think about them multiple times. All your memories are memories of memories. The ones you maintain are the ones you make a memory (ph), which is why I'm so irritated with people that don't (ph) remember something was my idea. [0:44:55] I'm like, you don't think about me.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Oh.

CLIENT: You thought about the idea and the way you felt about it. In some cases you reassigned it to yourself. And I hate that...

THERAPIST: Oh, that's right.

CLIENT: Because credit where credit is due is actually so important to our functioning. People will be like, why do you care so much about getting credit for your ideas? I'm like, okay, well, you should know who has good ideas, because you need to go back to that person for good ideas. And Melody used to do this all the time, like, I don't really remember whose idea this was. I'm like, it was me.

THERAPIST: Jeez. How about that.

CLIENT: It's important to remember whose idea these things are.

THERAPIST: Otherwise it is... it kind of represents they're not thinking about...

CLIENT: Yeah, it's like, where did this knowledge come from? Oh, it came from Fred.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's true.

CLIENT: Let's see what else Fred has to say. Fred's had a bunch of good ideas. We should go see what he says to say about this. Maybe he'll have more great ideas, as opposed to, we have good ideas, but I don't know where they come from. Let's just hope that they keep coming to us. Fucking idiocy is what it is. [0:45:54] And I can't believe they're trying to get back to Melody sometimes. I'm looking at it today, I'm like, I left Melody four years ago, and I've tried to go back multiple times in really desperate moves in some cases. And I'm like, what the fuck is wrong with me? Why? Why am I going back?

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: As Darcy (ph) says, do you remember why you broke up with that crazy girl?

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Yeah.

CLIENT: It's like, yeah, sure, the sex was good. But didn't you hate her? Didn't she drive you insane? I'm like, she did. I did hate her. She did drive me insane. But Melody goes on, and they make... continue to make beautiful things.

THERAPIST: Hmm. No, there's something still there about that crazy girl or whatever.

CLIENT: Yeah, still crazy.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. So I don't care for that very much. (Pause) [0:46:57] Yeah, but the appearance of intelligence, and I really disrespect that. (Chuckling)

THERAPIST: What were you thinking then?

CLIENT: Just I know this guy who for years was at Melody. (inaudible at 0:47:08) so... but he was at Melody when I get there. He was actually the guy who let me know about the job and helped me get my foot in the door, which was great. And he kind of told me how to present myself in the interview because of what they were looking for. So I did. And that was great. But this guy was really irritating me because, one, he was rude. His way was just like, oh, I'm going to insult you a little bit every time we meet. But I'm going to smile while I do it. I'm like, no, you're still just insulting me. Well, it was actually though... he was like, oh, I see this is... like, yeah, you're still an asshole.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: And he had this look on his face like, oh God.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh. [0:47:55]

CLIENT: Like, I'm not going to fuck around with you (laughing).

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) I'm not going to play this game with you.

CLIENT: Yeah, if you're being the asshole, let's play you're being an asshole. I'm moving on.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: But he always was able to present himself as intelligent. And this was... he would find words to use, buzzwords. He'd be like, oh yeah, so what's this [platform agnostic] (ph)? I'm like, that's not really... (Pause) Fine. And then people started using that phrase. Like, oh, I guess we're all using platform agnostic now.

THERAPIST: It sounds smart (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah, it sounds intelligence. Well, I'm like, admittedly... he's like, admittedly? I'm like, yeah, it's a word.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. He's like, what are you...? Admittedly? I'm like, yeah, that's a word.

THERAPIST: Wow. How about that?

CLIENT: You should check that out. But very good at always getting to the right meetings. It's like, oh, [I'm just going to invite myself] (ph) to this meeting. I'm like, oh, I was there for part of it and really got to be a part of things. He was like, oh, I'll offer an insight, which again was somebody else's insight. [0:49:00] It was like, oh, well this thing somebody else thought of or said or whatever...

THERAPIST: Well, there is something about the...

CLIENT: Platitude, platitude.

THERAPIST: What you found at Melody and I think in other places, was that a certain kind of smooth operator could overcome a lot of substance.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And... yeah, there's some way that a social... the way you present yourself or something has a lot of...

CLIENT: Well, and you know, a few months before he got laid off...

THERAPIST: Oh, he did? He got laid off?

CLIENT: Yeah. I was sitting there at Melody with Kim, who he was reporting up through. And she was like, oh, I'm (inaudible at 0:49:47). And I turned to her, and I'm like, what is he good at? (Pause) And she thought about it. And she's like, I guess he's good at looking at large amounts of information and summarizing them. (Pause) [0:49:56] And that was it. And so they laid him off later.

THERAPIST: Ah, how about that?

CLIENT: I'm like, what's he good... what is he good at? This one thing.

THERAPIST: That's the question, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Well, all right. So Monday. Good.

CLIENT: Monday. Noon. Noon o' clock.

THERAPIST: Monday noon, that's right.

CLIENT: Unless you have 11:00 regularly. Or was that just...?

THERAPIST: If that's preferable, I might be able to swing that for us.

CLIENT: I mean, if that works. I don't know if that works for you.

THERAPIST: It's usually not, but it has been the last couple weeks. But somebody was out for...

CLIENT: All right, well, let's stick with noon and see what happens.,

THERAPIST: Yeah, we'll... but 11:00 is preferable?

CLIENT: I mean, yeah, it works.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: All right.

END TRANSCRIPT