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CLIENT: Sometimes you find a magazine. There's a thing here maybe it's a hot topic. I don't know what hot topics are in pop psychology, but there is a guy named Dan Ariely is that how you say it? My mom bought me two of his books. One of them is called The Upside of Irrationality, and the other one is a similar sort of take on things about how false notions are sometimes okay and intuitive reactions to things are somehow useful to pay attention to. You don't always have to be such rational creatures. And sometimes our gut synthesizes things and we're actually right, we just don't know why we're right, so that's his proof. I'm simplifying it, but that's the general idea. [00:02:29]

His new book is on why people cheat and the myths about cheating. I mean that's what he's saying. I read it in there. His other article is about this buy who says it's okay to give up on dreams. I didn't read the whole thing but in the big text, right here, it says, "People who live with regret over not following the dream are those who did actually have the [...] (inaudible at 00:02:58) (laughs). I don't know whether that's true or not, but it's a nice thought. [00:03:03]

THERAPIST: They did have the [...] (inaudible at 00:03:06)

CLIENT: They did. And, of course, on the previous page, he said, "Did you ever watch a single, abysmal U-tube cover of a song? Dreams are not always beautiful things. (laughs) So the article is about how to ditch a dream. Sometimes it's a good idea to give up on your goals.

THERAPIST: That's interesting.

CLIENT: Go ahead, nothing wrong and that's certainly going against the grain. This guy, Augusten Burroughs, wrote Running with Scissors. [00:03:38]

THERAPIST: He wrote that article? Yeah, I read that book.

CLIENT: So apropos, my class finished and you get that feeling when you look back that, man, that's a lot of stuff. You look around and just think, "What are you going to do afterwards?" and feel like a lot of ground was covered, not emotionally, but intellectually, some big ideas. Instantly there's that reflex of you know how (chuckles) in physics it's true nature abhors a vacuum; but psychically the week prior to taking the exam already I was thinking "Ugh, what next? It's going to be over. It's already looking at books to read and what the next thought process would be and what the classes are and so forth. [00:05:15]

THERAPIST: So you fill in that kind of vacuum?

CLIENT: Yeah, right. So then I took a day to kind of go through all of that. I was thinking I seem to contemplate the next step in terms of not in life, necessarily, but just in terms of thinking. So I did that and I thought, "Okay, all right. I can focus on this last bit and I have to actually learn because it's actually I need to finish this. I can't just stop." But that's the thing, sometimes you just sort of think, "Well, 90 percent is good enough, right? You don't have to finish the last 10 percent. Let's just stop and move onto the next thing." But you really have to learn the stuff. You really have to take the final exam, obviously. So that felt good. [00:06:16]

I thought, "Why, exactly, am I doing all of this stuff?" I'm sort of tracing it back thinking there was this sort of instinct to do math, but I feel like there's something else going on and that's pretty clear; but I guess I've been wondering what is the deal? Why am I wanting to do something which is so analytical, so deliberately and conspicuously obtuse or arid. So I thought, "Okay, why am I doing this in the first place?" I read this book by this guy named Mlodinow, and it's The Drunkard's Walk; so just the interesting notions of statistics, just in life. A popular book meant for non-math people. Loved it. And around that same time, prior to that, I read Freakonomics. That was probably a while ago because it was when that first came out. So, anyway, I thought, "Statistics; I really want to take Statistics," so I took Statistics. At that time, I was working at a community school. There was this class and it was using statistical analyses to think about political and economic theory, particularly regarding elections. [00:08:14]

I sat in on that class. I was like, "I could totally do this. I love it." Then being told the story that lasts two hours I was sitting there thinking this was great. I loved it. And in the last ten minutes he said, "If you're wondering if you should take this class or not, this equation should be familiar to you, he writes it up and it's literally Greek, except for [...] (inaudible at 00:08:34), and I'm heartsick. I was thinking, "Oh, brother." So then me going in I'd say there's probably a gap between where I am and where this is, so what would you recommend I take in the interim? He was like, "Just take a linear algebra class." I had no idea what that is. So I'm looking it up and thinking, "Oh, brother. I have to take three semesters of calculus? Great. No small task. So now I have all of these classes and so now, linear algebra is only taught in the spring. I couldn't take it last year, but after multi-grade calculus and preprogramming, I was so shot mentally I couldn't even bear the idea of taking it. [00:09:28]

So now, it's like now is the time, so last night I'm watching the linear algebraic videos, which I've done before, and he is the linear algebra guy. He is the textbook. [...] (inaudible at 00:09:54), the definitive algebra textbook. So he's this old guy, Rhodes scholar, really thin, peculiar, almost like a Texas minister doing linear algebra. And looking at it, I know it's only the start of it and I know it is, in principal, this really beautiful thing because so much can be explained using matrices. It's the basis of statistics, like your [...] (inaudible at 00:10:33). And yet, I was looking at it and feeling like this gives me a headache. I don't see the point. Equations of a line are not interesting. They have a whole class about lines. I know it's more than that it's planes and it's [...] (inaudible at 00:11:02) of space and it's [...] lines, but for the first class, lines and planes and how you can look at lines different ways. You can look at it from the vector point of view or from just a regular X,Y coordinate. I'm thinking this is so uninspired. I'm feeling really bored by it. [00:11:37]

Am I doing this stuff to prove something to myself that I did not have it together to do medical school and now that ship has sailed, so that's not going to happen? And yet, in my own mind, somehow I think that I need to do something that is difficult and in some ways not me, meaning something that is clearly abstract and analytical. And math satisfies that because I can think, "Okay, I've done that," and somehow I will get to a point where I'll just somehow say, "Okay, I don't have to do that again." I'll reach a certain level of expertise and I've proven it to myself. [00:12:35]

THERAPIST: That you still could satisfy something within yourself by taking it and having a feeling of some sort of mastery over it.

CLIENT: True.

THERAPIST: Mastery in the sense of really getting it, feeling like you got it.

CLIENT: Really getting it and also (pause)... yeah. I don't know. Huh.

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: Yeah, reaching a certain level of expertise, whether I use it or not; knowing that I did it and I can walk away from it. (pause) I enjoy the idea of being able to have some distance and sort of see everything work together in the sense that, like right now, you're always averting the next thing. You're always in this state of not knowing. The danger point is stopping and then sitting back and thinking, "Oh, that's how it links together. That's how it links together, you know? (pause)

THERAPIST: In a way it's almost like you're trying to it seems something about the math has this quality, especially given your uneasiness with math and science, I think it was, early in your school days in college, I guess. Some way of feeling like, "No, I really could have and can get this stuff." Proving it to yourself. (pause) [00:15:00]

CLIENT: It is, yeah. And I must say I feel like everything else feels so much easier in comparison. Granted, I so rarely read anything that is not math, other than just reading the headlines of the Globe and the New York Times; but I'm just seeing what the headlines are and reading the first couple of paragraphs because you hear it all anyway and I don't need to read sports because I hear it. So, read me this, right? After (pause) thinking about the number system and then last night looking again and thinking about how it relates to many variable calculus and sort of remembering all that and now looking at everything I've learned through the lens of the scripture. And so again, it's an abstract thing and that gives you a headache; and actually having a headache and not sleeping much last night. So now [...] (inaudible at 00:16:42) picking up Gabrielle because she needed to come up [...] and it happened at the same time I saw her [...] So sitting in the waiting room and looking at this reading a few articles and thinking, wow it's so much less complex. Not the field that's not simple, but this is simple. [00:17:21]

I mean that's what people are doing difficult stuff, it's popular sort of stuff and it feels really refreshing to somehow think, "Wow, I don't feel confused by it." It's just straightforward prose about feelings we have.

THERAPIST: Well you know one thing that I just think about your process to these classes is that I don't know if it was any kind of conscious intention. It doesn't even seem like even to say things like you could achieve some sort of master expertise over it, that doesn't capture what I sort of see that might be important about it; important about your experience during these classes. What I'm really struck by is that I think your kind of relationship to the intellectual challenge well the challenge that it poses to you. You have a very different relationship than I imagine it was when you were in college. You felt challenged; you felt like it was hard, I'm sure it brought up some kind of questions and self-doubt, but it all had a manageable quality, it seemed to me. [00:19:06]

And not as if you did it as a tonic to previous times that you struggled and felt like it was, but more it seems to me that it's a very interesting contrast, it seems to me, between your description of what it used to be like for you and what it's like now. I mean I was just struck by yeah, it was challenging and it brings self-doubts, but it must have been like that for everybody in a certain way; not everybody. And you got through it. It didn't paralyze you. It didn't feel like something you had to it didn't overwhelm you and that's noteworthy. [00:19:54]

CLIENT: Hmph. (pause) Yeah, and now I don't feel the pressure to have to be the best or to even get an A. I want to do the best I can because I want to know the material and, of course, I want to do the best I can to get the best grade I can, but I don't feel like there's a consequence if I don't. Now it's like as long as I did the best I could and passed the course, it's all right. [00:21:25] And I don't like it because I'm used to doing well, but I'm not looking at it thinking that if I get a B+ instead of an A, that's going to mean that I can't do certain things. If I don't get a 32 on the mCAT, blah, blah, so it's not like I see myself as a mathematician. I don't see myself as using this to get into anything. (sniggers) It's not like I'm applying to math-y things. I'm not applying to anything, so it's just that inner drive for it which, I guess, makes it I guess that evolution was written out of creation. (pause) [00:22:55]

Gabrielle is taking an analytical geometry course, so in the car on the ride on the way over she's going through her head all these irregular tessellations and saying the pattern and describing the patterns to me that she needs to keep in her brain. It's very interesting. And, again, it's truth. Whatever one finds themself. I've been thinking that a lot, but we were driving along and there was this frustrating lull in the background. She's got something that I can't really hear because I want her to be able to concentrate and not be distracted by it. We were talking about how the Celtics suck right now. [...] (inaudible at [0:23:58] so it's all right. I thought it was interesting that these two people are spending a lot of time thinking about these very abstract things for unknown reasons. I guess people study things for all kinds of reasons. [00:24:33] (pause)

THERAPIST: I guess it seems to me you're reflecting back on what was the meaning of this? What was the reason of this? When I started to think about it and I offered you my take on it, I wasn't struck so much by the purpose of what you're doing instead of the contrast the contrast between how you went about taking this class and how it was in the past that seemed significant.

CLIENT: (chuckles) Actually.

THERAPIST: Then, again, this isn't to say it has anything to do with a conscious attention or even an unconscious purpose or motivation, but rather just what it was. But I also think you seem to enjoy being immersed in it. You just enjoy it. You enjoyed the process. You enjoyed learning. It's always been something somehow interestingly a part of you, an important part of you, that you really do like to learn. You're curious, you're naturally curious, thoughtful. The realm of ideas has a lot of connotations to you intellectual rigor but among them is a deep curiosity about the world; just fundamentally a deep curiosity of the world a real impetus in learning. And it seems like you really enjoyed the ideas, the meaning in there. I think, in some ways, you must have been some of that that led you get interested in math and science; but also that there was so much more on the line for you kind of psychologically and personally at that time that you couldn't take much enjoyment out of it. It wasn't like it was going to be enjoying this.

CLIENT: Very competitive.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: My mom took me very funny. She was telling this story and then we were laughing. She goes, "All right. Brain teaser. A person goes to a doctor and he's taking a medication that's going to save his life but makes him really really tired. So the doctor says, "Well, there's no way I can give you two kinds of medications so that you'll get better but you won't feel tired; so I'm going to prescribe you two types of pills. I'm going to give you ten each and you have to take one of each at the same time every day and if you do this, you'll get better and you won't be sleepy. But if you take two of the same type of pill, it fails. One of each." So the guy is going to go to the cabin for the weekend. He drives up and, as he's in the car, all the pills spill onto the floor except for two pills in one vial. He knows what those pills are because all the pills look alike. So he goes in the cabin and he happens to have this really accurate scale. He says, "I'll weigh the pills and maybe I can observe the difference in their weights. They weigh the same as well, totally indistinguishable. So he figures out what to do so he won't die and he'll get better. He figures out how to take his medication, one of each. I'm listening to this and mom is saying, "So, what did he do? What did he do?" I said, "Well, they look exactly alike, they weigh the same amount, totally indistinguishable. I'm assuming it takes the fun out of it if he calls the doctor and asks if... we have to assume it's the end of the world, right? He's the last person in that region of the world and he has to solve this problem. Anyway, I'm thinking and I'm thinking and I'm thinking and I'm bugged because I'm thinking, "What is this?" I feel like I'm always solving these sort of math riddles and I'm thinking how does he do this? How does he do this? How does he do it? How does he do it? Finally I said, "I don't know. Let's back-burner it." So we keep talking and talking. She goes, "All right. Here's another one. Mom makes a tray of brownies in a rectangular pan. Dad comes in and just cuts out a big rectangle somewhere in the middle not considerate at all. Doesn't do it at the edge, doesn't divide them all off, just takes a big triangle, walks away, eats it. [00:30:41] There are two kids and the two kids want rectangular brownies, but now there's a big rectangle that somewhere in the middle. And, of course, the kids want the same amount. So how does she go about dividing up two edges of brownies? I'm thinking, "Oh, my God." This is just a straightforward problem in a way. It does come back to these simple little riddles that you would think about when you were in the fourth grade. I'm thinking now I've got so much more problem-solving ability and I'm thinking 20 pills, brownies, there's geometry, there's some sort of thing with the pills. What do you do? Anyway, so I focus on the brownie problem. I said if it was just an issue of the kids wanting equal amounts, then you could just give one kid the top half and the other kid the bottom half. It's just that's not the issue. The problem is that the kids want to have rectangles. [00:31:49]

THERAPIST: They want rectangles, too?

CLIENT: Rectangles, not just half. So I'm thinking about widths to one edge and widths of the other and you find an increment that divides by both and, there you go, you can make rectangles. Anyway. She was listening to this and she went, "Oh." She didn't have the answer to that one. She said, "There are all kinds of good answers, I guess. You can do triangles, you could do top half/bottom half." [...] (inaudible at [0:32:26] And the pill thing, I'm like so he has a scale. She says, "Yep. He has a scale. It's an accurate scale." So I said, "Okay, here we go." The red herring is two pills are left that he knows what they are. If you take all 20 pills and divide them up, mix them thoroughly and then measure out ten allotments, you're sure to get five of each. Just exactly. The classic mom, you know? Fun, but... [00:33:20]

THERAPIST: Challenging. I was thinking it also challenges your own sense of how well your mind works.

CLIENT: Well, that's it. That's it. I'm thinking that pill problem, I'm like if you don't let yourself get distracted it really is just sort of a chemistry problem. It's just a mixtures problem. But when I first heard of it, it wasn't until afterwards later thinking about the brownies and it's sitting in the back of my brain for a few minutes that I'm able to sort of see through it and I'm thinking, "Okay, he has a scale. That's important." The idea that there are always ropes. There are always ropes. There are always these things that are unsolvable, which creates tension in a way because you take this level of fun and it's really like huh. If things are too hard then it's just frustrating and you can't help but feel dumb, which is the case as often with math. You get a problem and you stare at it and you can't even read it, so then you have to learn a language; but to learn the language is sort of math and the words have concepts, so you learn the concept. [00:35:26] You learn definitions and then you, all of a sudden, in the course of wrestling, wrestling, wrestling, you're able to do a problem. And then another and another and another. But the process is really difficult and it seems really inaccessible. (pause) [00:36:01]

THERAPIST: I was thinking there's something about it, though, whether it's solving a riddle or getting a very complicated I was just thinking actually in terms of you taking these courses with the idea of getting into this class, that if you're able to do that, being able to solve the riddle or successfully go through these classes, you would feel equipped, prepared mentally, like cognitively whatever or intellectually prepared for the challenge that awaits in that class. (pause) [00:36:50] A 35 on the MCAT would have been, in some way, some of the motivation to feel like with that score you would feel equipped to be a physician; to address the challenges of medical school and residency and so on and so forth the competition that awaited. (pause) [00:37:45]

CLIENT: Part of me not dwelling on this but there is the I'm not even feeling unhappy about this, I'm sort of aware of this as the fact now, of thinking had I done a lot of this math much earlier then everything would have been formed by that and so I probably would have done much better on the MCAT because physics equations would be less distracting instead of memorizing them, which is what most people do, right? So it's not a cause unusual, in that sense, but if you do math 17 instead of math one or math 14 even, you really thoroughly understand the equations. So if you see stuff on the MCAT, it's the equivalent of taking the GRAs. It's sort of like huh you'll do fine, instead of really having to feel stressed about it because it's just so familiar, it's just so basic. [00:39:05]

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: I suppose there are people that just sort of feel like, "It's just a test. It's just a test, right?" (pause) But I didn't have tons of math background, so now there are certain math I can think if I was in chemistry now, I would see the equation and it would make much more sense to me. It would make intuitive sense, whereas then everything felt arbitrarily I understood a lot of it, but not deeply, deeply. [00:40:10] So there was that sense of feeling that discomfort, that psychological discomfort of straining, as opposed to just simply reviewing material, doing some practice problems and then going in and thinking, "Eh, I'll do well enough." Not that there are a lot of people who feel that way, but, you know, if one is a mathy-science person genuinely and has a lot of background in it, it's a natural sort of test to take. It's a challenge; there is pressure to do well. Me, in some way I'm aware of that fact, as well as I'm doing these things, feeling like I'm correcting for a deficit. I want to correct that feeling. I don't want to have that feeling of not understanding and having to strain too much. I want to be able to open a physics book and not contemplate some things but just sort of look at it and think, "All right," and really get it. (pause) I never thought that would be the case but, yeah, wanting that sense of ease. [00:42:08]

THERAPIST: Yeah, it solves the anxiety that's otherwise there, present. I mean, you're looking at an equation and you have to memorize it. You don't really understand it if you're having to memorize it, right? That's just the nature of the beast. And yet, what that also means is that you're left with wondering, "Do I really know it? Would I really be able to know it?" All of those kinds of questions. [00:42:54]

CLIENT: Yeah, there's an element of fraudulence in the sense of I don't genuinely get a lot of this, and I should. I know there are people that do. Not me, perhaps. And there is the fact that had I been in a space of differently and had not taken so long, had I not had this winding path through college, it would be perfectly sufficient, in fact, to get the score I did and not fully grasp the material and yet get in. It's not like you have to genuinely understand all of this, you have to understand enough and that's okay because you're showing you're capable of understanding 70 percent of it and memorizing another 10 percent and you get a score and you move on because generally you can understand 70 percent of more stuff. [00:44:20]

THERAPIST: Exactly.

CLIENT: Because a lot of people, without doing that, wouldn't understand 5 percent of the rest either. But at the time, I'm not feeling right. [...] (inaudible at 00:44:43) just the notion of the distance of an aspiration. Right now I'm not feeling it quite so much, but maybe that's because I didn't sleep much last night and I'm just feeling a little more relaxed than usual and I'm not feeling internally that tense. But that's what really happens and I start to feel very stressed about it. [00:45:19] Time passing and that not having been achieved and the consequences of not pursuing that and sort of doing, leaping too far often and getting myself into trouble by trying too much and feeling... (pause) I don't know. [00:46:09]

THERAPIST: Feeling what?

CLIENT: Just that feeling of baseline nervousness, right? And feeling like I've got to do this and I've got to do that, da-dat, da-dat, da-dat; and so jumping here an dumping there and not just having a sort of steady abiding, persistent goal, like something that catches my interest now but then as well. Interesting no, that's it. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be a philosopher; I love philosophy. I'm a [...] (inaudible at 00:47:01); that's what I'm going to do. I love literature; I'm going to do that. I'm studying philosophy, so maybe I'll go to law school, so take the LSAT and then I was only a sophomore and thought, "What the hell? A friend is taking the LSAT and they're older than me, so I'll take it." [00:47:25] All these languages: I'll take French. I'll take German. I'll take Latin. I'm going to do Greek. I'll learn Polish. Oh, my friend is Chinese; I'm going to take Chinese. I'm from India; I'm going to learn Sanscrit. And so I jump in and I'm like brrt. I'm going to make up my mind and do it really well. No, it's hopping around, hopping around, hopping around, and so everything is always hard because it never gets easy. You're always at the beginning. It's always hard. (pause) [00:48:19]

My friend, I forget her name, she was Polish, and I thought, "I like Polish poetry, I'll learn Polish." (chuckles) I'm sitting there, that's a lot of stuff, right? Literally for a month I was really focused, like I'm going to learn Polish. And I'm finding the memorization this is really difficult. Why, exactly, am I doing this? It's a lot of effort, a lot of effort for what? [00:49:04]

THERAPIST: What did it start out as? What would be the spark that would get you interested?

CLIENT: That's the thing. That's always the spark, especially with languages. I want a new life. I'm going to get French and go to France. I'm going to get German and go to Germany. I'm going to learn ancient Greek and I'll be a scholar that can feel comfortable looking at the Bible. I'm going to learn Latin because everyone should know Latin. I'm going to learn Polish because I've herd Krakow is an amazing city and every Polish woman I've met has been really attractive and my grandmother is of Polish descent so I'm thinking, "This is kind of in my blood and I like Polish poetry." And my first psychologist was Greek. He did his training in Krakow before going to Berkeley. So he was Greek and then went to Poland to learn Polish and he learned Polish in a year. Then he went to University and I thought, "Huh. So he could do it." And he loved Poland. I'm thinking, "There you go. There's a romance to Krakow." Then you sort of read the difficulty at like, "Oh, my God. Polish is no joke," just as the verb tenses of the Greek another alphabet. Yikes. But there is that sense of creating the new self. It is a departure. It's like leaving one's current situation, finding oneself but also departing from the current feeling of being trapped like this is a ray of light that, if I follow that... [00:51:10]

THERAPIST: You would feel more and more like you've kind of stepped into yourself more in some way, kind of become... what did you...?

CLIENT: I guess it's a fantasy, right? Being that sort of person. It's like trying on another self and really sort of, for a period of time whether it's three weeks or five weeks or a year, thinking, "That's the new self I want to be," because that new self could just exist in Krakow. That new self could exist in Paris. That new self could just have a new life in Berlin. That new self could really be erudite because he knows Greek and Latin and Sanskrit. This person can do Chinese. [00:52:20] That sense of escape, I suppose and math does the same thing in some ways. (pause) I mean it's more I don't know. It's like a panglossia in a way. It's not escaping in another language, but it's the sense of being on the same wavelength with a certain type of people as a cross-culture, whether it's French or German or Polish that level of abstraction is that level of abstraction, regardless of language. It's a sense of it being a passport in a certain way to a certain mindset. [00:53:45] And yet, last night I was talking to Barbara and she was talking about how a friend of Delphine's Delphine is her cousin died on Sunday, riddled with cancer. She was supposed to survive sic months and survived two years; was 47. She told her husband, "Take me to the doctor. I want you to take care of all that. I don't want to know prognosis, I don't want to know anything. If you say, ‘Go to the doctor,' I go to the doctor. If you say, ‘Get the treatment,' I'll get the treatment." They traveled and she just wanted to live day-to-day a smart person but just was aware of not wanting to know too much. Then, of course, looking at what happened in Connecticut, there are these horrible realities in life. There's that Buddhist, I think it was Levine (sp?) who wrote The Last Year of My Life. He decides that he's going to treat the year as if it was his last year, although he's perfectly healthy. I guess for four weeks he's going to really think about it as if this was his last year. He said it was not a bad experience of connecting with people and really being aware of the fact "what if I really lived only another 365 days?" [00:55:56]

Anyway, I think when things get really tough, like you get in an accident and hit your head and you're feeling sick to your stomach and you're in the hospital and you are really hurt and you don't know whether you're going to live or die, at that point is any of this stuff going to save me, in the sense that I'll be finding peace contemplating math? Or will I feel like, okay, there is a lot of stuff that I didn't do while I was doing math and math is perfectly fine, not that I'm going to be consciously thinking about it; but I am away from my family. I don't have kids, which I think about a lot, thinking what has happened. I don't have what do I have? I have this sort of internal life, but internal life depends on a brain that works and that's not a permanent thing. [00:57:33] We just assume that's going to be the case. So last night I got in bed and I was thinking what truly matters love and relationships and those active connections, not ideas. If ideas can bring you closer together, then that's great; but if ideas serve to insulate or create barriers, then they're not the ideas that should be being thought by that person. The ideas themselves aren't bad, but the person shouldn't be pursuing thinking about them if it's getting in the way of more important things like love and relationships and really having traction in life and feeling really in the moment. Because one can just be lost in thought, thinking about abstract things and it can get unbalanced. [00:59:12]

THERAPIST: Yeah, and yet I think maybe what sometimes I'm thinking about in terms of things like an example of why getting a high score on the MCAT is important isn't to set yourself apart, but rather to feel like you very much do belong. That actually enhances a sense of relatedness and belonging and without it, in fact, you don't know your place and the way you feel. Am I so much on the outside? (pause) [01:00:15]

CLIENT: Last week I thought to the club and it was in the looked out on the center campus, oil paintings everywhere, grand piano, big, beautiful wood lectern with the crest, and I'm setting up my stuff and I'm looking out on the paintings; and part of me thought partly that there is a certain aura that is just irritating about this just like when I'm at the faculty club at MIT. [01:01:22] There's a sense of "Well." Yeah, I mean it depends on the function but it's like the center of myth making. It's like on one level it's just you go, you have dinner, you have lunch. Whatever. You just go. But on another level, it's like the center of the public face, the deal-making, the being on the stage, it happening, a role. And so, being at Brandeis, people around me who are working here, they're dressed as was I but they have a sense of being the right? At this place. In the back of my mind I thought, "It's just Brandeis." (both laugh) It's the [...] (inaudible at 01:02:35). I mean it's really nice.

THERAPIST: Demystify it.

CLIENT: so I was looking at the people that I was teaching and trying to identify because you want people to feel good in such that there's been a judgment, you want people to feel good and you want people to let their hair down a bit and I thought this is an interesting crowd because, on the one hand, I'm just the CPR first-aid guy; but on another level, it's like I'm very aware of what's going on in this sort of scene and thinking they might not think I understand it, but I do understand it. Wanting to somehow get them to relax a bit and get out of their "pretend-ness." [01:03:45]

THERAPIST: The next time that we're set to meet, I think it ends up being the 7th of January. What I'm going to do is if something does come free Wednesday because I'm not back at work until the 2nd if something comes up on the 2nd I'll give you a call or text you. I'm out the next two Mondays.

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