TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I'm waiting for my payments are sort of irregular.

THERAPIST: Ah-huh.

CLIENT: Plus I'm always plus I'm near the edge anyway, and then there's the whole car getting fixed.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So, Barbara's in Europe and I always feel and it's not a bad thing necessarily, it's just sort of interesting, where she goes, it is a complete sort of reversion, if that's even a word, back to like primitive self. So it's like and then I get back with it, and it's like now I want to keep the place really neat, but it's like, you know... Well, so like I watched so, I missed the seventh season of Dexter, so and so, you know, I bring it up, like "Yeah, we should watch Dexter." She goes eh. We hadn't really seen it, she's like that's too much, I'm not in the mood, so we had to watch Chopped instead. [0:01:33.2]

So, over two nights, right, just twelve episodes, so I could lie there, six episodes, six episodes, right? That sort of thing. Not taking a shower, just setting dishes out, not going to the grocery store, you know, and I like to drink tea, but like just not even wanting to go outside because it's been cold. So, getting to the point where there's no milk, so then I just think, well there's condensed milk. So I've been drinking coffee and tea with condensed milk, and it's like there's not food and I probably, you know I should just go to Trader Joe's. But I didn't even think of that, I just thought, you know it's okay, so I'll be okay. So I ate eggs, I brought, you know, stuff out of the I had salmon in the freezer, so I like defrosted salmon. So I'm just looking around, thinking okay, what do I have, all right. So there was rice and salmon and kale, is what we have, and then finished that off. It was like all right, we have chips and salsa, so that's, that's something, some chips and salsa. And just sort of in this sort of primitive mode. [0:02:45.4]

THERAPIST: Mm, hmm.

CLIENT: Anyway, so today is my first day out, so it's like last night I showered. Anyway.

THERAPIST: What was it like? How was it in that primitive mode?

CLIENT: The thing is too, like what I do as well, and this is deliberate, and it makes me wonder about, like days of old, right, you know like a thousand years ago. So, in the bathroom, I'll put a towel over the mirror, so I never see I never see myself getting ready without seeing the mirror.

THERAPIST: Oh, huh.

CLIENT: And so when I go to the bathroom, I just don't even have to like look and contemplate, like oh, I should shave or oh I should, you know whatever. I don't like I just, that's it. So it's this very...

THERAPIST: You do it like deliberately, so you won't see yourself?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Or is it because of steam or something? [0:03:45.9]

CLIENT: No, I deliberately cover it so I don't see myself.

THERAPIST: Oh, really, huh.

CLIENT: Yeah. Which is much preferable. I mean, there are already studies right, that people who have lots of mirrors are unhappy. (laughs) This is what I remember hearing.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: You know, because people aren't always seeing themselves. So anyway, so now I live in a world, at least I mean as of this morning, where there's no towel.

THERAPIST: Wow, that's -

CLIENT: I mean where there's no mirror. But then I thought how interesting, you know like before they came up with mirrored surfaces, I mean unless you lived near still water, you went through the world looking at everything else but yourself, which is probably a really healthy thing, although a bit of mystery, always sort of wondering what oneself looks like. [0:04:39.3]

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, like primitive man.

CLIENT: Yeah, exactly, that's right. I think how interesting, you know, know thyself, and yet they keep seeing themselves unless one can stay away from the still water.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: I don't know, this is reflective.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it's not like there's be a lot of glass either.

CLIENT: Right. So I guess one has to see oneself figuratively, right? How people respond to you. They'll tell you whether they like you or not. You can't tell yourself by looking at yourself and praising.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but so you cover it up. Is there something what is it about seeing yourself in the mirror?

CLIENT: It's distracting. Yeah, because then is the sense of well, I don't know what the thought process is exactly, but I guess it's just, like it's cold, right, so I draw all the curtains, and it's sort of like, there's no one around to regard me, and I feel like it's a mode where I'm not regarded. [0:06:10.1]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But in a very positive sense. It's like this entirely internal very basic elemental self. So it's like, you know, I spend a certain amount of time each day doing math, and so finally and then it's not, like I'm not listening to the radio, that's the thing too. When Barbara's around, I'm always listening to sports radio. Part of this is, I suppose a result of it's the first weekend of football, so I think Barbara being gone, no football, like all of a sudden... yeah, there's a massive void that is, I don't know, but not in I mean not in a depressed way but just you know. [0:07:23.5]

So I watched that, I was doing that and I forget when it was, it was Friday or something. I was flipping the channels and "Hannibal," the third of the series came on, where Julianne Moore plays Clarice, and it was just, I guess three minutes into it, and so I just watched that, but of course it was on a channel with commercials, so I kept pausing it so I didn't have to watch the commercials. So yeah, for the next three hours. So, Hannibal is just whatever, a mixture of id and genius, just doing what he likes, which is beyond the norms. [0:08:28.5]

THERAPIST: Hmm. Yeah.

CLIENT: And then Dexter, the same thing.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So it's season seven. I don't know, have you been watching season seven?

THERAPIST: No, no. Dexter, no, I've seen ah, I've seen the show but I've only watched I think I watched the first season or something.

CLIENT: So, in season seven he meets so, his sister is now a lieutenant in the Miami Police, and of course he's the blood spatter guy. And so it turns out that he meets this woman who the police are after, who she herself kills people, and so the police are after her and yet Dexter really likes her. So they have this rapport because he feels understood. I found it rather powerful. So he can never tell anybody what he does and now, all of a sudden, he feels like she completely accepts him because while she does kill people, it's not in the same way he does. Hers are more of a practical thing, if people are after her or mean to her, right? That sort of adage I forget what movie was that, that I was watching, they were profiling... No, it was the "Silence of the Lambs." Was it Silence of the Lambs? No. It was something where they were trying to figure out who was doing some damage. Oh, I know what it was. It was a Jodi Foster film where she's the vigilante and she's on a train, because her fiancé was murdered and she's violently attacked, and she's a talk show host. It came out a few years ago. And so she just converts this person who rides the train and seeks out people in the middle of the night, so people who are thugs, she'll take out. So, the police are looking, who's the person who is going around killing all these bad people and it's floated that well, because they're assuming it's a guy, and one of the cops says well, "Is it possible it's a woman?" And the other cop says, "No, of course it can't be a woman. Men can kill a stranger but women kill shit they love." [0:11:09.9]

Anyway, so Dexter's girlfriend kills people who she's related to in some way, who are getting in her way, and Dexter doesn't have too much of a problem with it because he doesn't like these people, or so he's heard that he doesn't like them. Anyway, he feels completely accepted because here she is, this very attractive woman who runs a garden center, and he contemplated how he never looked forward to the future, he never really paid much regard, but now he actually looked forward to growing old with her, and he can tell her, without judgment, what he's doing. He can talk about his dark passenger. When she sees that he's feeling that way, and he talks about who he's wanted to kill, she's able to convey, you know, have a good time essentially, because of course he kills people who are horrible. Anyway, so that sense of being accepted, faults and all, that was rather there's a few episodes that are especially poignant, where he's feeling in a way he never could be. [0:13:01.3]

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: And not at all judged, because everyone else would of course be horrified if they knew. And so he's lying in her arms, and of course she poisons people, that's what she does, and he feels immune to that, that she's not going to kill him. Anyway, so he's lying in her arms and he's opening up, and he goes, "With you, I feel safe." Which is great irony. No one else is safe around her but he feels safe with her and he is safe with her. Anyway, so the you know, I guess the theme of Dexter in general is this sense of secrets, living this false self, of imitating. And that's why the show is so captivating, because we all feel that to some degree, although he's of course this extreme example of someone who is nearly a sociopath and always is trying to imitate a normal person. And there's always that running inner dialogue that goes throughout the film or the series, you know there are those moments where he is clear about, you know, what would a regular person do in this situation, I guess I should smile. You can always see him trying to think, what is the genuine thing to do, what looks like a normal person. [0:15:12.6]

THERAPIST: Yeah, the primitive man masters the civilized man.

CLIENT: Say it again?

THERAPIST: Rather the civilized he's a primitive man trying to act like a civilized man.

CLIENT: Yes, interesting, interesting. So another thing, and this is what she brings out in him, her name is Hannah, this other killer, he's explaining this dark passenger to her, this idea that he sort of sees red behind his eyes and it becomes much more powerful, then it's in black, and he says there's a pressure, he has to kill. And she goes well, "It's a feeling." She says, "It's not this other person it's you, it's how you feel." And he so now he understands. Then, he starts thinking about it and he realizes, maybe this idea of a dark passenger is not really it. Maybe it is truly me who is doing all the killing. Maybe I have this code that I live by, who I'm going to kill. I have to be positive that they are in fact the perpetrator of horrible crimes, that they really do deserve to die. It comes like a vision and in fact, he has this code, especially he kills who he wants to kill and it is him who's making the choice. And of course the notion of course is I suppose like what Robert Lifton talks about, this notion of how we do conjure notions of evil where, you know, the Dr. Mengeles of the world, you need to see them as being possessed by the devil, they are pure evil, because it's too subtle and too difficult to contemplate that we might be rather similar, but they have something just beyond, that allows them to do this horrible thing, but they're human just like us. [0:17:36.1]

THERAPIST: Yeah. A way to say that they're not me.

CLIENT: Yeah, the other.

THERAPIST: The other, yes.

CLIENT: So, I wonder, you know it's like Barbara's gone, my routine is off, because of course the weekend means football, but now the weekend does not mean football, and so and it's been cold. So I just it's being, it's just being inside. I haven't gone to the gym, so there's that sense of like okay, I am just deconditioning by the minute, you know just I sit, I sit, I lie down, I eat chips, you know just three days of decadence. [0:18:50.8]

THERAPIST: That's a side of you Barbara doesn't get to see much.

CLIENT: That's it, that's exactly right, that's exactly right. So, while I'm not sneaking around killing, I feel like I'm often sneaking around in some way, and so now...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: She's gone, so I don't have to sneak.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: So, the only time, and -

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: The towel over the mirror sort of consisted in that in some way, like feeling how I exist as opposed to seeing, or having this, this one to one match reference where I can see myself in the way she would see me. [0:19:59.7]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Because that's the routine, right? She's always in the mirror with all her ablutions and so forth, and I guess I follow suit in some way, just in terms of basic maintenance, but realizing if I'm just staying in and I'm not going out, it doesn't matter. I can brush my teeth without a mirror, I can wash my face without a mirror, although I only washed my face once, because I thought it would be a good thing to do, in the past three days. I got in the shower last night, where I just thought okay, time to wake up and be civilized, so I might as well start last night.

THERAPIST: How do you think she'd see it, see this kind of behavior? What do you think she would see? How would she...? [0:21:06.8]

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, yeah. It's not exactly "The Last Tango in Paris." I don't think she would feel like oh, it's just the two of us in this room and it's like we are ourselves. It's not that, no. It would be her being intolerant, like it's okay for it's okay for you to not shower for a day, that's all right, but for three days in a row, what the hell, and why are you eating a bag of chips?

THERAPIST: What the hell.

CLIENT: And the dishwasher has to, you know, be turned on. Yeah, so, and then there's this so we have this leather chair, though it's not as wide as this, but it's a leather chair in the living room, which is on an angle that is sort of acute, from the television, so essentially it's at a right angle. So, to watch television, you have to sit here and do that, to watch it, so we never sit in it, right, it's for guests, and so the guests when they are there, can't watch (laughs) TV, although the TV might be on. Anyway, so that's funny. And of course there's this blanket that she likes and so forth, this pillow. [0:23:10.7]

THERAPIST: What, on the chair?

CLIENT: On the chair, right, so everything is staged. And of course we're showing the house, so she's blatantly aware, I mean she tells me that the place is, you know, eye level of neatness nonstop. So, I put a rug I have this blanket, this wool blanket, and this is usually what I do. I put that underneath the chair, because I don't want scuffmarks, because she knows. When things had happened she knows. So I put the blanket under the chair and I slide it, and I sit and watch TV in the leather chair, and that's the only time it ever gets used. So when she's gone, I just like sit in the leather chair, it's perfectly great. Then I can slide it back to its regular position, no scuff marks. So, you know, sometimes I so I was talking to her on the phone and she goes, she said, "Did you pull the curtain behind the television?" Because that curtain is always open. There are like these silk cords that she has that like keep the curtains in place. And I said, "Yeah, well it's been so cold," and she goes, "All right." She goes, "Just be mindful, there's the plug point underneath the curtains, the outlet." And I said oh that's right. She actually you know, what I did do is I went downstairs and there was this dirty box, so I put that near the outlet and I had a little tomato, spaghetti jar, that I rinsed out, not perfectly, but I rinsed out more or less, and I set that there, and then I got some duct tape, and so that your curtains might have gotten a little dirty, but that's protecting... She goes, "All right, you're having me on?" Right? I'm just, I'm thinking, (laughs) it's her precious Madura curtains, as if I would she goes, "Well, I just don't like the idea of fabric and electricity." It's like well, fair enough, I mean it's like I won't let the house burn down. Anyway, so... [0:25:24.7]

THERAPIST: Hmm, hmm.

CLIENT: And then, you know, then I'll say oh, the place already looks a mess. She goes, "I don't want to know, I don't want to know." So, but, -

THERAPIST: I don't want to know.

CLIENT: I don't want to know, I don't want to know. And she says it in a humorous way but I can tell, like as long as things are nice and neat when she gets back. Anyway, so the fact is, you know, I feel like I go through this phase of primitive man, and then after that, I actually do like it to be nice and neat. So last night, after showering, I completely wiped down the kitchen, completely cleaned the stove, vacuumed the entire place, right? So now it's all perfect and I'm pleased with that. I'm pleased with it. So, when Barbara comes over, she hasn't, but when she does, which is often when Barbara's gone, because even though they say they like each other, they don't like each other. Barbara says, "Oh, I like Barbara." Barbara says, "Oh, Barbara's great." It's like no, no, I know you don't feel that way. So Barbara will come over and then Barbara will cook and I'll be cooking with her, and I'm always, I'm following her around, because I feel like little pieces of broccoli are falling on the floor, I'm like no, like I cook like a lab technician in the sense just like everything is being wiped down, no cross contamination, wiping, wiping, wiping, wiping, wiping. And she's like a whirling dervish and things are flying, and I'm like... Water is falling on the floor because she rinsed something off and then walks across the floor and the water drips, and it smudges. Anyway, so I feel like it's a good half hour afterwards, when she leaves, then I'm wiping everything down. It's like hmm. And I prefer it, like there's a sense of irritation.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [0:27:25.2]

CLIENT: I'm thinking this, she's, she's doing this on purpose, she's being extra messy because she doesn't like Barbara, that's my sense.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay, ah-huh.

CLIENT: So it's okay if I do it but not when somebody else does it.

THERAPIST: Well yeah, and I'm thinking too, how that it also kind of reflects a kind of a way that you that while the process can happen between you and Barbara, it's also something somewhat internal, like there's a way that, you know, you've got to put the towel over the mirror in order to not watch what, you know? Otherwise, you would be like what am I doing, you know hypothetically, like what am I doing not shaving today or whatever it would be. Yeah, yeah. It also makes me think of the times that I've noticed when you'll come if you come here and you feel like you haven't been doing much, that you'll feel a little more down, a little bit more like it's hard to talk or hard to kind of be here, when you feel like I haven't been up to much, or you feel like in some way, kind of I mean maybe it's somewhat through me as well, as like a kind of an outside kind of judgment that I could be making, but there's also, I think you sort you'll even say it yourself, like I haven't been doing anything, and you'll feel it.

[PAUSE: 0:29:07.1 to 0:29:43.3]

CLIENT: I went to math today, and so there are two versions, three versions, of linear algebra, and so it is one of them but it's much more statistics and probability intensive. So I thought well, I've... And I've been thinking about this for a while, thinking well, I thought fine, so it's a bit much to get over here three days a week, but you know whatever, go to the first class and see what it's like. So, and of course I've been doing lots of work in this. It's such a pleasure to be around other people and be in a class and like just sit there and hear somebody else talk about it and realize oh yeah. So I guess it's the first class, it's easy, easy for me at least, because I feel like I've done so much thinking about it and done so many problems, and reading and such. But the other class which is the only one I can actually take, because they don't have one that I can take at a regular time, so that uses this book by Otto Bretscher and the thing is, it teaches the multivariable calculus, and I look at it as being this immense amount of work and being depressive, as some multivariable calculus felt, just this immense amount of work. So I thought well... And Barbara says, you need to take a class, you have to take a class, because you're not working full-time and take advantage of it. So that's positive but there's a feeling of like okay, of all the classes I could take, this is the class that... Well, it I've worked through the first four of the nine chapters, so I've already done like a third of the semester, essentially been doing the homework. But you have to do it, right? Because I feel like I need to know what's going on to some degree, for the first few weeks, so that I can always try to stay ahead, if I'm going to do it. The thing is, like I was interested at first and I really worked hard, so like as soon as the last class ended, I just started doing this linear algebra. [0:32:51.4]

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: MIT has OpenCourseWare, so I went through the first half of those lectures, and now I'm to the point, I feel like I don't like it, I just don't like it, it's unpleasant, it's just so much work. A single problem takes forever and he assigns, you know, presumably we learn math, is by doing the problems, but he assigns so many problems. I thought how interesting, that I'm looking at this class as being really truly unpleasant, so why would I why, why? Why take it?

THERAPIST: Mm.

CLIENT: I could take something nice, like probability. So that's fun, right? I mean it's hard but it's fun. I'm thinking now, this is like work, and so a certain amount of discomfort is good for me. It's good to labor and be stressed, and in the end I'll feel like okay, I did it. [0:34:10.8]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And, well, there's a sense, I suppose, and I don't know if I told you this story before, I'm not sure, but let me just say it for the record so we're not having to pause it. So, at the Kennedy School, there was this class, this was two years ago, two and a half years ago, and it was on economic modeling and political modeling. It was somehow merging these two ideas and then it also studied elections. So I had just taken the statistics and I thought perfect, this is going to use a lot of statistics, love it. So, I go through this class and I'm just thinking this is great, love it, love it, love it, and then toward the end he writes this thing on the board and he goes, if you're taking this class, this should be familiar to you. And of course it's all gibberish to me and, you know, it's literally Greek. [0:35:39.0]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: With a few numbers. And so now, you know, the professor, I said there's a gap between the statistics that I've had and the statistics that he used in this course, so what should I do in the interim? He goes, "Oh, just take a linear algebra course." So then I thought huh, one of the things I shouldn't have done, so I begin this sort of campaign for a second, third semester calculus, all the preamble to linear algebra. So now in my own mind, I thought okay, that's the thing, whatever because I know this bedrock of statistics, which is genuinely interesting, and probability. So that even though this is entirely unpleasant, somehow I feel like it's foundational, you know it has to be done.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [0:36:44.0]

CLIENT: It has to be done.

THERAPIST: You think it feels that way because that kind of feeling of real exclusion in that class, you know from the professor? I mean, I know he wasn't hostile or...

CLIENT: Yeah, no, no, no, yeah that's it. I mean that was the initial impetus.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And yet, I stopped thinking about that course altogether.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: I'm not I'm not feeling like oh, all of this is so I could take that class.

THERAPIST: Sure, sure.

CLIENT: At this point I don't care about the class at all, but it was simply this sort of reminder of well, if you want to do really interesting things, you need to live a lot more.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And yeah, so I guess yeah, the idea of being on the inside, of being able to do interesting things means starting at the beginning and working up.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And, so I'm feeling this regret, thinking I should already know this stuff, I mean I should have done this when I was a sophomore in college. [0:37:46.8]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But instead, I was doing something different, I was avoiding math, I mean really actively avoiding math and science and so forth. So, thinking so part of me feels like well, I can't really... In a way, I can't be a sort of self-respecting science person without having done this. So part of me feels like all right, to sort of justify my sciency side, I kind of have to do this, and to have these sort of aspirations of doing something more interesting, I kind of have to do this class, and I'm sort of hoping that it's going to be illuminating if I take it, either officially or just in my mind, right, if I just sort of work on it. It's going to somehow open my eyes to see different things, just like physics did. Physics was hard and yet afterwards, you see things differently. Linear algebra, this idea of infinite spaces and different geometries and things that have to be right angles, and you can create a corner system to your choosing. Somehow I feel like well, the work itself is really unpleasant, the homework is unpleasant, but somehow I feel like all right, it's going to spur my imagination, it's going to make me think differently, and yet it hasn't happened yet and I've been working hard on it. [0:39:22.5]

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: I mean, to do four nights of the class already, before the class even begins. So I feel like, I haven't had that ah-ha moment yet. Right now it just feels like okay, matrices, thought products, projections, reflections, all this crap that you hate, in algebra, you know it's just stupid. It's like why does it happen? So anyway, maybe in anticipation of this as well, a combination of Barbara being gone, no football, and the idea that school begins this week. [0:40:25.2]

THERAPIST: I was thinking too, that there's something in that about I was thinking about the covering the mirror, putting the towel over the mirror, and I was thinking about it and like how it can be really, really like kind of disturbing when you feel like there's something that you're missing that's foundational, like that feeling of you know, not the way that the professor put it or something, but more than you looked at the board and saw all the unfamiliar, you know, symbols, it was like I don't belong here, which is so kind of, you know? It's like there's that the towel is off the mirror and you sort of see something that you... I don't belong here, and like that having such a strong effect. And I was thinking about, you know it's interesting, because I was thinking back to what we were talking about last week. [0:41:45.7]

CLIENT: I don't remember what we were talking about last week.

THERAPIST: Well, we were talking about this very different kind of mindset that you had prior to high school, prior to going to the new school.

CLIENT: Oh, yes, yes, yes.

THERAPIST: I don't get the sense that that didn't that that feeling inside of you didn't really start to happen nearly as often or it wasn't so, so obvious to you or something like that, until you hit high school. You know, that feeling of like I don't have what other people have, some way that you felt.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Like there's sort of almost the sense of I don't have anything I don't have what it takes to belong to this group or something like that, something special, something that would set me apart, that would actually make me a member as opposed to set me apart in some way, like being very adept and good at something and something that made you special actually made you a part. [0:42:54.6]

CLIENT: Hmm. Yeah, well, hmm. Yeah, I feel like there were school friends and then there were my neighborhood friends, which overlapped, 50/50, so half the kids went to my school and the others didn't. But that was the real, real self, no rules, right? Not at school.

THERAPIST: Ah-huh.

CLIENT: My school friends where you only had a certain amount of time for recess and there was a certain sort of code of behavior, and so great friends clearly, and friends at home as well, because they're in the neighborhood. But after school, right? After school, yeah, there weren't any expectations other than just to play, you know and that was true up to, I don't know, seventh grade, right? A sense of as a kid, you've got to do homework, but you know, some parents are a little stricter, making sure the kids do homework after school, but my parents were never those parents. So, you know, there would be projects and I'd be really into it, but that's because I want to do it. [0:44:38.0]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You know?

THERAPIST: Yeah, I have a feeling because if you didn't do it you'd be missing something or it would feel very, you know, lacking or something. Yeah.

CLIENT: And maybe, you know, all on sort of this Dexter idea of not being judged, like with my neighborhood group, like I was absolutely the best student, but it didn't matter, because we were playing baseball and football and sitting there just talking about life on the transformer. Halfway down the cul-de-sac there was this green transformer that always hummed, and I'm sure we shouldn't have been sitting on it, who knows what it was doing to us, sitting on that, but for hours just sitting there on this humming, warm, bzzzzzzz, transformer, you know all seasons, right? Playing smash ball and then you know, the smash ball gets stuck in the junipers and the aloe vera and you have to go hunt for it. It was like, you know, we were talking about things, right, about life, that's what kids do, and it wasn't a matter of competing against each other and getting the best grade. I mean, I don't think we ever really talked about that stuff. [0:46:22.7]

THERAPIST: Mm, mm.

CLIENT: I was, you know at school when I thought about it, when I was doing my homework I thought about it, but I wasn't competing against them. I wanted them to do well. I didn't want to be seen as someone who was better with them. I mean, it wouldn't even occur to me, I mean it's like what a pricky thing to even contemplate or to act on. You know... you know, you'd never say oh, yeah, I got a hundred percent on that. You'd never say that, I wouldn't say that, I didn't say that. But, high school, all of a sudden it's very competitive and you do say such things. You hear it being said, you feel defensive, right? [0:47:22.5]

Anyway, so here I am today, sitting in Room 112 at the science center, and you know there's 20 people or so, a small class surprisingly, and I like the teacher, he's a good guy, I met him before, so I knew that going in, this is going to be a good class. And so he goes, I'm he's sort of awkward and he goes, I'm not a good lecturer in the sense of like I know I am in big lecture halls, but he goes, "There's something not really..." He goes, "I guess I feel lonely up there because it's just me talking." It's just me talking. He goes, "But it's a small class and I think this is better, so I don't know how much I'm just going to be talking at you but hopefully we get to the point where we just actually talk about certain things in a group, we just talk about these problems." And he goes anyway, he goes, "I know this is kind of a lame thing to do but it's a good thing to do I suppose." He says, "I don't care who you talk to but just talk to somebody for five minutes and then we'll just go around and you can introduce that person." [0:48:43.3]

THERAPIST: You can choose that person?

CLIENT: You can introduce that person.

THERAPIST: Oh, introduce, ah-huh.

CLIENT: And so when somebody else will introduce so, somebody will introduce me and I'll introduce them. And so of course no one likes this and yet it is a good thing to do, because it immediately shrinks the class.

THERAPIST: At least until it's over, then it's okay.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: It seems to me, you know?

CLIENT: Yeah, that's right, that's right. And of course I was the last, with my partner, so I'm going around listening. Of course, you're not really listening to what the others are saying, you're fixing on what you're going to say, right? Like, what's his name again, what's his name, oh, like... Anyway, where's he from? So you're supposed to say like, you know, and then of course the teacher, he's like, he goes, (inaudible) class, it's okay, you can say that or you can lie. He goes I don't care, you can lie about everything, you can just make everything up, that's fine. He goes, you don't have to tell him your real name but say something. So I thought that was very humorous. And, so he's really doing his best to like just make everything easy, and he's very aware of the awkwardness of this. So, the guy sitting next to me, you know first of all, you pair up with the person to your right or your left, so you're like counting down, like okay, how's this row going to break down. So I said, "Hey, I'm S," and he goes, "Hey...," he goes, "I'm Elliott." He goes, I'm actually CAA for the course, so he goes, "For what it's worth, you might want to tell him the truth if you actually want to take the course." (laughs) And so I told him like my situation, you know he told me his, and so that's cool. [0:50:33.8]

THERAPIST: I'm a blood splatter expert.

CLIENT: That's right. (laughs) And then everybody is saying see if you can find something interesting about the person. So of course, you know, the interesting thing about a person is usually exceptionally interesting. So, we got someone who is a magician.

THERAPIST: We're going to stop in a few minutes.

CLIENT: We got a black belt, we got white, blonde people who speak Swahili, et cetera. So I thought, I'm not sure what my interesting thing is. Anyway, and Elliott didn't say anything interesting about himself, so I thought that's perfectly fine, we'll just we don't have to go down that road of being clever. But I was looking around the room thinking yeah, well, people aren't bashful, they know what's interesting about them. They're just woop. [0:51:44.2]

THERAPIST: Interesting.

CLIENT: I'm a magician. I speak Swahili. So, anyway, so it shrank the room and it felt comfortable, and I didn't feel this sense of, like who are these people and yikes, because I used to be in the front of the room, right? As a teaching fellow, so it's like it's not new to me, I mean I get MIT undergraduates, I mean like I'm not freaked out but somehow, there's always a sense, just because they're strangers and there's an element of like, whatever MIT is. But juxtapose that to the neighborhood gang just sitting on the transformer talking about life, after the streetlights would come on and it's too dark to play baseball, where you're really being real and it's not a matter of trying to impress anybody and there's no internal pressure.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [0:53:04.9]

CLIENT: To try to find out... Just to live, first of all, just to be. I heard this expression and this is also in Dexter. So, Hannah says to Dexter, regarding somebody that she met. She goes, "You know my mom always used to say..." She said, "Always trust people who are seeking the truth but always be suspicious of people who say they've found it." So it's like you know, that is exactly right. So, but on that path, right, of finding truth, there are various way, right? One can find truth in a real sense, sitting on a transformer when you're 12, or one can very systematically look for truth, sitting in a class at the science center. Both feel real but the science center feels more foreign because it's stranger, it's new ideas, it's people who you don't know. I don't know, Dell Thomas, "You never go home again." Was that him? [0:54:31.7]

THERAPIST: Thomas Wolfe.

CLIENT: Thomas Wolfe.

THERAPIST: Not the Tom Wolfe, but Thomas Wolfe, yeah the older of the two Wolfes, yeah.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Not the -

CLIENT: Not "Bonfire of the Vanities."

THERAPIST: Not Bonfire of the Vanities.

CLIENT: Yeah, Mr. man in the white suit.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I saw him in Southampton actually and he was wearing a white suit, so yeah.

THERAPIST: You can never go home again, yeah.

CLIENT: What was that?

THERAPIST: Is that what you said, the quote, you can never go home again?

CLIENT: Yes. That is Tom Wolfe the ender, Thomas Wolfe. And was it Warhol, "There are no second acts in American lives." [0:55:35.7]

THERAPIST: Fitzgerald.

CLIENT: Fitzgerald?

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: Was it, "The Great Gatsby?" Maybe.

THERAPIST: No, I think, "Tender is the Night."

CLIENT: Interesting. I'm reading The Great Gatsby now.

THERAPIST: Are you? That's great.

CLIENT: Those things, I just intermittently, this is sort of a touchdown.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. I think you've read it before while we've been working together.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Kind of based on that well not I don't think it's based on the Hamptons actually, but it's a kind of Hamptons kind of place.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, definitely, east take, west take, yeah, that whole thing, absolutely. It's that vibe. Anyway, I know we've got to stop.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I'm not sure where that quote is from, Fitzgerald. I think it's Tender is the Night, just because it's a famous quote. [0:56:38.8]

CLIENT: Barbara's calling for me. Yeah, just I mean, I think it's like Chapter 4, right, the sense where he finally, Gatsby finally says something about himself, or Fitzgerald is commenting on who he really is, this idea that he comes across as being this other thing but he's not.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: His entire family had gone to Oxford and in fact, you know he's working on the boat at 14 and didn't go to school.

THERAPIST: He's from the Midwest or something. [0:57:40.4]

CLIENT: Yeah, exactly, the Midwest.

THERAPIST: He invented himself.

CLIENT: Huh, huh. So, sort of pretending, right?

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: Dexter pretends and Hannah pretends in a way, as far as she doesn't want to get caught by the police. Gatsby wants to be known.

THERAPIST: Yeah, he has to hide that other side.

CLIENT: Yeah. Huh. Why is that? I mean, we all have this we all have secrets. What it would have been like to know, what it would be like where there were no secrets, I don't know. [0:58:43.6]

THERAPIST: Well, he had to hide all that in order to be in order to make his attempt to be part of that, that world. Yeah, what a kind of conflict of doing that, wanting to be part of the world. I mean, just thinking about Dexter too, and Hannah. And you know, you talking about you and Barbara, civilized/primitive man, and wanting to find a way to get along with her and connect with her and sort of find common ground, yet the tension between that and having to keep things secret in order to do that. [0:59:43.5]

CLIENT: All right.

THERAPIST: All right.

END TRANSCRIPT