TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
(NOTE: TAPE STARTS IN MID-CONVERSATION)
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:00:01)
THERAPIST: What�s that?
CLIENT: Somewhere someone�s died.
THERAPIST: Yeah, nobody I knew died [in Wisconsin].
CLIENT: (laughter)
THERAPIST: Everybody was safe. I didn�t take anybody out. They didn�t take me out.
CLIENT: Yeah, well, hello. So the problem this time, this lady I live with so I was working last night. I was working, working, working. And this is after I just sort of like, I was playing Words with Friends and doing nothing for a whole day. I have a paper that was due last Saturday, I think.
THERAPIST: Hmm.
CLIENT: Last Saturday. So I�m kind of like well, I should probably work on this, should work on this, should work on this. And this goes on for days and hours on this particular day.
[00:01:01]
Then it starts to get a little dark and I just started working. I�m working and it�s going great. It�s wonderful. Like my ideas are really good. But this particular assignment was to rearrange everything of our previous draft. Like rearrange all the like revise it, basically. And so I have to incorporate these director�s comments and what I know also needs improvement. Kind of fix it and in the process, risk making it a lot worse. I�m forced to tear apart all the little pieces that constitute the whole and sort of filter them and refine them and put them back together and whatever.
Anyway, I was working and I was looking at the time and for once, the time was going slowly. Like I was working normally when I�m working on a late project, the time just like disappears. I�m like writing (chuckles) and you�re thinking �I have two more things to do in x amount of time.�
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
[00:01:54]
CLIENT: And I should be able to do them in that amount of time. And then by the time you�re done with the first two things, you know, an hour and a half has elapsed. And this time, things were going slowly. [It turned out I was] working productively. And going downstairs, I just I did not want to be seen. I wanted to make the food that was necessary to keep me going and eat it, probably in my room. And just not being seen was very important and the same sort of I got a prompting from some inner voice that said, you know, Sherry, the lady I live with, �She�s going to like come and look, and you have to decide what you�re going to do.�
THERAPIST: She�s going to try and see if you�re out and may want to talk to you.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah.
THERAPIST: Mmm.
[00:02:57]
CLIENT: So I had one of these sorts of missions like �Don�t let her see you or talk to you.� It was really important. And I can�t even I think it might even be like animal. I don�t necessarily attribute it to anything in myself which proves that I�m crazy, if you don�t attribute it to anything, what would you say pathological.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: It�s just like I�m working on something.
THERAPIST: You don�t want to be interrupted.
CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, I can make up all kinds of justifications for it like, you know, I�m [at this place] where I have complete authority and where I understand what�s going on, and I don�t want to have to establish a relationship with anyone else.
THERAPIST: Huh.
CLIENT: Or explain myself to anyone else who is very, very far from where I�m at, you know. Or I have to take into consideration I haven�t shaved or all these things that they won�t understand. I don�t want to have to think about or recognize them.
[00:04:00]
They are entirely superfluous. They serve no function in terms of what I�m trying to do, so their presence would upset some kind of delicate balance that I have going where I�m enjoying what I�m doing and eager to go back and actually functioning.
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: Indeed she came into the kitchen. The woman uses a wheelchair, but she like walked around the other direction. So I didn�t realize too that her son was visiting. She owns the house, I rent a room, and her son was coming home. I didn�t think when I had this like mechanical voice that tells me things to do sometimes, I didn�t think the son was home, so I�ll have to avoid being seen by him too. But I couldn�t escape, except by going out the back door which I didn�t think to do. I just sort of stood there, and she came into the kitchen with no purpose whatsoever. I had the light off to avoid being seen and I just had a burner going.
[00:05:05]
THERAPIST: Hmm.
CLIENT: I was just looking at like a box of macaroni and cheese because I usually make the white cheddar, but this time it was like alfredo, so I had to look at the box. But she, for her part, like staggered over to the radio and like fiddled with the radio and then went over to the chicken. There was some chicken there, I guess. She was like �Hi, [Donald].� I�m just like �Hi.� (chuckles) It�s a total defeat. It�s completely not arbitrary. It�s almost fixed.
THERAPIST: Hmm.
CLIENT: It�s fated. It�s like the opposite of arbitrary.
THERAPIST: It�s that you didn�t want to get you wanted to remain unfettered by like her by somebody else�s intrusion.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[00:05:55]
CLIENT: I think about it, it�s hard to justify. I mean, it�s not like being alone is typically a very enjoyable experience for me. But at the same time, I don�t know. It�s not at the same time. I just didn�t want to be bothered.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Not only that, but that there was something that could disrupt whatever you were feeling before.
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. And indeed, I just felt hatred towards her and her son for the rest of the night. I mean, after she came in, her son came in and like either I heard I definitely heard the word �weird� but, I mean, it could�ve been in reference to anything. In any event, I concluded that he had called my behavior weird which, I mean, I can understand. Because when he came in, I wasn�t eager to engage him either.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like he said like �What�s up? How�s it going?� I�m just like �Great� or I said some minimal possible -
THERAPIST: Yeah.
[00:07:01]
CLIENT: thing without even expressing any body language or facing him or anything. (pause) Yeah, so I figured he called my behavior weird.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: That�s the whole problem with it, is that there�s a privilege to view. There�s a sort of violence which takes place, I think, in being seen -
THERAPIST: Mmm.
CLIENT: and assessing, and I don�t want to be assessed.
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: And it�s exactly what I�m talking about, is that I ended up thinking about like what he was thinking.
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: Which is precisely what I wanted -
THERAPIST: What you wanted to avoid.
CLIENT: I think.
THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean, you know what it made me think of not to butt in, but I�ll do it anyway.
CLIENT: (chuckles)
[00:08:02]
THERAPIST: Is the experience of you you know, your aunt accusing you of watching porn. And what it made me think of is that, you know, at that time in your life, it sounded like well, of course, you were kind of like growing into being starting to have sexual fantasies or whatever, but her intrusion in that characterized it in a certain way.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: And it corrupted the whole experience for you. And there�s a way that like you know, what I was sensing is that you felt some good kind of feeling working in [industry] or something like that, and you didn�t want to be disturbed in that mindset. Whatever mindset you were in, you didn�t want it to be disturbed and thinking that their mindset would interfere with yours. And it did.
[00:08:57]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: (pause) It could change something that can feel very positive into something kind of like critical or -
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) It does. Sometimes I kick myself for just like saying hello or something like that. Why should I even respond to them? Do I have any duty to acknowledge them? I don�t think so but, I mean, I end up doing it.
THERAPIST: Hmm. (pause) Well, it�s kind of like they�re if you didn�t say I mean, there�s still an unavoidable kind of -
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: presence or something.
[00:09:59]
CLIENT: Yeah and, I mean, they might keep asking.
THERAPIST: Yeah, right, right.
CLIENT: [It becomes a lot of trouble]. (pause) I think.
THERAPIST: Yeah, almost like I imagine your response being the one that would be the least intrusive or the least interfering. You just try to go back to what you were doing.
CLIENT: (pause) So, yeah, and also thinking about the argument. I mean, it would be pretty strange for someone to call me weird when like two people are coming into the kitchen with no purpose whatsoever, just to like look at me. (chuckles)
THERAPIST: (chuckles)
CLIENT: And I�m the one who actually had something to do. (chuckles)
THERAPIST: And I�m the weird one, yeah.
CLIENT: (pause) (chuckles) Yeah. (pause) Well, yeah, it�s important. I�m writing an important paper. I don�t know. I�m at that stage where I�ve worked on it so much that (inaudible at 00:11:03) but it�s a good one.
[00:11:07]
It�s on like democracy and how economics sort of appropriates political not political, but traditionally political vocabulary. So it focuses on an advertisement from 1960 where Richard Nixon talks about economics, and he has this awkward sort of commercial where he�s talking about the importance of economic growth. It has like familiar political terms in it, but what ends up happening, the main point of it is, it marks the transition of like a principled application of (inaudible at 00:11:46) in politics to a pragmatic sort of answering needs with ideology.
THERAPIST: Hmm.
[00:11:58]
CLIENT: Where before, it�s right to do this, we�ll do this, [this is the political ethic] afterwards but those sort of statements only they justify more pragmatic policies, but they don�t motivate them.
THERAPIST: I see, yeah. (pause) But using an economic circumstance to justify an ideology.
CLIENT: To justify an ideology. (pause) That�s a fragment. I don�t know what you�re asking.
THERAPIST: Oh, is that what your paper is about?
CLIENT: Using economics to justify -
THERAPIST: That Nixon was using economics to justify an ideology.
CLIENT: No. He was using ideology to justify economics.
THERAPIST: Oh, okay. (pause)
[00:13:03]
CLIENT: It�s kind of abstruse. So he says that you have to stay strong. We have to keep growing to remain strong and free, and only if we stay strong can we keep peace. So peace sort of (inaudible at 00:13:16) grow economically and ambiguously.
THERAPIST: Oh, okay.
CLIENT: And sort of maintain the status quo and that sort of pernicious (inaudible at 00:13:25).
THERAPIST: Hmm.
CLIENT: But it�s important because I sense a palpable disconnect from political participation, and I think it probably has its roots in economics or sort of subsumption of politics in general, national politics, by economic interest. I mean, that�s what I have to write in my cover letter now because it�s mostly done. Just before I got here, I mostly finished it. It took forever.
[00:14:06]
THERAPIST: There�s a cover letter to write.
CLIENT: Yeah, a cover letter. The last one I wrote was quicker. It was quick, quick. The last one I wrote on the last draft of this I wrote on July 4th. I like had a party and we were drinking, and then I realized I had to finish my paper. (chuckles) So I like sat at a desk. People were like �What are you working on?� (laughter) [At the party, whatever]. Economics, politics, subsumption. (pause)
Oh yeah, so like when you talk about Iraq, when we finally pulled out, it wasn�t really an ethical decision. It�s never ethical in politics. Like it�s right to move out of Iraq. We shouldn�t have gone to Iraq. We shouldn�t have killed like untold millions of Afghans and Iraqis.
[00:15:04]
It doesn�t make financial sense for us to be there, so let�s pull the troops out. We know our troops are getting killed. It�s entirely pragmatic. Where in the past, you might have experienced that like Vietnam. How were we in Vietnam? That�s more ethical, principled rhetoric in politics. Now we adhere to a pragmatic neutral, or putatively neutral, discussion of things.
But the point that might be relevant here is that the essay, it really just encodes my own needs. So what I express as like a need for political participation and absence of an ethic and the political discourse of a nation, in fact, represents my inability to give a shit or do anything. You know, they�re big terms, but I realized how big this was the other night, and it sort of fades in and out of focus, but I�m not functioning. Like I can�t decide to do something and do it.
[00:16:05]
I can�t I have like it sounds so empty, but when writing I�m realizing I have quite a faculty which could be applied to any number of uses, and the idea that I waste most of my time is a travesty. It�s not good. So I�m not sure how to frame it correctly or get the experience up in myself, but it�s related to that idea that I�m constantly stating about being on my heels versus sort of on my toes. It�s actually part of an imaginary speech I never gave to my old swim team where I say (chuckles) there are two ways to go about practice. You can sort of do what you�re told to do and suffer through it, or you can actively approach each block of work that you�re given and do your best at it. I don�t do the latter one almost ever.
[00:17:08]
But the deadline is just one example. I mean, I�m working on a paper. It�s good because I started working on it out of nowhere. It�s not like the professor contacted me or anything. I�ve been meaning to do it for days, but usually I have to be forced by some external circumstance. I depend on my procrastination to motivate me to do things. (pause) That�s why my encounters with people who actually have some constitution or they have a life, so to speak when someone says �Get a life� then they have an economy to their life. They have an idea of what they can do to support themselves emotionally, financially, or in some sense. I have no idea in any of those fields.
[00:17:58]
When I meet some of these people, I�m so compelled by the structure of their living that (chuckles) the feeling complaints itself with a sexual obsession. I mean, I (pause) I need that for myself [to function]. (inaudible at 00:18:30) people I get obsessed with, it�s a sort of that�s a pathology based on my own dysfunction. It�s like I don�t know how to relate to that.
[00:18:58]
THERAPIST: One thing that I was just hearing though is that, I mean, your paper made me think about was that your work or say, for instance your writing, in your mind, in your intellect, I think you felt like you really needed to have and who doesn�t need to have this but like needs to have it carry a meaning with it. You use that for a meaningful purpose, for something that has some sort meaning in your life. One that really feels, well, meaningful to you. (chuckles) Not to survive or to get a pat on the head.
[00:19:59]
CLIENT: Hmm. (pause) What�s important to me, at least as I can conceive it now, is that there is a sustainable pattern. So masturbation is still very upsetting because (pause) The reason is because I constantly formulate over and over again this idea of who I am or a choice that�s important to make, not to for any number of reasons which may be real, fictitious or subjective, I make a decision not to look at porn, not to masturbate. And inevitably I�m drawn back to it and forced to act in a way other than I conceived, in three-day intervals over the past 10 years of my life.
[00:21:06]
So I formulate a plan, I move forward with that, and the plan fails. Over and over again in a cycle. And it sort of characterizes my I hesitant to say my adult life, but it characterizes my outlook.
THERAPIST: Uh huh. (pause) What happens? I mean, what do you feel like when you say you do it despite the plan? What does that mean to you then? That you�ve done it despite the plan? (long pause)
[00:22:27]
CLIENT: Just like (pause)
THERAPIST: Where you planned not to and you did it.
CLIENT: Mmm-hmm. (pause) Well, it means I fail. It means I don�t accomplish what I need to do. I mean, it�s just like my paper. I mean (chuckles) the principle is defeated. The principle doesn�t subsist. I have to sort of lie to myself and reconstruct it. (pause) I mean, I justify it all the time, before and afterwards. But it (long pause)
[00:23:59]
That�s a weird question. I mean, �What does it mean to you that you don�t? What does it mean to you?�
THERAPIST: You know, I was thinking like what sounds like -
CLIENT: Is that like �What�s it like to be from Africa?� It�s like one of those questions that�s really so broad and forces you to think about some sort of difference between [our thinking]. I don�t know.
THERAPIST: No, I was kind of getting like in some way you were sort of saying what�s upsetting is that you couldn�t stick to the plan.
CLIENT: Mmm-hmm.
THERAPIST: And that well, I guess you�re sort of saying that you can live by the principle.
CLIENT: (pause) Yeah, it communicates a futility throughout my life. A futility to forming any plan. I mean, it�s a quick dose of pleasure.
[00:25:09]
THERAPIST: Huh.
CLIENT: It�s a sort of unearned intimacy.
THERAPIST: Well, that�s what I�m in some ways I mean, I guess what I had in mind is that in some way, it sounded a lot like if you�re writing just to get in a deadline, that you need to do it, being on your heels. Instead of it feeling like alright, there�s a sexual encounter with something that means something more to you. It�s not empty because you�re feeling alright, you break down because you really need to have some erotic feeling. (pause)
[00:26:00]
CLIENT: Yeah. (long pause) I want to direct that energy. I mean, towards other people.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: I�m not terribly shy about that, but I think it gets sort of sucked up by the [longing for] (pause)
[00:26:54]
That�s the problem with it anyway, I think. It somehow creates like a paradigm for this sort of aimless behavior. I think on some level okay, so the sexual impulse has to be pretty strong or else a species or humans would cease to exist. It kind of has to overcome reason, you know, any sort of obstacles put in its way, really. So there�s that. (pause) Oh yeah, so I think by the same token, it sort of triggers a lot of physical, possibly spiritual, but physical reactions that sort of trick me into thinking that, you know, I�ve achieved something.
[00:28:00]
It sort of fetishizes a neurochemical or however you want to put it it fetishizes an aimlessness adrift and disbursed by occasional encounters with a pornographic website, you know. It�s not like I�m being rewarded for accomplishing anything or rewarded for intimacy.
THERAPIST: Yeah, no, right, right.
CLIENT: I�m being reinforced in my loneliness and isolation.
THERAPIST: Yeah. (long pause)
[00:29:11]
CLIENT: Before [I thought it through], I mean, the first thing I had against just a mental sort of justification against masturbating, I was in like 10th grade or 11th grade. I was thinking there�s a biological interest, I think, in sort of keeping the amount that a certain individual reproduces low. So like [if you went into] my thinking, like if a wildebeest had sex with a thousand wildebeests, that wouldn�t be beneficial to the population because it wouldn�t enable it [with diversity]. Like there�s you wouldn�t want the predominance of any one gene or gene pool, so it would make sense if physical okay, so there�s another part to this too.
[00:30:03]
I think cancer is like biologically mitigated, or like we produce our own cancer and it�s not functionless. It�s because there�s a limited effect an individual can have on their world. I haven�t thought about this in a long time, but it�s built-in. It�s meant to be. You�re not supposed to live forever.
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm.
CLIENT: So by the same token, I think or I thought that species sort of that your body sort of like curtails your lifespan if you masturbate too much or if you distribute too much semen. The process sort of encodes (inaudible at 00:31:02) in some way.
[00:31:05]
THERAPIST: It encodes what?
CLIENT: Like cancer.
THERAPIST: Oh, uh huh.
CLIENT: I don�t know why. It�s just an old idea to revisit for my own sake. I wasn�t really [trying to say anything].
THERAPIST: Uh huh.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Well, it�s certainly something toxic, malignant almost. Masturbating.
CLIENT: Conceptually, yeah, it doesn�t feel good. I haven�t thought about it that way for a long time though. [That�s how I first thought about this].
THERAPIST: Hmm. Well, there�s an old (chuckles) You�re going blind, right? [I guess it�s rooted in some experience].
CLIENT: (chuckles) Right. Yeah, I guess experiments actually show that people who masturbate a lot are fine, and people who masturbate almost none are fine.
[00:32:05]
But in people who masturbate occasionally, there�s a sort of curtailed I think they have [deleterious health effects in their life spans]. I don�t know.
THERAPIST: Is that right?
CLIENT: [In some study].
THERAPIST: Huh.
CLIENT: (pause) What I was thinking a moment ago is there could be an alternative paradigm which I hadn�t applied. I didn�t think about that years ago. And that�s that nature sort of favors people who are like the very top, the cream of the crop. So like if it�s a �winner take all� and there are lots of winners but a much, much, much larger proportion of comparative losers.
[00:33:03]
Just like in the car business I worked in. They would feed everything they could to the one person they thought could do the job best. It could be that nature favors a strong individual or what [the body] thinks of as a strong individual because that person is jacking off all the time. [They would favor that person with health benefits or something].
THERAPIST: Potency.
CLIENT: (pause) I�m also actually like my mother. I procrastinate so with the people, besides this incident, before that I was thinking that these people keep wanting to talk to me, and I just tell them no, and that�s because I have to do my paper. But I don�t do my paper most days, or I didn�t. I just sort of waited in my room and did nothing or masturbated usually.
[00:34:04]
But I just keep saying �No, I can�t do this now, I can�t talk now, I can�t do this.� And it�s (pause) And my mother was somewhat hurtful because she�d always have she was getting herself together all the time and so she wasn�t available.
THERAPIST: Hmm. What were you thinking of? Getting herself together?
CLIENT: Getting herself together. Nothing specific, it�s just -
THERAPIST: How do you mean that?
CLIENT: She�s trying to improve herself, working on her projects, going to architecture school.
THERAPIST: Oh.
[00:35:01]
CLIENT: She�s not satisfied with her station. I mean, she�s changed like I said. She�s different. But she, when I was growing up, she was never good enough for herself so she�s always working on something.
THERAPIST: Uh huh. (pause) Do you feel it influenced you? (long pause)
[00:36:00]
CLIENT: Yeah, I do. I don�t know by what devices, but yeah, I�m sure it did. (pause) So I would like to be able to be happy and accommodating to the people around me, but I�m constantly preserving some kind of narrative. (long pause)
[00:37:07]
I read Foucault. He talks about so much. It�s very good. It contained so many of my issues in a single document. I sort of identified them, just the essay on panopticism which talks about being seen and seeing and how a [gaze can be a disciplinary force].
THERAPIST: Mmm-hmm. Like a prison.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) I mean, it�s very good scholarship. And besides that, writing about it has helped me sort of organize my thoughts.
[00:38:01]
There�s some kind of balancing, because I despise the people who talk in an overly-regimented way without any connection to empirical experience. So whatever we collectively experience in this room, whether in this moment or in our experience of the world, it seems like some intellectuals or academics, they get segregated from that. They sort of operate within their own head and sort of move parts around in [there verbally]. That�s what they project outwards. I don�t want to become like that, and that�s part of why I ran from what I think I I stopped going to school. (pause)
[00:39:10]
Yeah, but crucially, I don�t have anything (inaudible at 00:39:14). I�m writing this paper now, but generally I don�t do things. [It sort of] represents a problem. (pause) Lazy. I�m lazy. I mean, it took me a long time to apply that, but I�m pretty lazy. I have this sort of rigor about the way I keep things and characterize myself, but I�m pretty lazy. (long pause)
[00:41:02]
It�s like I�m an anarchist for myself. I sort of rebel against anyone else�s view of me, and then I get to myself and there�s nothing there. There�s no plan. I�m not saying there couldn�t be and I definitely think there should be, but my experience thus far has been I don�t mobilize myself well. (pause) I can�t even conceive I can�t grasp the machinery to make me [do something]. (pause) (inaudible at 00:41:52). I was playing Words With Friends and I was looking at all these possibilities and they were fantastic. Have you played Words With Friends?
[00:42:05]
THERAPIST: Hmm.
CLIENT: Okay, so I could have all these words, but when I got to a pressure point I looked at this word finder. I was like, how many words are there actually that I could do here? There were like three. I mean, I apply that throughout my experience because I take a long time to consider every possibility of what I might do. And the fact is in probably most of those scenarios, there are a pretty discrete limited number of possibilities. It�s something that makes me very good at what I devote my attention to and also very involved, almost to the paralyzation of everything else.
[00:42:56]
And handicapped at some things, just because I cannot like with this paper, I can�t submit something better than the complete less than the complete idea. It has to be finished and done well. Nothing else will suffice. (pause) And yet a lot of my energy is devoted to things that [aren�t applicable]. I�m thinking about the stretch, always the stretch. Would could be, what could be, what could be, not [anything that pertains to] (inaudible at 00:43:46).
THERAPIST: What�s the stretch?
CLIENT: The stretch is [forbeyance or parataxis] or some long word that�s alluded to by the letters.
[00:44:00]
When you have some of the letters and not to imagine the word but based on what�s on the board, you can�t put together a longer word. It�s not going to happen. And there are other longer words and they�re not going to happen, probably.
THERAPIST: Oh, uh huh.
CLIENT: There�s one in a hundred times that my thinking about a longer word might produce that word -
THERAPIST: Oh, yeah, yeah.
CLIENT: in reality, but it�s good when it does. It�s very good. But in the meantime, it takes up a lot of my mental energy.
THERAPIST: That�s somewhat of a metaphor for -
CLIENT: Yeah, that�s the only way I can understand whatever I�m talking about.
[00:44:54]
THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah. (pause) Before we stop, there�s another Friday that I�m going to be out. It�s August 1st. I could meet that Thursday at 10 a.m. though, which would be July 31st.
CLIENT: Isn�t that next week? What is that?
THERAPIST: Two weeks.
CLIENT: Okay. Sounds good for Thursday, the 31st.
THERAPIST: Yeah, there�s just some Fridays, especially during the summer when I�m just, you know, I take off.
CLIENT: Getting tanked.
THERAPIST: What�s that?
CLIENT: (chuckles)
THERAPIST: Getting what?
CLIENT: Getting tanked.
THERAPIST: Getting tanked, yeah. Oh yeah.
CLIENT: (chuckles)
THERAPIST: Okay [Brandon], I�ll see you next week.
CLIENT: Yeah.
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