TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Sorry again about Friday.

CLIENT: Oh. Don't worry about it. No problem at all.

THERAPIST: (inaudible 00:06)

CLIENT: It's okay. Actually, this Friday, I'm not going to be here. I'm going to go to Vancouver, just for the quick weekend (ph)

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah. My friends, one of my Assyrian friends is going up there, and so his that woman that I do that writing workshop with once in a while, that Assyrian, the older lady? So she's going to go too, and it's not (ph) like, we're all just going to I think we all need a little change of pace. (Laughter) So it'll be fun, you know. That way it's, you know, (inaudible 00:37) spend a lot of money, you know.

THERAPIST: Stay together.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, me and Jurgen (sp?) are going to share a room. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay. Let me just make sure I get it down. This Friday then (ph)? The 18th? Okay.

CLIENT: Yes. (Pause) So it's been a weird week. I had hives pretty bad. I mean, I think I still do, but I think they're just kind of under control now or something, or I hope so. I don't know, because I can't I don't even know anymore. (Sighs) I don't know. Hives. I don't know. That's been weird. I don't think it's a food thing, because yesterday I felt better overall, so I decided to try to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Because I was like, is it wheat? Is it peanut butter? Is it, you know, milk? And nothing happened. I ate them and I'm fine. So it's clearly stress. Because I don't have a fever. I don't have you know what I mean? It's also I start freaking out. I'm like, is that can you get it from, like, an STD or something, you know? But it's not in those places. (Laughter) It's like it's here, then it's here, and it's, like, here, and it's clearly it's, like, completely arbitrary.

It wasn't even the hypochondriac. It was more the more I read about it, it's like, "Oh, yeah. People just get hives." And 99.9 percent of the time, never find out why they got them, and you just control them and they go away on their own most of the time. Some people have to deal with them for many years. (Laughter) It's like, what? So I'm hoping that it's calming down, but I don't know. But...

THERAPIST: Well, we were talking last week about how it seems so likely it's emotional.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, probably.

THERAPIST: And the storage in your body, feelings you've had that's happened in other ways about getting hypochondriacal, obsessing about some part of your body.

CLIENT: Well, I haven't seen the doctor, but I've e-mailed with her. And, you know, it could even be connected, you know. I've always wonder why my face sometimes feels like or gets kind of red. Or I feel itchy, or my cheeks get kind of flushed. If that's a kind of rosacea thing or something. Maybe this is connected? I mean, again, it's like your body, basically, it's inflamed. It's inflammation. Which is so fucking ridiculous, but...

THERAPIST: (inaudible 03:44)

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You were starting to say Thursday that the feeling of hitting a kind of rock bottom about your writing was -

CLIENT: Yeah, just everything. That's how it feels, yeah. Although yesterday I did feel really depressed. I just felt depressed. But I think in general, I'm just kind of (pause) I feel, like, tired or, like, out of things to say. Do you know what I'm saying? You know what I mean? Even with my friends, I'm getting not even those friends. Like, my Assyrian friends. I'm having trouble. Like, I love seeing them, but I'm having trouble making a lot of small talk. And I'm also tired of repeating, you know. No the business. No, nothing happening. No, I haven't gotten a job, you know. Yes, I keep getting hives. Not because it makes me feel like I'm complaining, it's just it's the same old shit. I feel like I have nothing new to report, you know.

THERAPIST: You also, I think, have been coming into really knowing how hard things are financially right now, and that that's real. And it's really hard to bear, knowing that that's where things are.

CLIENT: And I think what's happening is instead of being relieved that we can do this reversed mortgage thing first of all, there's a part of me that, of course, feels like, well, that's too good to be true, so something's going to happen or that's not going to work or something. That isn't the case, but (pause) there's a part of me that's just like, instead of being relieved, it's like I feel pressure that that's a loan on this house. And I just I don't know. [00:06:14]

THERAPIST: Yeah, it's not actually a magical solution to the problem.

CLIENT: Yeah, it's not a it's a solution, but it's a solution that has to be tread very lightly, and tings have to be really calculated the right way. And a part of me, lately, I think because of the way I feel, I just feel more like (pause) I mean, well, no. It's not even I mean, things are bad. The fucking government's shut down. Like, I'm also worried that something bad is coming around you know what I mean? I have this bad feeling that this is going to be one of those one in a million times that someone takes out a fucking reverse mortgage in the hottest real estate market. And, you know, the government's shut down and the, like, there's going to be, like, a fucking global something, where, you know, the prices are going to dip. They're going to stay that way for years. And now I'm stuck with that's horrifying, you know. What if I can't sell my house for 800,000 dollars, you know? Unlikely, because we keep saying that, and yet, somehow, the prices still keep going up.

But there's always a chance, you know. And yet, there's no way around it. There is no other solution right now. It's just not you know, I was talking to my friend yesterday I ran into at the cafe. I was like, "Dude, I'm just -" I was very honest with him, you know, because I know he gets it, you know. I was like, "It just doesn't (pause)" I was like, "It makes me really sad to feel like even jobs that I'm applying to I feel like aren't solutions." Can you imagine how sad that is? And I think it's that way for a lot of people now. And I feel like, okay, you give me this job. Fifty grand a year. Okay. Then I start getting a check. Well, I'm already in the hole. I'm already fucked. So what, now I'm supposed to skip down the street because every two weeks I get a check for two grand or something? That's really nothing anymore. Around here, it's just I'm for some people, it is. If you're, like -

THERAPIST: If you don't have any debt.

CLIENT: If you have no doubt and whatever. But the fact is the vast majority of people do. If you've gone to college and your parents aren't rich, and then you've gone to grad school and whatever, chances are you have debt. And I was like, that's what's depressing. I feel like that would just be, again, it would be plugging holes every two weeks. (Laughter) I was like, I would have to make, like, a hundred grand a year to be to breathe, you know, really. To be like, okay, I've paid all these things off. And look at this, I can even save money. I can even help my mom out when she needs it. I can repair the roof if I need. Like, you need to make a lot of money to do that. So that's hard. That's depressing, to feel like these jobs are nothing, just not going to yeah, I want them, but I also need a different kind of solution as well. And right now, this is the only, you know. [00:09:15]

And he was like, "Yeah." He was like, "Dude, trust me." He was like, "For two years, I was a complete depressed case." He's like, "Because you're just going from small chump change to small chump change." And (pause)

THERAPIST: How much do you have in loans?

CLIENT: Student loans? Like a hundred grand.

THERAPIST: Total? Are all the loans consolidated?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Including the ones that got left out?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, everything all together, yeah. The ones that got left out are only, like, 20 grand, you know, whatever they are. Yeah, all together it's, like, a hundred, give or take, you know. I thought I had a lot more, but well, no, I didn't think I had a lot more, but I thought it was going to be closer to, like, 200. Well, that is a lot more but, yeah, it's like 110, something like that. So again, it's not once they're consolidated, I'm not really that because again, I can just sell one unit and pay that. Like, the money's there to pay those. It's just, as long as things just have to be in order, do you know what I mean?

I just got the forms to consolidate these remaining ones, you know. But the student loans, for whatever reason, they never as long as they've been taken care of in one way or the other, they don't I don't know why. They don't I don't know. I feel like those were used for an education, you know, and I can't both get the education and then feel like shit that I got the education. I mean, that's maddening. I have to somehow let that go and be like, it is what it is. I wanted to learn. I was at the tail end of a generation who thought they were going to get their PhDs and be like the professors they had in school, you know, I mean, it was what it was, you know. It'd be different if I had, like, 50 grand in credit card debt, you know. That's just insane. [00:11:35]

And again, once we do this reverse mortgage, depending on how much we take, whatever, I might try to just pay 20 grand to that or whatever I can, you know, whatever I can. Or, see this is the thing. If I bought a condo, if I started doing things with that money, and if there was chunks of money coming in, well then, it's not that hard, is it, to send 500? You know what I mean? Just send it, whatever it's paying off. You know what I mean?

THERAPIST: Absolutely.

CLIENT: That's the beauty of us taking advantage of this. You know, yes, eventually it has to be paid off, but in the short term, that rental income, you know, everything stays with us, we don't have to pay it back yet, you know. So we can channel that money to more pressing debt, which then frees us up, you know. So, not ideal, at all. And it makes me nervous.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it's risky.

CLIENT: But there's just no other way. There is absolutely no other way. The only other way would be for me to be like, does someone want to buy this house for 975,000 dollars? And then I guess I might have to sell it, because then that's like 700 grand clear, in our pocket, you know. I mean, there really are no other options. If no one can cosign to get us a bit of a loan to pay which again, the more I thought about that, that doesn't kind of make sense either. That would be more like an investment in my business, but there is no revenue coming in from that, you know. That's still money you and that's money you owe immediately, once you start using it. So you have no real revenue coming in. yes, you've paid off debts, but now the debt is part of your mortgage.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you haven't really paid off the debt. [00:13:36]

CLIENT: You haven't really paid off the -

THERAPIST: You just moved it.

CLIENT: You've consolidated it, so you feel better. It does psychologically make you feel but I don't owe Claire. I don't owe Jurgen (sp?). I don't know. I just owe it to my house, you know. But why not, if you're going to do that? (Pause) And then of course, I feel like shit that I have this office that I mean, I knew I mean, we had talked about this, right. This was going to happen, right. I feel like -

THERAPIST: For at least a couple years.

CLIENT: Yeah, you know. So I feel like shit. I'm like, I literally my account's in the negative now, you know. So what am I doing, you know what I mean? I'm paying this rent here, then what, you know? I'm trying, not to mention, forget the rent. Then I feel like I'm not even in a what, someone's just going to come see me, right. I mean, I need a life coach, you know. I need to come here. Like, so (clears throat) that's not a good feeling, you know. I'm trying to remind myself that probably this was going to happen. I mean you're starting a business. I'm dealing with a lot of things. And it's a bold move, to do what I'm doing, you know. So I can't expect it to just be, you know, (laughter) a robust business right off the gate, you know.

THERAPIST: It never is for people.

CLIENT: Yeah. No, I know. Yeah, I know I'm not the only -

THERAPIST: [It's not that you're] (ph) an anomaly.

CLIENT: No, no, no. I know I'm not the that's why I'm not freaking out about it. I know I'm not the exception.

THERAPIST: But it doesn't also mean -

CLIENT: But it doesn't feel good.

THERAPIST: when you don't have a lot of cash flow to cover it, that maybe what it feels right now. Like, it feels dire. How can you think it's not like you have this steady stream from some other source, that it's fine to cover this for two years until you start, you know, have a client here, a client there. It makes it harder. It does make it harder.

CLIENT: Yeah. But, you know, I'm not giving up on it. I mean, there is a part of me that I get this way, right. This part of me that's like, wow (ph). I mean, yes, I mean, I'm not giving up on being a life coach, but it does bring me back to that place of just utter frustration, that instead of channeling my energies and my emotions and my time to the two creative things that are really the only things I'm good at that, again, I'm trying to find this way to, you know. That drives me crazy. It's the way it is. Everyone has to do that. Like, you know, I get all that, but it still drives me crazy, because it inevitably leads to the past. You know, if, you know. If they had raised me differently. If they had pushed my creativity. If they had I don't think I'd be in this situation, honestly. I really don't. I'd either already have been a professor somewhere. I'd have books under my would I? Wouldn't I? Who the hell knows? I mean, that's the other thing. [00:16:49]

Like, I was listening to a comedian yesterday, and he was saying the exact same thing, you know. He was like, "I'm finally getting a modicum of success. I'm, like, 49 years old, you know." He's like, "But, you know, I always have to stop myself and say that I couldn't have done this when I was 25. Now I look back and think I could have or I wanted to." He's like, "I wouldn't have been able to handle it. I wouldn't have known what to do with it," you know. So I guess there's some of that, you know. I probably wasn't ready or I probably, you know. But (pause)

THERAPIST: It's like if you could now what you know now when you were ten, that'd be great. But you were ten.

CLIENT: Yeah, of course. Right, right, right. The thing just it's just, you know, when you think of yourself and you have those memories of being such a diligent I don't work that hard now on my art, you know. And so, like, what's the word? Unencumbered by, like, what's the word? What's the word? Like, when I wrote or when I did music, I was, like, (pause) unself like, I wasn't self-aware. I wasn't, like, "Oh, is this music like Radiohead? That's weird." You know what I mean? You start getting how the short story is kind of like every Raymond Carver short story. I mean, I was so free, you know what I mean? I did things then that I would never do now, because I'd be too I'd be editing myself. And I'd be like, "Oh, you fucking idiot. What are you doing?" you know.

So that's the only thing. I feel like, wow, if that kid had really been pushed, you know, and (pause), you know. That's the difference, you know. Because yeah, maybe I wasn't mature in other ways. Obviously I was a kid, you know. But still, when you're, like, 18, 19, 17, 20 and you're just sitting there, instead of doing other things, and you're not -

THERAPIST: Doing your art.

CLIENT: Yeah, you're not watching -

THERAPIST: And very self-directed. [00:18:50]

CLIENT: Yeah, very self-directed. And you're sending it to the San Diegoer because [you feel like], "Yeah, what the fuck. I should be in the San Diegoer." That's an artist. I'm sorry, but that's, you know. That's what Faulkner says, right. He's like, you know, "You need to be fucking arrogant, and you need to believe that no one else knows what the fuck they're talking about, you know. That you, you know. You need some of that." And I still have it, but now it has to keep doing battle with my grown-up voice of, like, "You should be just working. What is this nonsense? You need to make money." I don't know. "Focus on your business. Go back to school and become a therapist." This constant, like, borage (ph) of, like, everyday kind of stuff, which is normal. At that age, I didn't have those everyday kind of things.

But again, it's just about, well, yeah, so that's the point. If that kid had people that were like, "This is unusual," you know. "This kid is," you know. Instead of going to soccer practice, he wants to do this. Instead of dating girls, he wants to do this. Instead of watching TV, playing video games, he wants to sit at a typewriter not even the computer. So, I mean, you know. Let's do some I don't know. Let's get him into a school. Or let's, you know. (Pause) Let's at least not tell him that he won't succeed. (Laughter) That's where it's hard for me to, you know. But, you know, other than mourning it, there's really nothing you can do about it. It just is what it is. (Clears throat)

THERAPIST: Well, I wonder though if there's more to it in a way. Like, we've talked a lot about how little you got not just getting encouragement but actually getting discouragement and a little attention paid and neglect to your talent and who you were as a person. Your dream was going back to 19, and as you're talking about it again, now today -

CLIENT: Say what? [00:21:09]

THERAPIST: Do you remember your dream last week about looking for room 19?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: And you wondered, is that your age, sort of trying to find where you were when your dad died? Like, I wonder, because you hadn't been encouraged then, but you were still self-directed, right. So you're 16, 17, 18, submitting to the San Diegoer, persistent in following this, in spite of everything up until that point. Then he dies, and everyone changes. Maybe that's a fantasy. Maybe that's not actually what happened. I don't know if that is or it isn't.

CLIENT: No, it is what happened, yeah.

THERAPIST: I just feel like I still don't know much at all about what happened inside you, to your creativity, when he died. Like, what happened to the self-direction?

CLIENT: I don't know. I mean, I think it just I think what happens, probably, to a lot of kids is that that's such especially when it's the parent they're closest to, it's such a (pause) devastating wakeup call of reality. I think that's what happened, you know. It was suddenly like, no, the world isn't all colorful, but it's just fucking gray. And people die. And, you know, they die completely unexpectedly, for no for a reason, but no good reason that, you know what I mean. And now, in that moment, starting in that moment, now you're sucked into a daily routine of nonsense. Be strong for your mother, you know. Put on the strong face. Be the man of the family. I mean, suddenly, you're just caught up in and now worrying about money, the house. And your mom's falling apart and, you know, it completely smashes that world you've created.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it was too much reality too young.

CLIENT: Yeah, way too much reality.

THERAPIST: Too young. [00:23:17]

CLIENT: Yeah, that's exactly what it was. And then the things didn't let up. You know, maybe if that was the only thing that happened and everyone else in my family stayed intact and things got better. I mean, I don't know. I think I still would have had these issues but, you know, I mean, just five years later, I'm driving to Providence because a guy just died of a hemorrhage. I'm cleaning up his blood. I mean, one after the other. And not is it reality, it's like a grotesque reality. My dad, at least the guy the image I have of my dad is my dad. But my uncle, the image I have is cleaning the blood, going to the emergency room, being the first, other than his kid. You know, seeing him all tubed and just weird and whatever. And then my aunt just withering away, completely I mean, these are just one after the other.

THERAPIST: They're horrible, horrible images (ph). Too much.

CLIENT: So it's too much of a combination of reality, because then you have to deal with, like, well, how do we (inaudible 24:19) day-to-day? What do we do? And just the reality of, Jesus Christ, life is just I mean, it is a very existential, you know. It's dealing with that idea of, like, this great little world that I had. I mean, really? Like, people are either just going to drop like flies or just wither away. It's hard to reconcile that, at that age, you know. I mean, that's I can't think of anything that it was. That's exactly what it was.

And on top of that, the parent who is not there is the one that you're closest to, so now (pause) the people that are left are the people that don't give a shit about that little world you had, whatever, you know. Now everything's about and who also are (ph) dealing with their own grief. So they're not helping you. There's no guidance. There's no, you know. [00:25:28]

THERAPIST: There wasn't much to begin with, but not you're especially abandoned.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. Again, it's all like you're saying, but I have a feeling if my mom had been the one, you know. It's not that my dad would have been so amazing, but I think my dad, you know, he lost his brother young. I think he was my dad's side just has that, right. I have it, right. There's that thing. It's like, "Oh, that sucks. We're going to somehow -" You know, there's something on my dad's side, that they're able to I don't what that is, but I'm glad I have it. And my mom's side doesn't.

THERAPIST: It's hard to hold on to.

CLIENT: I'm sorry?

THERAPIST: It's hard to hold on to though, if you're surrounded by -

CLIENT: Yeah. So yeah, I've somehow managed to be tough, whatever. But yeah, I don't have my dad's side here to lean on.

THERAPIST: Your dad to lean on.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: To say, "Everything okay, son?"

CLIENT: At least if they were here, and he wasn't here, they would have absolutely, you know. My aunts and stuff, they would have absolutely circled the wagons and been like, you know. So (pause) (sighs) You know, did I tell you that I saw a picture of my dad? Did we talk about this?

THERAPIST: As a little boy.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Did I tell you that, like, maybe the hives were related? I was thinking about that.

THERAPIST: Yeah. You didn't show me.

CLIENT: That's my dad. [00:27:28]

THERAPIST: Right here?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: (Gasps)

CLIENT: So that's his family there.

THERAPIST: Oh my gosh.

CLIENT: That's his mom. My grandmother. My great grand my grandfather. My uncle, the one who (inaudible 27:42). And my aunts were in Oregon.

THERAPIST: (inaudible 27:46) Oh my goodness. You look like him.

CLIENT: (Laughter)

THERAPIST: It's (ph) very serious.

CLIENT: Yeah. One of those old-school photos where they don't really smile.

THERAPIST: Except for him (ph). (Laughter)

CLIENT: This is the brother that he was very close to.

THERAPIST: This one?

CLIENT: You know, whose son is now at MSU, the dumbass. Yeah, Heinrich. So I wonder if maybe -

THERAPIST: Aw.

CLIENT: (Laughter) I wonder if that did something, you know. Like, I've never seen him. It's just so weird.

THERAPIST: You've never seen a picture of him at that age.

CLIENT: I've never seen him before he had a mustache.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: You know, there's that one I think I showed you that one picture, kind of (inaudible 28:41) picture. I've never seen pictures before that. I think I've seen one he was a soldier, but he was an adult. It's like, "Oh yeah, there's my dad." Yeah, he's young, but it's my dad. But this is uncanny, you know. It's just completely uncanny. And yeah, I do kind of see a it's weird, because when I look at him as an adult, I don't see a I do see a resemblance, but I don't. It's like my mom. When I see my mom, like, I don't I just feel like I look like both of them, like a real mixture of both. But in this case, I'm like, yeah, there's something -

THERAPIST: You can see it?

CLIENT: Yeah, there's something there. But yeah, I wonder if maybe that triggered you know, I don't know. Like, all these things together.

THERAPIST: Of course. How could it not? This is (pause) huge.

CLIENT: I was going to say that, and I was going to say there was something else too that maybe (pause) I don't remember now, but I don't know. But yeah, I mean, I feel like that has to be...

THERAPIST: You don't remember?

CLIENT: I thought, like, a few days ago, like, yeah, the photo and maybe something else, but maybe it was just the photo. I don't remember.

THERAPIST: All the feelings.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) Oh, I know what I was going to say. Not just the photo, but then when I showed it to my mom, it's like my mom and I kind of had a moment that we normally don't. You know what I mean? So maybe that. I mean, you know, again, I don't show those, you know, but I think maybe inside it did something, you know what I mean? Because she was, like, stunned, you know. She was looking at it, and then she just, like, put her hand on, you know. And she was just, like, you know. [00:30:56]

It wasn't like a moment where we were just super sad. Do you know what I mean? It's been so long that I can look at it and just be like, "Wow," you know. It's not just like a it's not what it would have been, like, five years ago or -

THERAPIST: Yeah, it sounds much more, actually, warm and affectionate, and affection from him.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's like my dad was a real person, you know.

THERAPIST: Her putting her hand [on you] (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. She didn't I was a little worried how she would, but yeah, she took it very, very like the way I did.

THERAPIST: Heartwarming.

CLIENT: Yeah, very heartwarming. Exactly.

THERAPIST: But then the hives.

CLIENT: Well, it's just, I think, again, it's every this was on top of everything else, I think. Just a lot of emotion, you know. Frustration. I mean, I think a lot of it is frustration. I don't even know (laughter) if it's emotion. I've had a lot of emotion in my life.

THERAPIST: Well, frustrations and emotion. (Crosstalk 31:59)

CLIENT: Well, that's true, yeah. Frustrations and emotion. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's been the leading emotion, because I don't, again, I'm not particularly depressed. When I do feel depressed, it's when my frustration it's like, this is like a fuck it. (Laughter) I just get I don't give a fuck, you know. It's the frustration, you know. That's...

Now, but in all of this, I mean, I have been writing. I started writing rhyming couplets. I don't know why. (Laughter) I never write in very rigid poetic meter, whatever. But for whatever reason, I've started writing in rhyming couplets. And I even sent Jason some yesterday. I was like, I mean, "I'm sending these to you with complete suspicion of the worth." (Laughter) But I was like, "You have to let me know honestly if these are just clever and whatever, like, amateurish. Or if they're worth kind of pursuing," you know. So I don't know. So, I mean...

THERAPIST: Rhyming couplets, yeah.

CLIENT: You know, I think part of the hives too is that it's willpower, you know. The more and more I'm thinking about I mean, I've thought about this before, but I think that's why now it's really hit that, like, rock bottom place I was telling you about. It's just you get to the point where you knew this thing intellectually before that, well, you know, I could see Claire for hundreds of years. But chances are, it's not like one day I'm going to walk out of here and be like, great, everything's hip (ph). Go home. Write a couple chapters. All set. Happy, you know. In other words, (pause) you know, there's a lot to be said for that existential side of things. That is a reality that, you know, some things are what they are. It could have been this way. It could have been that way. But whatever, you are what you are in this moment, you know. [00:34:33]

So a lot of things are about willpower, you know, and self-discipline. And I've always felt that I lost that, you know, in my 20s. That's what got completely turned upside down. I lost it in school. I lost it with, like, relationships. Like, just everything got willy nilly and just, you know. So I'm wondering if that has a lot I'm at place now where it's just like with the house, like, with the money. There is no alternative now, you know what I mean. Either you're going to write this novel, little by little, a lot by a lot, whatever, but it's going to happen often, every day or almost every day. Or you're just not, and you have to let it go. You know what I mean? It's almost like with the music. I'm pretty much sure I'm not going to be a rock star, you know what I mean? But I'm able to somehow (pause) continue with it, just because I have to. That's how I, you know.

But with writing, I still have this thing, where it's like, no, it's not, you know. That I want to get things out there, and I want to publish, and I want to well, that's great. And I can do those things. But I have to write things down (laughter). You know what I mean? Like, it's just getting to the point where I think the hives have something to do with that, you know what I mean? It's like, dude. Yeah, it sucks to not have money. This sucks. That sucks. Whatever. But really -

THERAPIST: You don't want to be poor and write.

CLIENT: That's right. No one's stopping you. You know, you sit at the cafe for hours on your laptop. What are you writing, two rhyming couplets, you know. No one's stopping you from just writing shit, you know. Even more than music. Music involves recording and equipment and, you know. And I'm doing that, but with writing, there really is I mean, you can write shit on a napkin. (Pause) So I think that's where I think there's a... [00:36:48]

THERAPIST: Maybe that's the side where you feel like you need a life coach on how to just get to it.

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess. But that feels so yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: Feels so what?

CLIENT: I mean, I know all those tricks. Anything they tell me, I'm going to be like, "Yep, that's a great idea." I mean, you know. You know what I'm saying? That's why that's not like this. This, I need, because I can't do what you're doing, you know. I can't do what you're doing for myself. Life coaching, in this case, life coaching for, let's say, business. Yeah, I get that, right. Maybe I'm not thinking about everything. But when it comes to creativity, it's like no one is going to tell me shit about, you know, write for two minutes and then stop. Don't put pressure on yourself. You know, whatever. There's not much someone can tell me. The only that would be different is if they were like, "I want to see you every single day, and I want to see five pages." And I'm not going to pay someone (laughter) for that, you know. If I can't even do that for myself, like, that's, you know. (Pause) I think it's actually this, maybe is more important, because maybe there's, you know. What is it that's not letting me?

THERAPIST: I agree. So often, the way you talk about it though is in the language of kind of the skills -

CLIENT: Well, I just think there has to be a balance, because the fact is a lot of writers are fucked up, a lot of artists, right. But they got it done somehow, right. I mean, they just got it done. So this can't be, like, a scapegoat, you know what I mean? This is just a very healthy thing I'm doing for every part of my life. That's part of it. But man, I mean, you know, come on. People wrote during war. They write in the middle of genocides. I mean, give me a break. I'm a white guy living in a nice area, you know. I'm the very thing that annoys me about other people, you know what I'm saying? Like, you know, these precious white guys. Precious white guy artists. It's like, "Dude, shut the fuck up, and don't -" you know. But that's (pause), you know. [00:39:08]

I mean, that's a whole other conversation, but, you know, I think that's a very capitalist kind of, like, you know, in my luxuriant fucking life, I'm picking apart at the minutia of my (laughter) preciousness and my, you know, all my emotions are so important. And my that has to be balanced a little bit, you know what I mean? I don't believe in that. I don't believe in that much self-indulgence. That's for here, you know. Here, okay, I'm trying to work shit out. But (pause) what was I don't know what my point was. But...

THERAPIST: I mean, you're talking about the balance of kind of trying to get yourself to get things done behaviorally.

CLIENT: That's right.

THERAPIST: What I hear is a kind of skills coaching around (ph) behavioral or cognitive behavioral therapy intervention -

CLIENT: That's right.

THERAPIST: And yet, I think there are psychodynamic underpinnings to all of this. You had a willpower (inaudible 40:07). It's not as though you're someone who's never been able -

CLIENT: That's what I'm saying.

THERAPIST: to organize himself at all, so it's not this isn't just some core lifelong deficit. It's been a long time, but something has been missing. I don't know what willpower even of course I know what it means, but I don't know what it really means when you say it now. Like, what is willpower? What's the thing that is missing inside you to get you to do it, you know? What died off? What went away wherever your father died?

CLIENT: Oh, not is it, but what caused it to go away?

THERAPIST: Both. Even still what it is. Like -

CLIENT: The what it is, I think, is pretty simple. To me, at least. I mean, it's that compulsion to do things without over thinking it. That's how it used to be.

THERAPIST: Right. So even as you start to say that, that's very different to me than willpower. It sounds more like the capacity to do just do without self-criticism. Without constant self-monitoring.

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess that's -

THERAPIST: That's really different.

CLIENT: I guess.

THERAPIST: It doesn't even I don't care what we're going to call it. But I think willpower may it's like one level of understanding, but there's so much more.

CLIENT: Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. That's is a bigger thing, yeah, to be able to just do something and not which, lately, is getting better, right.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Rhyming couplets. Who the fuck you know. So obviously -

THERAPIST: And even that you can send that off and say, "What do you think?"

CLIENT: That's right, that's right.

THERAPIST: Who knows what he's going to think?

CLIENT: Exactly. Or that, you know, I do have a better idea of the novel. Or I do have, you know, that I put out the record, you know. So it is coming back. I think the willpower point is to help it come back faster by just daily practice, you know. I believe in that. I believe that talent is nonsense. It's about, you know, the act of doing, you know.

THERAPIST: Absolutely. [00:42:09]

CLIENT: That's the part I mean. But I agree. Maybe the reason I can't do that every day is because I sit down and I torture myself and that's it. I don't enjoy it. I don't overwrite, you know what I mean? I'm just constantly like, I didn't write enough. What am I doing? There's too much thinking going on.

THERAPIST: The core feeling is a very degraded image of yourself. Like, how will you get anywhere, really?

CLIENT: Right, right.

THERAPIST: And what I think we still have to be sort of piecing together is why that core feeling grew so exponentially when your dad died. I do imagine you had those feelings at some level because of your early history. They were already there. But somehow, it hadn't taken over yet. You were still able, in the bubble of adolescence, to just be yourself and do your thing, even in private and behind closed doors.

CLIENT: I think I know why. I think because, you know, when I think about it, I did have those feelings, but the feeling was, "I'm going to get the fuck out of here," right. That's what you fee, especially when you're that artistic type and you're confident. My feeling was, "Fuck it. The minute I'm 19, 20, whatever, I'm going to be publishing I going to get the fuck out of here." That was the feeling, you know what I mean.

THERAPIST: So that makes more sense, as you were talking about your aunt Seda (sp?). And you said it's something you said about her, that she got to leave I think it was her. Leave her family? And come here and got a fresh start.

CLIENT: Yeah, she left during the revolution. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

THERAPIST: So there's something about your father died and then you're just -

CLIENT: It was the opposite.

THERAPIST: inextricably linked (ph) to your mother to today.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, before he died, are you kidding me, I used to salivate over catalogues from the school in San Diego. I mean, I was on top of things, at that age. I was like, I know I want to go there, you know. Like, the places where like, I knew where I belonged, you know what I mean. I mean, think about that. Like, I knew where I was, like, doing it, you know. But (pause), you know.

THERAPIST: There's still so much more to know. (Laughter) So tomorrow.

CLIENT: Noon.

THERAPIST: At noon.

CLIENT: Okay. Thank you, Claire. See you tomorrow.

END TRANSCRIPT