The goal was to examine a real or fictional person from two competing personality perspectives of the eight that we covered in our coursework and reading.  I chose to look at Bateman in three ways.  The first is to describe his personality more fully from an abnormal point of view using schizotypal and borderline personality disorders. I then did a more detailed theoretical analysis using general psychoanalytic theory and then using a novel application of self-actualization from humanistic psychology.

I just reformatted the paper to appear in a more journal like format, and is hopefully a bit easier to read using two columns and with single spacing.

Read it here: BatemanReformatted.pdf

This paper is my first major work for my PhD program in Clinical Psychology through Walden University.  I have written plenty of other papers, but this is the first that really let me dive into theory and produce work that was an original synthesis of other research.  Overall, because it was a paper for a class with some specific requirements, it straddles the line between giving extra description of theories to demonstrate understanding and also in using jargon from both the psychology and literary fields.  So it might seem to drag in some areas and then plow through others.  But, hopefully it will be a decent read overall.

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So, while waiting in line I composed a Haiku about the weather.

Thirst overwhelming

Too much water in the air

Forever quenching.

Take it as you will. If someone actually asks me to explain the thought that went into it I will, until then it will remain a mystery.

Either way though, it is hot a humid to the point of misery out here today. Someone needs to remind me why I thought leaving the desert was a wise idea.

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1. One book that changed your life:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

I think I read this book four times. Coming from a background in both psychology and philosophy I really just couldn’t put it down. the story itself makes the philosophy very easy to read. Ultimately this may have been one of the books that caused me to start a fairly radical shift in how Sustainable Democracy is written and the direction it is going in now.

2. One book that you have read more than once:

Shogun by James Clavell
I was living and working in Japan and this was one of the few books I had in English. As a strong merit of the book I was easily able to read it twice without losing any interest.

3. One book you would want on a desert island:

The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene

I love theory and physics, so why not get a big helping of both!

4. Two books that made you laugh:

Wizard and Glass (Dark Tower, Book IV) by Stephen King
Probably not a laugh-riot comedy, but it has been one of the few novels that has made me laugh out loud without that being the intent of the story. It was just a great read that had me laughing when it was between the dramatic sequences.

World War Z by Max Brooks
Overall another very dramatic book, but it has many very humorous parts sprinkled in it.

5. One book that made you cry:

I really don’t get tearful with books… I’m sure some have come close, but I can’t recall anything specific.

6. One book you wish you’d written:

The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
Lets face it, not only is it a great book but also the ticket to instant fame, fortune, and free time by becoming a bestseller every place it touches.

7. One book you wish had never been written:

I’m sure there are lots of them, but I tend to avoid or stop reading any book that starts to fill that description.

8. Two books you are currently reading:

The Dark Tower V by Stephen King

Dianetics by Crazy Old Man Hubbard
Hey why not, besides I’m a sucker for alternative beliefs that make over-the-top claims.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read:

Freakenomics
I finally bought it, but I still need to crack it open and read it.

As done by Scott at My Thermos, I will not be tagging anyone, but it you like books please fill this out and share your own passion for words!

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For the moment I’m not going back to fiction though. I have some ideas in that realm, but they don’t mix well with working full-time. At the moment I will be focusing my efforts on things I know enough about to be helpful. Those are self-help and (to some extent) travel.

My self-help book is on saying no, assertiveness, and self-promotion by saying no. Once it is closer to done I will reveal the title. At the moment I am more paranoid about having the title stolen from under me.

The travel book… Some of my friends know that I cam close to a full mental breakdown when I moved to Japan. So I will be gathering together my collection of OMG WTF! moments and turning them into a “How Not to Travel” guide. With the continual stream of young foreigners going to teach abroad I think it should do a fair bit to ease some of the pain of being in a new country.

I’ll try to keep putting up occasional status updates. It should really help keep me on track and actually working on the projects if I think people know I’m supposed to be writing them.

Who knows, if people are really interested I may recruit editors to help me once things get toward their conclusion.

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Certainly it is better to have freedom than be enslaved. At the some time though, does a a greater abundance of free choice make us happy? From my perspective the exponential growth of free choice as a way of life has led to an existential crisis.

From the time we could talk my generation has been told we can “be whatever we want.” All we have to do is put out mind to it and we can do anything. This is nice and motivational, though maybe a bit to lofty a statement. Sure you don’t want to depress kids, but the statement continues through to this very day. Now as adults we are told the same thing, we can be anything we want and change at the drop of a hat if we feel the need. Sometimes it feels like the same prison of no choice; this having to reinvent and renew who we are.

This lack of direction can be paralyzing. Without clear goals or a range of paths to follow it can end up feeling like life is little but chasing your tail and hoping once you clamp down that you’re not actually biting yourself in the ass. This is especially true since our goals with total freedom to “be who we want” are not small.

That’s all for now, I’ll look at the more problems with lofty goals and society later.

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Virtually no one in high school or below knows why they are learning. The whole system is a mystery. We think we know why, and often rebel against it. Even if we accept our indentured state we still don’t know much of the why. We know we are supposed to learn, be indoctrinated, and made productive. However, this has more to do with training and little to do with education.

College is even worse. We go in with goals (hopefully) and learn more. We are trained for our future lives and careers. But the word training is primary there as well. We still don’t know much about education. Some professors will even tell us directly about education. The enrichment of the mind. The creation of free thinkers able to abstractly adapt themselves to any problem. This sounds like a great idea! Even when it is explained to us, the vast majority will have learned nothing about education.

It is life that reveals education to us. One day you walk down the street and see a commonplace event. It can be any normal event. But suddenly you are not just seeing the event, you see the parts of the event, the actors, and results with a new clarity. This change happens with no effort, but suddenly you don’t just see common or random occurrences. What you begin to see are processes. Everything you gained from education matures. Whatever discipline you delved into in all these years of learning and training begins to no longer be abstract but starts to mesh with your perceptions.

Education has not trained you for a job, it has shaped the way you think.

You can be told this everyday of your sequestered educational life, but it takes a great deal more time to see it. You finally learn about learning.

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We pretend a great deal of knowledge and rebel against all authority that tell us they know better in our teens. Teenagers have the great ability to know that they are right and that their experience is unique. And actually it is true that they are unique, and they do know quite a bit; however, knowing things does not mean the parts are connected. Teens know a great number of powerful facts about the world; they just aren’t put into a system yet.

Imagine your car engine. The engine is a well crafted piece of precision mechanics. The insights your average rebellious teenager has are like taking this engine apart into separate pieces with gasoline spilled over the collection of parts. You have a lot of powerful tools and real chance for fire, but you still don’t have a working motor. The insights you gain in your twenties is the stunning realization that you have a bunch of car parts sitting in a pool of gasoline and that you really can connect the pieces. This is how I mean deep insight. The fundamental change in thought patterns that occurs when you stop collecting powerful thought and start putting them together. Later insights in life are reshaping parts of the engine, tuning it to work better, and adapting it to work in new ways.

What are some of these things you learn in your twenties? Let us take a look at piece one..

Your parents didn’t know anything about you.
As it turns out this assumption was correct. That’s right, all those teenagers screaming that their parents are completely ignorant about their lives are right. The realization though, is understanding why that is true.

Think back to those oh so fun times of raging hormones and anguish at trying to establish just who you are. In those memories are probably a lot of questions from your parents that you refused to answer. That’s right, they were asking and trying to understand the whole time, but you stopped talking. They didn’t know what was going on in your head because you shut them out. The reason? In most cases it is much easier to simply shut family out than to admit that you don’t know or are confused, specially when you are starting to learn that you can think.

Now dig deeper in those memories. The best part of this realization is that the reverse is also true. You didn’t know your parents. In all that trying to figure yourself out you forgot to ask the people who used to know you best about what was on their minds. Oops. Easy to play with gasoline and matches when you forget their are other people around you.

It is a good feeling to get that channel dredged. Remembering that your parents are people and that you can not only ask them about what they do and how they are is a great feeling. Especially because you realize at the same time you can ask them for advice and wisdom and understand how to begin using it.

Next time:
#2 – Learning about learning

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Kevin had understood why they were incredulous. After all, what kind of guy walks into a police station and tries to explain that they accidentally killed their best friends family because he was sure they had become infected with the zombie plague? Kevin still wasn’t sure what the cops thought about this explanation, but they had finally decided that he hadn’t killed his own family in such a terrible way. And with large quantities of psychoactive drugs and therapy he was starting to realize that things might one day return to a normal level.

Kevin wasn’t really convinced that things were going to get better, but somehow a combination of five anti-depressants can do wonders. What really made Kevin smile was thinking about Brian being killed by kids with machetes in Brazil. In reality, Kevin should never have looked a gift horse in the mouth.

About five seconds after the joyful children in Kevin’s mind had finished hacking apart the last pieces of Brian’s body, Kevin’s cellphone started ringing.

Probably Paul again… Checking on how I’m feeling… Asking if I’m drinking…

But to Kevin’s surprise it was some strange 090 number he had never seen before. So being that he was alone in the world and had nothing better to do than drink enough to attempt to have a coherent conversation with a bottle of Jim Beam, he answered the call.

“Holy Shit Kevin! I’m glad you answered, its Brian. I’m in Japan.” The reception wasn’t great and there seemed to be some signal echo, but the voice was clear, it was a mildly scared sounding Brian.

“Are you sure it’s you Brian… I thought I remembered the Brazilian dream children just finishing killing you in my head.” Kevin’s words were a bit slurred, but the thought of Brian being alive and well was oddly sobering.

“I should write that down… Might be important, hasn’t worked before, but you never when something might be a vision eh? You said Brazil right? Anyway… I just wanted to see how you were bud, it’s been too long.”

“Oh, me? I’ve mostly been drinking and going to therapy sessions. But Paul usually calls and check on me about those things. Oh, the police also finally believed your story. I think they also kind of hope you’ll die quietly somewhere and save them having to attempt taking your to court.” Kevin was mostly sober now, but he was still hoping he might just be to drunk to know if he was really dreaming.

“Yeah, Paul’s a good guy. Too bad about his sister and all that. Maybe you two should find a support group together… But to get to the point. I need your help man.”

“Please tell me you have embraced the idea of committing ritual seppuku and want me to aid as your second?” Reading Shogun seven or eight times in the last three months was suddenly a boon rather than a dangerous obsession for Kevin.

“Ummmm not exactly. The evil out here is overwhelming! I could really use someone like you to back me up, and also help me organize all the records I have for keeping track of what is evil and what isn’t.” Brian’s voice was not pleading at all, except maybe about organizing the files, he had always been a shit record keeper.

“I think we need to remember, Brian, that I’m not an alcoholic now for no reason. I don’t drink because my family was zombies… I drink because you thought they were zombies. I can’t help you… I won’t help you! I, I, just, can’t… I … no.” By this point Kevin was mostly screaming incoherently.

It was then Brian realized that a hunter truly is alone. And the hunt had to continue. He was sorry Kevin would never see the light of the truth as he had. Brian just hoped they hadn’t gotten into Kevin’s mind like so many of the others.

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It was the main story arc (or slow story bleed out) that caught my attention. Sure the little side stories were cool, but the only lesson there was “Don’t get fucked by creepy evil people”. Now the main story had something to say.

Now the normal lessons of being a good caring person who values their own life was probably the message you’re supposed to receive. You know, the whole thing about the creepy guy with inventive traps catching you and forcing you to solve a problem with your own or someone else’s life. Good message on some level I’m sure.

Let me set up what I learned.

So you wake up in the dark. You’re cold, hungry, and wondering what the hell just happened. Then you find out some other guy is there. Between the two of you, you manage to find a light switch. Then you find a dead body in the room, a gun, and one bullet.

The question, of course, is What do you do?
This is where I deviate from the norm and instead would probably make my horribly sane and rational friends over at The Hunter Net very proud.

Once you determine your new friend chained to a pipe is really alive and breathing you have a choice to make. You can work for several hours and cry a lot trying to figure out how to get out of the rather safe room you’re in, or you can deal with the much more important problem at hand.

The dead body.

The other asshole is obviously alive, but the dead guy could become a zombie at any moment. Hell, you were just abducted and have no good explanation for what is happening in the world. And you have a little tape talking about poison in the dead guy. Poison, zombie serum… Same thing.

I would have immediately used that bullet to put a second hole in the soon to be zombie dead guy’s festering head. And as a pleasant side effect of making sure I don’t get eaten like some punk with a better plan, I also would have killed the evil guy who kidnapped me. You know, the same guy holding the “open door button” you wanted in the first place.

And this is why most movies have a distinct lack of Hunters as characters. Their keen sense of how to stop danger often diffuses the plans of evil doers much to early.

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We join our intrepid hero, Brian, one month after he killed Kevin’s family who were, incidentally, not zombies… yet…

I decided that it was time to talk to Kevin again, to really apologize for what had happened. I mean, his family really had fit the zombie mold. But, Kevin was my friend, and I owed him at least this much. So I invited with to meet me at the docks of the local Lake Marina, it was a nice public place where I was pretty sure Kevin would not come after me with an axe.

“Hey Kevin, glad you decided to come and talk with me.” I looked over Kevin as I said this. He still had that vaguely distant look about him.

“Yeah Brian… Not so glad I could make it.”

“Listen, I’m sorry about the whole family/zombie thing. That was really, uh, my bad.”

“I hate you Brian… And you really really need to think through your apologies better. You know, have something a little more comforting than ‘my bad’ ready.” Kevin had an angry look, but Brian was glad to see his friend still had witty comebacks.

“You’re right. But I did go to the cops, I told them what happened.”

“Wait, you told the cops you killed my family and you didn’t get thrown in jail!?” Kevin stood us while yelling this. “What kind of fucked up town am I living in!”

“You might want to take it down a notch man… When I told them the whole story of your family being all looking like zombies and such… Well… I think they thought I was trying to cover for you.” Brian was fairly embarrassed to have to talk about that part of his confession.

“Trying to.. cover for me? Worse yet, you told the cops you killed my family because you’re some kind of flunked out zombie hunter??”

“Yeah. I figured the truth was going to be the best policy. I actually think you’re their primary suspect now. It really suprised me. I mean, I really did try to explain.”

“Great. I’m going to go to prison because my best friend turned out to be insane and killed my family because he thought he was a zombie hunter. That would be a great story to tell the grandkids I would have had if you hadn’t killed my family.” Kevin was sobbed through most of this.

“You might want to leave town for awhile. I’m sure they’ll straighten things out. Anyway, I was going to be leaving to. I had time to think about being everyones favorite prison bitch. Decided it might be best to leave before they decide I was telling the truth.”

***

Stay tuned, as Brian learn to watch for evil on the Greyhound bus network.

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