Blog – Page 3 – Keith Wilson

A Lazy Writer Tries Chat GPT

Dall-E 2 generated Sloth at Typewriter by Crayon

I don’t often feel lazy; but when I do, it’s enough to throw me into despair and self-reproach. I come from solid Puritan stock, you see, for whom idleness is akin to damnation. I was feeling damn lazy but, nonetheless, sat myself down and committed myself to writing like I do every day. I could have fiddled around with old drafts, which is my usual strategy when the first draft of something isn’t coming, but I had a thought. This would be the perfect time to write about laziness. I ‘ve been meaning to do that for my essay series, A Field Guide to Feelings. Unfortunately, I was too lazy to get started. Then I had a brilliant idea, the kind that only a lazy man can come up with. I turned to Monica, Google’s free version of Chat GPT, and had it write an article about laziness for me.

This is what Monica began to say:

Laziness, the inclination to avoid effort or exertion, is a pervasive human trait that affects individuals across cultures and generations. While a temporary break or leisurely activity can be refreshing, chronic laziness hampers personal growth, inhibits productivity, and limits one’s potential… [blah, blah, blah….]

That’s as far as I got before I stopped reading. I was still lazy, but now I was bored too, a deadly combination of dissatisfaction without the will to do anything about it. Monica provided me with the bare bones of an essay, but I still needed to put it in my voice and try to make it interesting. No job for the lazy.

Then, I had another lazy man’s idea. I already have a lot of my own writing on the internet, so maybe I could ask the bot to write the essay in my style. So, I told Monica to write a first person essay about the feeling of laziness in the style of Keith Wilson. This is what it said:

In the depths of my being, I find myself ensnared by a peculiar sensation—a sensation that, in its essence, defies explanation yet permeates every fiber of my existence. It is the unwelcome guest that makes itself at home within my psyche, entangling my thoughts and smothering my will. This sensation, my dear reader, is none other than laziness.

Laziness, that elusive specter of the mind, has long been a companion on my journey through life. It is a force that drains my motivation, suffocates my ambition, and wraps me in its warm, seductive embrace. But what is it about this sensation that renders it both captivating and repulsive? What hidden truths lie within the folds of its enigmatic nature?

At its core, laziness seems to be a manifestation of a profound psychological struggle—an inner conflict between the desire for comfort and the yearning for growth. It is a delicate dance between the hedonistic inclination to revel in the soothing embrace of idleness and the intrinsic need to push the boundaries of our potential. Laziness, then, can be seen as a self-imposed stagnation—a resistance to the demands of progress.

Yet, in my contemplation of this ever-present force, I cannot help but question the prevailing judgments that society casts upon the lazy. Are they truly to be condemned for their affinity for rest and relaxation? Could it be that laziness, in some peculiar way, holds within it a secret wisdom—a lesson to be learned amidst the chaos of ceaseless productivity?

Perhaps laziness, when embraced with awareness and intention, can serve as a sanctuary—a space for introspection, reflection, and rejuvenation. In a world that incessantly demands output and constant motion, the allure of inertia becomes an act of rebellion—an act of self-preservation against the overwhelming tide of busyness. Laziness becomes a respite—a chance to reclaim our sovereignty and reconnect with the essence of our being.

Yet, as with all things in life, balance must be struck. The siren call of laziness, if heeded too frequently and without discernment, can morph into an insidious trap. It morphs from a temporary haven into an impenetrable fortress, isolating us from the richness of experience and rendering our lives hollow and devoid of purpose. The seduction of laziness, once a source of solace, becomes a prison of our own making.

So, dear reader, where does this leave us? How do we navigate the intricate terrain of laziness and extract its hidden wisdom without succumbing to its grip? The answer, I believe, lies in a delicate dance—a harmonious interplay between indulgence and discipline, leisure and labor. It requires a deep understanding of our own rhythms, a keen self-awareness that allows us to discern when laziness is a call for rest and when it is an excuse for complacency… [blah, blah, blah….]

Reading it was like watching a comedian’s impression of me. Do I really sound like that? My style can’t really be that humorless and overblown. The bot must have exaggerated my love of metaphor and tendency towards grandiloquence to make a caricature of my writing; sort of like the way someone playing a pirate throws in plenty of arrrghs, ahoy mateys, and shiver me timbers, just so you know he’s a pirate. Still, it was embarrassing, and I vowed to be lazy more often and not embellish my articles with purple prose.

For all my complaints, the piece captured how I thought about laziness. It’s a manifestation of an inner struggle, something with positive features as well as negative, and a feeling that urges us to slow down. How did it know? It read my work. That’s how I think about every feeling.

I began to revise the article. I found some humor, toned down the rhetoric, and swapped the we’s for you’s and I’s. Monica seemed to have overlooked my aversion to the first person plural. I was still feeling lazy, but here was that opportunity to rewrite I was looking for. Being lazy, I started to fantasize having Monica do more of my writing, if I could find a style that wasn’t so pompous. I could set up a program to go on creating posts forever, without me while I dozed on my hammock, drinking iced tea, and getting an email like everyone subscribed to my blog, telling me what I had to say.

That’s when I stopped revising. Sure enough, laziness threw me into despair. I wondered, why do I write in the first place? I don’t write for glory, for there’s no glory. Not for money, for there’s little money. I don’t even write because people expect me to. I write so I can figure things out. Please read that carefully. I didn’t say I write so I can have things figured out. I write because the act of figuring things out is pleasurable.

When I figured this out, I also figured out when to use Chat GPT and when to leave it alone. You can think of Chat GPT like the map app on your phone. If you just have a bunch of errands to run and you want to know the most efficient way to complete them, then use the map app. If you want to drive around for the pleasure of coming across things you’ve never seen, then close the app and get lost. Similarly, if you have some writing you need to get done, Chat GPT can do it for you, but if you write for the pleasure of figuring things out, then you don’t need it. As a matter of fact, using Monica to write about laziness preempted writing about laziness for me. I can’t figure things out when a computer has already told me what I think.

There’s something else I can’t figure out, though. If I like writing so much, what was I doing being lazy? Well, maybe I wasn’t lazy. Claiming laziness is a lazy man’s way of saying he’s tired, discouraged, frustrated, depressed, bored, ashamed, confused, fearful, or angry at the people who demand things of him. He could get more specific about what’s stopping him from being productive, but it’s too much trouble.

I went through the possibilities and ruled them out. I’m not tired because I haven’t done anything to exhaust myself. Perhaps I should be discouraged because I’m not a best-selling author; but I don’t really want to be a best-selling author with all the interviews, book signings, and elevated expectations it involves. I’m also not frustrated. Rather, I wasn’t until I sat down to write and felt lazy. My frustration is secondary to laziness. I’m also not depressed, at least not in a clinical sense, and I should know, I’m a guy who makes his living spotting depression. I wasn’t bored until I read the first Chat GPT article on laziness and I wasn’t ashamed until I read its impression of me. Neither was I confused about laziness, for I hadn’t even started trying to understand it. I’m not fearful because there’s no reason to be afraid, and I couldn’t be angry at people who demand writing from me because nobody demands it.

Then it came to me. I know what I’m mistaking for laziness. I have a lot to do. I’ve started many projects and many more are on my list. I’m conflicted about whether writing about laziness is how I ought to be spending my time right now. So, there’s an irony for you, I call myself lazy because I’m overwhelmed by my ambition.

Thinking back to many of the times I’ve called myself lazy, they generally have to do with being overwhelmed. Not like a tsunami is coming overwhelmed, rather, I need to do a simple chore and the extension cord is a tangled mess overwhelmed. In this case, the tangled mess is my priorities. I have lots of projects, but I’ve never sorted them out and determined which are the most important.

I looked over the list of things I’ve wanted to do. One of them was to write about laziness. Another was to write about Chat GPT. I managed to knock them both off at the same time. Not bad for being lazy. Maybe that’s what laziness is for. It improves industriousness. It’s like salt. When you season with salt, it brings out the flavor of your food. You wouldn’t want to have laziness by itself any more than you would want to eat a dish of salt; but when you season industriousness with laziness, you’re apt to find a more efficient way of doing things.

Monica would have never come up with the metaphor equating laziness to salt. It’s the kind of unexpected thing I come across when I’m wandering through my mental landscape on my own. But there’s a way she could help. I asked Monica what to do if you put too much salt in your food, thinking it might give me a hint about how to dispel laziness. Basically, she advised diluting the salt by adding unsalted ingredients.

So, dear reader, where does this leave us? How do we navigate the intricate terrain of laziness and extract its hidden wisdom without succumbing to its grip? The answer, I believe, lies no further than your cupboard. Season everything you do with laziness; but when you find yourself poisoned by its nitrates, increase your industriousness.

I just added a new task to my list. Figure out how to be more industrious when I’m lazy. Great. Well, maybe Monica can tell me how to do that. Just for kicks, I asked her to answer in the style of George Constanza, a famously lazy character. Hope it helps. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be in my hammock.

It all began on a fateful day when I found myself lounging on the couch, lost in a vortex of mind-numbing television. The world around me was fading into the background as I surrendered to the gravitational pull of idleness. But then, a revelation struck me like a bolt of lightning. If I continued down this path, I would forever remain a slave to my slothful tendencies… [yada, yada, yada]

The first step was to redefine productivity on my own terms. Instead of overwhelming myself with grandiose goals, I broke them down into manageable, bite-sized tasks. Just as I would invent elaborate lies to escape responsibilities, I began tricking myself into believing that completing these smaller tasks was a piece of cake. The art of self-deception became my greatest weapon.

Next, I embraced the power of incentives. I discovered that rewards could be a potent motivator. By setting up a system of rewards and punishments, I gamified my tasks. Each completed task earned me a small indulgence—a slice of pizza or an episode of my favorite sitcom. Meanwhile, failing to meet deadlines or succumbing to laziness resulted in consequences I dreaded—a night of doing laundry or cleaning the bathroom.

As I delved deeper into this new way of life, I began to see progress. Slowly but surely, I chipped away at the mountain of unfinished projects that had accumulated over the years. The victories were small, but they added up, building momentum and propelling me forward. I discovered that taking action, no matter how insignificant, was far better than sinking into the quicksand of laziness.

In true George Constanza fashion, I also learned to embrace my flaws and turn them into assets. Instead of berating myself for being inherently lazy, I reframed it as a quirk—a unique trait that made me, well, me. An unapologetic acceptance of my own idiosyncrasies became my guiding principle. I no longer saw laziness as a weakness, but rather as a catalyst for creativity and finding unconventional solutions to problems.

Today, I stand before you as a reformed individual, no longer confined by the shackles of laziness. I’ve become a master of self-deception, a virtuoso of motivation, and a connoisseur of productivity. My triumph over laziness has taught me that change is possible, even when it seems improbable. I have transformed my weaknesses into strengths, proving that even the most indolent among us can change.

Positive Reinforcement is Not Enough to Motivate a Person to Recover from Addiction

But Neither is Pain

You’re a good parent, a loving spouse, a decent boss, a fair judge, or a caring therapist. You took psychology in college. You learned that positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement. Therefore, you reason, all you need to do is reward your loved one when he does well. Give him love and praise when he spends time with his family, when he takes out the garbage, when he saves for a rainy day, when he racks up the clean time; then he’ll naturally stop doing drugs, gambling at the casino, running up the credit card bill, running around with other women, and getting hammered every time you turn around. Honey catches more flies than vinegar. But you don’t know addiction; or, if you do, you haven’t thought it out.

Can You Rebel All the Way to Self-Actualization?

Image of James Dean in *Rebel Without a Cause*, Wikimedia

It was every parent’s worst nightmare. Sixteen years old and in possession of my father’s car for the first time, I decided to speed as fast as I could down a winding road. I knew my father wouldn’t have wanted me to race, but I held a curve doing 100. In fact, I did it because he wouldn’t like it. I was listening to my inner rebel.

You too, probably have an inner rebel. If he hasn’t killed you, yet; you have the rebel to thank if you’re not just like everyone else. The rebel will show you the way to self-actualization.

Sixteen-years old was not the first time my rebel made an appearance. He initially showed up when I was two. You know the scene. A parent is out in public with her two-year-old and he gets it in his head that he wants something, or doesn’t want something, and throws a fit in front of everyone till he gets his way. Parents call it the terrible twos. It’s an early assertion of the child’s point of view, when the kid insists on an acknowledgement of his agency. It’s the emergence of the child’s inner rebel, the beginning of self-actualization.

The Inner Rebel
You may not be a two-year-old, or an adolescent any longer, but you still have an inner rebel pushing against limits. The rebel has a solution to a problem nature has. Nature needs to stir the pot. It wants you to get out, take chances, spread your seed, and do stuff. Furthermore, it needs you to be a little different from everyone else, so the species can benefit from natural variation.

However, nature also made you a social creature. You can’t survive on your own. You must get along with others if you want to thrive. Getting along with others requires a level of conformity, so that we can trust each other. Nature needs you to be both cooperative and independent, compatible and unique, to grow roots and to move around, to be to others what they need you to be and to be authentic.

What does nature do to resolve these contradictions? Nothing. It creates two opposing drives in you and expects you to figure it out.

In the beginning of your life, everything favored cooperation. You needed to understand what others wanted of you because your life depended on it. You couldn’t live without them. But if you tried to live under their rule forever, everyone would love you, but you wouldn’t be you. You’d fail to live up to your own potential. You’d feel like a fraud on the outside and dead inside.

The rebel’s job is to make sure you don’t cave in and lose yourself to others. The inner rebel’s mission is to help you claim feelings, beliefs, and practices as your own, distinct from others. He guards your individuality. The rebel says you’re a unique combination of genetic makeup and experiences. There never was anyone like you ever before and there never will be anyone like you ever again. There’s no good reason to throw away that distinctiveness for the sake of what other people think. Therefore, the rebel says you must assert yourself and defend yourself against all those who might limit you.

How to function in a society, while being authentically who you are is the million-dollar question that you and everyone try to answer continuously. The optimum compromise between being yourself and belonging to others keeps changing; so, as soon as you answer the question once, you’ve got to answer it again.

The Shirt Tail
A few years before I had a car, I was in middle school. The Student Council succeeded in getting some parts of the school’s dress code revised. It was 1968 and the faculty couldn’t resist the overwhelming tide of change any longer, so they gave in on this one little thing. I remember the excitement when the day came when everything would be different. The girls could wear miniskirts. Us boys could leave our shirts untucked. I got dressed that day with my shirt tail in so my mother wouldn’t yell at me but pulled it out as soon as I left the house. My shirt tail flapped freely all day long.

This went on for a few days until my rebel prepared a little speech for my mother. This is a free country… I should be able to do what I want and there’s no good reason to tuck in a shirt tail. Finally, I got up the nerve to leave for school untucked, so my mother could see me.

She didn’t notice. The mental image I had of my mother may have cared whether I tucked in my shirt tail, but my real mother had other things to do. I had an image of her as a fascist dictator, bent on controlling me. She may have been when I was younger and needed close monitoring; but just like the faculty of my middle school, she was learning to let go. A child cannot conceive of his mother as adaptable, though. He assumes she’s an inert establishment his rebel pushes against. By testing my mother, I found out who she really was.

New Tyrannies
After winning one battle, your inner rebel is apt to get exhausted. It just can’t fight anymore. The interests of conformity take over, causing you to compromise away your individuality in favor of getting along. You rebel against your parents, only to go as far as making new parents out of an employer, a partner, or a cause. You live under the rule of the new regimes until the quarter-life crisis, or the mid-life crisis causes you to reassess what you have given away, bringing the rebel back to life.

Once my rebel updated the image I had of my mother, he could have just stopped there, and conformed to the expectations of my peers. This is how revolution gives over to a new tyranny. But my rebel was made of sterner stuff. He looked for other things to rebel against. I continued to go to school for a few days with my shirt tail flapping until I realized I didn’t like it that way. As soon as the rebel was done rebelling against my mother with my shirt tail, he started a rebellion against my peers. He won the right to untuck my shirt from the concept I had of my mother, but now I needed to march against my peers, or they would be the next oppressors.

It was far harder to rebel against my peers than my mother. I could always avoid her, but my friends were my life. I was afraid they’d say I was an old fogey; that I was letting the Student Council down after they fought so hard for our freedom; that I’d look like a nerd. But the rebel in me prepared a speech. It will not do to break free from the tyranny of one dress code, just to comply to another. The Sixties’ revolution was all about letting people do their own thing. Doing my own thing should mean tucking in my shirt if that’s what I want to do.

Eventually, I got up the nerve to go to school with my shirt tail tucked back in and braced myself for the inevitable onslaught of abuse from my peers. Again, no one noticed. I guess it was the concept I had of my peers who were ready to shame me for not conforming. My actual peers had other things to do.

That was not the last time I was rebellious. I could go on and on. Even now, as an old man, my rebel shows up daily, no doubt making me a difficult person to get along with. I suspect it’ll get worse as I grow more and more dependent on the people around me. I expect to become known as stubborn and cantankerous, if I am not already.

Benefits of the Rebel
Nonetheless, I have my rebel to thank for many things. It showed me how well I could drive. It taught me what my mother really cared about. It urged me to go my own way, in opposition to the herd. I would never know my limits if the Rebel didn’t make me push them.

The rebel doesn’t just resist other people, he rebels against life on life’s terms. There is so much about life we have no control over, where and when we were born, the content of our genetic code, the course of history, and the laws we must obey. We didn’t invent the language we speak. We didn’t ask to be born. Then, we’ve got to die. It’s a rotten deal, so the inner rebel pushes against it all because, you never know, sometimes things can change.

You have your rebel to thank whenever you made things better for yourself. When you moved from one place to another, the rebel helped you pack your bags. All human knowledge is expanded by a rebel who is not satisfied with the way things are. If you altered history, laws, or cultural norms, no matter how slightly, the rebel led the march. If you put things in your own words, turned a new phrase, made a metaphor, or produced something that was not there before, the rebel guided your hand. However, the rebel has a blind spot. There’s one threat he never sees coming. It can lead to your downfall, or at least some unhappy times.

The Rebel’s Blind Spot
The rebel is like those politicians who claim to speak for a silent majority. He claims to speak for the self. He uses the self to assert sovereign authority against outside influences. He asserts that others are foreign invaders, interlopers who seek to subjugate the self. He would build a wall and expel them if he could.

However, the rebel makes a mistake when he believes self and other are a binary, diametrically opposed. In truth, self and other overlap to such a degree that they cannot exist apart.

What the rebel calls the self is really the self-concept, a collection of beliefs you have about yourself. The self-concept is a blinkered version of yourself. The true self is larger than the rebel imagines; it includes what we think are others. The self-concept is formed in childhood, so it is a child’s version of the self and lacks the complexity that a grownup’s version would have.

For instance, when I thought I was rebelling against my mother’s command that I tuck my shirt in, I was actually rebelling against a part of me. What I learned was that my actual mother had no such command. I was making her out as more of a tyrant than she was. This mother in my mind had some of the features of my actual mother, so that I mistook one for the other; but it was a part of my own self, a straw man I had constructed, that I could proceed to demolish. The same could be said of the concept I had of my peers. I had a child’s version of others that lacked the complexity that a grownup’s version would have.

Furthermore, the very idea of the rebel is a creation of my social environment. I conform to social expectations whenever I rebel. As an American, I was raised to venerate the rebels of the American Revolution. I read Emerson who urged me to not be the slave of my own past. I reveled in James Dean, who didn’t even need a cause to rebel for, it was enough just to rebel. One part of my culture has indoctrinated me into rejecting the other part. Why would it do that? I don’t know, but it sells a lot of leather jackets and motorcycles.

Wait, maybe I do know why my culture has glorified the rebel. A healthy culture needs the rebel to test the establishment in the same way that a person needs a rebel within. Governments govern better when there is a loyal opposition representing interests that can be steam rolled by majorities. They act as a devil’s advocate ensuring that the government is not consumed by group think. When the urge to rebel remains loyal, when it coexists with the urge to conform, the two can blend together in a kind of counterpointal harmony. The rebel tests the concept of my mind, like my mother-concept, by pushing against it, to see if it’s true. Then the urge to conform would update the concept in accordance with what was revealed. In this way, by both rebelling against and taking within, I can discover what my mother really wants and how we can get along better. The rebel can help me discover what’s real and work with it, rather than fighting objects of my own imagination.

Unfortunately, sometimes the rebel is not a loyal opposition, he’s just an opposition and goes to war against the forces of conformity. Ironically, it’s when he insists on having things his own way that he will invariably hand the revolution over to an unexpected despot. After shaking off the chains of foreign invaders, the rebel crowns what he believes is the self, king. He doesn’t realize that what he calls the self is a pretender to the throne. It’s only the self-concept. The true self is more democratic than the self-concept. The concept of the mother and the concept of the peers are like assimilated emigres, not foreign invaders; they are really parts of the self. When the rebel puts the self-concept on the throne, you become what we call selfish.

Selfishness
It seems like whenever there was trouble and failure in my life, the rebel was in the middle of it. He has no concern for safety or the feelings of others. To the degree the rebel gets his way, I’m unfit to live in society, because I make it all about me. I become unable to have stable relationships or a good job. Moreover, I’d must forgo more refined pleasures. The sixty-five-year-old hedonist, having opted for immediate gratification all his life, cannot afford to see Paris. Nor is he even free, for pleasure has made him its slave. A rebel checked by the urge to conform can guide me beyond instantly gratifying temptations to the things that really set me free.

The Rebel by himself cannot take you all the way to self-actualization. He’s only a two-year-old with an affinity for rhetoric. He takes a step in that direction, but then he goes the wrong way. He plays a critical role as a counterweight of the demands on others. He’s right; if it wasn’t for the rebel in me, I’d be just like everyone else and have nothing to add. But he’s wrong when he thinks the self-concept should be sovereign. The self should share its power with others, forming a democracy of the true self.

Are Some Feelings More Real Than Others?

Lilly Martin Spencer, “Pealing Onions”, Wikimedia

Some feelings can fake you out. That is, they don’t match the corresponding emotion.

Let me tell you the difference between feelings and emotions. Feelings are conscious emotions. Emotions are subconscious feelings. If someone were to come up to me and tell me how much they loved my books, I would spontaneously stand a little straighter, put my shoulders back, and have a positive opinion of myself. If I was conscious of this, I’d say I felt proud. Pride, in this case, would be a feeling originating from an instinctive emotional response.

I Am Humbled to Receive This Award

Unfortunately, pride is a complicated feeling for me. I was taught by my culture to be suspicious of it. Pride comes before the fall. It’s one of the seven deadly sins, associated with arrogance, hubris, vanity, and all that. Consequently, I’m on guard against pride. I can’t stop myself from having a spontaneous prideful reaction, the emotion of pride, but when I admit feeling proud, it’s as if I’m confessing a flaw. Instead, I try to act humble.

Humility, in this case, could be called a phony feeling, trotted out to conceal my pride. You’ll often hear people say they feel humbled to receive an award. They’re probably doing the same thing. They don’t want to appear proud. They may, like me, not even want to admit to themselves they’re proud, so they claim to be humble, instead. I can sometimes feel myself going from pride one second to feeling ashamed of feeling proud the next, without any deliberate direction on my part.

Some would call this kind of humility a phony feeling, but is it, really? It’s phony in that it doesn’t come naturally. It’s secondary to pride. You could call it a mask that I put on to be acceptable to others. You could also say that I’m fooling myself by saying that I’m humbled. It’s the worse sort of denial, the crudest ego defense.

However, I don’t think humility, in this case, is entirely phony. It would be more accurate to call it a revised feeling. If you think of it in terms of predictive text, pride is the word your phone suggests when it thinks it knows what you’re going to say; but humility is the word you replace it with.

When someone praises me, the emotion of pride quickly prepares me to accept a higher status. Like any superior, I stand straighter, so I can be seen; I put my shoulders back, so I can be heard; and I have a high opinion of myself, so I can lead. What we call pride are the tools necessary to command people in a crisis. Emotions are primarily concerned with preparing us for crises, when we don’t have time to think, so it makes capable people proud, so they can take charge.

Leadership, when there is no crisis, requires a more deft, nuanced approach. I can’t appear to be too uppity, or I’ll be resented. I must be a man of the people, so the people can trust me. Accordingly, when there is no crisis, I correct my pride with a measure of humility. I would argue that this humility is just as real as the pride it’s hiding. The mask you choose is as authentic a feeling as what lies beneath. Appearances do matter.

Metaphorical Feelings

One type of feeling that doesn’t match a corresponding emotion is what I call a metaphorical feeling. For instance, when somebody says they’re in pain, you don’t know if they’re referring to physical pain or what is called emotional pain (incorrectly). Despite the term, the only one of the two that matches the corresponding emotion is physical pain, therefore I prefer to call emotional pain metaphorical.

Metaphorical pain is not the same thing as burning your hand on a hot stove even though there are striking similarities. Nociception is absent and, in most cases, there’s no adrenaline rush. Everything else is the same, which is why many use the same word, pain, to describe somewhat different experiences. With metaphorical pain, like when your friend dies, you get a hot, searing jolt of grief that’s not actually hot and searing. Hot and searing are used as metaphors, as is pain in this case. A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes something in a way that’s not literally true. When someone says they’re in pain because their friend died, they are actually in grief, but the grief is so intense it’s as if they were in pain.

I’m not saying that metaphorical pain isn’t real. All I’m saying is, in taking the experience of physical pain and using it to describe what you feel when your friend dies, there are some things that are going to match and others that don’t.

It’s important to know what metaphors can do for us and the ways they fall short. For instance, if I say to someone, You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog, I’m not saying that they have long, soft, silky ears. Using the metaphor of a hound dog is a vivid way of illustrating that they’ve been pestering me a lot and won’t take no for an answer. It some ways the metaphor fits, in other ways it doesn’t. No person is a perfect match for a hound dog.

In the same way, you may say you’re in pain when your friend dies, but you aren’t actually in pain in the same way you are when you burn your hand. You’re metaphorically in pain.

If you listen, you’ll catch people using feelings as metaphors all the time. Yesterday, someone said to me, I get anxious when I have to speak in front of a group of people. I asked where she felt the anxiety on her body. Did she have butterflies in her stomach, nausea, a racing heart, difficulty breathing? She had none of those. What she meant was that she was eager to do it, was very focused on her performance, and could imagine saying something wrong. I’m glad I asked those questions because what she was experiencing was not anxiety, strictly speaking. I might have concluded she had a social phobia when she was really just describing a pretty normal and desirable state of being prepared to give a speech.

This woman used feelings as metaphors several times when we were speaking. She said she was afraid of saying something wrong, when, as I discovered after questioning her further, she really meant she could imagine saying something wrong. She said she was worried when she was focused, nervous when she was eager. In every case, she was using a feeling word as a metaphor.

If I wanted to be super rigid, when she said she had a feeling, I should have insisted she refer to an experience that includes a body sensation. There was a big difference between she, who gave the speech and did fine, and someone else who might have been so nauseous and unable to breathe that they couldn’t go on. That person would have been truly anxious.

Now, I don’t go around correcting people who use feelings as metaphor, nor should you. It’s really fine with me if they do. I’m just pointing out a distinction that can be confusing if you’re not aware. I also want to warn you of what might happen if you take your own metaphors too seriously. They can capture you and not let you go.

Let’s take the woman who’s preparing to give a speech. She’s eager, focused, and can imagine saying something wrong. If she calls this anxiety, she might mistake her condition as more serious than it is, as I almost did. She has something in common with a person so nauseous and unable to breathe that they couldn’t go on. They both have the same thoughts, but they don’t have the same feelings. She has as much in common with that person as a pestering individual has with a hound dog. She is at risk of being captured by a metaphor.

Being captured by a metaphor is an awful thing. It’s easy to get in their clutches and hard to escape. This is how it happens. First, you use a metaphor to capture a meaning. You say to that guy who won’t take no for an answer, You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog. The description seems so apt that you always think of him as a hound dog and start treating him as such. Then you start thinking of anyone who asks anything of you as a hound dog even though they’re deferential and respectful. Before you know it, all men are hound dogs. You can’t think outside of the metaphor. You’re its prisoner.

Now, in the case of the woman who’s preparing to speak, she notices that she’s eager, focused, and can imagine saying something wrong. She’s ready to give a speech, but she doesn’t say that about herself. If she says she’s anxious, she starts to think that she’s just like the people she’s seen who are so nauseous and unable to breathe they couldn’t go on. Then, she imagines this happening to her. The next thing she knows, she’s starting to get nauseous, frenzied, and unable to breathe. She thought of herself as anxious until she became anxious. See how that works?

Go ahead and use metaphors to describe your feelings if you want to; but know their limits. Don’t confuse a metaphor for the real thing.

How Do You Really Feel?

People will sometimes ask how you really feel. How do you answer?

Let’s set aside the answer they seem to want to hear. Do you still love me? Are you sorry? Do you think I’m getting fat? Are you as worried as I am about this operation I’m having? In those cases, you know what you’re supposed to say. These aren’t real questions. They’re bids for reassurance. It’s not necessary for you to search deep within your soul for the answer. The only thing you need to consider is whether to reassure her.

I’m talking about the times when you really need to know how you feel. You’re trying to make a choice, you compare costs, benefits, and features, but can’t decide what to do. It’s sometimes not an easy matter to know how you feel. People will tell you to go with your gut, but is your gut trying to say anything, or is that indigestion?

Let’s take a look at a guy who’s unhappy in his marriage. He admits to me, his therapist, that he’s unhappy, but he can’t decide whether he’s so unhappy that he must end it. Ending his marriage would upset his family and affect his finances, so he’s not sure it’s worth it.

The first feelings to look at are the feelings he’s showing to others. These are generally the most polite, least objectionable version of his feelings he can come up with. They’re called the public face, the mask, or the persona. Most of us cultivate our personas as carefully as we edit our social media pages. Indeed, social media pages are other, virtual versions of the persona. You probably possess several personas, some for work, others for family, and another for each circle of friends.

In public, this man plays the part of the happily married man. None of his friends, or even his children suspect there are problems in the marriage. However, the fact that he is respectful, considerate, and deferential towards his wife in public matters. The fact that he is mindful of how friends and children suffer when a couple is fighting in front of them, also matters. His masks are his real feelings. It’s just that those are not his only real feelings.

I’ve learned not to ask people how they really feel, for that privileges more primitive feelings over the revisions. Instead, I ask him what his other feelings are. They’re pretty mixed up. On one hand, he says she’s very annoying; but on the other hand, he’s learned to cope with it by calling it funny and remembering he has his quirks, too. He has overlooked a lot and forgiven the rest because he believes in preserving the marriage for the sake of the kids. However, the kids are grown, so he’s reconsidering whether it’s necessary to continue to set his own needs aside forever.

I press him to talk about why he calls his wife annoying. Then I learn that she’s critical of everything he does. They haven’t had sex in years. She spends as if there was no tomorrow and will not let him leave the home to spend time with his friends. Eventually, I meet her. She comes across to me as a selfish, castrating harpy who blames everyone but herself for everything. I find myself enraged by her for him.

The man’s natural feelings of rage have been repressed for so long that he barely knows he has them anymore. They are meant to protect him from abuse. By silencing his rage and downgrading it to feeling annoyed, he has declawed himself. His failure to check her may have created a monster. I want his rage to have equal airtime, a place at the conference table. On the other hand, I also admire him for being so patient, gracious, and committed that he put up with this for so long.

A therapist can sometimes sound as if he favors the more primitive, selfish, individualistic side of clients over the part that wants to get along. We’ve been accused of breaking up marriages. We often go too far in saying that only the most primitive, selfish, and individualistic feelings are real. It’s wrong to go that far, but that side must be given its due. Only if the man can get in touch with and acknowledge his rage, as well as his other feelings, can he know how he feels.

However, we needn’t stop with rage. He covers his rage with patience, but his rage is covering something else up. He feels hurt and betrayed by her, hopeless to change anything. The further we go, the more raw and uncomfortable the feelings are. What’s at the bottom of it all? It’s feelings all the way down.

Peeling the Onion

Finding your true feelings is like peeling an onion, not like cracking an egg. With eggs, there’s a clear division between the inside and the outside and, once you get in, you’re all the way in. Onions guard their insides more assiduously. You wouldn’t think so looking at the fragile skin they cover themselves with, which is easily rubbed off and sticks to your fingers. Onions are devious and defend themselves by raising a stink, bringing tears, and presenting layer after layer of vacant, unremarkable surface. Peel off one stratum and you’re presented with another until, at last, when you believe you’ve reached the core of the onion, you find that there is no core, there are only layers, in the end protecting nothing.

Maybe the fact that onions have nothing in their core is what makes them so preoccupied with security. They don’t want you to know the truth; the truth that they have no truth.

So, if people are like onions does this mean you have no real feelings? Is there nothing but layers of masks? What is your true self?

There are two ways of looking at this. One way is to say that all the layers of the onion are the onion, and all the layers of your feelings are your feelings.

The other way is to remind yourself that feelings are just names, words describing something indescribable. So, in that sense, none of your feelings are real. They are all guesses, approximations of how you’re experiencing yourself and the world.

What is your true self then? Well, who has been doing the peeling?

Help is Closer Than You Think

It is a whole lot easier to get substances that will addict you than it is to get into treatment for addiction. In many localities, there are drug dealers at every corner, but to get to a clinic, you have to take two buses. Intake coordinators will make you wait in a room with old magazines and ask you million questions; but bartenders will serve you right away and leave you alone if you don’t want to talk. Insurance companies will seek to deny you coverage, but you can buy as many packs of cigarettes as you want on your credit card. You can get narcotics from every doctor, but it’s tough to find one who prescribes Suboxone (AKA: Buprenorphine), a medication that can assist you in getting off narcotics. There’s even an act of Congress that limits your access.

Suffice it to say that it’s a lot easier to get substances that will addict you, than it is to get into treatment.

However, that’s not the same as saying that help is far away.

What are Feelings and When Should You Be in Touch?

Image by Samanta Pereira Ferdinandi Sam from Pixabay

Feelings are how you encounter your very existence. When you’re out of touch with your feelings, you’re out of touch with life. They’re how you meet joys and sorrows, ups and downs, and everything in between. They help you foster and navigate your relationships, make choices, and adapt a response to events. But sometimes, feelings are a bit much.

Those Who Care the Most About You Will Be the Last to Believe in Your Recovery

If you’re an addict in recovery, you may have already noticed this. Those who are closest to you are the last to believe you’re changing. Your wife, your husband, mother, father, children, close friends, don’t get as excited as you do when you celebrate one week clean, one month clean, or one year clean. They’ve heard it before. They don’t want to hear it again.

You feel offended. You wish they trusted you, believed in you.

Well, it isn’t just you. This is a universal phenomena. Your loved one is acting as your lookout. This is a good thing.

Something You Can Do About Intrusive Thoughts

Some of my thoughts are almost as old as I am, but they still don’t know enough to knock before they come into my mind. I’d like them to make an appointment, see a receptionist, and fill out a six page registration form before we meet. For some, it’s been years since they took a vacation. Every day they’re on a job I don’t remember giving them. They always seem to bust in when I’m trying to do something else. Then, they don’t want to leave. If they were living on my couch, I could handle that; but they crowd me out of bed, interrupt conversations, and don’t give me a moment’s peace.

Some of these intrusive thoughts try to be helpful. Don’t forget your keys, says one as I go out the door. Nice, but it’ll nag me even if I already have keys in my hand. Others will interrupt a podcast when I’m trying to listen, to solve a problem I had an hour before. Why can’t it speak up when I have some way to write it down? The other day, someone was trying to tell me something really important while a couple of intrusive thoughts droned on and on. You ever have multiple conversations around you and find yourself listening to the wrong one? Did you ever answer a question someone asked, two tables over?

Some intrusive thoughts have brought a band, an orchestra, or even an entire opera company with them. I don’t mind having music in my head, but they’re worse than a top 40 station for playing the same things over and over. One tormented me with Smooth Operator constantly for three solid months.

Other thoughts are so horrible I wish I didn’t have to tell you about them. You might already have the same thoughts, or worse. Thoughts of suicide, homicide, gambling away all your money, screwing everything that walks, or generally getting fucked up on drugs. I’d just as soon banish such thoughts from my mind, but they don’t leave. Is there any medication, procedure, or magical incantation that makes them go away?

Yes, there is. I’ve developed a three-step method that works most of the time.

1. Get to know the thought

You might not think this step is necessary, or even desirable. It’s already telling you things you don’t want to know, so why would you sit down to tea and listen to it go on and on? I don’t mean you have to let it repeat the same damn thing over and over and live in your brain forever. I also don’t mean you should do what it says, necessarily. I mean, get to know the part of you with this thought as if it was a person. It’s not a person, of course, but it does have a personality and a personal point of view. Ask its name, and see if there’s a reason the thought is coming up now and if it’s trying to tell you something important.

When I sit down to tea with my intrusive thoughts, I discover many of them don’t like to sit. They get fidgety when I ask whether they take milk and sugar. They disappear when I want to know who they are. That’s want I wanted anyway. I wanted them to go, but they would never have left if I acted like that’s what I wanted. Thoughts are like a mean dog you come across on your walks. Stand there and he’ll bark; run away and he’ll chase; but all you have to do is step towards him and say hi, and he’ll have his tail between his legs.

Oh well, they’ll be back, and I’ll have another chance to get to know them.

Most thoughts claim they’re trying to look out for me. The one about the keys doesn’t want me to be locked out without them. I’d just as soon that one stuck around. I don’t want to forget my keys, either. So, I asked it to stay, but to please look and see if I already have keys in my hand. Thoughts like to feel listened to, valued, and given a job to do, just like anyone else.

The band playing Smooth Operator for three months could not convince me it was trying to help. It said, I thought you liked the song. I said, I do, just not constantly for three months. It was trying to warn me of the smooth operators I deal with every day, the people who try to manipulate me with their oily charm. Thanks, I said, I got it. Then it claimed it was giving me a cool beat to get my groove on. How am I supposed to chill, I asked, when you’re making me tear my hair out?

The horrible intrusive thoughts had an even harder job convincing me they’re for my own good, but they all said they were there to solve my problems. Their thing was to save me from feeling powerless by suggesting something that appears to give me power. Violence promised justice, suicide promised to end suffering, gambling promised riches, drugs promised escape, sex promised affirmation and relief. They all promised freedom.

I told them they reminded me of a guy who stopped when my car broke down on the highway. I hadn’t even raised the hood before he said I needed new spark plug wires. I didn’t. Intrusive thoughts think they have the solution before we even know the problem. I got annoyed at the guy on the highway and sent him away, just as I’d like to do with the thoughts; but he was only offering assistance, even if he was a big know-it-all. Sometimes thoughts have a hard time saying they’re here for you, without rushing in to try to fix things and making everything worse.

After I complete step one, a large percentage of the intrusive thoughts leave before we’re even done. Then, there’s a good number I decide to keep because they offer a valuable service. The horrible ones seem a little less horrible, and more misguided. I still don’t want them, but I understand where they’re coming from. It was only the earworms with their music that remained both maddening and inexplicable.

Luckily, there’s a step two.

2. Invite Other Thoughts

When getting to know the thought better doesn’t help, then it’s time to invite other thoughts to join you. If the thought to not forget my keys comes up, I have a second thought that tells me to check my pocket to feel whether I’ve got them. The second thought counteracts the first and both can go away happy.

In the case of Smooth Operator, I invited other music into my brain. At first, Smooth Operator wouldgo away only as long as I listened to the other music. Even mental musicians have respect for one another. But no sooner would the second band go on break, but Smooth Operator would return. In that event, I went through step one again. I brewed the tea and asked it what it was doing, but it had nothing new to say.

When the most unwanted intrusive thoughts pop up, they already come with a second thought, as a reaction to the first. Generally, the first thought is trying to get me to do something impulsive and stupid, and the second thought is trying to restrain me by telling me I’m impulsive and stupid for having the first thought. I can’t be held responsible for having an intrusive thought, only for what I do with it; but I appreciate the second thought for making me think twice.

If I don’t already have a second thought arriving with the first, then I need to invite one. I ask myself what possibly could go wrong with violence, suicide, gambling, promiscuity, drugs, or whatever it’s suggesting. I give the second thought at least as much time as the first one takes, just so we can have a fair and balanced debate.

Essentially, I perform step two on the first thought by performing step one on the second. In other words, I get to know where the thought that I’m impulsive and stupid for having the first thought is coming from. Just what does it have against attempting suicide, homicide, gambling away all my money, screwing everything that walks, or getting fucked up beyond belief? I ask for specifics. What’s the downside of doing something impulsive and stupid? And I hope the first thought is listening.

If the horrible intrusive thought gets defeated in the debate and tries to slink away in embarrassment, then I ask it to stay. Yes, you heard me right. I ask the thought of violence, suicide, gambling, promiscuous sex, or drugs to hang around and talk with the second thought about coming up with a sensible solution to the underlying problem together. I need the first thought to represent the interest of solving the problem because the second thought is only interested in my not doing something stupid. The first thought is motivated by urgency. The second thought by not wanting to make things worse. They each want to solve the problem their own way. I ask them to come up with a method they both like.

3. Dismiss the Thought

If I still have an intrusive thought after steps one and two, then I practice tuning it out. Often people try to do step three before steps one and two. They try to ignore the thought before getting to know it, taking what good it has to offer, or developing alternatives. It rarely works then. Step three must come after steps one and two.

When you perform step three properly, you aren’t ignoring the thought. You listened to what it had to say and took it very seriously. It’s like a public hearing about a zoning change. Citizens will voice their concerns at the hearing and tell the zoning board what to do. The zoning board gives citizens the mike and a sufficient length of time to make their case. They allow for ample discussion. When time is up, the mike is shut off, and the zoning board makes its decision. It never ignored the public. It invited it to participate in a fair and reasonable procedure, and then it made an informed choice.

Sometimes an intrusive thought will go on and on even though it’s had its say, like a crank at a zoning board meeting who won’t give up the mike. That’s when you practice gently tuning it out. Don’t yell at it to leave or call the security guard. It’s just a thought. Let it fade into the background.

As you’re reading this article, there is probably some sound in your room that you haven’t been paying attention to. It could be street noise, the air conditioner, or someone talking nearby. If you haven’t paid attention to it, it’s because you already knew what it was and had no cause for concern. Some part of your brain allowed you to focus on reading this article rather than listening to the air conditioner hum. Now ask that part of your brain to focus on something other than the intrusive thought. It’s helpful to have something else to focus on, the more compelling, the better; but, even if you don’t, then you get a chance to practice.

Step three is what finally helped me get rid of Smooth Operator. I realized that having that song stuck in my head didn’t stop me from enjoying any other music. I could still hear what people had to say. The only reason Smooth Operator bothered me was because it bothered me, because I couldn’t make it stop. Every time I got aggravated by it, I was only encouraging it to play on. I decided to not try to make it stop. It wasn’t doing any harm, anyway. As a result, it went away; but because I wasn’t paying attention, I don’t know the exact moment it left.

You don’t have to say anything to an intrusive thought when you dismiss it, just go about your business. But, if you must say something, say, thank you, we’ve been through that, and I decided to ___, but I appreciate that you’re trying to help. It helps to feel a little silly when you talk to intrusive thoughts because that’ll distract you even more from them.

Another thing you could do is keep a tally of how many times a day you let go of the intrusive thought. It’ll be a lot, at first; but whenever you’re tallying, you’re already focusing on something else. After a few days, I bet you’ll be able to see a reduction in the number of times you need to deliberately dismiss the thought.

Having that data will prove to you the efficacy of my three step method. You’ll be interrupted by intrusive thoughts with less frequency. But there’s another benefit which is harder to capture in data. The duration of time you spend with each incidence of having an intrusive thought will diminish. In fact, we usually see a reduction in duration long before a reduction in incidence.

I was just about to end this article, but a thought came up that perhaps I missed something. Maybe there should be a fourth step, or even a fifth. Come to think of it, there should be. Sometimes even an unwanted, intrusive thought can be right. So, here they are. The fourth and fifth steps.

4. Talk to Someone

If the first three steps don’t help you enough, or help you fast enough, then you’re going to need help from someone else. This doesn’t need to be a licensed psychotherapist if you have someone with the patience, knowledge, wisdom, and maturity to set aside their own concerns and devote some time to you. This should be a person you can trust to confess horrible thoughts. What should they do? They should go over the first three steps with you, to see if there’s something you missed.

If you’re having trouble with step one, then ask the person what they think the intrusive thought is trying to say. What’s behind it? If you need a therapist to help you with this, look for someone who offers psychoanalysis, or Person-Focused, Schema, Narrative, Existential, or Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy. These are all therapies of depth that focus on underlying issues.

If you’re having trouble with step two, then ask the person to help you develop alternatives to the unwanted intrusive thought. If you need a therapist to help you with this, look for someone who offers Cognitive Behavioral (CBT), Dialectic Behavioral (DBT), Solution Focused, Acceptance and Commitment (ACT), Reality, or Brief Therapy. These are all action oriented approaches to treatment, focused on giving you the tools you need to counter unwanted intrusive thoughts.

If you’re having trouble with step three, then ask the person to help you learn to tune intrusive thoughts out. If you need a therapist to help you with this, look for someone who offers mindfulness therapy. You could also find a yoga or meditation instructor. These are all things that can train your mind to focus only on what you want to focus on.

Ideally, if you’re looking for a therapist, you’ll find an eclectic one who can help you with any of the three steps as the need arises.

5. Medication

If you’ve tried the first four steps and are still plagued by intrusive thoughts, then you’re left to consider medication. No medication will shut down or silence an intrusive thought, but the kind you get from your doctor will tone down the urgency or increase your confidence in dealing with them.

You could also use alcohol or street drugs to deal with your intrusive thoughts. Most of these chemicals offer you a quick exit into a drug-hazed oblivion or make it impossible to have any thought, including the intrusive ones. I can understand desperate people wanting to use them, but they’re blunt instruments that can destroy much more than they save. My hope, by telling you about the five steps, was to give you an alternative; but the choice is yours.

Step five is another step that both doctors and people with intrusive thoughts often take before steps one through four. When they take step five too early, their bodies are subjected to unnecessary chemicals, and they never get to learn steps one through four. Therefore, I think step five should be taken only when the first four don’t work. However, if you do take medication, I hope you continue to take the other steps as intrusive thoughts come up, if only to practice for when you can’t get your meds.

Those are my five steps of what to do when an intrusive thought comes to visit. I just had the thought I missed something again, so I read my article over a few times and a second thought came in to declare this was all I had to say. The first thought kept at it. Finally, I said, thank you, we’ve been through that, and I decided to publish it anyway. I appreciate you’re trying to help.

We’ll see how well that works.

Recovery is Easier Than You Think

You may think that it’s hard to recover from addiction. Of course it is. But nearly everyone who has experienced both addiction and recovery say the same thing. Addiction is harder.

You’re accustomed to all the work it takes to keep up an addiction, so you might not notice it anymore. You may not be accustomed to the work it takes to recover. It seems hard to decline your first impulse, to be honest with yourself, to go to treatment, and to open yourself up to healthy influences; but, in almost every case, you will wonder why you put it off so long. It’s not hard, it’s just different.

Can You Sort Out Your Feelings?

For as long as people have been having feelings, they’ve tried to understand them by sorting them out and classifying them. It works for trees. Any field guide to trees will tell you that the blue spruce in front of you is a conifer and, as such, has a lot in common with pines. Can a field guide to feelings classify feelings? Could it tell me if envy is related to shame?