goals - short term

In the next six months I'd like to see the following as a result of my therapy. The goals listed below are followed by a result that can be measured:

1. Foster a more compassionate perspective/reduce power struggles and road rage
   
2. Open myself up to new social experiences/form new friendships
   
3. Increase my physically activity/lose 15 lbs
   
4. Take more initiative in my life/get a mortgage for our house and get website up and running
   
5. Consistently perform the maintenance of daily life/take care of house and yard work
   

I hope those aren't too ambitious for six months. We'll see.

exercises

It's been a while since my last post. That is due partly to my fucking job wearing me down to a useless nub and partly owed to my hesitation in taking on the slate of topics I have set before myself.

My shrink gave me a series of exercises she wants me to go through. She wants me to list my fears and my goals (short and long term). She gave me some guidelines to keep me grounded.

I have recently learned how profound my split from reality is. Not that I think I'm Napoleon or need to wear a tin-foil hat, but when I look at myself through the filter of concrete reality the difference is striking. It is both thrilling and frightening.

Unfortunately, I lost the sheet of paper she gave me with the guidelines on it. Things like sticking to measurable, verifiable items.

I guess I'll just have to forge ahead and see what happens. Maybe I left it at work.

i grew like weed

So, my dad was a maintenance smoker. In order to maintain, he smoked. While I was growing up he would wake/bake, go to work, come home, fire it up, sit down to dinner w/ the family, and after the kids went to bed he'd hit it again.

My mom hated it. She became a detractor after a bad acid trip when I was 4. When I realized, in my pre-teens, he was "taking drugs" I was staunchly opposed. Just say no. On one occasion I was so mad at him (for reasons I can't remember) that I called the operator to "get me the police" (this was before you could dial 911). I lost my nerve while the phone was ringing.

In my late teens I thought it was awesome, and would shave his stash or join him from time to time.

In retrospect I can't believe what a selfish little man my father was. You can be a brain surgeon on meth if you can pull it off. I don't care. Being a parent is a different, more complicated, operation. Ultimately, his entertainment took precedent over my development.

There are a lot of reasons why I came out all twisted, but this is a big part.

Children build their unconscious perspectives based on cues taken from their primary role models. Imagine you are a three year old trying to get a handle on the world and what you get to work with is some burnout's stoned philosophizing.

Imagine you are a 12 year old trying to negotiate the new social minefield of jr. high school and the best advice you can get is some stoner's fried logic.

Etc.

forgiveness

I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to forgive everyone for my shortcomings.

136

I can't avoid it any more. My IQ is 136. I wanted it to be over 140, but it just isn't. It's time to move on.

As a child I developed a bunch of narratives in order to survive the constant onslaught of my vindictive gorilla of a super ego. These myths tend to center around some unexpressed, inherent, brilliance - waiting for the perfect moment to emerge.

From an early age, despite all evidence to the contrary, I held the belief that I was an unrecognized genius of some form. When the bulk of my age group started to drift away and eventually ridicule me, I wrote it off as just an expression of the jealousy of my less intelligent peers.

Well, it's time to let this one go. 136 is above average. By some measures it puts me between the 95th and 98th percentile. It isn't the deus ex machina my fragile juvenile mind needed, but it'll do.

I have spent too much time vacillating between the fictional poles of superiority and inferiority with regards to my intelligence. Maybe now I can put the matter to rest.

If I can ever shed all of this poisonous, crippling, self loathing I might be able to put it what brain power I do have to good use.

now i wanna be your dog

I can't hear this song without feeling shame and embarrassment. After my usual fashion, in the early 1990's I decided to be a rock star. I picked up the saxophone I hadn't touched since 1983 and got together w/ my friend Mike and the guys he was jamming with. Mike took, and I'm sure continues to take, music very seriously. We fell out pretty hard when I went paranoid schizo in 1992.

Anyway, they decided to play I Wanna Be Your Dog by the Stooges. There I am blaring musical garbage for a while - while the three of them, the real musicians, got into the song. I stop gibbering on the sax and pick up the mic and start to sing the song.

I finish and start to strut around, glowing with post rocking gusto, when I notice that they're still playing. Then, one of the guys that Mike played with starts to sing the song.

I had come in too soon. They had a thing going on, and I didn't get it. I felt like a fool.

I still feel like a fool. Writing this little post has been excruciating. I started to sweat.

I don't know why I cling to this poisonous shit. I've forgotten so much. Why do I need to remember this? It serves no purpose.

i am a mean person, and yes, i suck

Jen and I had a fight the other night. One of the things she said was that one of the main reasons our relationship has troubles is because I'm a mean person. It's true. I'm a jerk. I am one of the people that the slogan rails against.

Here's an example that drove it home for me. No pun intended. The other night I was leaving work early to go see my shrink. I ended up behind someone who was being more cautious than I thought they needed to be. I'm in a rush and stuck behind some vile little toad who doesn't give a shit about anyone but themselves.

I got tired of waiting for this person to drive more aggressively so I honked at them. I started to pantomime violently that they should speed up. I started to hurl laser beams at the back of their head. I began to hate this person.

Then I realized it was Jen.

We work out of the same building, and she was driving home. You'd think I'd be able to recognize my own car from behind, but I didn't.

I was heaping violent hatred on someone I love and treasure. I was terribly ashamed of myself for feeling the way I had. Then I realized that it didn't matter if it was Jen or some stranger. There is no one who deserves the kind of hatred I was throwing around.