Monthly Archives: August 2019

The new book is essentially a psychology book (though it shouldn’t feel like it when you read it).  In it, I challenge a lot of ideas presently being taught in psychology programs today, but have to keep myself limited to one central idea.  So I thought I’d share a couple of my contrarian notions that will not be addressed in the book:

  1.  The explosion in diagnoses (mostly self-, but many clinical-) of ADD/ADHD is really a mislabeling of the result of the prevalence, the omnipresence of attention-taking devices.  Even when silent, your phone is tempting you: unlimited music, videos, movies and TV, every picture you’ve taken in the last 10 years, et cetera, ad infinitum.  But then the damn thing rings with phone calls, chirps with texts, voicemails, email, updates, news alerts, weather alerts, all proactively, aggressively, intentionally disturbing you and shattering your concentration.  Our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, and we remember them being longer, or if we don’t, we find activities like reading a novel in a day to be quite literally impossible and seem totally unrealistic.  It is true: we are having trouble concentrating and focusing, but it ain’t ADHD…it’s the logical result of living full time with and essentially becoming addicted to smart phones.
  2. What many armchair mental health professionals along with many licensed clinicians mistakenly diagnose as narcissism is really more accurately an obsessive sort of perfectionism.
  3. Gender dysphoria is not best dealt with by catering to the delusions of the patient (i.e., scientifically incorrect pronouns, et cetera).  In fact, catering to and participating in the delusions can be as harmful as catering to and participating in the delusions of schizophrenics or psychotics.  I get a lot of push back from some psychologists about this one, but this particular population has a ridiculously high suicide rate (I haven’t checked in a while, but the last time I did it was over 60%) doing things the way they are being done.  If a particular population of patients has a suicide rate that is more than double that of all other delusional disorders, I would do some very critical questioning regarding the efficacy of present treatment protocols and, oh, I don’t know…try something different.

N.P.: “Go Insane” – Lindsey Buckingham

It wasn’t a chemical imbalance, and it wasn’t drugs and alcohol. I think it was much more that I had lived an incredibly American life. This idea that if I could just achieve X and Y and Z, that everything would be okay. There’s a thing in the book about how when somebody leaps from a burning skyscraper, it’s not that they’re not afraid of falling anymore. It’s that the alternative is so awful. And so then you’re invited to consider what could be so awful…that leaping to your death would seem like an escape from it. I don’t know if you have any experience with this kind of thing. But it’s worse than any kind of physical injury. It may be in the old days what was known as a spiritual crisis…feeling as though every axiom in your life turned out to be false, and there was actually nothing. And that you were nothing. And that it’s all a delusion, and you’re so much better than everybody ’cause you can see how this is just a delusion, and you’re so much worse because you can’t fucking function. It’s really horrible. I don’t think that we ever change. I’m sure that I still have those same parts of me. Guess I’m trying really hard to find a way not to let them drive.
~ David Foster Wallace

Starting a cult would probably be pretty profitable and no small amount of fun.  The thought does cross.  Get a few friends together and head out to the desert and start a “family.”  Maybe after this book comes out.  Hell, it’ll probably be inevitable.  Heh.

N.P.: “Helter Skelter” – Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson

The future really was so much better in the past.

Make another serial killer laugh today.  It was actually probably more of a chuckle.  Still counts.

There will be no next time.  This was it.

N.P.: “Fear Inoculum” – TOOL

Just busy as hell, dear reader, with all sorts of non-writing, lifey things.  Still managed to get a few pages down.  Now I must collapse.  I hope you are well.

N.P.: “Crank It – Living with Ghosts” – John 5

It’s August.  And down in Mexico, that means it’s bullfighting season.  It might be time to head back down to Tijuana to dance with the girls in the red dresses.

Or maybe not.  Maybe I should just sit tight, lay low, hunker down here in Room 5, and not come out until I finish one or more of these goddamn books.

N.P.: “Bombshell from Hell” – Scum of the Earth

The good news is that I didn’t start a bunch of new projects today.  The bad news is I didn’t finish any old ones, either.  Still, progress is being made.  I can probably do another page before collapse.

It occurred to me last night/this morning that the main book is maybe closer than I thought to being submittable/salable.  Unsure.  We’ll see.

N.P.: “Come On – Thomas Tank Remix” – The Notorious B.I.G.

“Even a stopped clock gives the right time twice a day.  And for once I’m inclined to believe that Withnail is right: we are indeed drifting into the arena of the unwell..making an enemy of our own future.” ~ I

Just a weird weekend.  Sort of annoying because there was a lot of waiting and seeing going on, so the whole thing felt like being on call,  I’d like to think that things will calm down tomorrow, but they won’t.  I could probably benefit from some therapeutic couch time.  Or I could just keep working on these books.  That’s been pretty cathartic of late.

N.P.: “Doc Holliday” – Volbeat

Me: Cheers.

He: Cheers.

Me:  Why did the chicken cross the road?

He: Why?

Me:  To get to the idiot’s house.  Knock knock.

He: Who’s there?

Me: The chicken.

He: You fucker.

Me: Cheers.

He:  Asshole.

N.P.: “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” – Chris Thomas King

Writing and whiskey: the breakfast of champions.  Also the lunch and dinner and late supper of champions.

N.P.: “Hey Man, Nice Shot” – Filter