Tellus, A Story (6) Bill held his head in his hands. He appeared to have been ruined by some airhead newscaster who could not even get the story straight. In the mind of the public he had done something wrong so he was obviously guilty. The editors had done this to him on purpose, he guessed. The establishment saw that he was vulnerable and to boost their ratings they were exaggerating his predicament and ignoring the news that the planet was in danger. Chapter Five Ken woke up early Wednesday morning because the phone was ringing. “Why is the world always trying to disturb me?” he asked himself. He groggily reached over and picked up the phone. “Hello?” “Hi, it’s me, Tracey.” She sounded as bright and cheerful as he remembered she had looked. While trying to clear his mind he asked her, “How are you?” “Fine. Say, I am over here in San Francisco. I flew in to do a story, want to come with me?” He was already getting out of bed. “Yeah, sure, what’s up?” “Surprise. Are you with me or not?” He did not like this sort of game playing but he thought she might have a lead on Dave’s murder. “Yes,” he said resolutely. “Good, give me your address and I’ll be over as soon as I can.” He took a shower, dressed and was in the middle of eating when he answered her knock on his door. “Come in, breakfast?” he offered. “No, we’ve got to leave right away, I can eat later.” They went down to her rented van and were soon on the freeway heading toward Sacramento. He noticed she seemed to be driving as fast as she could. “Can I ask where we are going?” he ventured to ask. “Nevada,” was all she said. “Why?” “You’ve heard of those cattle mutilations?” “Yeah, it’s done by devil worshippers or UFO’s or something like that. No one really knows why they are happening.” “Don’t believe everything you hear, I’ve found a schedule.” He was startled, “Where did you get that?” “Off of a compact disc.” “Oh.” He looked at her for a moment, he could not tell if she was putting him on or telling the truth. He saw in the back of the van a bedroll and a small amount of camera equipment. “Is this how you normally do a story?” he asked still feeling half asleep. “No,” she answered and put a cassette tape into the stereo. “I have to listen to this,” she said and he nodded his head. Instead of the music he expected to hear, a lecture started, much to his disappointment. From the speakers a man’s voice said, “I want to talk about some of the situations that slip through the cracks of normal psychological interviewing.” Ken recognized that voice, “Is that bill Wright?” She nodded her head yes and answered, “Shhh...” “There are many things we see everyday that we tend to automatically categorize so that we do not have to think about them any further.” “Are you taking a class?” Ken asked. “I need to listen to this,” she answered curtly. “Schizophrenics who claim to hear other people’s thoughts may be doing just that.” Ken had the feeling that she put on the tape so that she would not have to talk to him. “An individual who is maybe marginally mentally ill may turn somewhat psychic as an autonomic life preserving defense mechanism. The patient may say he can hear people thinking ‘bad thoughts’ about him and possibly he is correct. It’s entirely possible that people are thinking that they hate that crazy guy because they don’t know what he is going to do, so they fear him. The problem with the patient is that he can’t deal with the stress of criticism due to a weak ego. To hear this hostile voice in their mind is even more difficult to deal with because we have been taught that people who hear voices are crazy. Is that always correct? Joan of Arc claimed to hear voices, other famous people did too. Was Joan crazy or in tune with divine messages?” Ken was wondering about Tracey, if she did not want to talk to him, why did she ask him on this trip? Did it involve his brother? “We dismiss many things as insanity when the patient needs reassurance. If the voices are not urging the patient into destructive situations perhaps we should suggest that they have become psychic. After all it was Ziggy Fraud who first suggested that psychic tendencies developed out of the hunter prey context for both aggressive and defensive purposes. Some of the insane in India are considered blessed because they are nearer to god than an ordinary person. People who are told they are insane because they are hearing a defense mechanism will not recover as well as someone who is given a ray of hope. Perhaps we can turn a psychotic complex into positive reinforcement.” Ken started to ask her about Dave but she put her finger to her lips. ‘This is going to be a long trip,’ he thought grimly. “People trust in authorities, doctors are sometimes almost taken for all knowing entities by under developed egos. Don’t ever forget that you are a fallible human being and there but for fortune the doctor patient relationship could be reversed. Try to humor the patient a little bit without making fun of the individual. Scientific procedure can be seen as cold and unfeeling by the very people we are trying to help. As a physician develops a bed side manner, psychologists need to develop a good mind side manner. If the patient calls himself the ‘all-knowing-entity’, test him a little. Ask a few questions and see if you get a coherent answer. With people channeling deities these day, don’t dismiss the idea that an empty vessel may have become filled by the possession of a higher soul or spirit.” “This is not to dismiss someone who is genuinely ill and perhaps hears voices on the television commanding him to kill his neighbors because he stopped taking his medication. I think we need to differentiate between defensive and aggressive internal voices. Other factors may come into play as well. For instance if a patient is complaining of various voices inside of him, each competing for their share of the patients consciousness, consider that reincarnation may be a factor here and various pervious personalities are vying to dominate the patients consciousness. A patient whose own personality is woefully inadequate to cope with his life situation or who may have come up against a seemingly unsolvable situation may flee themselves, pretty much leaving the mind vacant. Voices urging suicide may be past incarnated personalities inferring that the present resident in the body is such a failure that they ought to terminate the program and reincarnate over. People can only stand so much pain and torture before they seek out a solution. I am not saying I have the final answers here, I am just saying these are some ideas I would like to explore further. I feel that human psychology is more complex then we have yet realized.” ‘I didn’t know that Wright had all of these bizarre ideas,’ thought Ken. ‘I almost like the guy.’ The idea that Tracey was trying to brainwash him with this tape came to mind but he kept it to himself. The lecture was not all that bad. He would listen and try to understand it, maybe that was what she wanted him to do. Maybe he would find a clue in the lecture as to what this trip was all about. Wright continued. “Denial is an important factor in this society. Denial can be seen in all of the things that we ignore because we find them unpleasant, from walking by people living on the street to never seeing people go to the bathroom in our movies and books to disregarding people who aren’t physically perfect.” Ken flinched. “We ignore these things and people because we are glad that we aren’t them. We can retreat to our own private bathrooms and forget there are any troubles in the world as we look into our own handsome reflections in the mirror.” ‘Your handsome reflection,’ thought Ken with some bitterness. Normally he hated the drive to sacrament. It was long, the valley was flat and boring and it was already getting hot. His mind drifted off of the lecture and onto the scenery of crops and orchards and into his troubles. Was he doing this for Dave or himself? Was this a futile effort? He did not know if anything would come of this little adventure at all. For the moment he was just there for the ride. “Much crime is caused by the ego,” the stereo system continued playing Wright’s lecture. “Someone sees something that they want and they decide that they deserve it more than the person who has it so they steal it. Feeding their own ego is more important to them than to acquire something honestly. We subconsciously tend to teach our children survival at any cost. Survival at the expense of everyone else instead of teaching them that everyone has an equal right to their life, property and privacy. We teach that some life styles are more valid than others and then we have crimes against minorities, homosexuals and the homeless. The middle class ego says these people are fair game. Nobody is looking at these things as crimes of the ego, they just say that criminal statistics are up and then they build more jails. People never get to the real roots of problems. We have so much crime in this country because we do not teach respect. We do teach people to disrespect however. A child learns its parent’s prejudices.” ‘Things don’t work like that in the real world,’ thought Ken. ‘Things are more random than that. If the wrong person is in the wrong place at the wrong time, that alone will influence the situation greatly. Any of us in someone else’s situation might do exactly the same as that person.’ Bill Wright had moved on to another point. “I am amazed at what American culture has become. I was at a meeting in a small town and I asked if there were any restaurants around and the organizer pointed out the four plastic fast food places on the crossroads that you would find in any town. He assured me that I could have my pick of fine food.” There was a small amount of laughter from the audience. “And he was serious.” There was a slightly greater amount of laughter. “American conversation has devolved into clichéd pleasantries which people take seriously. I have found that if you go outside of the cliché, ‘hello, how are you, have a nice day’ and say something honest like, ‘well I feel terrible, I have a headache or I just got a traffic ticket,’ people get really rattled and embarrassed and don’t know what to say to you. First, they don’t want to hear any bad news, they want to be in denial that bad things happen so that they don’t happen to them. They don’t have a clichéd response ready for the non-cliché answer. Suddenly they are under pressure to think a minimum amount to personalize an answer for you and they will resent you for it. They will feel that you invaded their privacy.” ‘Ain’t it the truth,’ Ken thought. “The reason people carry those big radios around, volume turned up all the way, is that the noise creates a sort of private space both shutting out all other noises and proclaiming that ‘this is my territory’. You have to understand that people who do that sort of thing are terribly insecure.” They drove on toward Nevada after having lunch on the far side of Sacramento. Ken took his turn driving and Tracey, after putting on another lecture tape, stretched out on a blanket in the back of the van. Bill Wright’s voice boomed out hollowly from the speakers in the metal van as the wind rushed in the windows and the freeway noise roared outside constantly. “Why do people respond only to clichés? What is this crisis in thinking? People don’t abstract very well for the most part. They have been taught all of their lives that a word or an image has a specific meaning but language is more flexible than that. Most people don’t seem to realize that words are just symbols that can mean whatever you want them to mean depending on how you use them or the inflection you put on them. Language is not set in cement, it is constantly changing. Clichés are often repeated thoughtless comments and standardized statements that people can easily recognize and accept, a sort of short hand language. Slang is a specialized set of clichés. To abstract is to say things in your own words, to look at things as if they are unique and new or off the beaten tract, as it were. One who continually abstracts might be perceived as crazy by one who cannot abstract at all because the non-abstracter will be unable to understand what the abstracter is saying. The clichéd mind will not recognize the abstraction and will grope for a clichéd response. A classic example would be the average person going into a modern art gallery and saying ‘any five year old can pain better than that’ because they won’t see the symbolic meaning in the abstract painting.” Tracey was breathing heavily, perhaps asleep. Ken was starting to feel tired as well but he held onto the steering wheel doggedly and kept driving. The foot hills of the Sierras were getting closer. He could see the road going up into the mountains, off in the heat haze. It would probably be cooler once they reached the higher mountain elevation. “We don’t teach abstraction in school, it’s not taught anywhere. Apparently one either figures out symbolism on their own or doesn’t get it. Is it any wonder that most people can only relate to the gross material world? We should teach symbolism, the meanings behind the images and myths. This is where Tarot and Astrology become so interesting for those advanced in symbology. Weather you believe in fortune telling or not, astrology and tarot cards are ancient codex’s that try to interpret the whole world with symbols. They are an alternate view of reality.” Bill Wright was watching his favorite TV quiz show, Really Obscure. Contestants came on and answered odd questions about any subject without being given any clues. He normally did not watch TV but he liked the premise of this show and it was a form of escapism for him. “What Astrology sign does the Tarot card Death stand for?” ‘Everyone knows its Scorpio, that’s trivia,’ thought Bill. He was really thinking about how people felt they had to compete with each other, it was like a psychic plague. Sixty million people starved to death each year when there were the means to move the excess food to the starving, but between the competing politics and the military battles it never happened. People cared more about which sports team won an event, competition was something they could personally relate to. The female contestant had readily picked out Scorpio as the correct answer. ‘Why didn’t they ask the true meaning of the Hierophant card? Even I would have trouble with that one.’ The game show host read the next question. Where or what is the Mohavichic Discontinuity?” “The space between the earth’s crust and mantle rock,” bill said aloud. The contestants did not know the answer. ‘Where do they get these dummies?’ he wondered to himself. ‘If they keep putting stiffs like this on the show it will be cancelled.’ The game show host awarded no points and moved on. “Now contestants,” said the host and he gave a brief flash of his gleaming smile. “We go to our Camera Obscura segment. We will show you a picture at random and you have to guess where or what it is.” A picture of a lake with high mountains behind it was shown on the screen for a few seconds. “Lake Lucerne in Switzerland,” answered Bill. “Contestants?” “Lake Como in Italy?” asked the woman.
Copyright © 2007 Michael Potter |