Dr. Racional: Hello Lex. Please have a seat. Would you like some water?
Lex: No I’m good, I got my own. <take out bottled water from man-bag>
DR: How was your Monday?
L: Started out a bit cold but I had some breakfast, and that actually made me feel better. Did you know why Americans are so fat?
DR: No, tell me.
L: Food places charges more for less. Like I completely buy into the supersizing for 25 cent more and the bulk food supermarkets like CostCo and Price Club. So this morning I order a Mc Donald’s breakfast sandwich and a coffee and I hear from the attendant that it came out to 4.20$. I usually pay three something for a meal so I ask "how much is it for the #2 meal", which was the same as my sandwich, coffee, and hash brown, and the attendant was smart enough to say "3.80$. It is cheaper if you buy the meal." So there I was eating breakfast for the third time in two weeks and "I’m shovin’ it".
DR: I see. <adjusting in chair> Oh yes, I heard your message last night and I am glad you are working through the wikipedia suggestions. Have you tried anything else since then?
L: Besides eating again? <smile> I don’t think so, but I’m scheduling a work out session with a trainer later this week.
DR: Good. So have you given much thought to what we discussed last time?
L: Um, I think I have but I forgot what the question was; can you tell me again?
DR: We spoke about your waiting. You feel as if you’re waiting for someone or something.
L: Right. I thought about waiting and <long pause> and I don’t know if it’s really someone, but maybe it’s more of a some occasion or some goal. I feel as if I don’t think right if there is a vacuum of activity – and it has to be certain kind of activity. I mean work takes up most of the days and that’s great but the brain, I mean I get tired of thinking of the same subject for too long. In fact, I make it a point to stop fasting on a particular groove I make like work, or school, or people I *used* to hang out with and do something completely separate. So maybe it, waiting that is, is the moment that I stop the fast and before I eat. It’s like anticipation?
Wow, I am hungry just talking about it. <DR smiles> <L pauses in thought>
<smile> I could just be rationalizing it all. I mean I *have* to have an answer for you about the waiting right?
DR: No you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to. <pause> Do you think you’re in a period between activity?
L: Probably…
DR: Why does it bother you to be in between?
L: <slowly> I don’t know. I was raised by pretty short tempered people, so maybe I just picked up the fact that I should always be doing something.
DR: Do you remember where you were when you were in these "in between" states? What were you doing?
L: Well there’s the bored waiting for someone to come home when I was younger, tired and bored in college when I didn’t want to memorize all the reagents needed to break down bromobenezene, sick of my coworkers, <pause> <sigh> yes, every time I was bored, sick and tired. This is so typical isn’t it? A guy comes in and sits on your comfortable seat, talking about his bored life when there are so many people in hunger, poverty, homelessness, joblessness.
DR: You’re here to answer your own questions. Don’t you think that solving your own problems is a step towards self happiness which eventually manifest in others happiness?
L: I guess. I just feel guilty; and I haven’t felt guilty since I broke a girl’s heart.
DR: Well, you can do whatever you wish with the time we have together. If it bothers you to be here you can leave. If it bothers you to think about guilt and you want something else to think about while you wait out your time here, you can think about what you did eventually after the waiting period.
L: <pause> Ok. <pause> I think that the good people survive all this psychodrama because they are more fit to take the stress. Total mental Darwinism… now I feel guilty for having a crutch! <smiling at DR> Eh, but crutches are too easy to obtain and cheap and gets me better faster, so maybe I’m not in such bad condition. <pause> I’m over my self pity. What were we talking about?
DR: <reads notes> We were discussing what you did after the waiting period.
L: Oh <pause> I usually conquered it. I left my family, changed schools and degrees, got a new job, and fell in love again. Wow! I’m cured! oh wait, but I’m in the waiting period now.
DR: Can you tell me how you did those things?
L: I went to live by myself in college and never went back – that was an easy one. I didn’t have to expect anyone home anymore because all of school was like a revolving door. No one ever stayed still, but there were lots of people so I never felt bored or lonely. I changed from chemistry to art because I thought of expression as much more interesting than any reaction I could write on paper, and I just applied to another school using my nude paintings! And they took me! Now I’m in Schonberg Art City and surrounded by primadonnas always whipping their fat dirty brushes in my face… <grimace> yeah, they’re all such queens. <pause> Oh yeah, I fell in love again even though I was left for another ‘girl’, who was really a man but whatever.
DR: We’re out of time for today, so I want to conclude with another homework: When is the point of inflection? Who or what is there when it happens? <standing up and opening the door>
L: Inflection, who, what, when – right.
DR: Please continue to call me whenever you feel like it and we will discuss it the next time.
L: thanks… <mumbling> inflection, who, what,….
