A very happy Yule and a massively healthy and transformational 2016 to all my readers and their loved ones
Adventure Culture Spirit Comment
5.10.15
18.9.15
Thoughts on Money-Making it and growing it:
I came across this post from Eric Nelson courtesy of the 5 Bullet Friday posts from Tim Ferris. Tim is the author of two books I would recommend dipping into: 'The 4 Hour Body' and 'The 4 Hour Work Week'. Tim also hosts a great podcast called 'The Tim Ferris Show' where he interviews world class performers in sport, business and creativity to determine characteristics they have in common, that we ordinary mortals can then use to develop ourselves into Supermenschen! See it at http://fourhourworkweek.com/category/the-tim-ferriss-show/
I am also getting into 'You need a Budget' as a means of training myself out of mindless consumerism and profligacy. I don't fully understand its processes yet but will report back. You can find more out here: https://www.youneedabudget.com/
George Clason wrote a series of pamphlets in the mid-1920's, which were eventually bound together and published under the name The Richest Man in Babylon.
Since it was originally a series of pamphlets, the book is composed of short, allegorical stories, all intended to teach readers how to acquire money, how to keep it, and how to use it. The persistent character in each story is Arkad, the richest man in Babylon, who is often the teller of the stories, describing how he earned that title and drawing attention to relatable truths.
I would suggest studying, from this book, the iconic 5 Laws of Gold:
I. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family.
II. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.
III. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.
IV. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.
V. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.
Some quotes that have struck me this week:
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at the goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
Arnold J Toynbee
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
Alexis De Tocqueville
I am also getting into 'You need a Budget' as a means of training myself out of mindless consumerism and profligacy. I don't fully understand its processes yet but will report back. You can find more out here: https://www.youneedabudget.com/
George Clason wrote a series of pamphlets in the mid-1920's, which were eventually bound together and published under the name The Richest Man in Babylon.
Available on www.amazon.co.uk
Since it was originally a series of pamphlets, the book is composed of short, allegorical stories, all intended to teach readers how to acquire money, how to keep it, and how to use it. The persistent character in each story is Arkad, the richest man in Babylon, who is often the teller of the stories, describing how he earned that title and drawing attention to relatable truths.
I would suggest studying, from this book, the iconic 5 Laws of Gold:
I. Gold cometh gladly and in increasing quantity to any man who will put by not less than one-tenth of his earnings to create an estate for his future and that of his family.
II. Gold laboreth diligently and contentedly for the wise owner who finds for it profitable employment, multiplying even as the flocks of the field.
III. Gold clingeth to the protection of the cautious owner who invests it under the advice of men wise in its handling.
IV. Gold slippeth away from the man who invests it in businesses or purposes with which he is not familiar or which are not approved by those skilled in its keep.
V. Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who followeth the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.
Some quotes that have struck me this week:
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at the goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
Arnold J Toynbee
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
Alexis De Tocqueville
26.7.15
Writing revisited. Man of Sorrows-a fragment of writing from 10 years ago written as part of a novella.
MAN OF SORROWS
He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.
Isaiah [53:2-4]
As David Trent crawled out of bed, waves of nausea assailed him. The strong lager he had taken to drinking had turned the furniture of his mind, in the morning, into hanging masses of grey snot. He spat a globule of grey into the toilet bowl. Hawked again, broke wind with a ripping arpeggio of a fart and reached for his razor. He could not but notice the strange colour of his eyes in the morning's mirror, the yellowing signature of a drinker’s liver and the pupils the rotten purple of dead leaves in a puddle. His skin looked grey and his nose was reddened with beer and whisky rouge. He stuck out his tongue lathed in off-white mucus and scraped it distastefully with a soup spoon which he washed under the tap, listlessly watching the clotted snot spiralling down the plughole. Suddenly he noticed a yellow post-it note stuck to the wall. In big letters it declared-DUTY!
'OH SHIT!' He shouted, at the fucking relentlessly mute, yet all-observing, mirror.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I hate this piece of writing which is round 10 years old. I hate its vile grittiness. Its inherent disgust. Its removal from the subject. As if the writer sits in her laboratory staring through the microscope with distaste at her creations.
So we shall write it again as if we love the creature.
David woke to the wailing alarm with a horrendous hangover. He thumped the beeping button into silence and slid out of the bed. He groaned and stumbled down the steep narrow stairs to the kitchen to make a cup of strong tea, flinching at the racket of the kettle and the chink of the spoon hitting the cup. A hefty teaspoon of honey and he climbed back up the stairs to the bathroom to shave.
He regarded himself in the mirror with some concern. A red spot had rouged the end of his nose and blood vessels pressed agains the skin of his cheeks. His eyes were a strange mix of yellow and and a red roadmap to last night's excesses. His gaze rolled over the bathroom cabinet and suddenly focused on a post-it note stuck on the mirror on which the word DUTY! had been written in shaky capitals.
'Oh noooo...' he groaned and hastily began soaping the shaving brush with water and cream mixing it to a lush paste with which he then coated his face and quickly shaved, drawing the safety razor down in long measured strokes.
He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows.
Isaiah [53:2-4]
As David Trent crawled out of bed, waves of nausea assailed him. The strong lager he had taken to drinking had turned the furniture of his mind, in the morning, into hanging masses of grey snot. He spat a globule of grey into the toilet bowl. Hawked again, broke wind with a ripping arpeggio of a fart and reached for his razor. He could not but notice the strange colour of his eyes in the morning's mirror, the yellowing signature of a drinker’s liver and the pupils the rotten purple of dead leaves in a puddle. His skin looked grey and his nose was reddened with beer and whisky rouge. He stuck out his tongue lathed in off-white mucus and scraped it distastefully with a soup spoon which he washed under the tap, listlessly watching the clotted snot spiralling down the plughole. Suddenly he noticed a yellow post-it note stuck to the wall. In big letters it declared-DUTY!
'OH SHIT!' He shouted, at the fucking relentlessly mute, yet all-observing, mirror.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
I hate this piece of writing which is round 10 years old. I hate its vile grittiness. Its inherent disgust. Its removal from the subject. As if the writer sits in her laboratory staring through the microscope with distaste at her creations.
So we shall write it again as if we love the creature.
David woke to the wailing alarm with a horrendous hangover. He thumped the beeping button into silence and slid out of the bed. He groaned and stumbled down the steep narrow stairs to the kitchen to make a cup of strong tea, flinching at the racket of the kettle and the chink of the spoon hitting the cup. A hefty teaspoon of honey and he climbed back up the stairs to the bathroom to shave.
He regarded himself in the mirror with some concern. A red spot had rouged the end of his nose and blood vessels pressed agains the skin of his cheeks. His eyes were a strange mix of yellow and and a red roadmap to last night's excesses. His gaze rolled over the bathroom cabinet and suddenly focused on a post-it note stuck on the mirror on which the word DUTY! had been written in shaky capitals.
'Oh noooo...' he groaned and hastily began soaping the shaving brush with water and cream mixing it to a lush paste with which he then coated his face and quickly shaved, drawing the safety razor down in long measured strokes.
Jim Davis on 1/2 Person conundrums in the world of Transactional therapy
Mobiles and modalities: whose is the shiniest?
I’m not used to playing
the part of psychotherapeutic agony uncle, but I recently received the
following letter. With my steaming mug
of liquorice herbal tea at my side I read:
“Dear Alterego
I wonder if you could
help me. I’m training to be a TA
psychotherapist, and thought I was making good progress. At first I learnt to observe my clients and
help them to identify recurring themes and patterns linked to the past in order
to enhance their self awareness and insight.
Albeit with some painful soul-searching I came to the Stark realisation
that I was only being a 1-person therapist!
For the past year I’ve been focusing on becoming a better, 1½ -person
therapist, decentering from my own
experience and empathically immersing myself in that of my client, thus
providing them with a ‘corrective’ experience – one they didn’t have as a
child. I must say that my work, along
with my self confidence as a therapist, has improved enormously.
All was going well until
I heard about the 2-person therapist! It
came as a bit of a shock, and again left me feeling somewhat deficient, second
best – just like when I bought my iphone4 some time back, only to superseded by
the 4s model, and more recently the iphone5!
Both my iphone 4 and my 1½ -person therapist-self seem suddenly and
sadly old hat, lacking ‘relational depth’, and inferior! It seems that to be ‘with-it’, state of the
art, relational I need to learn to become a 2-person practitioner (and get an iphone 5!). I’m told that this will involve me focusing
not just on my client but on myself and our here-and-now intersubjective
engagement with each other, involving mutuality and reciprocity. It does sound very like the experience they
say you get with the iphone5, a more interactive, sensitive and contactful touch
screen experience! I’ve heard that
you’re only a relational TA therapist
if you’re the 2-person version. Does
this mean that I’m not relational? I thought I was!
Yours disconsolately,
Brin Reece”
I took a big swig of my liquorice
and mint herbal tea and replied with the following.
“Dear Brin Reece, (was
that his real name I wondered – it almost sounded like an anagram!)
I can understand how you
feel. I have an iphone 4s and to be
honest (and 2-person?) regard mere mortals, and the diminished portals of their
iphone4, with an attuned yet patronizing sympathy. On the other hand I look up enviously to the proud owners of the latest iphone5 with a
mixture of envy, desire and pointless self flagellation. My friends say I should focus on embracing my
iphone 4s, and by doing so accept myself, since there’s always something out
there in bright new packaging, promising a better, superior and more complete
experience, only to be superseded by something apparently shinier, but not
really new.
Oh and I almost forgot about
the other matter of the 2-person psychotherapist! I’m sorry to have to break the news to you,
but the 2-person version has already
been superseded – by the Tudor’s ‘2-person +’ and Cornell’s ‘2-person separate’
versions – I won’t even go into what they mean now because I don’t want to
confuse you or depress you further (have I?).
But take heart, like with mobile phones there’s a plethora of
psychotherapeutic ‘providers’ of the 2-person-version, even just within TA,
many of whom don’t even bother with ideas of the unconscious or
transference.
Within the
psychotherapeutic sub-culture psychoanalysis, somewhat like Apple and Google,
has generally been viewed as a superior model - the real McCoy – but then
they’ve got the granddaddies of them all, Sigmund and Carl (the Steve Jobs and
Larry Page of psychoanalysis) as opposed to our mere second generation models of
the founding fathers Carl, Fritz, and
Eric. However, the psychoanalytic tribe
were way behind the humanistics in reframing the therapeutic relationship as an
encounter between two people as ‘subjects’ ie each with their own subjective,
personal realities, scripts, transferences or whatever.
To say you’re only doing
‘relational TA’ if you’re using the 2-person version doesn’t mean that you’re
not relational if you’re not 2-person – if you see what I mean. I don’t use the ‘relational TA’ label for
myself Brin, despite my adherence to ‘The Principles’ (who doesn’t these days?)
because for me it carries the implication (ulterior transaction?) that other
types of TA practice are not
relational – and thus lesser in some way - plus I simply don’t like labels on
the grounds that they tend to feed unhelpful competitiveness, defensiveness and
splitting.
We transactional
analysts love lists of things, and numbers – or even better, numbers in circles
– but it doesn’t mean that 2person+ is better
than 1, or 1.5 or 2-person versions, even if it does very much create that
impression! They are simply different
modes of engagement for different clients at different stages of the
therapeutic process. Who really wants to limit themselves to a
big clumsy dull old handset with a small screen? Who really
wants to be 1-person when there’s 2-person+ available? Who really wants to be practicing ‘non-relational TA’! Not me Brin.”
Yours relationally,
Alterego
I went off to make
myself another liquorice and mint herbal wondering how he (and you dear
reader!) had received what I had to say, thinking maybe I’d give him a ring on
my brand new iphone5! I did ring him but
the line was dead. It was only then that it hit me!
Brin’s name was an anagram. Brin Reece - Eric
Berne! He was trying to communicate to
me – thus the mobile phones metaphor.
Was he was struggling with the emergence of 2-person relational
transactional analysis (the iphone5) – reversing the traumatic move he’d made
away from the unconscious in breaking from/being rejected by the psychoanalytic
establishment? Did he bridle at what
maybe seemed to him as the casting of traditional, classical TA (1-person?) as
outmoded (the iphone4). I hoped that my
letter had reassured him.
That night I had a dream, one that I took as yet another message from
Brin/Eric; I was at the national TA conference banquet dinner and everybody,
all the schools including ‘relational TA’, were there. The dessert
was a magnificent Apple Charlotte suitably accompanied by a
delicious deluxe ice cream, which we
were all enjoying, together! I’ll leave
you to work out the associations – at both the unconscious and organizational
levels (I’ve italicized to make it easier).
I hope and trust that Brin/Eric is resting in peace with it all after
all?
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