of books and psychology
“This book has changed my life,” Riel said as he waved Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens in front of me. With a little amused snort, I responded, “You say that about every book you just showed me from your pile.”
“No, but this different. It changed me… I can’t put into words. It made me realize that there’s no good or bad, only gray. And these concepts of morality is just man-made and relative…”
“Hmm. Tell me how that has changed you from before you read the book?”
“It made me feel….” he furrowed his brows trying to look for the right word, then took another drag of his cigarette. His pale, wrinkly hands holding the cigarette in one and a cup of tea in the other.
Finishing his sentence, “………less enshackled by contemporary mores?”
“No, not that. I’ve never much been enshackled by them. I was always a rebel. Let me try to think…Just give me a sec, 3 secs, a whole lotta secs.”
I laughed and sang, “a whole lotta love! you need coolin….”
Enlivened by the old rock song I just brought up as if remembering his days of youth, he supplied the rest of the song with much fervor, “Baby I’m not fooling
I’m gonna send ya
Back to schooling
A-way down inside
A-honey you need it
I’m gonna give you my love
I’m gonna give you my love”
I was giggling and singing with him.
“A-way, way down inside
I’m gonna give ya my love”
I’M GONNA GIVE YA EVERY INCH OF MY LOVE” — he sang this part while wiggling his eyebrows. I laughed hysterically at how comical his intentional crassness is. I remember my first interaction with him. Someone greeted everyone “hey” and Riel said, “ho” then I responded “let’s go!” Then we both said together “BLIETZKRIG BOP!”
Anyway, going back to our conversation — he then moved on to another book while promising me to come back to the topic when he finds the right words.So this is how my Saturday evening panned out. Quite remarkably different from how I planned it to be, yet I have no regrets. We both listened to Nick Cave’s “Into My Arms” and we both cried thinking of different people. “This song is personal to me,” he said. “No, shit. Me too.”
“This one,” he said while showing me another book, “is called Les vaisseaux du cœur or in English “The Salt of My Skin”. This was a recommendation from my sister. My sister has impeccable taste in books, even better taste than me. My sister is so much better at everything than I am. She’s intelligent and she materializes her plans,” he said this with a tone of admiration that there’s no doubt about how much he loves and adores his sister.”
Then I asked him more about himself. He said that he hates conflicts. Not only conflicts with other people but mostly conflict within himself. He says that he doesn’t face his internal conflicts but runs away from them.
Now before narrating further this part of our conversation. Let me give yo a brief background of Riel. He is a voracious reader. Hailing from the land of the most liberal people on the planet — the Netherlands. At 57, he is cultured and self-proclaimed feminist. A truly modern man with modern internal battles.
He showed me some of his favorites. I can’t remember all of them but he did bring up The Hobbit and Winnie the Pooh which I thought made him more adorable. One of the the books he showed me was Irvin Yalom’s “Love’s Executioners.” Having delved into existentialist psychotherapy just that week before this conversation, this book was mentioned in one of my chapter readings. This book was on my to-be-read list. Needless to say, I was impressed with his choice.
I realized that if I met him two years ago, I would have come up with delusional assumptions about him just based on his book preferences. Despite his apparent alcoholism (he pointed this out as a manifestation of his internal conflict avoidance), I would have still brushed it off as something trivial. Yet, the past two years have made me come to terms with demons of my own that I no longer view things or people so simply. Years ago, I would have assumed that his propensity for self-deprecation and his reflective nature meant that he is emotionally healthy and have lived a peaceful, meaningful life. Yet, I know there is not direct correlation between having a capacity for introspection and being able to make choices that affords one a peaceful life. Had he lived an interesting life? My assumption that yes, he has is probably right but it stops there.
Based on my experience with myself having gone through the metamorphosis of challenging my self-beliefs through therapy and constant reflection, I know for a fact that being self-aware is never enough. Knowing one’s tendencies, being self-aware and even reading about psychology does not automatically mean someone is healthy or ever will be. My painful experience of metamorphosis have humbled me in the sense that there’s no end point to all this suffering. Whether this is caused by my trauma or my neurotic predisposition, I cannot know. As I become more engaged with the readings assigned to be our professor in Theories of Psychotherapy and Counseling, the truth that I may never be completely be well-adjusted enough or emotionally healthy enough as I ideally should be when I practice as a psychotherapist one day weighs ever more heavily on my shoulders.
However, I do not shudder, bend, or crumble under the weight of this realization. Ironically, this realization — in all its fatalistic glory, has freed me. This is a weight, I will gladly bear. As I write the last line, I imagined Camus happy.
