Culture. 7th February 2022.

I was trying to say...

I am no longer coherent or sane.

I expect there was the usual 'hello.

I expect I sat down where I always sit.

Was there chit chat?

Who knows, who cares!

Me: "I did my...'what are we for'...I mean, I stand between two cultures.

He: "For which course?"

Me: "My integrative course - the other course is done, and passed. So, I stand here as a member of two opposing cultures - and the question 'what are you for'?

He: "Was that the assignment, 'what are we for'?"

Me: "No, no it didn't have a title just a number, or it might have a title! I don't know, it was almost a work of fiction on my part! I did put myself in it to some extent, but not entirely because I found it quite a difficult thing to write about because it seemed to ask not so much for reflection, but a liturgy of things I'm supposed to have a problem with - and I really don't think that I do. Or, things that are supposed to be problematic - and they are not!"

He: "Like what?"

Me: "Cultural differences - what would you do if your client said that they were possessed by a demon, what happens if you have got a client who is pushing your buttons because there is something about your upbringing that makes you think 'Oh, it's one of 'those' people'! But it isn't my concern if it is 'one of those people! It's my concern to work with what ever they bring'"

He:  "Well I think that they want to know how you will respond to that."

Me: "No, it is more like a liturgy of things, categories of things."

He:  "Surely if they are presenting a scenario they want to know what you are going to do with it!"

Me: "They are not presenting a scenario - but standing there, I actually said to my tutor who is marking it, I have completely forgotten what the assignment is, because I'm having to do the next one and there is so much, so much. And I can't remember what I've written! But, it made me laugh yesterday as I was writing about my 'self-care' for the next assignment. And I'd been sat there all day because there are an awful lot of words and I've got three more assignments to do by March. So, I'd finally got to the self care part where I'm to write about my self care, which is great - I can write about self care. I don't know what time it was, I have had breakfast, I don't think I'd drunk anything much. My son came in and gave me a glass of Fanta in the afternoon. And then towards the evening my other son gave me half his garlic bread from his Domino's order. I was laughing...this is self care...This is the difference between writing about something and what you are actually doing. But, yeah, yeah, yeah I mean this is what I do, this is always how I've done it. I do 'having to go mad' when I do a lot of work - yeah, like learning Kreb's citric acid cycle by taking chalk outside and drawing the diagram again and again until I'd got it. I mean you just have to go into it and go kind of bonkers don't you!"

He: "So, what do you do if a client turns up and says that they are possessed by a demon?"

Me: "Well, it depends on how they are saying it for me to decide what to do. It depends on how they are saying it - it's emotions, what is the need underneath? This information is the top layer 'demon is the problem' but how are they saying it? Because it is how they are saying it that matters, is how I respond. So if someone is terrified then my response is different to someone who is - I don't know? Apprehensive or happy or...Often people are 'suffering from demons' beliefs about their identity. They know the name of what is wrong with them."

He: "Oh, that's a different use of the word there."

Me: "The same meaning though, at the heart of it for me 'I've got this thing, it possesses me, makes me - and I have to do these rituals to pacify it that 'the clergy' have given me. And they tell; me and I cannot say if they are right or wrong because I have not got a clue (only an opinion) so I ask, 'Tell me how this is helping you, what is the best thing about this'? So, it is entirely about how somebody says something. But I'm supposed to list all the things people might say - cultural differences - that I'm supposed to be worried by."

He: "Why do you say that you are supposed to be worried by them?" (he says this really fast, I have to ask him to repeat the question twice before I think I've heard it)

Me: "Why am I supposed to be worried by it? There is a whole lot of things I am supposed to be worried about!" 

He: "Tell me now."

I'm supposed to be worried really isn't the same as worrying...

Me: "The need to worry is transmitted in the way it is said."

He: "Oh, OK."

Me: "It's kind of unbelievable. It's undermining. I don't know how my fellow students cope with it, I suppose they just feel undermined by it. It's the 'when you see your first client you will feel' that sort of language."

He: "Really!"

Me: "Yes".

He:  "They tell you how you are going to feel?"

Me: "Yeah"

He: "What do they tell you?"

Me: "Just in throw away lines, tone of voice 'ooooo...when it's the real thing....'"

He: "Hmm - begs a lot of questions doesn't it about assumptions"

Me: "Well no, it's the tutor's own anxiety. I'm used to it. Still, she gave me a good mark, so that's OK. Oh what was it...about the self, about personality. I said 'I am what I do - that's it'. She said 'you are NOT your actions Xerpa!' I kinda am, I said. I am what I do and that's it, all of it. 'No you are not - that's a role that you are over identifying with'. No, I'm not over identifying with a role. I am what I do. But the only way to get out of this because it was getting a bit heavy was to say, oh! OK - I understand what you are telling me, are you saying that deep inside of me there is a pure, innocent child that I can get back to - my pristine, original self - and I'm thinking, what other terminologies have I heard for this theory, is it the soul, is it pneuma, Buddha nature? Regardless - I am what I do - or rather that is my current working theory anyway..."

A long gap...

He:  "So if you are what you do - what is acting? What is doing?"

Me: "What am I enacting? My will..."

He:  "If there's not a doer how does doing take place?"

Me: "Responding? Doing is a response? Yeah, I guess it is a response."

He:  "Always?"

Me:  "I don't know!"

He:  "If you spend a week on your own, you don't have any contact with anybody you wouldn't be responding to anything."

Me:  "Well I would - there is the floor, the air, the food, the light; colour, texture, taste, reality. If I didn't have sensory input my mind would be doing hallucination".

He: "That's B F Skinner isn't it? Operant conditioning surely."

Me: "Not conditioning but response. What else is there other than learning? And predicting, which leads to creating."

He: "Then that requires a learner. That requires a person who does."

Me: "Back to, we are the sum of our parts."

He: "If you are only what you do - doesn't make sense with out somebody doing."

Me:  "It makes sense. It is the 'I', what I am doing. I have no speculation about the totality what I am, but 'I' am what I do. If I try to define who I am, I must be what I do."

He: "So what about, as happens with some people, there is an inherent wall between their inner world and their outer world and they are trying to fight themselves to do something different. What's happening on the inside? That person isn't what they do. That person is in conflict with what they do."

Me: "Well the conflict is them as well (it is what they do). There is no separation, they are different voices within one's self."

He: "Oh so there is a self!"

Me: "There is a concept of self (soto voce) but it's not lasting and permeant, it is changing."

He: "Yes, it is a false dichotomy isn't it; are you what you do or do you do what you are?"

Me: "A performance of self..."

He: "Well, that's a false dichotomy, truth is much more complicated than that."

Me: "Yes, truth is much more complicated! But basically...I am what I do. There is no fundamental personality to uncover is what I was saying."

He: "That really is B F Skinner, that's the Behaviorists!"

Me: "Bloody behaviorists! When I went for my interview to do a psychology degree I was interviewed by a Behaviorist who asked me about my application and how I'd written about Jung. And he went off on a rant about Jung being a mystic. And I defended 'Depth psychology' as I would...anyway! He was the first 'Behaviorist' I'd ever met <laughing>"

He: "Well not only is there's no body in there, we are just a collection of actions."

 Me: "No, there is the emergent property of entities. No, entities ARE an emergent....no, this isn't fair <laughing!> I don't have a philosophy degree! I'm going to play you some music, to get out of this."

He: "I'm just trying to say that it is a false dichotomy that's all" <not laughing>

Me: "Ah, OK - I've bitten again. What's the dichotomy - I mean not what a dichotomy is, I understand the term. I mean what are the opposing versions."

He: "You are given a choice between *you are what you do* and *you can do what you are*. And that presentation is a false dichotomy." 

Me: "But the *are* is the part that is problematic. The *are* is an emergent property of all that you are. So, you / I we are an emergent thing. There isn't a soul possibly sums up best what I seem to be saying".

Oh dear - digging a hole and can't stop! I have no idea what I'm talking about and I am doing and being 'completely out of my depth' topped with a sparkly sprinkle of courage, curiosity and fortitude!

He: "Hmm. Don't know where the idea of a soul came in!"

Me: "But it is almost as if there is a soul (in how personality is understood - some original, pure self) to say people do what they are, it is almost as if there is *what they really are* and that is seen as pure, golden almost an adamantine, diamond gem, impervious and unchanging, and it is performed or enacted in the world" (which is a set of illusions that trap and confuse the pure nature into false beliefs)

He: "If that is what is meant by that's what you really are, of course that isn't true!"

Me: "Are you sure - how would you prove it?"

He: "Well, there is no evidence for this idea of souls and Plato's forms if that is what I think I hear you saying? That there is a real, true immutable self that is clearly nonsense."

Me: "Hmm, but that is at the core of it what my tutor was saying. That there is a pure personality underneath all the *conditions of worth* ."

He: "I think I'd like to know what she means by a pure personality, because if you are going to discuss something like that you need to define your terms."

Me: "That is her personal belief, just a belief."

He: "Yes, it is hard to debate what is a pure personality. I'm not even sure I know what it means."

Me: "Oh, it was never going to be a debate! So we got into a tail-spin because she is invested in her belief, and I told her that I believed something else! So the only way to get out of this is if I tell her what I think that she believes as if I believe it, and then she agrees with me. And...that was the right thing to do. And then she smiled and all was right again."

He: "Hmm"

Me: "Such is life! I should play some music. Which one though...If I didn't know what to do I could open up a pack of tarot cards  (I talk about tarot to get a reaction from him!) and look for a reflection from the outside world. Because of course I'm seeing everything through myself - don't argue with me <laugh> I'd see it through where ever I am at this moment. OK, well going all the way back to the past...

I played worldly wise Lou Reed for all sorts of reasons.

And I try to play Covenant again...and fail. Covenant represent closure. And I'm talking about how my 8 gigabytes of EBM (that was a in 2002!) came from a friend who believed that her depression was a chemical imbalance, and how through her, and quite a few of the tracks from her collection, I got it; I understood why a person would want to reframe their feelings though that lens and take the medication.

And then once more again he is talking with me, memories and.... the hour is done.