The Therapeutic Value of Coming Clean

An old acquaintance who is a psychiatrist and a great fan of our first book, “The Game of God: Recovering Your True Identity,” called us yesterday, having just read Katie’s “We Are ALL Innocent by Reason of Insanity: The Mechanics of Compassion” and my book, “Exposing Myself: A Life of Sex and Truth.”

The doctor essentially objected to two things about both books. First, he thought “We Are ALL Innocent” delivered the diagnosis of universal insanity too bluntly, believing we should have delivered this admittedly punch-in-the-gut-line more slowly and gently. As a still-practicing psychiatrist in his eighties, I can understand how his life-long approach to treatment—a painstaking and time-consuming (and very expensive) therapy—would find our message, “The problem with all of us is that we’re nuts” brutal and insensitive. Then, there is the universal application of the word “insane,” which more than one person has had issues with, believing “mental illness” should be reserved for a troubled minority (those incapable of playing the game like the rest of us). He said, “If I told patients at our first session they were insane, they’d never come back!”

Perhaps if he told his first-session patient they were insane just like him and everyone else on the planet, simply in their own unique way (which is precisely the message of our books), they might not only stick around, they might experience some immediate relief from the self-torture of believing they were crazier than the “normal” majority. 

Katie said, "The operative word in our title is INNOCENT not insane." None of us deserve blame and shame.

Second, he thought both books gave “too much information.” When he used the word “raw” in connection with Katie’s “We Are ALL Innocent” (which he read first) I asked, “Do you mean sex?” “Yes,” he replied. We have heard this before. It is not enough that “We Are ALL Innocent” delivers a brilliant key to understanding the mechanics of insane thinking, and logically reveals how to experience compassion for all dysfunctional human behavior, eminently including our own, the work is somehow “weakened” by Katie’s forthright sharing about her own sex life—something glaringly omitted from other works of self-help, psychology, and philosophy.

My book, of course, positively drips with “too-much-information.” Sex ruled my life and the burden of shame I carried because of it, the need to conceal it, pretend it wasn’t me, made my life a painful sham. Thus when I decided to write my memoir I vowed to tell the truth, to expose myself in print, to hold back nothing except when to do so would cause harm to another. Katie is included only because she gave her full permission. I’m sick to death of compensating in any way for crazy societal attitudes about sexual morality, imbecilic notions that were the very cause of fucking me up sexually in the first place. I am hiding no longer. The only way I found the courage to publish the book, by the way, was by sufficiently experiencing the truth that my sex-addiction was the result of literal insanity. When insanity is driving one, you see, there is no “free-will,” there is no choice but to obey the insane mind—and so there is no blame or shame attached! I can describe my long-held secrets free of guilt and shame. How much therapeutic benefit is to be found in that?

Letter to a Friend

I wrote this to a friend who had just read "Exposing Myself" and chastised me for continuing to indulge my self-hatred:

“It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others.” (Anonymous) 

Dear ____,

How very insightful of you to really zero in on my self-hatred. I’ve spent the last twenty years working with Katie on developing the mechanics of compassion but I seem incapable of finding it for myself. It seems to me the best explanation for this paradox is that my self-loathing is the guilt-price I willingly pay to keep indulging; to not get off it; to not step through that curtain of fire. You are like my friend Carl, who moved away from me at the bar because he feared the person he was sitting next to, the one who’d just told him about the incredible spiritual experiences he’d forsaken for sex and drugs, was a clown who squirted whipped cream out his nose.

Arthur is like the man in the rising flood, driven to the second floor of his house. A rescue boat arrives but he waves it away. “I don’t need any help! God will provide!” A few hours later, forced onto the roof by the rising waters, another boat arrives and he also dismisses it, saying, “God will provide!” Finally, perched on top of his chimney, he waves off a helicopter rescue with “God will provide!” The fool drowns and, when he complains to God for not providing, God says, “I provided two boats and a helicopter!”

Miracles and opportunities have truly been heaped upon me. Why do I not benefit more from them? This, more than anything else, is what I hate myself for. I have been given so many boats and helicopters, so many astounding verifications of the truth…and I have largely turned away.

The manager of a band I was once in told me, “Everyone else in this group argues with me when I tell them to do something, but then they go on and do it. I tell you to do something and you immediately say ‘OK’—but then you don’t do it!”

Fancy egoic footwork, indeed!

My crazy wiring has managed to convince me that enlightenment requires hard work (horror) and forfeiture of the right to do whatever I want (double horror). It’s madness of course but I’ve gotten away with it for nearly seventy years.   

As for my self-hatred being groundless, the fact that I make mountains/felonies out of molehills/misdemeanors is true. That quote from Thomas Wolfe about “Every boy, caged in from confession by fear, is to himself a monster,” refers to adolescent males dealing with the sex urge and masturbation. I, like, relate. I also believe that self-hatred is present to some extent until we are enlightened (an absolute, home-base experience of Oneness). But this doesn’t mean we should lie down and wallow in it, as I seem willing to do. Self-hatred may be universal but it is never justified, just as my own fucking philosophy says; it’s an expression of madness that motivated the offensive thought or deed to begin with, and then blames the host forever for having had the thought or done the deed!

I know this. What I need to do is experience and thereby live it.

And maybe “Exposing Myself” won’t have a happy ending but will resonate and serve as a warning about an unrepentant life. If the goal of art is to evoke and provoke then, based on early reactions, I’ve succeeded. As General Corman says to Captain Willard in “Apocalypse Now,” …”because there’s a conflict in every human heart between the rational and the irrational, between good and evil. And good does not always triumph.” (I would say “good,” which is truth, does triumph, though it takes many lifetimes. Maybe I’m just hooked on this level of being and want to make sure I’m coming back!)

Your post has really given me a much-needed kick in the ass. You’re right, my friend, I AM old enough to drop the self-loathing shit. It may interest you to know that Katie has helped me with the “I am a worthless shit” process from “the work.” I’m getting some very revealing insights right away.

Who knows? Why not? 

Why I Hate You

Let me tell you why I hate you.

Here's a key premise in Katie and my first book, "The Game of God: Recovering Your True Identity:" (a) the source of all fear is the unknown, (b) the source of all hatred is fear. In other words, what we don't know is what we fear and what we fear is what we hate. It is absolutely impossible for us not to fear the unknown and it is equally impossible for us not to hate what we fear. Fear and hate are simply the emotional/psychological expressions of flight/fight.

"Know" is a very big word and, like "love," "God" and "friend," much misunderstood. To "know" means to absolutely know. I once read that Charles Darwin became enamored of using the word "infinite," until he was advised by friends more familiar with the concept that "infinite" is a lot more than a very big number; it is mind-stoppingly powerful medicine.

The only thing I know absolutely is that some sort of experience is occurring. That's it. Everything else is limited by some degree of ignorance. I do not absolutely know that the sun will "rise" tomorrow. I do not absolutely know that I will live another second. And because my ignorance is vast and incessant, so is my fear and so is my hatred.

I grew up not trusting people. I did not know them thus I feared and hated them. I still do (and this means you). Of course I don't know myself either. That's why I fear and hate me too.

My life's work has been to discover what the flying duck is going on here. What is truth? Who are we and what is existence all about? A very important answer that my life-mate Katie and I arrived at is that the human race is universally insane. We define "insanity" as the state of confusing our mind-generated reality with actual reality. Insanity, to put it another way, is convincing ourselves we "know" when the truth is we don't know. Some anorexics starve themselves to death because they "know" they're fat. A more blatant nut case "knows" she's Queen Victoria. The more subtle nut case "knows" he's Arthur B. Hancock. All are delusional.

The antidote is humility: simply being experientially cognizant of our limitations. Humility does not make us weak. It makes us strong. Being in touch with the reality of our vast ignorance--and our insane beliefs that we really know who we are, what we are, where we are, when we are, why we are, what we're doing, where we came from, and where we're going--is to be grounded in the way it is, and opens the door to the possibility of meaningful learning and change.

Even as a child I knew something was wrong with people. It's taken a lifetime but Katie and I have discovered what the problem is: we're all encumbered with an insidious form of insanity. When I'm experiencing the actuality of my madness, and yours, I can reduce the fear and hate and have compassion for us.

Katie and I define "love" as the experience of unconditional acceptance of what is. Face/accept is the lone alternative to flight/fight. Facing our insanity means the end of self-hatred, blame, and arrogance.

Please do yourself a favor and read Katie's "We Are ALL Innocent by Reason of Insanity: The Mechanics of Compassion" and my autobiography, "Exposing Myself: A Life of Sex and Truth."          

Erotic Art or Porn?

I recently saw an art exhibit whose theme was women (and guns!) that included some nudes. It prompted me to think about the difference between "erotic art" and "pornography." Where is the line that separates the two?

What I’m coming to realize in my latter-daze dotterage is that lines do not exist. Whatever life, the universe, and everything proves to be, it very much appears to be one seamless thing. Everything is connected to everything else; there is no fixed line dividing anything, much less one that neatly divides the so-called artistic from the so-called obscene. I suppose I should say right upfront that when I’m reasonably sane I do not find sex obscene at all; I find it beautiful.

What I noticed in the exhibition was, with a couple of exceptions, a conspicuous timidity about sex. There was, for me, an overall coldness in the works that I soon realized was due to the absence of all sexual heat or passion. I invite the reader to Google “erotic art” (images) to see what I mean.

And then it hit me! Any artistic rendering of sexuality that conveys passion to the point of sexually stirring the viewer is deemed pornographic—and must be avoided like the plague. Throughout my life I’ve been aware that this screwed-up world of ours largely holds sex as something dirty, or shameful, or in need of concealment. We must not talk about sex in polite company, we must behave as though we don’t have genitalia, etc. Incredibly, I'd never realized that even sexual arousal itself was taboo! In any case, I checked my New Oxford American Dictionary and found this:

pornography (noun): printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings. [My italics]

It very much appears that Puritanical bullshit about sex remains not only alive and well among the general public but has infected and inhibited the avant-garde as well. Many artists are apparently so fearful of having their work labeled “pornographic” that they bend over backwards to make certain that nothing which could possibly arouse the viewer remains. From the same dictionary:

art (noun): the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. [My italics]  

“Aesthetic” (in the pornography definition) and “beauty” (in the art definition) is used to delineate the wheat of art from the chaff of pornography. Say what? I suppose there are some people who find the sex act devoid of aesthetic beauty; I am not one of them.

 

“Emotional feelings” and “emotional power” are used in both definitions to distinguish “art” from “porn.” But is not sexual arousal an emotion? It is for me! And, if it is, why should this particular emotion be denied a seat at the gallery table? Why is any other emotion—anger and repugnance at a crucifix immersed in a jar of piss, say—fiercely defended as a legitimate artistic expression, while the emotion of being turned on by a depiction of sex is condemned as sleazy pandering to lust, as filth, as lacking in importance?

“Don’t do that! It’s a very important work of art!” said the home invasion victim to Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. Remember the piece? It was a white porcelain-like sculpture of a penis (not erect) and balls. The point I’m trying to make is that the object was as cold and devoid of sexuality as one could imagine.  Alex wielded the thing as a weapon and fatally bludgeoned his victim with it.

For me, standard pornography’s greatest shortcoming is its failure to communicate the beauty and honesty and fun of the sexual experience. Are the participants really enjoying themselves or are they faking pleasure? Do they really feel beautiful or are they acting beautiful? Is the artist—painter, photographer, filmmaker, sculptor, etc.—sufficiently gifted to capture and convey that beauty and honesty? 

Erotic art—including graphic depictions of human sexuality—would be included in any gallery, were it not for our mass lunacy about sex. 

The Abandonment of Reason Season

I hereby declare the seasonal holiday madness over as of today. It's time to get back to what passes for "normal" on this best of all possible worlds. I usually manage to ignore the mass lunacy that permeates the atmosphere (not unlike the full moon) from late November through year's end but this year the frenetic vibes really got to me. Mark Twain once said, "The less there is to justify a traditional custom the harder it is to get rid of it." 




In "Hamlet," Marcellus says,

Some say that ever 'gainst that season comes

Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning singeth all night long.

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad.

The nights are wholesome. Then no planets strike, 

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed and so gracious is that time.

How charmingly innocent. Today the bird of commerce singeth twenty-four seven...but my fear and loathing is not restricted to the commercialization of Jesus' B-day (and other "special days" invented by Hallmark and the florist cartel). It's more about the mindless adherence to custom. Our country is in peril, the rich are running the show, and way too many people actually give a shit who wins a brutal gladiatorial contest between muscle-bound meatheads. The environment is being stressed to the breaking point while "news" channels cover "American Idol" as though it actually merited serious reporting. 

Attention, shoppers and sleepwalkers: wake the fuck up and look around you. There's more to life than mindless conformity. And the clock is ticking.

A songwriter friend once closed one of his compositions with these lines: To make a song is all I mean to do/To fill the hours until the night has passed away/It’s like the day was never coming…