The Monologues of the Master

Today I seriously had nothing better to do than going to the computer room at APC and commence writing on my novel. The execution of this idea however had a serious flaw however, the fact that I did not bring a USB drive to save my document on. Instead I save my document on a virtual drive but not enough often as it would show. You see for unknown reasons the IT responsible person has set the computer to delete all user files upon power down. This would not be a major issue if the IT person at the same time had put in a way that caused power down every now and then. So to summarise, the computer shut down twice deleting my files both times so it had to rewrite the document for hours. Learning point is to either save on a USB stick every five minutes (good solution) or write the novel on my laptop (bad solution I focus better in a computer room)

On the good side I almost finished chapter one today, and when that’s done there is only seven to go. Wii... :) (I spent the first day of my not very thriving novelist career writing the plot & character summary so I have an idea how much work there is to be done.)

Oh well among other events I went to Newtown today. In Newtown there seems to be a lot of alternative people whom I don’t have very much in common with. For me it’s not a life changing emotional event to listen to the music of a heroin addict who sings about how he hates himself and want to die. To me that’s simply a depressing and uninspiring way to spend an afternoon. I can’t see the point in cutting light cuts in your skin which gives ugly scars either. I mean either you want to kill yourself and then you cut very deep while in a bathtub, or you try improving your life by doing things you like. Cutting light cuts only seems painful, boring and ugly.

Oh well the reason for being in Newtown in the first place was that I had an online date there.  This one had a funny backstory actually, or not the actual person but the circumstances behind it. You see a few weeks ago I went on a date with the Mensa eagle (Referred to as Mensa woman in previous entry, nickname changed due to popular request) and the day after I got the smashing “you are psycho, go see a shrink”.

However on a later occasion the Mensa eagle said the actually quote was “I believe you would benefit strongly from seeing a psychologist” to me the sentences has the same implication but apparently the exact quotation was important as the incorrect ones implies hostility while the second one apparently is just positive feedback. Oh well the reason for mentioning this in this entry is that the woman I were seeing today was a psychologist who started writing to me the same day I got this smashing. How awesome would it be if I actually got to know the psychologist on a deeper level*  after being told by another woman that I should go see a psychologist(*I have been criticized for using vulgarism regarding how I describe the human reproduction process, so the following rewrite would appeal to the more sensitive readers?)

In reality this was never close to actually happening and in a true revisionist approach I fully blame someone else, an unknown adversary so no-one can get offended. You see the first thirty minutes were going really, really well until something happened. A jackass called from a hidden number. The first time I just denied the call but when the person called again I picked up and there was no-one talking. I clicked the call and the jackass called again, still not saying anything. I muttered something about “fucking stalker” and turned off the phone. The concept that I had a stalker (Which I actually don’t) severely damaged the great rapport we had built up and the rest of the evening went downhill after that.

Please note that one part of the description above is not exactly accurate. I leave it to the reader to figure which of the following claims that is incorrect

• The first 30 minutes of the date went really well    
• An unknown person called three times from a hidden number without saying anything.

Well  with everything going downhill I tried my last assault weapon, a very unsafe weapon with a huge probability to backfire completely which I intended to only use when things seemed fucked anyway. I told her about my Psychology/Catholicism analogy

The Masters Psychology Catholicism analogy

Have you ever considered how similar psychology and Catholicism are? Well I have, to summarise it’s my opinion that Psychology is a scientific approach to Catholicism and I use the following parts to prove my analogy

Sin /Diagnosis: Catholicism is infamous for making almost every aspect of human everyday life a sin. This is to make sure people feel bad about themselves, so they will seek improvement and forgiveness. The only way to get forgiveness is to talk to a priest. To get benefit you are supposed to pay church taxes. Diagnosis: Psychology has a lot of diagnosis. It probably has as many diagnoses as Catholicism has sins (Okay I have not done a count for the exact numbers but you get the point). Diagnoses are made with a similar purpose to the sin concept to make people feel bad about themselves and seek the council of someone with a position of power.

Priest – Psychologist:  A man in position of power: Both have been delegated power from a higher source (either god or science) in order to “help” out the common man from his/her imperfection. In return for this help they expect a king’s ransom in payment and the power to modify the behaviour of individuals.

Unfounded belief in unrelated solutions: If someone is depressed with their current situation the logical way would be to give them pointers on how to reach their goal and wish for the best. The priest however would probably tell the depressed one that he/she should put faith in god and do so through chanting prayers. This solution seems very unlikely to solve any actual problems. The psychologist point of view however is even worse it focuses on finding unrelated childhood issues and torment the victim with these will the clock is ticking and the money flowing in. This approach will definitely not solve any problems whatsoever, but it will cause the victim economical and emotional damage.

Must believe in the product to make it work: Both psychology and religion is strictly intangible products that require belief from the practitioner to work. If you don’t believe in them you’ll just see both the psychologist and the priest as charlatans just out there to rip you off. Most people need to believe in something however and that’s why both products is popular and turn over a lot of money. But compared to a tangible product for instance a car you can’t measure the actual performance of neither a priest nor a psychologist.

Okay needless to say I did not feed her this extended version but a considerably shortened one.  As expected she did not at all follow my train of thought but instead she got offended. This was expected but from my point of view it could have worked provided that she actually saw herself as a charlatan but were happy in that role. I mean honestly if you sell people a placebo product that makes them happy does that make you a smart goodhearted man or an evil deceptive one. In the same way if you get paid a king’s ransom to listen to people whine about their childhood, and they feel better from it as well.  You are after all both winning and your actions lead to a happier world which makes you a good person.

If you ask me which I would choose if I had to believe in religion or psychology? I think I would actually pick religion as I kind of like the term sin better than the term diagnosis. (Furthermore I have actually seen a variety of gods while being heavily affected by magic mushrooms. The concept I am against when it comes to religions is not the gods themselves, but the implication that certain people would have a closer contact with these entities and thus can tell me what the gods want which is complete bullshit I reckon ) Sin to me only means you are human while diagnosis to me a is a way to brand people as less worth simply based on self-proclaimed experts opinions of what is right and wrong in human behaviour.

// The Master