the jewish general (2)

i spoke to my psychic, raymond, yesterday, of the tremont tearoom, downtown, and he speaks with such a light, almost gadfly, style of voice, that it's such a pleasure to listen to him, plod along, hoping to hit on a few pieces that resonate with me. he spent too much time meditating on my current mood — which is not good, is down, tired, dreary, and pessimistic: ruminating — but he did say that chris, name unprompted, would return, or "come around again," as he said, he noted that this chris was a man, not a woman (he is a man; cf. earlier fact sheet entries), and so while not waiting, or expecting, i guess i will not be entirely dumbfounded if he shows up, or "comes around again," or appears, or if i run into him in some way, though i won't say hi, perhaps i'll smile. raymond also mentioned boston university, and starbucks, unprompted, which was odd, because i have no relationship to boston university, and have a bit of a negative feeling about starbucks, in general, since the patrick series of errors (mostly on my part; but he fucked up too). he said june 14th would be a significant day — it is flag day, for one — and it falls on a wednesday, and he said 5:00PM, so i'll watch for that; he suggested i spend some time in the mountains, or generally the outdoors, and suggested i frequent the local parks, there is one behind my building, not much of one, not one i would spend time in, but i guess i'll meander through and see what it's all about at some point. raymond is no alex, who died of aids last yr, and who i truly liked even if he didn't seem to get anything right about me — he suggested that my mother and i would be in a cabaret show together, which is unlikely, bordering on the otherwordly, if it happened, though i could no doubt do my part if the curtain was raised — but he got me, said that my father was very distant, which is surely true, even after the book dedication, which i suppose is like a footnote on the entire event, but he also said that i inherited my peculiarities, not necessarily positive or valiant ones, from my father, and i guess that would be right, via mimesis, from zero to seven.

there was an animal at the jewish general in montreal. i do not remember her name. i liked her at first, she was the art therapist — which is a role that extends beyond art, she was "intuitive," in the worst sense of that word, and she easily, without any question, summarized patients quite quickly, and then went about some form of technique, which was really my own — the producing, the making — as i was making a bronze statue of a swan for my mother, which turned out well; she made a remark about how swans are beautiful on the outside but very violent and nasty on the inside — i think this was supposed to be her quick "intuitive" grasp of my subjectivity, though since i was making the swan for my mother i thought perhaps this should apply to my mother: beautiful and violent and nasty, though that in no way captures my mother. i am not violent and nasty, i only return the favor to someone who crosses me, but i would never bother to be mean to someone just out of the blue, to intend to hurt them, or pain them, or embarrass them, i'm sure i've done so, but only by accident, or if i weren't thinking, or if i were sick, but i never go about trying to be mean. i've said it before, and i wish i could accentuate it with my voice right now: i don't like mean.

jason was a bit mean, or could be, he would occasionally show it off, like a peacock would the plumage, and i think leanne could be mean, though it wasn't her default, and i think she only resorted to those antics in retribution, like me, not her calling card, not what she started with. lisa is absolutely not mean, she just doesn't do that, i think she probably finds it a waste time, it's not going to have an effect one way or the other on someone she might want to be mean to, they wouldn't notice it, or consider it, and so why bother; lisa is inclined to turn her cheek, away, not engage, while i always take the bait, return the favor, and get involved, intent on trying to prove that i am in some ways better than this other person; i really should be more mature than that, or realize that i am unlikely to gain any real satisfaction from that, and just go about my business, like lisa does. peter is not mean, i think he probably can't be, i don't think he's spent much time around people who are mean, i don't think he listens to it, i doubt people spray him with nastiness all that often — i don't — and so he's probably mostly inexperienced when it comes to mean. trevor is absolutely not mean. i don't know, but i bet chris could be mean, but he is also older now, and i would think he would not bother; he's also probably suffered through mean and i think that — as it is an experience one tarries with, meanness — it tends to turn people away from being mean. younger people are probably meaner in general, having suffered it less, and seen less of it, thinking it clever or smart, and so when they have the opportunity they go in for it. i also think meanness is often a gut response to feeling jealous, and younger people probably have the energy and narcissism to feel jealous more often, and so they react to their jealousy with nastiness, trying to cut the other person down so as to find less of a reason to be jealous of them. one thing that can be said of little guy: not mean. patrick: mean, probably knows better, doesn't deliver it often, but when feeling insecure or cornered, is mean; ugly. i told the students in one of the classes this semester that i thought of all the manifest problems in the world that i was most disturbed by, upset by, is nastiness, just the daily cruelties that people dish out to people, for no real reason, just to cause pain, to make the other question themself, or to be haunted by questions of their worth; and unprompted nastiness — which like i said, i don't perform — is really one of the ugliest things one can witness or endure.

probably the reason i am a generally nice guy, just sort of sweet, gentle, trying to make people feel good, is that i am not jealous. this is one of my star qualities: not jealous. i've never wanted to be anyone other than me, i'm really happy with the person that i have cultivated, and the object that the people around me have made, and i just don't want to be anyone else. i can recognize talents in other people — i can readily admit that dan is smarter than me, or lisa is a nicer person than me, or trevor is more handsome than me, or chris is harder working than me, or peter is more disciplined than me, or molly is funnier than me — but at the same time i don't in the least want to be these other people, i am really quite comfortable being me, happily so, even when i am suffering. i think one of my many faults is that at the same time as i basically consider myself to be the best person i know — which is not to put anyone else down or put anyone else in their place — i often don't have the sense of feeling appreciated, or well liked, or valued, this i think is not really based on anything, i don't mostly have any reason to think that people don't like me, i have friends who like me, quite a bit, but i do have a steady and consistent negative transference, thinking that although this commodity is high quality that, strangely, most people don't see it as such; i know this is something that we are trying to work on in analysis — part of it is linked to this high narcissism on my part, and part of it is related to my sense that my value truly accrues through the evaluations of others — i think we have made some headway here, but less so to reverse the negative transference into a positive transference and more to simply make the transference — which doesn't disappear, except in the pass — not matter so much.

but this awful animal at the jewish general: it was her "intuition" that was the most monstrous aspect of her presentation, deep subjectivity, that she was quite certain, self-assured, of her quick summary of the patients, that she had grasped them, seen them in their totality, with very little face time or experience with them, and that, like in all of western medicine, but especially psychiatry, that this person, patient, client, could be summarized quickly, in handwriting, on a chart, with the right eye, or angle, with the right trite summation; it was not so much the violence of this brief evaluation that bothered me as it was her self-assurance, totally sure of herself and her interpretation, self-congratulatory in her insight and "intuition," that i found so unattractive, and it wasn't that i could simply observe this, from a distance, watching her daft antics, her happy celebration of her talents, but i had to endure it as a participant, or an object, and i had to fight that, against her, i could not be summarized; if i do not know myself — bronze swan or not — how could she, flighty and distracted, have any "intuition" about me?

it is truly a talent to approach the other as an alterity — nothing known about him, a total mystery, not to be unravelled but just to be observed, perhaps talked to, in this total otherness that could not be summarized, known, judged, evaluated, calculated — heidegger and levinas make much of this, the alterity of the other, the latter as the basis of an entire ethics that would precede even ontology (what the person is), and epistemology (knowing the person), and i can say that i am completely unable to approach this sensibility — i am not assured of my interpretations and evaluations of others, i am suspect, torn, hesitant, unlike this assured and certain animal at the jewish general hospital in montreal — but i am definitely unable to approach the other as an abyss of alterity that i could never know and, stuck with this epistemological void, still approach, engage, and maybe even love.

one of my talents, but also defects: my play is serious, like a child's, trying to figure out the world. it can be exhausting, and while it is a kind of play, it is perhaps best watched rather than joined.

andy pink