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how do you deal with tragedy and
malevolence and you can say well I'm not
prepared it's like yeah fair enough
unsurprising especially if you were over
protected as a child it's not a good
idea to overprotect your kids because
the snakes are going to come into the
garden no matter what you do
and so then you instead of trying to
keep the damn snakes away what you do is
you arm your child with something that
can help them chop them into pieces and
make the world out of them so that the
trick for human thriving in the face of
suffering and malevolence is strength
not protection it's a completely
different idea we also know this
clinically we know for example that if
you treat people with exposure to
therapy for Agoura phobia which is
roughly speaking the fear of chaos I
would say the fear of everything you
don't make them less afraid
you make them braver it's not the same
thing because with an agoraphobic see
what happens to them is the fault
they never conceptualize death and
suffering they're naive right it never
enters their theater of their
imaginations because they're protected
from it but then something happens this
this often happens to women in their 40s
because they're the people most likely
to develop Agra phobia something happens
there they've been protected from chaos
by Authority their entire life so maybe
they had an overprotective father and
then they went to an overprotective
boyfriend and then they went to an
overprotective husband and maybe they
were willing to be subjugated to all
three of those because of the protection
right so so that's the bargain they stay
weak and dependent and maybe they have
to because that's the only way they can
appeal to the person who's hyper
protective but the price they pay for
that is that they're not sufficiently
competent and then something happens in
their life often in their 40s they
develop heart palpitations maybe as a
consequence of menopause their heart
starts to beat erratically and they
think oh no death
it's like well who are you gonna talk to
about that right there's no protection
from authority for that or maybe their
friend gets divorced or maybe their
sister dies or something like that it
brings up the specter of mortality and
maybe the specter of malevolence and
mortality and it brings it up in a way
that authority recourse
to Authority cannot solve and so then
they have panic attacks what happens
they go out they get afraid they feel
their heart beating then they get afraid
of their heart beating because they
think oh no I'm going to die and they
think oh no I'm going to die and I'm
going to make a fool of myself while I'm
doing it and attract a lot of attention
so the two big fears come up mortality
and social judgement then they have a
panic attack it's like fight or flight
going out of control very very
unpleasant then they start to avoid the
places they've had a panic attack then
they end up not being able to go
anywhere so then Tiamat has come back
right a huge monster a little victim and
so what do you do with them well yeah
there's no saying note there's no time
app that's done right their naivety is
over they've had a direct contact with
the threat of mortality and social
judgment they've met the terrible mother
and they met the terrible father and
there's no going back there's no saying
oh the world is safe it's not safe not
at all
it's not safe the fact that you think
it's safe means that you were living in
an unconscious bubble that was sort of
provided to you by your culture it's a
gift and now that's been shattered and
so now what do you do well the answer is
you retreat until you're in your house
and there's nowhere you can go you're
the ultimate frozen rabbit right and
your life is hell because you can't
function
the alternative is let's take apart the
things you're afraid of let's expose you
to them you know carefully and
programmatically and then you'll learn
that you can you're actually tougher
than you think you never knew that and
maybe you didn't want to take on the
responsibility because you know people
play a role in their own demise so to
speak when you had opportunity to go out
and explore or withdraw because you were
afraid you chose to withdraw because you
were afraid so it's not only that you
were over protected often it's that you
were willing to take advantage of the
fact that you were over protected and
run back there whenever you had the
opportunity
so then you take people out you say well
what are you afraid of ranked it from 1
to 10 so 10 is make a list of 10 things
you're afraid of the least the thing
you're least afraid of will call number
10 so we'll start with that
okay well I'm afraid of elevators okay
well let's let's look at a picture of an
elevator let's have you imagine being in
an elevator let's go out to an elevator
and let you watch the terrible jaws of
death open because that's how you're
responding to it symbolically right and
you're gonna do that at it at the the
closest proximity you can manage you
find out you go do that it works you're
nervous as hell especially in it from an
anticipatory perspective shaking you go
out you stop you watch it happen and you
actually calm down you do that 10 times
it no longer bothers you well what
you've learned that you didn't die but
more importantly than that you've
learned that you could withstand the
threat of death that's what you've
learned and then you move a little
closer and then you move a little closer
and then you move a little closer and
finally you're back in what's no longer
the elevator from a symbolic perspective
it's a tomb right it's it's it's a place
of enclosure and isolation and you learn
hmm
turns out I can withstand that and then
you're met much more together much more
confident and that's often one of the
things that often happens in situations
like that I've seen this multiple times
is that if you run someone through an
exposure training process like that and
and toughen them up they'll often start
standing up to people around them in a
way they never did before because they
wouldn't stand up for themselves before
because they weren't willing to
undermine the protection see if you're
protecting me
I can't bother you because I can't
afford to forsake your protection so if
I'm gonna play that game I'm gonna be
high hide behind you then I can't
challenge you so that's no good because
that's sometimes why people you see this
with guys very frequently they're still
deathly afraid of their father's
judgment when they're in their 30s or
40s it's like well why not because they
still want to believe that there's
someone out there that knows and so
they're willing to it's
the subjugation because it doesn't force
them to challenge the idea that there's
someone out there that knows because
that's the advantage of having your
father as a judge right because he knows
well what if he doesn't what if no one
knows any better than you well that's a
rough thing you don't until you realize
that you're not an adult right that's
really technically the point of
realization of adulthood is that no one
actually knows what you should do more
than you do I mean it's a horrible
realization because what the hell do you
know
it's a terrible realization and people
will often pick slavery permanent
slavery to the spirit of the Great
Father let's say over that realization
and it's completely understandable but
the problem with it is is that there's
more to you than you think and so if you
continue to hide behind that figure then
you never have a chance to understand
that there's more to you than you think
far more to you than you think maybe
there's enough to you so that you can
actually withstand the threat of
mortality without collapsing maybe even
withstand the threat of malevolence
without collapsing who knows it's
certainly possible and it's not an
abstract question it's exactly the sort
of question that you address in the
psychotherapeutic process it's it's
always the question that you address and
the answer is often in the affirmative
because people can get unbelievably
tough and you know that because people
work in emergency wards and hospitals
right or they work in in palliative care
awards or they work as mortuary
assistants I mean these people have
bloody rough jobs you know or they're on
the front line of police investigation
into you know Highness child abuse
crimes and so they're confronting
malevolence on a regular basis and you
know those are very stressful jobs but
people do them and some people do them
without even being damaged by them
although that's a harder thing because
you can see horrible things you know
things you'll never forget
like if you've been victimized you're
naive and you've been victimized the way
out of that is to no longer be naive and
to no longer be victimized and that
means that you you see this reflected in
the Harry Potter idea for example that
the reason that Harry Potter can
withstand Voldemort is because he's got
a piece of him
Marty's being touched by it and the way
that you the way that you keep the
psychopaths at bay is to develop the
inner psychopath so that you know one
when you see one right and then but
that's a voluntary thing it says it's so
it's like a it's like a set of tools
that you have at your disposal which is
full knowledge of evil and that does
Nietzsche said if you look into an abyss
for too long you risk having the abyss
gaze back into you right the idea is
that if you look at something monstrous
you have a tendency to turn into a
monster and people are often very afraid
of looking at monstrous things exactly
for that reason and then the question is
well should you turn into a monster and
the answer to that is yes you should but
you should do it voluntarily and not
accidentally and you should do it with
the good in mind rather than falling
prey to it by possession essentially
because that's the alternative how does
it possess you that's easy
your suffering makes you better you're
better this makes you resentful you're
resentful means meat makes you vengeful
and once you're on that road you go down
that a little bit farther man well you
end up in fantasizing in your basement
about shooting up the local high school
and then killing yourself right because
that's sort of the ultimate end of that
line of pathological reasoning being
should be eradicated because of its
intrinsic evil and I'm exactly the
person to do it and I'll cap it off with
an indication of my own lack of worth
just to hammer the point home right and
if I can garner a little post post
posthumous fame along the way well
that'll satisfy my primordial primate
dominance hierarchy imaginings too at
least in fantasy so you know it's the
full package if you want to go down that
route and of course people don't like to
think about that sort of thing and it's
no bloody wonder but without the
capability for mayhem Europe you're
you're you're a potential victim to
mayhem so you need your sword it should
be sheath but you need to have
you
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