Wikipedia Willy

"See, Will, I'm trying to get a grasp on your OCD. I had a female patient, very bright girl, went to Georgetown University and she had to figure out as many ways to walk to class as possible and then pick the right one. Before she had even gotten to class she had come up with 94 permutations. Now that's esoteric, but your OCDs are uber-esoteric. I mean, if you were just washing your hands I could treat the handwashing with exposure therapy. But your OCDs have to do with more esoteric subject matter, such as the nature of enjoyment, for instance."

"Enjoyment, yes. But not just the nature of sensation and emotion itself. I have felt detached from sensation and emotions thanks to anhedonia, but in addition to that I have also had severe issues with time and duration. The fact that everything is transient, including orgasms and good times with friends. I suppose I could try to treat the best of the past as if it were a part of the present and therefore eternally with me. How else am I going to get a grip on the problem of time and ephemerality. I can't freeze time and this bothers me!"

Dr. E was a fit, handsome older man. His office was decorated with fishign trophies and statues of fierce, lean bodhisattvas. I had taken a wrong turn somewhere and now I was trying to find my way back. I had forgotten how to feel anything. And if I felt anything I'd be too obsessed with the moment passing to really enjoy the moment.

"Well, what is one of your specific OCDs related to this?"

"Well, for example, I cannot read Schopenhauer until I've had more sex."

"And you cannot read Schopenhauer until you've had more sex because...?" I could tell by the way he phrased the question that he was not at all familiar with Schopenhauer's work. How could a psychologist pass through so many educational institutions and not be at all familiar with Schopenhauer? I mean, good ol' Arthur is necessary even for a full understanding of Freud's work.

"Well, Schopenhauer, of course, was the pessimist. He saw life as a wheel of desire-satiety-boredom. The only answer to misery was to transcend this wheel through the negation of the Will. Schopenhauer was, of course, heavily influenced by Buddhism, which, no offense - I see the statues here - is a terrible religion. It's both better and worse than Christianity if only because it actually works. And I should know."

"You've practiced Buddhism?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"When? Recently?"

"Well, when I was in my four year relationship. It seemed as if I was going to be married to the girl who took my virginity. I wanted to be with her forever, but I was in the middle of the orgy known as New York City. I was caught between having the girl I had always wanted and having the sexual opportunities I had always wanted. My girl was poor and she had no family or friends. I had to make a sacrifice for her. Very existential Christian of me. Very Kierkegaardian of me. But what is the point of being a Christian or a saint in this time? Things are very grim nowadays and sex has become just another consumerism, but the sort of 'free love' I was looking for was certainly out there for me. I had to deny myself what I wanted on hundreds of occasions. If that wasn't bad enough I was practicing Buddhism and other mysticisms in an attempt to sedate, stymie, control, and kill my out of control sexual urges."

"What if you succeeded?"

My OCDs kicked into overdrive.

"Oh my God! Don't even say that! That's exactly what I'm afraid of - that I may have permanently damaged the apparatus, that I may have permanently alienated myself from my senses, my instincts, even my emotions. That has become one of my worst fears. I mean, an ascetic is not what I am. For me of all people to be a holy man! All I've ever wanted is to be Satanic. All I've ever wanted was to be a rake and engage in licentious orgies."

"'Rake' and 'licentious'. Who uses words like that in the 21st century?"

"Well, I suppose that's my schizotypy. But that's the 21st century's problem - not mine. Perhaps I'm trying too hard to be Byron, but even he was too much of a pessimist."

"So, you've said it before - you're afraid of transcending your desires before you've had a chance to enjoy them?"

"Yes, but then I think of someone like Aleister Crowley."

"Who was Aleister Crowley?"

How could he not know who Aleister Crowley was? So many of our present New Age threads can be traced back to Crowley. Much of what was happening while he was in Harvard in the late 60s can be traced back to Crowley and he has never even heard of him?

"Aleister Crowley was a British occultist. For a time he was meditating up to 16 hours a day, but toward the end of his life he was still enthusiastically engaging in sex and sexual magick orgies with his followers."

"So see? There's hope for you."

Overall I think Dr. E is a nice man with a sense of humor. It still baffles me that his knowledge base is so limited.

"Yes, that's good!" I laughed.

"Have you ever experimented with occultism?"

"Yes, most recently - more than a year ago - I did it for the sake of psychonautics."

"What are psychonautics?"

Oh my Goodness! He has not heard of psychonautics either? And he went to Harvard in the 60s?

"Psychonautics is the use of dance, trance, shamanism, magick, mysticism, and especially psychedelic drugs for the purpose of exploring other dimensions of mind. In all fairness I've always been interested in the mystical, the magickal, the occult, the human brain, the human mind, and the unknown. So perhaps my asceticism was just an accident waiting to happen."

I suppose I was being "high-falutin" with Dr. E, but these were - at one time - existential concerns (they still are) and I really am smart. I just suppose I sound like Wikipedia because I'm trying to prove to him that I am not a total failure just because I do not have a job, a college degree, or a cellphone.