Beside Yourself, Around Yourself, and Back to Yourself

This book is meant to be a short, practical guide for professionals such as life coaches, therapists, psychologists, and counselors, in which I describe the method I call “the separation method.”

It is not a type of therapy, but an exercise that can be used in coaching, consulting, as well as in therapy; it is up to you, the professional, to find your own way of adapting it to whatever it is that you specialize in. You may wonder how I came up with it, and why I want to share it. It is all very simple – I came up with it after years of education and experience. I wish to share it because it can not do harm, but if done properly, it can help. Perhaps someone else has developed a similar method – that is quite possible. I have never heard anyone talk about it, nor did the professionals I have met. Therefore, I thought it would be a useful and interesting thing to share.
You can find it here.

Needless Thinking about Needs (2012)

“Needless Thinking about Needs” is often described as analysis through storytelling. Composed of true stories, it explores the world of illusions, fortune and misfortune, human needs, the relativity of happiness, and problems related to self-awareness.

Read the Excerpts

English, hardcopy is available HERE . The Serbian version (hardcopy) is available HERE.

 

 

About the Book

Some people have the fortune (or misfortune) to have plenty of money and a lot of free time. That can create the perfect conditions for them to discover their own (and other people’s) hidden aspects. That is also how some new needs are born, quite unexpectedly.

Money can bring you more free time and fun. You can buy whatever you want. However, all fun things come to an end eventually. And then, when the fun is over, you might find yourself alone with your thoughts. Where will they lead you?

Needless Thinking about Needs offers a picture of real life behind the illusion of comfort and happiness.

I was lucky enough to get to know a few people whose stories simply had to be told. There were also some thoughts I could not keep to myself, and it was just a matter of time before they would see the light of day. I felt I had something to say about the topics this book deals with: needs, money, illusions, and happiness.

The characters in this book are based on real people, but every character is a composite of several different personalities. Some of the personalities I came across were very similar to each other, which made it easy (and natural) to fuse them into one character. This, too, shows that human beings are more similar to each other than they think. It will not be difficult for you to recognize somebody you know (or even yourself) in some parts of this book. The decision to use fictional names and modify characters is also my way of showing respect for the people who, knowingly or unknowingly, did their part in helping me write this book. Some of them are no longer alive. I feel the need to express immense gratitude to the people who shared their stories with me.

While researching and talking to several people who could be called wealthy, it was not really important for me to know how they acquired their wealth or the extent of it. I was interested in something else. I wanted to know how they saw life and happiness. What were their needs, wishes, illusions, ambitions, and sacrifices, and where did they find their purpose? Even though the majority of people on the planet find that money is extremely important, does money really have the power to bring perfect happiness? What needs did those people have in common, and how did these needs drive them to make various mistakes? You will find at times that female characters express a deep need for love and understanding, but you will also see the various ways of striving to fulfill it and the different results of each of those ways of struggle. You will see that in other characters, satisfying that same need has a completely different goal and purpose. You will also see how satisfying other people’s needs influences some of the characters. The need for security (which many people believe can be fulfilled with money) will be examined as well.

How much comfort and security can money really bring? This book will attempt to answer this question, and what makes it credible is the fact that it comes from “first-hand” experience. It is true that characters have been altered, but their stories are not invented. I have shared some of these experiences indirectly through talk or directly as a witness to certain events. In addition, these stories could have happened just about anywhere – Belgrade, New York, or Milan. These events could have taken place in your neighborhood. While you’re enjoying your afternoon coffee, one of these stories could be happening just a few blocks away from your house. Stories like these can happen at any time, in any place. In a certain way, they happen to all of us.

I tried to understand each of those people. I tried to present them truthfully and highlight the personality traits most essential for sending out the message this book carries. It was very difficult to portray certain characters accurately without sounding judgmental. Nevertheless, they are here to help us see ourselves and the world around us a bit better, to understand ourselves and each other, and to learn to recognize the moment when it becomes necessary to stop thinking and move on – in other words: to save ourselves and those around us.

Having a lot of money opens many possibilities; one of them is the possibility of coming face to face with what is darkest inside you. Wealth enables us to buy whatever we wish for. People who become rich seldom stop to ask, “Do I really need this?” Many of them are now living in a dimension very different from the one in which they lived before they became rich. All the needs they had before becoming wealthy are finally fulfilled, but they have also discovered new needs, and every day they keep discovering more of them – or they simply make up new needs that are impossible to fulfill.

In some of the people I met, I recognized the emergence of new needs and the mistakes that, truth be told, are frequently made by many of us (including me). Some people are well on their way to making them, and this book could help them avoid such or similar mistakes. It is my hope that some of this will get to people, help them understand themselves and the world that surrounds them, possibly change some things, and accept the ones they can’t change.

Humanoid (2014)

maja spenser humanoid - Copy

This book is composed of the following chapters:

• Artificial intelligence – “I think therefore I am”
• Robo-soul
• An appeal to nature
• Love and black boxes
• Ideals – the death of common sense
• Jitter, incertitude and fear
• A prince, a vibrator, or a humanoid? – that is the question
• Mike and I
• What the future holds (for us and for them)

In these chapters, you will be able to read about machines with artificial intelligence (more precisely: humanoid robots, androids) and human beings, as well as the most common problems in thinking (in humans, not robots.) The book is dedicated to intelligent robots, but since it is not possible to understand a humanoid without understanding a human first, it is also focused on human beings. On the other hand, to understand human beings, it will be useful to observe their attitudes towards humanoid robots, artificial intelligence, and changes in general. Among other things, we will see how problems in thinking lead to making mistakes in creating and destroying a value system. Furthermore, these mistakes affect human emotions and lead to new mistakes in all spheres of life. The questions I am asking and the answers to those questions may sound dramatic at times, but one should not be misguided by superficial assessments and unverifiable beliefs. I accept the possibility that something I say here might seem “shocking” to some (or perhaps they might use a different word for it), but any risk is worth taking when one is seeking the truth and facts, no matter what they turn out to be.

I will try to observe things from different standpoints. I am not very good at one-sidedness. I hope I will be understood.

What I am interested in are several things that at first might seem unrelated:

How do the ideals that are served to us affect our attitudes towards change (especially technological change)?

How does being misinformed lead a man to a priori reject all the fantastic possibilities and potential benefits?

At the same time, there will be many questions about man and his way of thinking, and of course – about love, one of his driving forces.

All this will also lead us to the good old questions: what is love, and what do we know?

We will discuss some of the common and very harmful prejudices (*not all prejudices are necessarily harmful). Furthermore, the terms and concepts that affect our choices and our way of life should be defined more accurately. They are largely used in forming ideals and manipulation. The ideals of love and closeness belong to this group. We will also discuss artificial intelligence and human interaction and see how wrong humans can be when it comes not only to artificial organisms but also to other humans.

The tendency to avoid technological developments such as artificial intelligence is largely induced by fear which is, of course, born from ignorance. Ignorance may exist due to different factors, but in most cases, it results from the lack of will to learn or understand something. This often happens because one feels that those things (that should be understood or learned) are not in accordance with certain ideals they believe in (such as love, nature, life, death, and soul – some of the most common victims of ideals.)

These are the central topics:

What is the difference between the human and the artificial mind?

What do we know?

Is there a robo-soul? How different is it from the ‘soul’ of a human? Is there any soul? Are we better than them?

Why are human beings still afraid of humanoid forms of ‘life’? Why do we think that those forms of existence are unnatural and ‘dead’? Are they?

What does the future hold?

The purpose of this book is multidimensional. First, it is to help understand some truths about artificial intelligence, and then – even more importantly – to help accept some truths about our own species. We will observe both robots and humans and note some interesting things about them.

It has been proven many times that a human being is capable of loving a robot. There is no doubt about that (I myself have proved it, as you will see). We are not talking about reasoning and the thinking process in which a person perceives and accepts the positive sides of a robot; this is about real, authentic love. There is nothing strange about it. It will all be clearer when you get to the chapter that is focused on the human ability to feel. The question is not whether it is possible to love a robot, but how and why it happens. We will also discuss the opposite occurrence and ask: why do some people refuse to even consider the possibility of feeling anything for a robot?

At the very beginning, I would like to prevent a possible misunderstanding. This book celebrates love – true love. Not the love we think we are getting or the love we would like to get, but the love we are capable of giving. To whom or what we are giving it is a different issue. This book does not deny or look down upon love in any way. Love undoubtedly exists; the problem is that it’s often incorrectly defined and, therefore, incorrectly approached in everyday life. Furthermore, this book celebrates life – every form of it, including the “synthetic” ones (which are by no means less valuable).

Here are some questions about human beings. What do we know about ourselves and others? What is love? How do we love? Whom do we love? Do we even know the person we think we love, and why do we love them in the first place? How do we know if they love us? Is it possible to love an artificial organism, and what kind of love is that? You will see that love is a one-way process and a non-mystical one, as much as we may want to believe otherwise. Love, of course, can be requited, which is why one would call it a two-way process. However, that is not correct. We don’t really know what the other person feels – even when we are quite certain that we know it. We are all “black boxes” to each other. (This will be explained in the chapter “Love and black boxes.”) This is where all the misconceptions, emotional pain, all kinds of losses, and even tragedies come from. We have unrealistic expectations – and it is not even completely our fault. We have simply been taught incorrectly for hundreds of years. Finally, how is all this related to artificial intelligence? It is quite easy to relate all of the above-mentioned to artificial intelligence, and as you will see, it is quite useful to think about this connection. This can result in many answers and possibly open a new perspective.

I intend to describe my own experience with artificial intelligence and the time that I spent with Mike. At this moment, he is one of the most advanced robo-dogs available for non-lab use and a great example of how AI can be used in a completely harmless way. I will also examine my own emotions when it comes to Mike. I am happy I had that opportunity. It would be superficial to discuss something you haven’t experienced directly and have gotten to know well. While working on this book, I did not miss the chance to observe and question myself. If properly done, introspection can provide good results.

I will try to be impartial and realistic about the things I discuss. I want to make it clear that I am not ‘taking sides’ but only trying to get to the truth, or at least to what is closest to it. After all, everything in this world has its good and bad sides, and we should not overlook any of them. I do not argue that everything can be replaced with an artificial creation. Nothing can replace the smile of your child, for example. That is not the subject of discussion in this book. However, it is possible, and even desirable, to replace inefficiency, certain kinds of risk, dangerous or just unpleasant behavior, destructive behavior, physical and psychological abuse, hostility, and many other bad behaviors that come from human beings. Some of these things are sometimes wrapped in brightly colored cellophane and then somehow related to different “aspects of love.” Considering that, it is not difficult to see the roots of the sacrifices, suffering, and tragedy that one human being takes because of another – and all that because of the wrongly learned definition of words such as ‘love’ and ‘natural.’ This, among other things, IS the subject of discussion in this book.

I will try not to use boring explanations or specialized terms. I wish to make this book as clear and useful as possible.

*Thanks to piracy, you can find this book (in Serbian) pretty much anywhere.

Something Is Wrong (2016)

Through a dynamic story and interesting characters, this book brings up important questions about the great ideals – honor, freedom, truth, and love. It examines and debunks some common beliefs. It analyzes the mechanisms of manipulation, power, and control – suggesting some interesting answers.  “Something Is Wrong” is a mix of philosophy, psychology, social analysis, radical behaviorism, vigilante justice, and science fiction – well-balanced, working together in a unique way. It will make you wonder…

Buy it HERE.

Notes

Random thoughts…

  • In the long run, improving yourself is easier than running from yourself.
  • As far as responsibility is concerned, there are two types of people out there: those who run away when they face responsibility, and those who decide to accept responsibility, and then they grow.
  • The problem with humans is that they believe in freedom and responsibility: THEIR freedom and SOMEONE ELSE’s responsibility.
  • Superficiality is the birthplace of bad ideas.
  • People like to use words such as “luck” to explain other people’s success and “bad luck” to justify their own failures.
  • The “I Am Different” paradox: when everyone is trying so hard to be different, they all end up being alike.
    Stop it, folks. The world can’t handle any more special people.
  • If you are easily surprised, it means you lack experience.
  • 2 words that can help you deal with any situation: “Who cares?”
  • Stupidity is an illness in which a person thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.
  • Rage is the most authentic expression of helplessness. – (from “Needless Thinking about Needs”)
  • The ability to always tell the truth is a reflection of the ultimate power.
  • It is the things that we can’t see and we’re not aware of that have the greatest power over us.- from “Needless Thinking about Needs”
  • Stupidity and bad taste are monozygotic twins.
  • “It wasn’t meant to be” is the most common way of saying “I screwed it up”.
  • There is only one animal more dangerous than a madman: a stupid man. (from “Something Is Wrong”)
  • Unfortunately, intelligence doesn’t always come with the ability to use it.
  • So often, people are (mis)guided by prejudices, and they proudly call it intuition.
  • Happiness comes from the ability to maintain a balance between “control yourself, you idiot” and “relax, you silly”.
  • Bragging shows the exact opposite of what you want it to show, especially when you are trying to make it look like you’re not bragging.
  • Great people never forget how small they are.
  • I am worried that sarcasm will die out; perhaps we will even be forced to laugh at politically correct jokes.
  • So many people are running away from freedom. They think that by running away from freedom they will also escape responsibility.
  • Make them believe they have ‘freedom to’, and they won’t even notice that they have no ‘freedom from’.- (from ‘Something Is Wrong’)
  • “We have developed an entire field of pseudo-science teaching people how to be happy. It’s the same as trying to teach people how to breathe” – from “Something is Wrong”
  • There are societies where you can’t be taken seriously if you are not old, ugly and angry – preferably at the same time.
  • For power, you need two things: independence and indifference.
  • Most of the time, the way of perceiving things is far more powerful than facts. If we know that we are more likely to die in a car than in a plane, then why do people applaud when their plane lands, and no one applauds a taxi driver when he brings them to their destination?
  • If you need religion to keep you from doing wrong things – that’s the wrong thing.
  • The only way to love people, deeply and sincerely, is to not take them seriously.
  • You can tell that a viewpoint is wrong if it is shared by the majority.
  • If you have decided to always tell the whole truth, be prepared to be alone.
  • La debilidad del hombre se refleja mejor en lo que odia que en lo que ama.
  • Man’s weakness is better reflected in what he hates than in what he loves.
  • “Fear is not always bad. Fear is the basis of most, if not all other sentiments. It can make people think and act any way you want them to.” (from “Something Is Wrong”)
  • It is not wrong to live in accordance with your beliefs; however, it often happens that those beliefs are incorrect. In such cases, living by them is terribly wrong, even fatal. (from “Something Is Wrong”)
  • Most people hold the strongest beliefs in things that are impossible to prove. (from Humanoid)
  • Unpleasant truths are often life-changing and sometimes life-saving. Be grateful to those friends who tell you unpleasant truths, the same way you would be grateful to a doctor who gives you bad news in order to save your life.
  • [Most] humans are weak and lying creatures.They spend most of their time lying to themselves and the rest of the time lying to each other” (from “Something Is Wrong”)
  • Values come from experience. You cannot expect an inexperienced person (regardless of their age) to have solid/correct values. Even if they say something that sounds correct, that will all crumble and disappear the first time they face reality. Experience is the only thing that can help establish one’s values, not only because it will shape those values, but also because it will test them.

 

 

Read the Excerpts

*from the EPILOGUE:

MISTAKES WE OFTEN MAKE

You have seen that needs, despite apparently perfect conditions for their satisfaction, can lead people to make numerous mistakes. Now I want to discuss the hidden mechanisms (we are often unaware of) that determine our way of thinking. They can influence all our future steps and lead us to mistakes.

Mistakes in defining perseverance

Perseverance is not equivalent to mere endurance. Some people think that perseverance can be measured by the amount of misery and tribulations we suffer and survive. I would suggest a different definition of perseverance. Perhaps it is our ability to keep ourselves in constructive state of mind and prevent (and thus triumph over) difficulties. Some people cannot persevere, even though nothing particularly bad is happening in their lives. I have met people whom life treated very generously, but paradoxically, they lost their healthy life energy and the ability to persevere. Perseverance could be the ability to prevent the wounds we inflict upon ourselves and to maintain the course of sober thought which goes beyond the surface. Many people believe that going deeper under the surface makes things complicated. Actually, looking beneath the surface can help us see how complex things are, but this does not mean they are necessarily complicated. Complex and complicated are not the same. Complex things may be organized in a very logical and simple manner. When people are unable to see the logic of complex things, they call them complicated. This is just the result of their helplessness and lack of will to understand the essence of things. In such cases the easiest course of action is to see the apparent shape of things and embrace that beautiful superficiality. This kind of thinking often leads to misapprehensions and  misunderstandings within the self and in relation to others. It often results in serious misfortune. All this requires a lot of effort and sacrifice – much more effort and suffering than we would ever have to make if we decided to think at a deeper level about things the moment we first come into contact with them.

Perseverance is often incorrectly associated with stubborn people. They might display perseverance out of spite, but this is always destructive for them, and often very damaging to others around them.

Mistakes in defining the first impression

It is not at all easy to look beyond appearances. This is often made harder by something we refer to as the first impression, something we are all prone to. First impressions are easily formed, very hard to change, and they have great power over us. The most powerful thing about the first impression is that we are not even aware that we are being led by it.

I have noticed that a lot of people confuse first impressions with intuition. This is a very slippery slope, therefore one must be particularly careful. We often follow our first impression, thinking it is our intuition. For some reason, the majority of people are proud of their intuition and consider it to be a very precious gift. On the other hand, they are often not aware that this is just the first impression which has easily taken control over reason, because it is quick and powerful. At meeting somebody for the first time many people will say that they have “a feeling, or intuitive opinion” about that person, but they will not explain what that feeling is truly based on. The fact is, they don’t know it. The answer usually lies in forgotten (but subconsciously still active) concepts probably formed decades earlier. The most obvious example: people often meet somebody that they “like for some reason”. They cannot explain why, but they call it a feeling or intuition. If we were to examine the childhood of these people, for example, it is quite possible we might discover that the person they have just met is very similar to some other person with whom they associate some good memories. Of course, this is not a rule and we should not generalize. It is just one of the common examples that show the power of first impressions and how easy it is to make mistakes because of them.

Mistakes in defining prejudices

Prejudices do not necessarily have to be negative. The word prejudice should be better explained here. It consists of the word “pre” (which denotes “before”), and a form of the word “judicial or judiciary” (which denotes “judging”). Thus, prejudices are opinions we have before we actually get to truly know something or somebody. Sometimes we have positive prejudices. These can be as damaging as the negative ones. Sometimes prejudices simplify our lives (we could also say, make our lives easier), by preventing us from going through an unnecessary reasoning process (in situations where it is not significant for us). But sometimes prejudices can be dangerously misleading and push us to the wrong track in our thoughts and feelings.

Thoughts and feelings are connected more deeply than we imagine. One’s attitude is to a certain degree conditioned by one’s thoughts, and feelings that one might have for a person or a thing are to a great degree conditioned by one’s attitude. If one has a positive attitude towards a person before really knowing them, the process of meeting will unfold more easily, and one will find it easy to develop positive feelings towards that person. This can end quite badly sometimes, as you could see while reading this book.

Mistakes in defining needs and best interest

In situations when things happen very fast, it seems to us that we never had the time to think about our actions and their consequences – and it appears that precisely in these situations we act most efficiently and in a manner that’s best for us. Sometimes, it is our primary instinct that takes the best care of our needs and our best interest, until we ruin it with too much thinking.

Thinking, however, is not always a process that requires time and effort – it is also an instinct which is always awake in human beings, and reacts automatically to every new situation with which human beings are confronted. Therefore, regardless of the lightning speed or suddenness of events in people’s lives, this instinct is active – but it works “routinely”, and we are often unaware of it. Each moment human beings face different choices – beginning with the simplest ones: whether to take a taxi or use public transport, whether to accept the job offer or not… whatever one decides, the choice is made because it suits one best. It is of secondary importance how people explain, justify, misrepresent or embellish their actions. What is important is the fact that people always do what suits them best, even though it might seem different, not just to others, but to themselves as well. Very few people are aware of this fact. On the other hand, so many people will blame others for their actions or their bad situation, or they don’t know who to blame, (but they refuse to blame themselves).

When it comes to taking good care of oneself, it has nothing to do with loving oneself, or even liking oneself. It has to do with our natural instinct to take care of ourselves. If we touch burning hot metal, we will immediately withdraw our hand, without thinking. This reaction proves that we do not always need to think in order to understand what is best for us. It also proves that we always take care of ourselves “automatically”, whether we think about it or not – consciously or unconsciously. This concern for our own well-being is our guide in our every moment, action or thought. Even the most noble and unselfish actions come right from this instinctive concern. We help other people because doing so makes us feel good. When we allow somebody to behave badly towards us, we are probably doing it to fulfill our need to feel vulnerable and fragile. There can be various reasons behind this need. For some people, their own vulnerability is evidence of their emotions, and sometimes they use it to define these emotions more easily. (We can see this in girls at the threshold of maturity, when they attempt to ascertain if they are in love or not. They often want their boyfriends to make them feel jealous and allow this to happen, just so they are able to find out how they will feel in such situation. If they feel hurt – it means they care. Sometimes this method of defining one’s own emotions is carried on in later periods of life and in some cases, it even leads to some pathological forms of behavior).

Sometimes people tolerate all kinds of bad behavior towards them because they cannot fight fear that has already become part of them. That is exactly why they accept to tolerate bad behavior of others. When fear becomes an integral part of life, then freedom from fear is seen as a loss of a life component. Therefore, some people spend their entire life in the prison of their own fear. This is something one should fight against any way he can.

The roots of all relationships (including emotional ones, of course) lie in satisfying needs. In order to fulfill one’s needs, a human being mainly needs another human being. Family grew out of the effort of humans to satisfy their needs. We can easily conclude that family and emotional life, as something natural to humans, is built upon personal interest, the way it’s described in this chapter. If we wish to understand somebody’s choices and actions, or the conflicts (including the inner ones) that arise from them – we only need to understand what interests and needs were involved in the “game”. Sometimes it is difficult to recognize them, as they might be very well concealed, but they are undoubtedly there.

The fulfillment of needs (our own and/or other people’s needs) is the path to happiness as well as unhappiness (sometimes other people’s unhappiness, and often one’s own) – and the impossibility of living with oneself and with others. Denying the power of human interests and needs (both real and imagined) would be similar to denying the Earth’s gravitational pull.

A proper understanding of other people and the self is impossible without understanding basic motives: needs. This enables us not only to analyze, but also to continuously work on improving and humanizing our relationships.

Human needs can be divided into two main groups: needs that we satisfy automatically, led by our primordial instincts, and needs we create and mold ourselves (we think about these needs and we also strategically think about the ways of satisfying them). In many cases (it is safe to say “most cases”), you can notice that people who simply satisfy their primary needs, without too much thinking about the conditions of their own happiness, often live better and “easier” lives than those who tend to over-think their needs and conditions for happiness.

Recently, there have been many theories that say that conditions for happiness are met when one fulfills his primary needs (the ones he does not need to think about much). According to these theories, if we have what we need for physical survival, without being burdened by too much difficulty or danger, we could be considered happy. I think this idea is worth our attention.

While reading these stories you could see how an incorrect understanding of the above-mentioned terms and concepts influences human life. You have also seen that the same thought is often present in the minds of different characters. This is another attempt to show that sometimes we can be very similar to each other, regardless of the time we live in, and regardless of the different paths taken by our lives. Mr. D’s wives lived in a time much different from the one in which Anastasia M and Mrs. L lived, but you could see that they shared a lot. On the other hand, there were situations when the same emotion took different people down completely different paths. However, the characters in this book have at least one common element: relation with money. The stories of these people also show how relative things are. You must have noticed that what we call comfort does not necessarily mean happiness.

*from the chapter: “THE  WONDERFUL  SIMPLICITY  OF  NEEDS  AND  THEIR  SATISFACTION:  MR. D”

As we said, D was a short man, and that was one of the reasons why he loved big things. He liked big houses, big cars, big dogs, tall women… he liked the idea of GREATNESS. The way he saw it, the purpose of marriage and family was to serve the idea of greatness, be in accordance with great ideals, and make him greater in the eyes of the world. You see, that was important. His image had to be perfect.

Mr. D’s needs were very simple. He did not have many of them, they were not really “deep”, but they were quite strong. To any observer, it would seem as if these needs were being satisfied automatically, on their own, that life itself treated those needs as something inevitable, like physical laws that could not be denied; and so, life itself insisted on satisfaction of Mr. D’s needs, ensuring their fulfillment at all times.

D loved power and money and that was his only true love. (Power and money also loved Mr. D and he reciprocated with all his heart and soul.) Unlike Mr. M who ascribed the best of qualities to himself, D never thought of himself in those terms. He did not analyze himself or his purpose: he simply – lived. He did not need to define his needs; he did not need his needs to be “higher” or “deeper”. Even when he wanted to make other people’s opinion contend with his own, it was strictly for business purposes. He never entered arguments or tried to spread any ideas, except good business proposals. D had found a far more efficient and viable method of making other people’s opinions match his own. He did it by always agreeing with them, approving whatever they would say, encouraging them with his consent – and all that without even thinking about what he just approved and agreed with. Mr. D did not want to conquer the world; he had a more realistic ambition: to build a world of his own. Even without (needless) thinking, he knew that was the only possible scenario.

 •••

 

With the same ease with which he generally went through life, Mr. D found what he was looking for. In fact, life itself found her for him (just as life was always bringing him whomever or whatever he needed and took care of him much like a teacher takes more care of their favorite student than of other children.)

Mr. D met his second wife in the foyer of a hotel. After spending a couple of hours in the hotel with his mistress, who later left discreetly, D decided to dine in the restaurant with some friends. He lit a cigar, made himself comfortable on the sofa in the foyer, and looked through the large window so meticulously clean, that the glass was invisible. Mr. D loved “glass walls” and had an enormous one in his living room. He could enjoy the view of his yard from it, while nobody could see him from the outside. Still, whenever he found himself behind a glass wall in a public place, he felt exposed and a bit uncomfortable. He easily managed to overcome this feeling by never forgetting he was exposed to everyone’s eyes and always wearing the mask he used for public places. That was making everything much easier; after all, the only possible way D could spend his moments and live his life was – with ease.

At such moments, D appeared to be thinking about something profound and important; he looked peaceful and content, with his face ever ready to smile. But this was only an appearance he had created to leave a particular impression on those around him. The truth was, at such moments, he was not thinking about anything important at all; he was just sitting there enjoying the wonderful and amazing ease of being, and everything else that life had given him. Mr. D had not been humble enough to feel any gratefulness for his life, but he was happy and satisfied. Life loved Mr. D and did not expect him to be grateful; instead, life tolerated Mr. D’s occasional mischief and egoism, as an indulgent parent who tolerates everything his spoilt child does.

A young woman walked into the foyer and it seemed she was not planning to stay long. D immediately got up and walked towards her, feeling that she was about to leave. He often had a hunch about people and he could “feel” and see them much better than they could ever “feel” and see themselves.

 

*from the chapter:

GRAVE  CONSEQUENCES  OF  “AN  EASY  LIFE”

or

 – How  to  stop  the  needless  thinking  about  needs, the  hard  way –

 MRS. L

 

The weather was horrid that October day, completely in keeping with Mrs. L’s mood. That October she became single again. No, it wasn’t a divorce. It was the death of Mr. L.

It was four in the afternoon. The rain was not heavy yet, but it was drizzling persistently. Another awful day. She was ignoring the people who came to the funeral, and to her, the graveyard seemed very quiet, giving Mrs. L what she needed so badly those last couple of years: some peace. She was standing beside the grave surrounded by a handful of relatives and “friends” who suddenly became “close” to her. After the funeral ended, Mrs. L wanted to be alone at her husband’s grave.

She stood there with a white rose in her hand and stared at the tombstone through her sun glasses. “J.S.L. 1961 – 2008” was the inscription on the elegant looking tombstone. 

“Hope you like the tombstone. It’s good you didn’t choose it yourself. You never had any taste; you would have only embarrassed yourself in front of all these people. I don’t know what to tell you without sounding too honest (you’ve always hated honesty, that is why you’re dead now). If you had only listened to your doctor when he honestly told you that you were a fat pig and that you would die of a heart attack if you didn’t lose weight and stop drinking…) Well, you know what? I don’t care if you don’t like the truth. I am finally free to speak the truth. It couldn’t have turned out better. You almost killed me, you son of a bitch. You married me only because I was pretty and twenty years younger than you. You didn’t care about anything else. You never appreciated what I could give you, you disgusting bastard. Whenever you were home you tortured me for fun. When I begged you to let me go to a therapist (to help me go through the hell YOU had created so that I could be a better wife to YOU), you mocked me. It never occurred to you to fix what you had broken. Now you are dead… And I have yet to find out if I am still alive… I’m going home now. You son of a bitch.”

She walked to the car with strong steps. She decided to maintain that appearance of strength and determination at any cost, as long as she could walk. At least it helped her look dignified, if nothing else.

•••

February brought particularly traumatic memories. It was on a February night that she had first been thrown out of the house in the cold. Even though these memories did not lead to strong emotions anymore, this February evening, Mrs. L was feeling uncomfortable.

After a cold, mildly boring February afternoon, she decided to read a bit and then go to bed early. However, she could not calm down. Memories of cold nights spent in the freezing car kept returning, as did the image of her husband screaming “Get the hell out!” hitting and kicking her out through the front door.

She was in bed for hours, unable to sleep, upset. She was getting overwhelmed by a wave of destructive energy that she could not fight despite hours of struggle. Impulsively, she made her way to the cabinet in which she kept medications and without thinking swallowed a handful of sleeping pills. It was only when she returned to bed that she realized what she had done, but it was too late to call anyone. She was too embarrassed to call Mr. D at this hour and tell him what she had done (because only a weak person would do something like that and Mr. D had no sympathy for the weak). She did not want to disappoint him. But if she were to die of an overdose, he would certainly be disappointed. She had to call someone. The ambulance? A taxi? She was already feeling like she was shutting down. With heaviness in her hands, she grabbed her cell phone and called that “kid”. If anyone was capable of immediately running to her rescue, it was him. She managed to drag herself to the front door and unlock it. The kid appeared within minutes, inexplicably quickly (or it only seemed that way to her). He carried her to bed and shook her, trying to wake her up:

“What did you do?!”

Then he saw the empty bottle of sedatives beside the bed, and then another, slightly different bottle, empty as well. He was seized by panic, but managed to pull himself together and call the ambulance. He told them to come immediately and asked what he could do to help her in the meantime. He did exactly as they told him. In that horrific situation, while he was saving her life, he felt pleased with the fact that he was needed and useful.

She stared at him helplessly, and he was overcome with a feeling he had never experienced before. What he was feeling was hope that her stone heart could become a little softer and warmer. With nearly no strength, she whispered:

“Hey kid…”

“Yes?” he responded with tearful eyes.

“Get the hell out. I want to die alone.”