My therapist is on vacation now. When he gets back, I’ll start to see him on a bi-monthly instead of weekly basis. At first he suggested that we slow down only once I get a handle on my anxiety, but when I explained that the sessions were putting me in a negative cash-flow scenario, he understood and agreed¹.

• My depression is gone. Most likely, it was a side effect of my anxiety, or generalized anxiety disorder, which is mostly gone now.
  • The root of this is from my habit of predicting negative outcomes and asking too many “what ifs”, which I’m still learning to control.
• There’s this idea of learned helplessness that I struggle with. The bigger issue is that when I feel helpless, I get depressed as a result, about things out of my control such as the weather.
  • I love how the practical side of psychology falls in line with Taoism. In this case, I think of verse 29 of the Tao Te Ching:

    Allow your life to unfold naturally
    Know that it too is a vessel of perfection
    Just as you breathe in and out
    Sometimes you’re ahead and other times behind
    Sometimes you’re strong and other times weak
    Sometimes you’re with people and other times alone
    To the Sage all of life is a movement toward perfection

• One issue I had a hard time understanding was my belief that attempting something is a waste of time if I don’t succeed. I suppose that it seems rather silly now that I think about it (such as avoiding getting in a relationship just for the fact that one may get hurt), but I spent an entire session on this subject alone. It’s a problem because I give up on certain things before I try, and lose important opportunities as a result.
• I’m starting to become more aware of my automatic thought patterns. I’d automatically avoid certain situations because they would give me anxiety, or predict how other people would react based on past experiences, without even realizing it. This is wrong.
• I was a little skeptical about the usefulness of thought records at first, but now that I’ve finished about a half-dozen, I notice a change in my thought process. Every time I get flustered, I think in my head of what I’ll write down later (simply because I don’t have time to write it in the moment) and just doing this helps a great deal.
• My therapist is a fan of Chappelle’s Show (which is generally considered to be a low-class and crude form of humour), because it breaks social barriers by making fun of stereotypes, thereby robbing them of their significance. This makes him the coolest middle-aged white guy ever, and makes me want to smoke a spliff with him.
  • He also calls weed, “grass”, which is cute.

1. We’re both baffled by the fact that the sessions aren’t covered by OHIP, whereas physical health problems are. [↑]

It’s a full seven days between sessions, and at this point, my pschologist is just starting to know me. In between, I can never stop reflecting. I’ve always believed that I know myself well, but these sessions are probing ideas and memories I haven’t thought of in a while, and opening up completely new areas of reflection.

And while I could write for days about these thoughts and epiphanies, I simply don’t have the time, so I figured I’d briefly touch on them in point form.

• I need to respect my psychologist in order to accept help from him. i.e. If he was a Freudian and I was a Jungian, I wouldn’t be able to agree with any of his methods.
• I get very anxious when I’m in his office. This is because I don’t like to admit to myself that something’s wrong with me, but when I’m in there, it’s a very tangible reminder that I have mental problems.
• I’m very conflicted on several issues.
  • I don’t want to lose my emotions because I need to suffer to create. Yet the emotions are bad enough that I don’t want to have them anymore (or have them in moderation at least).
  • I want to love and be in a relationship, and at the same time I cling to being single because I’m scared of being hurt (in addition to the fact that the freedom is intoxicating). I do this by pushing others away from me or cutting them off.
    • This stems from two significant childhood memories, where I felt betrayed in friendship, as well as my relationship with my parents.
  • I want to be settled and have some stability (in terms of schedule, relationships, finances etc.), but the struggle to be settled is what makes me grow and be stronger.
  • Many of these issues can only be resolved from decisions I should make. (i.e. No one else can make the decision for me)
  • Turning to Taoism, which is very paradoxical in itself, has only helped so much.
• Without my creativity, or my desire to express myself, I’m nothing.
• I don’t want to “blame” my parents for confidence problems or perfectionist tendencies, but I’m slowly starting to find out that they’ve affected me even more than I thought before.
• As a hedonist, my greatest fear is losing my joie de vivre. If this happened (and it has once), I would consider killing myself. This is because the joys of life balance out all the bad and makes it worth living.
• I’m dependent on other people for happiness. I don’t see my friends often enough for me to be satisfied, and it’s a simple fact of life. They all have significant others, and I’m the only one left single. I don’t blame them for not spending enough time with me, but it makes me very sad.

Heaven is ancient
Earth is long-lasting
Why is this so
    Because they have no claims of life
By having no claims of life
    they cannot be claimed by death

The Sage puts his own views behind
    so ends up ahead
He stays a witness to life
    so he endures
What could he grab for
    that he does not already have?
What could he do for himself
    that the universe itself has not already done?

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching

Yesterday, I picked up a copy of the Tao Te Ching, translated by Jonathan Star. I found out about the Tao Te Ching a few days ago, and on perusing through a few verses I was immediately drawn to the ideas of balance and existence. It’s almost as if I’ve already been living by the teachings of the manuscript, without ever having actually seen or read the text. My own personal lifetime goals are extremely similar to what Lao Tzu held as the proper way of life. This could possibly be the most significant finding in my life, although that would depend on how I accept these teachings.

One of the fundamental problems of translating the Tao Te Ching is the fact that Lao Tzu was a very cryptic writer, so the many meanings that a Chinese symbol can have creates a need for interpretation. I searched through Chapters for a suitable translation by reading the different interpretations of the same verse. I was surprised to see how differently each translator sees the same set of Chinese characters. I find that an appropriate translation generally requires assent with the worldview of the translator. The book by Jonathan Star has his own translation, which I find to be nice and clear, but also a verbatim translation so that one can interpret the manuscript in their own way. Jonathan Star also has his own commentary on the first verse, which I’m able to consult if I want a second opinion (or a third opinion, as he draws on the translations of others in his commentary as well).

Why do I feel the need to write again so soon? Why can’t I just live one more day without having to tell my thoughts to something, anything that will accept without judgment? Sometimes I wish that I couldn’t write for months.

I think I passed my DNA Computing and Quantum Computing test today. It turns out that I was missing about 1/4 of the notes, so I really had to do some last minute studying. The prof made it fairly easy though, which I was glad to see.

I stumbled across some Taoist teachings today, and I was intrigued by what I read. I think it’s something that I’ll have to research more, along with my Buddhist beliefs and Confucianism.

Women are quite able to make friends with a man; but to preserve such a friendship — that no doubt requires the assistance of a slight physical antipathy.

—Nietzsche

When I first read this, I wasn’t too sure about the validity of it, or perhaps even the validity pertaining to myself. In the last month, however, it seems to be so true that any consideration of the possibility to the contrary would be ridiculous.

Today, someone told me that ever since she first met me, she thought I was Korean. It was pretty surprizing, since this girl was Chinese herself. It’s the first time I’d ever been mistaken for Korean, although people often confuse my last name as being Vietnamese. Do we really all look the same? Well, since even I failed the test, I suppose it’s true.