If we were walking down the street, and I was cracking jokes while blood poured out of my side, you might say, “Luke, these jokes are all well and good, but I think you should go to the hospital.”
People with unstaunched psychic wounds tend to be obsessed with distracting themselves from their psychic wounds with things like attention seeking, drugs, alcohol, porn, and various other forms of excitement. Anything but seek help for a problem out of their control.
I wear people down with my incessant desire to crack jokes. So why do I keep acting against my best interests?
It’s painful to see my friends all go to a gathering where I am not invited. That stung in second grade (my friend’s mom had to go to bat for me to force Gavin Brown’s dad to allow me to attend this party). It stings now. And I brought all this misery on myself. I carelessly say things on a regular basis that shock, offend and wound people. And most of the time, I am not aware of what I am doing. I’m a ticking time bomb.
I had a therapist who taught me that offending people means hurting people. Until she got through to me, I always thought that when I offended people, that just showed how weak they were (by contrast with how strong I am).
I’ve gone through my life needlessly hurting people with things I say. It has done me some modest good to try to mind my tongue but my attention-seeking weirdness inevitably wins out against my best interests (let alone the interests of those around me). It has done me more good to seek help for my character defect of lack of consideration (for myself and for others), but my my attention-seeking weirdness still wins out against my best interests all too often.
Until I staunch my psychic wounds so that I feel at ease with myself and the world, I inevitably act against my best interests. These are some of the practices that I find calm me down for a few minutes:
* Meditation.
* Helping others moderately and thoughtfully.
* Feeling gratitude.
* Listening to talks and reading things that address these topics.
* Alexander Technique
But none of these practices cure me. The best I can do is to stay emotionally sober an hour at a time.
