The Why Behind the What
My policy, in general, when it comes to what can only be described as self destructive tendencies, is to notice the actions and simply do my level best to stop doing them. I don't need to know why I do them; it's more important to cease the activity and press forth.
This isn't to say that the why isn't an essential piece of the puzzle but that it isn't the most crucial piece.
Finding the why is the marketing campaign of therapy in the modern world.
I remember a time when, if you had a problem, you didn’t “talk it out.” You grabbed a shot of whiskey, took a walk around the block, or maybe you punched the nearest wall to feel something other than whatever had been gnawing at your insides. People handled their problems the old-fashioned way: quietly, or not at all. It wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.
Nowadays, though, it’s all about therapy. It’s trendy, like kale or yoga, except it’s not just rich suburbanites showing off their new-age habits—everybody’s in on it. Friends, neighbors, that guy you used to see yelling at pigeons in the park—they’ve all got a therapist now. Everyone’s sitting on some leather couch, blathering on about their feelings to some professional who probably nods a lot, says things like “How does that make you feel?” and then sends them a bill that could pay for a weekend in Vegas.
If a coke addict with a pair of very intelligent looking doctor glasses posited to you that he had a cure for the anxiety of the ills of humanity, you might have the same reaction as the medical professional who created an anxiety reducing machine for women suffering from feminine hysteria that was a wooden version of one of the dildo machines. Sigmund, in between eight balls, was a crackpot but he offered people a solution wherein they could find internal blame for their shitty behavior and suddenly have an excuse for why they cheat on their spouses or why they treat waiters like crap. Talk about it ad nauseum.
It’s a whole industry, this talking cure. Big business. I see therapists everywhere now—on TV, in columns, and on the bookshelves at the local bookstore, right between the cookbooks and self-help nonsense. There’s an army of these headshrinkers, and they’ve convinced America that the only way to fix what ails you is to drag all your problems out into the open and analyze them under a microscope.
Back in the old days, if you wanted advice, you got it from someone who’d lived a little—like the grizzled bartender who’d been around the block, or the retired butcher sitting on the stoop, puffing on a cigar. You didn’t pay some degree-holding stranger to tell you what you already knew.
I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with asking for help when you need it. The world’s falling apart. Everyone’s worried about something: money, jobs, politics, climate change, the neighbor’s dog that won’t stop barking. Life is a minefield of worries, and it’s blowing up in people’s faces left and right. So yeah, some people need to let off steam. But what’s happened is we’ve gone from “talking about it” being a thing you do when you hit rock bottom to it being the solution for every inconvenience.
Most of what’s being unloaded in therapy today wouldn’t even have been considered a problem 50 years ago. Feeling anxious? Welcome to adulthood, kid. Mad about something someone said? That’s called living in a world with other people. I’m not unsympathetic, but I also don’t think we need a therapist to tell us that the reason we’re stressed out all the time is because life is hard.
But it’s become part of the culture now. You can’t open a magazine without reading about someone’s “mental health journey.” People talk about therapy like it’s a gym membership—“Oh, I see my therapist on Wednesdays, and we’ve been working on my anger issues.” They talk about their therapists like they’re gurus, these wise sages who unlock the mysteries of their clients’ souls. Back in the day, you didn’t even admit you were going to therapy. Now, if you’re notseeing a therapist, people think something’s wrong with you.
The way I see it, part of the problem is this new obsession with being “happy” all the time. People have somehow gotten it into their heads that if they’re not perpetually walking around with a smile plastered on their face, something’s wrong. Happiness isn’t a permanent state. It’s a fleeting thing. It comes, it goes. You can’t just chase after it like a dog chasing a Tesla and expect it to stick around. That’s not how life works. But therapy, as it’s been packaged and sold today, feeds this idea that you can get rid of all your bad feelings if you just talk about them enough.
Mom got married a lot when I was a kid. She got divorced a lot, too. Did that affect me? Of course, it did. No shit. Did this upbringing create patterns that tend to fuck up my choices in partners and relationships? Duh. At the root of the result is that when I find myself into a woman, like the dog chasing Musk's folly, I want to catch the car . I want to be chosen. Once I catch the car, I don't fucking know what to do with it because, as a dog, I have no use for a vehicle.
Like an alcoholic, talking about it and why isn't the cure. NOT CHASING THE CAR is the cure. The only cure for alcoholism is to cease drinking alcohol. Yeah, it's fucking hard but it's a choice like refusing to eat entire pizzas in one sitting or stopping yourself every time you think about shoplifting. While it's a bit stupid and reductive, Nancy Reagan had a point. Don't do the thing and the thing doesn't destroy you.
When it comes to the ladies, I just have to be aware of the thing (chasing and wanting to be chosen) and either avoid any sort of romantic feelings altogether (a course of action that embitters me and makes me kind of miserable) or I can be aware of the pattern and when I find myself being sucked back into it, stop doing that specific thing. Good, healthy behavior doesn't come from comprehension; it comes from practice.
The other thing about therapy culture is that it gives people an excuse to dwell on their problems. It’s like everyone’s suddenly got a license to complain—and believe me, they use it. Instead of dealing with life, they want to dissect it, analyze every little thing that goes wrong, as if understanding it will make it go away. Sometimes, there’s nothing to understand. Sometimes, life just stinks, and you’ve got to roll with it.
I’ll tell you something else, too: there’s something suspicious about an industry that depends on your problems to stay in business. Think about it. If everyone suddenly stopped being anxious, depressed, or stressed out, what would happen to the therapy business? It’d go under faster than a lead balloon. That’s a strange incentive structure if you ask me—keeping people just functional enough to keep coming back.
I understand that there are people with real problems who need real help, and therapy can do a lot of good. But what we’ve got now is a culture that treats every little hiccup like it requires professional intervention. People are too quick to run to their therapists when they could just as easily take a deep breath, go for a walk, or pour themselves a drink and let the moment pass. Sometimes, you’ve just got to muscle through it like a head cold or a deep desire to gamble away your savings on a slot nachine. Not every bad day needs a diagnosis.
What we need, if you ask me, is a little more grit and a little less navel-gazing. Therapy has its place, sure, but it shouldn’t replace the old-fashioned methods of dealing with life. Sometimes, a stiff upper lip, a little perspective, and a strong drink are all you really need.
And maybe, if we just stopped talking about our problems so much, we’d find there’s a lot less to talk about.
