I felt inclined to scold myself for drifting this morning from bed to my first appointment without any coffee or solid time spent in my notes.
My clients deserve me at my best, especially now.
Yet my first appointment being with Ray took some of the pressure off, considering the progress my Method has brought about already in shoring up his fanciful tendencies in order to access hidden feelings and actual values.
For example, Ray has felt ostracized, weird, disliked, and forced to lie to those closest to him seemingly from fear of how they might judge his true point of view.
As for values, I would be surprised to hear him relate a vision which could be spun somehow to discredit the importance of honesty, equality, and free connections between individuals in place of lavish productions and costly commercials.
I also find it extremely fortunate how Ray’s tales of city slaves connect so naturally with my understanding of Normals in society; I predict such parallels will make the approach of his Sticking or Breaking Point far easier for both of us to detect.
I must now simply work to stay ahead of the conversation by continuing to pinpoint his implications, matching them to the trends and sequences my Method has already been making clear to me for years.
Note the way I work with Ray on his level, using his terms, just as I would almost always address each of a dissociating client’s personalities individually in turn.
It was the cool, un-panicked Ray seated before me this morning.
ME:
“Okay, so last time you told me about a lie you said you see affecting everyone in the city.
“I wonder, then: What’s the solution?
“How could the lie you see be shown for what it really is?”
Ray’s calm eyes appeared unusually tired, though I found it far odder to see the wheels behind them seem to turn.
I recalled the speed at which he normally responds.
RAY:
“Well, if a person lies because they’re, y’know, really trying to lie to someone . . . I guess that would be different. I think those kinds of more deliberate lies come from a . . . another place. Or maybe lies are all the same, I don’t know. It’s just, like, The Lie I’m talking about is so hard to see in the fog because it comes from fear, not from wanting to . . . to deceive anyone. But lies from fear . . . I mean, we don’t even know we’re lying when we tell them. It’s just, for whatever reason, we’re afraid of . . . afraid of the truth. Anyway, that’s how it is with The Lie I see, the one hidden there in the fog.”
ME:
“So, again, the lie we’re talking about is that Normals . . . I mean, normal people . . . are not shown in the media to be important, correct?
“When really everyone should be seen as equally worthwhile?
“And that lie enslaves most people because of fear . . . needless fear, though . . . fear of there not being enough for everyone to get by unless some are sacrificed?”
Ray hesitated again, his face showing more unprecedented signs of real consideration before he offered his slow response.
RAY:
“Yes, mostly.”
It was like receiving confirmation that I had successfully solved an equation after having learned someone’s brand new system of made-up signs, terms, and rules.
I decided to speed up a little.
As to my recent conclusions on efficiency: Keeping a conversation with an Outlier moving at a healthy pace is like flipping a pancake every now and then to avoid an unnecessary stick-and-burn.
ME:
“You know, I deal a lot with individuals who lie to themselves without realizing; that’s kind of my specialty.
“But why do you think those lies prompted by fear are the hardest for you to see—I mean lies people tell when they’re really afraid of some truth?”
Ray’s eyes narrowed to a squint before returning to their tranquil, motionless state.
After that, I did not discern any obvious facial cues—his expression seemed freshly blank.
RAY:
“I could probably give more examples, I guess. But they might not make any sense if I…”
ME:
“No, go ahead.”
RAY:
“Alright. Well, I mentioned how I also see Punishment, right? When I was talking about Grace…? Oh, no, I didn’t, huh? I was going to, but…
“Okay, so… So, in The City, whenever I spend any time at all outside . . . it could be day or night . . . it’s like I always see Crime sitting out there on the streets, waiting. And Crime is . . . well, Crime is really big and . . . and fat . . . sometimes prowling around, watching, but mostly just holding still in different open places, like, waiting to see some signal or whatever, if that makes sense. And you know how Advertising shows all the rulers all the time, everywhere . . . on every screen? Yeah, sometimes it shows Punishment as well. But the weird thing I never got was Punishment has all these obvious special effects added to make it this huge, horrible monster everyone’s supposed to be real scared of. It just looks so fake, and… But, yeah, in the same way everyone sees those big art productions and ends up thinking they’re supposed to love their place in The City, they’re also fully convinced to want to avoid Advertising’s version of Punishment . . . y’know, at all costs.”
I tried not to roll my eyes.
The addition of yet another entity cluster—these ones legal—will certainly not make Ray’s fantasies any easier to decipher.
ME:
“Tell me how crime and punishment tie to the lie you see, and to fear.”
RAY:
“The fear of lack, and also fear of Punishment… I mean, it’s all New Cannibalism. It’s all the same Lie. Since Advertising makes it like being a ruler in The City means you think you never have to be afraid of lack, I see Crime sitting out there with this sly look on its face, just waiting for anyone’s fear of lack to win out over their fear of Punishment. That’s all. Together, Crime and Advertising’s version of Punishment . . . they both look like bullies . . . like bossy, grinning sharks that just want to keep setting their same trap to trick and catch as many fearful people as they can. But when I see someone’s fear of lack grow past their fear of pretend Punishment…
“Well, that’s where we come to Justice. I do see Justice also. But in The City, Justice gets completely crowded out by the other two. And the way Justice looks . . . it’s just like Grace and Friendship. I mean, Justice has that same expression on its face as when I see Grace peering off at those pour lost souls kept away by the frantic pressing crowd. And it’s because it’s the same Lie, see? Does that make any sense?”
ME:
“Maybe just spell out the actual lie a little more.”
RAY:
“It’s New Cannibalism. All of it. The Lie I see . . . the way it shimmers against the gray, blank tone of the fog . . . I think those shimmers are, like, tinges of hopelessness, because… I mean, if everyone didn’t think New Cannibalism was the only way to be, that whole game Crime plays with Advertising’s false form of Punishment would get broken down right away and thrown to the ground. Then Punishment . . . real Punishment . . . would be swept right up under Justice, where it… Okay, if everyone in The City wasn’t so afraid of lack, the only reason anyone would turn to Crime would be—”
Ray stopped.
He did not trail off or appear to be thinking as before.
His sentence simply ended, seemingly prematurely.
His face bore the look of one who had just recognized the most exquisite ghost ever seen.
In fact, I had the strangest sense he was remembering Caylee in that moment, though I obviously would have had no reason to think so.
ME:
“Why would they turn to crime then?”
RAY:
“Well… I mean, to see how Punishment actually looks when it’s not something Advertising makes into this monster to keep everyone… It’s just another massive irony. It’s…
“Sorry, then you’d see Punishment partner with Justice. And that would only be to keep everyone safe from whoever would still go to Crime. Because, well, turning to Crime then would be for totally unreasonable…
“Okay, if there was no fear of lack—
“No, I really can’t go too far into how much things will have to change when that happens . . . or for that to happen. I’ll just say the tension has to move from where it is now . . . between fear of a lack that’s not even real, and fear of a blown-up caricature of Punishment . . . to more just fear of losing your place in a new City where everyone’s free to do whatever matters most to them. And with no needless fears, in a place where only all you’re known to be allows you to take part—
“Sorry, I think I’ve said too much. It would take hours to go into…”
I waited a moment, though Ray said no more.
Tapping at my notes and fighting a yawn as I dutifully pondered this latest riddle-laden yarn, I decided to test a connection I was not yet sure of—a possible tie between Ray’s installment today and a pattern my Method has consistently confirmed.
ME:
“So, back to now: If you say there’s no justice in society at present, what is your impression of the current judicial system—I mean, the court system.”
RAY:
“It’s sort of like no trial in The City can be solved with things like verdicts anymore. Not really. Not when people go to Crime as soon as their fear of lack gets to be more than their fear of what Advertising makes of Punishment.”
As stated before, I see the method employed by lawyers as being fundamentally the opposite of my Method.
To me, a client’s words matter little; I let connections occur beneath the words until those connections cannot be ignored but rise as if on their own to sprout unmistakably, forcing the client to either accept a fuller perspective or run from it.
A lawyer, on the other hand, is hired to construct a particular narrative from any words uttered.
I could see the legal system as “unjust,” as Ray seems to be saying, since obviously crimes are committed for specific reasons: fear of lack, chemical imbalances, anger, etc.
And those reasons—along with larger societal implications—are exactly what gets forcibly ignored when lawyers go to work to play their game.
Thus, I might take steps in the direction of the potential future Ray seemed to resist expounding upon.
However, I would not go so far as to conclude that to punish crime is always unjust so long as the criminal has some mappable (even compelling) reason to have turned to crime in the first place.
It occurred to me that for Ray to be expressing perceptions close to my own findings—though overly simplistic, of course, in that his views are not backed by the extensive data I am privy to—he may be employing or adhering to something akin to an instinctual, weaker, far less precise counterpart to my Method.
Regardless of their source or meaning, such connections between my work and this Outlier’s flawed, masked worldview will turn out to be, as I have said, invaluable.
ME:
“But those who steal or murder should be punished, no . . . to dissuade future crimes?”
Ray smiled, which I found off-putting (if not outright insulting).
RAY:
“It’s funny. I mean, the most powerful lies are really kind of like innocent graspings at truth. And New Cannibalism makes everyone afraid of anything that’s different or new, anyway, so…”
He paused, the eerie smile holding in a stretch from ear to ear beneath still, dead eyes.
ME:
“Go on.
“What’s funny about that to you?”
RAY:
“Well, I just see everything has a way of . . . of making itself right, y’know? And whatever causes those fears and lying gets turned upside down and shaken until… It’s almost like it happens on its own. But with how things are now, that turning and shaking can’t be ignored or forgotten after. That’s the difference.”
Ray peered over at my iun near the side of my desk.
RAY:
“That’s what makes me feel better, I think.”
ME:
“Could you speak more to that?
“Help me understand.”
I don't know anything 