The Ring's True Worth

We had been talking about the need for recognition and affirmation from others, and Jorge had been explaining Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of necessities.

We all need the respect and esteem of those around us to be able to create our own self-esteem.  Around that time, I was complaining because my parents never really accepted me, because my friends didn't really like me, and because my efforts at work went without recognition.

- There's an old story - said The Fat Man as he handed me some maté leaves and a cup of steaming water - about a young man who went to see an old wise man for help.  His problem reminds me of yours.

I'm here, sir, because I feel so small that I have no desire to do anything.  They tell me I'm useless, that I don't do anything well, and that I'm lazy and stupid.  How can I improve myself? What can I do to get better?

Without looking at him, the wise man said: 

- I'm very sorry, young man.  I can't help you, I must solve a problem of my own first.  Maybe then...

- And after a long pause he added - If you'd like to help me, I could solve my problem more quickly and then... maybe I can help you.

- Yyy ... yes, sir. - he murmured, feeling once again degraded, his needs subordinated to those of the wise man.

- Good, then - the wise man replied.  He removed a ring from the pinkie finger of his left hand, and passing it to the young man he said - Take that horse outside and ride to the town markets.  I need to sell this ring in order to pay a debt I owe.  It's very important that you get the best possible price, absolutely nothing less than one gold coin.  Go and come back with the money as soon as you can.

The young man took the ring and went.  As soon as he reached the markets, he started showing the ring to the merchants.  They all seemed interested until he told them the price he wanted.

When he mentioned the gold coin, some laughed, others gave him strange looks.  Only one old man was kind enough to explain to him that one gold coin was too much for the ring.  He offered him him a silver coin and a jar full of copper, but the young man rejected the offer following the instructions given to him not to accept less than one gold coin.

Having made more than 100 offers, having been rejected by every merchant in the market, he got on his horse and rode back.

He wanted desperately to have a gold coin to give to the wise man, so that the wise man could help him and advise him.

He entered the house.

- Sir -he said - I'm sorry.  You asked me to do something impossible.  Maybe I could have gotten two or three silver coins for that ring, but I just can't trick any body into giving me more than its worth.

- The thing that you have just said is very important my young friend. - he replied with a smile - First, we've got to know the true value of the ring!  Get back on that horse and go to see the jewelry maker.  Who could possibly know better than he?  Tell him that you'd like to sell the ring and ask him how much he'll give you for it.  But no matter what he offers you -- do not sell the ring.  Bring it back here.

The young man got on his horse and set off.

By candlelight, the jewelry maker inspected the ring.  He used a magnifying glass and weighed it on a scale, and after a moment he said:

Tell the old man that if he needs to sell it immediately, I can't give him more than 58 gold coins.  Got it, sprout?

- 58 gold coins?  he said in astonishment.

- Yeah. - If he has more time, he can probably find a buyer at 70 coins. Otherwise...

The young man took the ring and got up and left.  He was so excited that he galloped the horse all the way back.  

- Sit down. - said the wise man, as his young page burst through the door in excitement.  

He listened to the young man's story, and then said  

- You are just like this ring: a unique and valuable jewel.  The only person who can understand your true value is an expert.  Why do you go around expecting that anyone you meet on the street knows your true value.  

And with this, he put the ring back on the pinkie finger of his left hand. 

The Boomerang Brick

That day I was irked. I was in a bad mood and everything was bothering me. My attitude in the office was whiny and unproductive. I hated everything I was doing and everything I possessed. But above all, I hated myself. Just like in a story by Papini, which Jorge read to me, that day I couldn't stand 'to be me'.

-I'm an idiot - I said (talking to myself) - A complete imbecile... I think I despise myself.

- You despise half of the population of this office. The other half is going to tell you a story.

There once was a man who traveled the world with a brick in his hand. He had decided that every time someone infuriated him, he would clobber them with the brick. It was primitive, but effective, wouldn't you say?

He came across a loudmouth who started saying all kinds of bad things to him. So he followed his plan and threw the brick at him.

I can't remember if it reached or not. Afterwards though, he found that going to pick it up was a real inconvenience. So, he decided to improve his 'Brick-Based Self-Preservation System' as he called it. He tied a 3 foot rope to the brick. That way the brick would never get too far away. He soon discovered that the new system had its own flaws. To begin with, his target had to be less than 3 feet away. But also, the string would get tangled up and caught on things.

So he invented the 'BBSPS 3.0'. The protagonist was still the brick, but instead of a rope it had springs. Now, he supposed, he could throw the brick over and over and it would come back on its own.

So he set out, and as soon as someone mistreated him, he threw the brick. He missed the target. The brick bounced back and hit him right in the head.

He tried again, but he misjudged the distance, and the brick came back and clobbered him a second time.

The third time, it was because his timing was off.

The fourth time was different. After deciding to clobber his victim, he tried to protect her from his aggression, and in this attempt the brick once again hit him in the head.

All of this was making a huge bump...

He never understood why the brick wouldn't hit anybody else but him;

either he had suffered too many blows to the head, or his character had undergone some kind of mutation.

Every brick that he threw went to him.

This mechanism is called retroflection: it protects others from our own aggression. Before our angry, hostile energy gets out, a barrier that we ourselves put in place stops it. The barrier doesn't absorb the impact, it reflects. All of that anger, annoyance, and aggression, comes back at us through real acts of self-destruction (self-inflicted wounds, overeating, drug-abuse, excessive risk-taking) and in other cases through emotions that mask those feelings (depression, guilt, somatization).

In all likelihood an ideal human, 'enlightened', brilliant, and stable, would never get angry. That would be really helpful; however, once we feel that anger, annoyance, or aggression, the only way to free ourselves of it is by purging it through actions. Ironically, the only thing that we accomplish through this, sometimes sooner, sometimes later, is to become angry at ourselves.

The Breast or the Milk

Jorge didn´t tell stories in every session, but somehow I vividly remember almost every story that he told me over our year and a half of therapy. Maybe he was right that this was the best way to learn a body of knowledge.

I remember the day when I told him that I was feeling overly dependant. I told him that, despite the fact that it bothered me, I couldn´t stop thinking about what he told me. I began to suspect that the admiration and love that I was feeling toward him were making me overly dependent on his views and too attached to the therapy.

You are hungry for knowledge
hungry to grow
hungry for experience
hungry to fly. . .
It could be that today
I am the breast
that gives the milk
that satisfies your hunger. . .
I think it´s fantastic that today
you want that breast.
But don´t forget:
It´s not the breast that satisfies your hunger
It´s the milk!

Common Factor

The first time I went to Jorge's office, I knew that I wasn't going to see a conventional psychotherapist. Claudia, who recommended him to me, warned that 'The Fat Man' as she called him, was "a little bit special."

I was already fed up with conventional therapy and above all with boring myself for months and months on the couch of some psychoanalyst. So, I called and scheduled an appointment.

My first impression exceeded all expectations. It was a warm November afternoon. I arrived five minutes early and waited in the foyer until the exact time.

At 4:30 on the dot I rang the door bell. The intercom buzzed and I pushed the door and ascended to the ninth floor.

I waited in the hallway.

I waited.

And waited.

And when I grew tired of waiting, I rang the doorbell of the apartment.

The man who opened the door for me was the type who at first sight seems like he's dressed for a picnic. He was wearing jeans and tennis shoes, and an obnoxiuos orange t-shirt.

-Hello -he said. His smile, I must confess, calmed me.

-Hello -I responded. -I'm Damian.

-Yes, of course. What happened to you? What took you so long to get up here? Did you get lost?

-No, it's not that I was delayed. I didn't want to ring the bell, so as not to bother you, in case you were attending to someone.

-"So as not to be a bother" -he repeated, worriedly shaking his head. And speaking as though he were making the logical conclusion, he continued,

This is how things must go for you...

I was flabbergasted.

It was the second sentence he had spoken to me, and without a doubt, what he was saying was true but...

That son of a bitch!

The place where Jorge attended to his patients, which I couldn't dare to call an 'office', was just like him: informal, disorganized, messy, warm, colorful, surprising and, to be honest, a little dirty. We sat in two armchairs facing eachother, and while I told him things he drank mate. Yes. He drank mate during our session!

He offered me one:

-Fine -I told him.

-Fine what?

-Fine, a mate...

-I don't understand.

-That I'm going to to accept a mate from you.

Jorge bowed to me comically and said:

-Thank you your majesty, for accepting a mate from me. Why don't you just tell me if you want a mate or not, instead of doing me favors?

This guy was going to drive me crazy.

Yes! -I said.

And so, indeed, he brought me a mate.

I decided to stay a little while longer.

Among a thousand other things. I told him that something must be wrong inside of me because I was having difficulties in my relationships.

Jorge asked me how I knew that it was my problem.

I replied that I was having difficulties at home with my father, my mother, my brother, and my partner... and that, inasmuch, obviously the problem must be me. Then for the first time Jorge told me 'something'.

In time, I would learn that The Fat Man liked fables, analogies, stories, intelligent sayings, and excellent metaphors. According to him the only way to understand something without living through it is having a clear internal symbolic representation of what happened.

-A fable, a story or an anecdote -Jorge claimed -could be remembered one hundred times more easily than a thousand theoretical explanations, psychoanalytical interpretations or formal expositions.

That day, Jorge told me that there could be something out of whack inside of me, but he added that my deduction was a dangerous one because my self-blaming conclusion was not supported by facts that confirmed it. Then he told me one of those stories using the first person, for which you could never determine whether they were part of his life or his fantasy.

My grandfather was a terrible drunk.

His favorite thing to drink was Turkish Anisette.

He drank Anisette and added water, to take the edge off,

but it got him drunk just the same.

So he drank whisky with water, and he got drunk.

And he drank wine with water, and he got drunk.

Until one day he decided to cure himself

and he quit... the water!

The Elephant in Chains

The Elephant in Chains

-I can't - I told him - I can't!

- Are you sure? - he asked me

- Yes, I would like nothing more than to be able to sit down face-to-face and tell her how I feel. But I know I can't.

The Fat Man sat himself down like a buddha in one of the horrible blue armchairs in his office. He smiled, he looked me in the eyes and, lowering his voice as he did every time he wanted to be listened to attentively, he said:

- Let me tell you a story...

And without waiting for my approval, Jorge began.

When I was small, I used to love circuses, and what I liked best about them were the animals. The elephant in particular caught my attention, and as I later found out, other children liked the elephant too. During the performance, this enormous beast would nobly display its tremendous weight, size, and strength... But after its performance, and until just before it went out on stage, the elephant was always tied down with a chain to a little stake in the ground that held one of its feet.

The stake however was just a minuscule piece of wood, hardly a couple of centimeters long. And although it was a strong thick chain, it seemed obvious to me that an animal capable of tearing a tree from its roots, could easily free itself from that stake and flee.

This mystery continued to puzzle me. What held it there? Why didn't it escape? When I was 5 or 6, I still trusted the explanations given by grownups. So, I asked my teacher, my father, and my uncle about the mystery of the elephant. One of them explained that the elephant didn't escape because it had been mastered.

So I asked the obvious question: " If it's been mastered, why do they keep it in chains?"

I don't remember having received a coherent answer. With time I forgot about the mystery of the elephant, I only remembered when I found others who had asked themselves the same question at some time.

Years later, I discovered that , to my luck, someone had been sufficiently wise to come up with the answer:

The circus elephant does not escape because it has been attached to a stake just like this one since it was very, very small.

I closed my eyes and imagined a defenseless baby elephant fastened to the stake. I am sure that in that moment, the little guy pushed and pulled and tired himself out trying to get himself free. And, regardless of his efforts, he couldn't do it, because the stake was too strong for him.

I imagined him tuckering himself out and falling asleep and the next day trying again, and the next day, and the next. Until one day, a terrible day in his history, the animal accepted its futility and resigned itself to its fate.

That enormous powerful elephant that you see in the circus does not escape because, unfortunate thing, he thinks he can't.

He has that memory etched into his mind: the futility that he felt shortly after he was born.

And the worst part is that he has never returned to seriously question that memory.

Never again did he return to test his own strength...

It's like that Damian. We are all a little bit like the circus elephant: we move through the world attached to hundreds of stakes that wrest from us our freedoms.

We live thinking "we can't", making mountains of things simply because once, a long time ago, when we were small, we tried to do something and couldn't.

We do the same thing to ourselves that the elephant did, we etch into our minds this message: "I can't - I can't and I will never try."

We grow up carrying this message that we impose on ourselves, because of which we never return to try to free ourselves from the stake.

When, every so often, we feel the shackles and jangle the chains, we look out of the corners of our eyes at the stake and think

I can't and I never will.

Jorge paused for a long time. Then he came closer, he sat down on the floor in front of me and continued:

- That's what is happening to you Damian. You go on living conditioned by the memory of a Damian, who no longer exists, who couldn't do it.

Your only way of knowing if you can do it is to try again, putting your whole heart into it... Your whole heart!