doctork/book-chats.txt

jj: Dear Doctor, This is our fourth session and I am still excited and confused, I don't know how to begin. You asked me what I do in between my desperate quests through computer networks for my love NN who has disappeared - we have discussed that enough - and hopeless attempts to go back to the picture stand. In between, I play Tetris. Tetris is a computer game invented by an Alexei Paszitnov, a Russian scientist, and some people say it was his concealed intention to take over the brains of the Western world and paralyze them, and I believe it.  The rules of the game are simple and few. You have to fill a row with objects, different kinds of squares that fall at random to the bottom of the screen. Have you completed a row? It then disappears and credits the player with points, and if not - the cubes pile up, row on row, until you reach the top, and that's the end. But why am I telling you all this? It's also like the question that comes up in writing, how much of it can be filled up with technical details, but I feel this is the interesting part. It's a simple, clean game. I do enjoy solo games and games for couples and I'm crazy about riddles and conundrums, but I've never before been so drawn by other computer games, even when they first appeared and became a general fad. To me quest games always seemed less fascinating than life itself and simulations of aircraft and cars always seemed unreal. I did not like the violent games - I didn't go for Ninjas and Star Wars or even PacMan. This game, Tetris, is so special and how I love to look at the world's order through it and its dynamics. It demands concentration and coordination, gives one a feeling of order, of things falling into their correct places. The player has to plan and make rapid decisions, under the pressure of the time that is set by the game level at which he has opted to begin and this in itself is an interesting point in comparison with manual games, and not just games, with them one never has exclusive control over the speed. And nevertheless, there is such an enormous, genuine feeling that there are no limits to success. The better I am at the game, the longer it lasts and the more points I gain. Only the sky, and that's a double entendre, is the limit. You could say I've become addicted to that game. Because through it I experience all those symptoms usually attributed to an addiction. In free moments or times I free specially, I avidly wrap myself around the computer and go on playing, on and on, until my fingers stiffen and my head spins. And I can't stop, to the point where I'm afraid that even if the wails of a siren were to rend the air, and even if my house were to be shelled, I would still be stuck to the keyboard, quite unable to break away from it. So my honor is split in two, playing the game of masters and servants with itself, sometimes the master orders his slave to stop playing and she, disobedient, carries on doing what she wants, sometimes he will order his handmaid to play on and on and she lowers her tortured gaze and plays unwillingly, the master will always win, and in any event I carry on as though hypnotized. You might think there is also something sexual in fitting in the cubes, with my fingers dancing like the Spanish legs of a fiery Flamenco dancer. Sometimes during the day when I'm busy with more existential things, humdrum matters, I'm already fantasizing and planning and longing for the moment when I can get down to the game, and if anything stops me playing - I am furious, my fingers itch, my pupils race around and my whole body is restless. By day and by night I dream a great deal, of cubes that slowly pile up into all sorts of shapes, marvelously arranged on artistic and pastel colored screens.

doc: JJ, you have already told me so much about the game of Tetris, don't you feel you've gone somewhat overboard?

jj: On the contrary, everything I've told you so far is still restrained and insufficient. You've no idea, Doctor, how many hours a day and how many days and nights a week I spend on the game. A simple calculation of averages, excuse my obsession, of at least three hours a day times 365 days times two years gives at least 2190 hours that are like 273 working days that are considered to be more than a man's working year.

doc: And how many years of life? Doesn't it bore you?

jj: Are you out of your mind? Bore me? Sometimes, when the game has become extremely complex and you have to make a very concentrated effort and the tension is high and everything depends on brief moments to extricate yourself from a crushing end and any wrong or superfluous move is decisive, bringing a losing conclusion, there is nothing in the world more fascinating. As I've told you, ever since NN vanished into thin air, Tetris is the only thing that interests me, I always go back to that simple, beloved game. Doctor, it's not boring, it's terrifying!

doc: Aren't you like those children Kirkegaard observes who, without sor becoming bored, with enormous gravity that verges on faith, play a game for its own sake, without the common and inexplicable urge to go further and further, and even further? So what is so terrifying?

jj: I'm scared because I have no control and there is a feeling of a bluff, something not genuine, and anyway, it's 'not serious'.

doc: Do you mean seriousness as it was defined for you at home? And in all your games, haven't you yet realized that the glory of any act's sanctity and importance does not conflict with the game trait it contains? I would suggest you read the writings of Friedrich Schiller, one of my people's poets and philosophers, who says 'Man plays only when he is a man in the fullest sense of the word, and he is a complete man only when he plays'. Note that the concept of the game is more powerful and elevated than that of gravity because it removes the game from its limitations, while the game certainly can also contain gravity.

jj: And what use is Schiller to me if I'm unable to concentrate on reading or anything else, just play and play or, at most, endlessly detect and delve and plod through electronic networks and computer junctions seeking lost fates.

doc: I have the feeling, JJ, and you yourself hint at it, that you do indeed use the game to satisfy the gambling and challenging instinct, also to fill empty spaces, but mainly to make order. I will quote again, this time Huizinga, a Dutch philosopher who said that the game - is the order. It brings a limited and temporary perfection to an imperfect world and confused life, in that it has a beginning and an end in predetermined places and rules that are in no question and aesthetic values. It is a world of perfect order and as man can detach himself from the normal environment - he shrieks out his freedom.

jj: I don't know, Doctor. Now you're putting me back with the lenient excuses and explanations I usually make to my conscience, that exists in constant guilt. Why don't you just tell me to erase the game from the hard disk and put an end to it?

doc: No, I am not telling you to stop the game, but through it let us try to understand what is going on in your psyche. Tell me, do you see your life, too, as an ongoing game/riddle you have to solve?

jj: Answer in one word - yes. Answer in two words - yes and no. Full answer - I always feel I have to solve and strive and understand, to analyze and only then believe. To play. But in the reality the room for solutions is not final and the number of variables is unlimited. And then I come up against insoluble situations and others that resolve themselves by themselves.

doc: Understand, JJ, our soul is like a labyrinth with rules of its own. Do not be confused if you find that the psyche acts differently when it is alone and alters the rules of its game when we try to touch it. So it can actually happen that just when we are sure we have understood its rules, in the blink of an eye it will all change and disappear and we will have to begin from the beginning. I would say that the riddles and conundrums and games that you find so attractive are the "Minotaur" which is half man and half beast and is in the middle of the mythological, fateful labyrinth, and represents the instincts lurking in the depths of the human psyche. Only someone as courageous as Theseus will twist and turn to attain the center of the dark of his psyche, the middle of the labyrinth and site of the Minotaur, and only then will he be truly capable of liberating himself.

jj: Courage or runaway from reality? I like your mythological images, but what I ask myself is, does my compulsive playing at Tetris really indicate courage and daring, or weakness and evasiveness.

doc: Truly, experiencing obsession can sometimes be a form of depression intended to replace a different emotional expression. You call it flight. Perhaps for you an obsessive route of a return to simple, routine actions represents an attempt to gain confidence by going back to a familiar experience. You told me about your profession, computer systems security. Could it be that you have specialized in protections, walls and fortifications against computer crimes while actually surrounding yourself with some sort of palatial prison of your own, one that cannot be broken into?

jj: That hadn't occurred to me, but you may be sure there is no connection. I came to my profession by chance, or maybe because of my father, or maybe not, but anyway my defenses, if they actually exist... I don't agree. I actually tell you of a crisis and you talk of defenses, as in my work? No, definitely not, there is no connection.

doc: Oho! And what defenses. The most sophisticated of all. If you have already reached the point of getting a treatment, I'm sure you will agree to give them up, just a little. I can be a mirror for you only if you lower those walls that are standing in our way, give this a little thought. In any event, remember that dreams are good material for our work. The dream resembles the game, it too contains a withdrawal from the world and also role changes.

jj: But a dream can turn into a nightmare! Can the game, too?

doc: You are allowed to lose in both a dream and a game, you will always have a genuine life to go back to. You should keep track of the dreams and put them down in writing. Perhaps you could use the NOTEPAD program for this, making your notes in the immediate windows you recommended to me last time. I find it very convenient and efficient. Remember, dreams are our key.

sys: Here the session ends, and resumes after a few days. The next message from JJ was sent via eMail. The messages following it were delivered via online chat.

jj: Doctor, here's the dream you asked for. First I'm on a desert island, I watch the sheep, marbles of all colors shatter the sun's rays into vivid splinters as in my new kaleidoscope. Suddenly I'm wearing a wine colored dress, tight around the hips and full at the skirt. Then I'm picking up all the marbles that are rolling around, all the people here must have been playing with them, it certainly wasn't the sheep, and now they're sitting in twos and threes on the stone benches, chatting, absorbed in each other. I, too, seem to have been one of a pair before this, gravely discussing very prosaic matters, reaching up to put my hat on, it's wine colored, too, it's also got a broad brim, then I notice it isn't my hat at all but belongs to a stranger, I don't remember who, I kneel and pick up all the marbles and gather them into my skirt and clutch them in both hands and go on walking over the fresh spears of grass, hunched over like a clacking goose, I'm not wearing any panties, even before that I had noticed the smell of fresh vegetation, spiced with the last drops of still wet rain, glistening, but sensual and chilly tickling my nudity that is fired by the fluttery caresses, even while writing down the dream I get really horny, and go on moving away. Suddenly I'm naked again, once more the marbles are scattered all around me, where's the dress? Where are all the people? I roll around among them, in the forest clearing, in the wintry sun, it's like being at sea, and then it really is a big sea, it pounds toward the land sweeping over anything that lies in its path, and I'm on a desert island again, in a sweet and endless oblivion. There are a few last lonely marbles still rolling around. And that's it.

doc: Let's begin with the hat. The dress. That's fine, JJ. I see it as yet another sign that you're ready for treatment. There's some progress. There's a hint here, and following the exchange of hats we can anticipate some sort of development, a change, and the subconscious will surface and dare to show itself from the corner where it is now hiding.

jj: You're optimistic, Doctor. And I actually thought the hat, that belongs to someone else, giveme an alien character. As though I wasn't actually me, but once more some sort of game.

doc: Look, the hat covers the entire personality, gives you significance, and who is the stranger, the other, the hat's owner whose experiences you opt to undergo, if not your subconscious? For me it also ties up with the sea. The sea is the symbol of the collective unconscious because the mirror-smooth surface conceals beneath it abysses and chasms. And it also contains a hint of penetration, of a flooding of the unconscious of the awareness. Meanwhile it is so threatening to you, maybe embarrassing, too, like a solemn, private secret, that you distance yourself to your desert island.

jj: I also think of the hat as a symbol of mastery. I remember how I had a sort of nice, good feeling when I put it on my head. As though just for a moment I had taken over the role of master and that's something I've missed for a long time.

doc: Do you remember telling me about the game of masters and servants you played with your lover? How did you feel then? What parts did you yourself play?

jj: Well, then I felt the game was perfectly balanced, I was alternately mistress and servant, that's how I liked the up-and-down between us. It was the separation that actually turned me into a slave. NN's inexplicable disappearance. I couldn't bear the not knowing, the severance, and I gave up the hat altogether, I just gave up and turned myself into a sort of body without vitality or structure and this time I'm speaking your language, Doctor, and I can no longer feel what I want, apart from connecting myself to some sort of digital infusion of obsessions at this damned computer, seeking and winkling out any scrap of information. Oh yes, and playing Tetris, too.

doc: Go on.

jj: No, I want to go back to the dream. The grass. The marijuana plants, maybe. But, after all, I haven't touched that for years now, ever since NN disappeared. So how did they get into the dream? What is that sweet oblivion doing to me? The feeling is familiar, from the game, and also from the smoking sessions in Sansetiko, the glance from the outside, the oblivion.

doc: I have a question for you, JJ, it comes from Chuang-Tzu's famous question. If you are fording the river in a boat and an empty boat coming from the other side rams you, are you angry with it?

jj: No.

doc: And if there's somebody in the other boat?

jj: Then of course I'd yell and curse and be furious.

doc: Quite right. And that explains the longing for oblivion. In the first case you weren't angry at all and in the second case - absolutely furious, because at first you were up against emptiness and then the word. If someone voided himself and wandered the world like that, who could hurt him?

jj: If you say so. And what are the marbles, in your opinion?

doc: Well, what do you think. Chilly porcelain, little secrets? Glittering? Teasing?

jj: And that's why I gather all the marbles into the skirt of my dress? Hugging them close to me?

doc: Perhaps. But what secrets do you bear with you? Have you ever thought of the term 'secret' in connection with mystery--->holy fear--->game?

jj: I haven't, but it sounds interesting.

doc: JJ, what experiences have you had recently, in the non digital world?

jj: Total failure. If you mean my connection with myself, what could be worse than the fact that whenever I come near the picture stand I get an unpleasant shiver, feelings of guilt and evasion. And if you're asking about an external connection - there, too, there's total, crushing failure. I have gone out of the house, twice, at night, under cover of the, as it were, protective darkness. And I found myself in a totally imaginary scenario, in situations of high drama and theater, and only Judd rescues me.

doc: JJ, who is Judd? Is he also part of the dream?

jj: A good question. It's one I also ask myself.

doc: And what do you answer?

jj: To you, or to myself?

doc: Isn't it the same thing?

jj: Well, between you and me, just between the two of us, Judd is a genuinely good friend. He's the one who gets me out of trouble, provides situations of emotional degradation with dignity and nobility. Provides significance when it has disappeared in the wastelands of dreariness and alienation. And I'm crazy about his motor bike.

sys: Here the session ends, and resumes after a few days. The next message from JJ was sent via eMail [from a new mail address called Laylay]. The messages following it were delivered via online chat. It seems like during the time between the previous session and the mail from Laylay there was some communication between JJ and Doctor Kernel that isn't documented in the book, because the doctor seems to know that NN is [presumed] dead, and that he is Palestinan.

jj: Hello doctor, I had a terrible dream. I stand on tiptoe in a large crowd, Cheer loudly for someone or something on the stage in the distance. The weather is gray and cloudy. I also wave my hand like everyone else. suddenly I'm terribly scared. A huge tear, a big hole, splitting the sleeve of the shirt, black with small white flowers, my armpit is revealed, exposed in all its shame, I'm so scared I can't even lower my hand, and I'm so scared of all the eyes around that will see the terrible hole. I am a girl in a dream, or a girl, and although everyone faces the stage, and even on the fence there are puppets, naked themselves, I feel really bad, and run away with heavy backward steps, with my back towards the crowded and obstacle-strewn escape path, panting and panting. Now I notice that my legs are in a pair of fast skates and I fly backwards on unsteady spindles, my hands still raised and fluttering as if frightened and the hole in the shirt is getting wider, and everyone looks, and my throat chokes and makes strange, strangled, guttural sounds, like the voice of the muazzin calling to prayer, but a lot of danger and fear coming out of these cries, behind me I come across a tall ladder, climb it. I suddenly notice that I am going up and down the ladder with my mother and my father. They too are panting.

doc: Again we came to the secrets. A secret is also a kind of game. What do you have to hide JJ? Here your sub conscience breaks in and floods the awareness. What will happen if you surrender to it? What terrible thing might be revealed? I'm trying to guess why you changed your name and your identification code.

jj: I don't know what I have to hide. But it's scary, and I don't want to refer now to the question of changing the name and identification. This purely a technical matter.

doc: Be JJ or LAYLY, but tell me honestly, while losing control, how you are sustaining yourself in these three years of seclusion.

jj: What do you mean, how do I survive? After all, I have all the profits at my disposal And the savings left over from the Omega company. But really, like the name change, it is only a technical matter. This is also not the first time I dreamed about the hole in my shirt. This terrifying image has always appeared in my nights.

doc: I wonder why you run away with your back? Until now you have done everything, at least in your dreams
You wrote about them, with your face forward, with your gaze straight and your eyes open.

jj: I always have to make sure they don't look at me. That they don't peek, that they don't find out.

doc: And do you think you can really control their looks? They are so focused
In another thing, in the naked dolls, themselves. And if they still turn their eyes? Let go. Maybe that's what you were trying to achieve when you chose a new name. Maybe you thought that if you were someone else, you would be able to give up the need to be in total control of the situation.

jj: If I am not myself, then who am I?

doc: Maybe it's someone you like? Would you like to meet her? Do you want to connect with her?

jj: Sometimes I feel you are too patronizing. In such cases I really hate you for that. Now for example I have so much anger that I would like stop today's session.

doc: It's a legitimate feeling. And don't get even more upset when I say it's okay, and it's even expected that you'd hate me sometimes. If you couldn't feel resistance and anger towards ne, I would have been a distant figure that is supreme and divine regarding you, maybe like your parents, something you can't touch. NEvertheless, I don't think it's a good idea to end our conversation now. You can, of course, be silent until the ending beep, but I will still know whether you are connected due to the star at the edge of the screen that flashes as long as the communication takes place. You can also connect with what is happening to you now and not miss the gate that opens before you, even if it's dark and a little scary. It's your choice. In general, the relationships we create between us during the treatment are supposed to give us understanding of your relationships in reality, and everything that happens to us here will light your way.

jj: Why are dreams so important to you?

doc: Look JJ, dream analysis is not a casual thinking exercise, but a discovery and raising to consciousness of content you were not aware of before, and have importance in deciphering your personality and treating it. We roam the worlds of your dream until we find interpretations, maybe answers. We are looking for something ancient and primordial, which is still hidden from us, but will be revealed sooner or later. For example, something that will explain to us a repressed childhood experience that has awakened precisely with the separation from NN. It wasn't all of a sudden and for no reason that you became frightened and volatile like a leaf in the wind after he left you alone.

jj: And the parents, how did they invade my dream?

doc: I absolutely love the bit with your parents on the ladder. JJ, you are now in a crisis: finding out about NN's death, him being Palestinian. And you returned to your parents. Regression means breaking down into factors that are very difficult to be free from their grip, because Prehistory is too heavy to fly by itself, and needs stairs and ladders. It's good that you return to unfinished parts of childhood, accompanied by your parents, this way these parts emerge, that still live within you, from the infantile aspect, and will reach closure. It is good. How about drawing me your dreams? You can mail them to me.

jj: You know I stopped drawing. Why are you rubbing salt on my wounds? Regardless, if I ever manage to draw again, I will do it with my new graphic software, and I will send it to you via the means we are accustomed to.

sys: Here the session ends, and resumes after a few days.