July 1, 2014

JuLY 1, 2014

Written by maximus Peperkamp, M.s. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Every morning this writer writes about talking with himself. During the day, as part of his profession, he talks a lot with others, but when he gets up, he takes time to talk with himself. Although he writes about it, he is listening to himself while he speaks. Nobody told him to do this. Even he himself doesn’t tell himself to do it. He likes to do it, because when he does, he can link his speaking with his listening behavior. 

Today many thoughts happen, which haven’t happened before. He realizes that his reference to himself doesn’t mean that his behavior is caused by him. He recognizes aother way of talking is needed. The ‘he’ he is referring to not real. What is there is a behaving body responding to stimuli in an environment. Far away cars are heard and closer by a bird is singing. A feeling of peacefulness is enhanced by the cool morning air and the open window. the early morning is so quiet.

When this writer began to refer to himself in third-person, when instead of ‘I’, he began tp refer to himself as ‘he’, a change occurred in his writing. It led to an understanding of the power of words. He still uses the word ‘He’, but this reference to ‘himself’ is now considered as a verbal behavior, which he wants to explore.

‘he’ is a body sitting on the floor in a room. ‘he’ is created by words of public speech, which appear in front of ‘him’ on a screen and inform the reader, in this case ‘himself’, about a form of private speech, which has lost its relevance. Referring to ‘himself’ as ‘he’ is as problematic as referring to ‘himself’ as ‘I’. There is no ‘I’ and there is no ‘he’, there is only a location, a body in space and time, which adjusts to the events as they unfold. 

The stimuli this writer responds to in this writing are mostly private. no one would ever know about them if ‘he’ didn’t talk or write about them. As a consequence of this response to private stimuli positive thoughts and feelings are evoked which are emotionally and intellectually stimulating. It is powerful and new because others can understand this too. 

Oddly, this letter type, which is called “castellar” is kind of annoying. These harsh letters are perceived as negative visual stimuli and they evoke thoughts about walls and feelings of being walled off. There is nothing inside of these walls that this writer is interested in. ‘He’ is interested in what is outside of the wall, in the environmental stimuli which cause this private speech. Thus, ‘He’ finds ‘himself’ outside of the wall that is created by words. the non-verbal reality exists only outside our wall of words. The castle we call ‘self’ is a fabrication of words. The ‘self’ isn’t real, but the body is real and it is much more than just a word.