November 26,
2013
Dear reader,
It helps me to write in such a way as to address you. It gives me focus to
think of someone who might read this. To think that this writing would be only
for me would be truly insane. I have just done some other writing in my
journal, but with a pen. This writing, as said before, is considered to be more
rational by me. It is more legible, because my hand writing is difficult to
read. These typed words are easier to listen to
and my handwritten words are more difficult to listen too. If even I
experience it that way, others most likely experience this too. Perhaps, I should
let you read these words, but I do not know where to put them, so that you
might read them. I know that these words are not difficult to read and are
probably as pleasurable to someone else as they are to me. My hope is to one
day share my words with you as an approach behavior. Why do I want to bother
you with them?
Do I try to
convince you of something? Am I trying to avoid something with this writing? Am
I simply writing because I am capable of writing and find this writing to be pleasurable?
I am not trying to be revealing, but I find it interesting to see what I come
up with. The question remains why you would be interested in my words? I would
like you to be interested in my words and I want to be taken serious. I guess I
am writing this because I do want to be taken serious. I find it upsetting if
people don’t take me serious and discount what I think or feel. I have trouble
with that and will do anything to avoid being in a situation in which I don’t
matter. I want to matter, but I often find that I don’t. Of course, I am
perfectly capable of recognizing that I do not always matter and that other
things matter, but this ability is fairly new and not yet very strong. I guess
I have only recently started to overcome my ego-centrism that everything has to always be about
me.
My
justification for continuing my old way, which includes my insistence that I
matter more than others, is that everyone else is doing the same. Why shouldn’t
I? I hate it when people make themselves appear so important and I do not want
to be like that. Because I have not mattered very much to others, I still want
to. I know that many people will probably say that I mattered very much to
them, but their saying that does not seem to fulfill my need. I want to matter more than that. By now I have talked
with thousands of people, who have validated my thoughts and feelings about Sound Verbal Behavior through
the years, but my need for approval, recognition and understanding only increased and did not become less. Without being an ass, I know I am right
about issues about which others simply do not know as much as I know. The written
communication of my knowledge I have always resisted, because I am interested
in and knowledgeable about spoken communication.
Everything
in my life has always revolved around spoken communication, but for most people spoken
communication does not matter very much at all. I have approached and escaped
people in my attempts to communicate with them, but now, paradoxically, I learn how
to avoid so that I can have communication
with them, because I only get taken serious in Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB).
In SVB you
will get taken serious too, my dear reader. In SVB speakers and listeners will both
be taken serious. Only in SVB can
they be taken serious, because only in SVB can
and do they change roles as often as
they wish to. My need to be listened to may be higher than most others,
but my urge allows me to put on the table issues others have forgotten about,
have ignored and simply have given up on. I do not and cannot accept Noxious Verbal Behavior
(SVB) because I know how devastating it is. I know that NVB always ignores and prevents SVB. I
know that NVB has to be recognized first before it can be stopped. To recognize it
is inevitably a rather painful and embarrassing affair. I do not offer much comfort. To
the contrary, I predict, accurately and relentlessly, that NVB is going to
create more problems the longer we refuse to recognize it for what it is: abuse. The only way in which we can and
do live with the ugly reality of NVB
everywhere is by dissociating from reality. One must be pretty strong to state that our primary mode of spoken communication
is dissociative in nature.
When I first
began to see this, I could hardly believe it myself. I kept saying that there
must be something wrong with me and
consequently I kept producing and strengthening the behaviors which are in
agreement with that self-defeating perspective. It took me many years to convince myself that
I was right and didn’t need to prove to myself or to others that I was right.
Actually, I never convinced myself, I didn’t need to and neither do you, dear
reader. It is actually such a relief to know
that. I don’t need your approval nor do you need mine, but we can have the
conversation in which we transcend our so-called need for approval. I call it
this our so-called need for approval
because you too never had this need fulfilled, my dear reader. The
communication in which we struggle to get each other's approval, but in which we are never
approved, I call Noxious Verbal Behavior. In NVB there is no approval, period.
Only in SVB can there be approval. Because there is approval in SVB there is
never any struggle for approval. In SVB the struggle for approval is totally
absent.
When you
read this, you probably think that communication without a struggle for
approval is impossible. Such a thought continues NVB. This thought disappears
in SVB. Yes, dear reader, in SVB most of what you think will certainly vanish.
Because SVB has the power to change you, as it has changed me, you are likely
to consider this real possibility as a threat to your identity. Regardless of
who you belief yourself to be, your belief is imaginary, unscientific
and incapable of withstanding the scrutiny of real human interaction. It
is only when NVB stops that you will be able to see that what went on in the
name of your belief about yourself and the world was inaccurate. You could not
let in any other views, because your belief would not let you. Your
way of speaking and writing was repetitive and did not change because there was
nothing to change it with. Only SVB provides the stimuli for change. However, this change cannot be approached. SVB decreases your need for approach. Since
SVB sets the stage for validation and approval there is no need to seek it. In
fact, the search is over and if it continues it creates NVB. Yes, your search was based on the absence of SVB.
SVB is
scientific as it analyzes and debunks all our beliefs. NVB is unscientific in that it
excludes the belief of others, but favors our own belief. Objectively speaking,
all our beliefs are there and only a spoken communication in which all beliefs can
be there is a scientific way of communicating. It does not matter at all
whether these beliefs are, true or not. One can be psychotic, but the person having
the psychosis is just as real as the person who believes that he can have a conversation with God and is going to
heaven when he dies. In NVB one belief is more important than the other, one
belief dominates the other, but in SVB all beliefs are equally important and therefore of
lesser importance. SVB deflates our childish beliefs because there is no
longer any need for them. In NVB the need for belief persists because there is a lack of real
human interaction. Once real human interaction occurs it becomes clear that the
lack of real human interaction maintains our identification with our beliefs,
which in a roundabout way, always seem to express our need to belong. The
psychotic belongs to a group called the mentally ill patients and the person who is
attracted to the same sex becomes part of the gay community. Likewise, those
who believe in God are Christians and those grow up around gangs believe in their social rules. Similarly, those who believe in running their own business believe in
being frugal and hard-working, while those who believe in welfare believe in
getting assistance.
In NVB it may seem as if we are talking about our beliefs, but in fact we don’t. In NVB we
do not talk about what we believe. It would no longer be NVB if we did. It
is NVB because we don’t talk about our beliefs. It will remain NVB as long as we don’t talk about our
beliefs. In NVB we prevent ourselves and each other from speaking about whatever we
hold to be our truth. Yes, my dear reader, although you may think that you can
say it as it is, that you can stand for what you believe in, when you have SVB you
realize that this was not true at all. You believed it to be true like you believed
your dream in which you went back to the house in which you lived as a child.
SVB is like waking up from your dream. NVB, on the other hand, keep us psychologically asleep. It
is only upon waking up in SVB that you realize that you have been dreaming.
This waking up, my dear reader,is going to happen during your interactions with others. It is your
relationships with others or, most likely, the lack of it, which determines your
reality. If we talk, write and represent our reality correctly, beliefs are not
necessary. Agreement makes our communication meaningful. Seen from a SVB perspective, disagreement must then be understood as representing meaningless
communication. Therefore, communication which is meaningless is not
communication. To make it seem as if there is meaning to disagreement is like making
our communication into something meaningless. Meaningless communication is called
NVB, but meaningful communication is called SVB. Meaningless communication is
abusive, hurtful, disrespectful, exploitive, degrading and negative. Meaningful
communication can never be negative. Acknowledgement of things as they really
are is never painful, but our inability to accurately capture this in our way
of communicating with others perpetuates our psycho-pathology. While NVB creates
and maintains mental illness, SVB remediates and prevents it. To expect NVB to
bring any solution to our problems is like expecting dreams to change our world.
It is not our dreams which will change our world, but our actions. These actions and
behaviors are only going occur if they are stimulated. NVB does not stimulate any
new behavior, only SVB can do that.
