March 2, 2014

March 2, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

The reader who reads this may praise himself or herself lucky for having found something that is worth reading. Without knowing it he or she may have read all sorts of stuff that didn’t contribute to anything human relationship. When I say contribute, I am not just talking about one behavior. Three behaviors are important and have to be developed in the right proportion: approach, escape and avoidance. The interaction between these three determines everything. 

You may not believe it, but suit yourself. When we want something, we must approach it. There is no other way. I f we get what we want, approaching is no problem or, if it comes with problems, it is worth our while. We approach things to get what we want. Whether it is food, amusement, people, opportunity or silence, we go to it or try to find our way to it. When we get what we want we feel reinforced and enhanced. However, this does NOT mean that we develop the kind of behaviors which maintain happy and healthy relationships. Most of our behaviors, although they are learned and reinforced, don’t lead to positive social outcomes.

That we can readily get what we want is not necessarily enhancing. We believe it is enriching and this thinking is enhanced by those who think the same way as we do. I don’t think like that at all, because my thinking is not that much influenced by people who think the same way as I do. Stated differently, there are not that many people who think like me. Those who do, at best only think a little like I do, but never a whole lot. Most of the time when people think that they think the same way, they don’t really think the same way, they only believe that they think the same way

March 1, 2014

March 1, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

There are answers to our questions, but we don’t dare to ask often enough and consequently, the intensity of our quest can’t reach the point at which things become clear. We can of course say that we must “dig deeper into our selves” to find our own answers, but this approach cannot lead to satisfactory answers. Our questions must be asked to others and our answers must also come from others. 


Our questions signify that we don’t know. We wouldn’t have them if we knew. The fact that other people can pretend to know and can fool us, is the reason that we give up asking. What is the use of asking if the answers aren’t true or turn out to be false after we have believed them? The conclusion that “nobody knows” is based on the experiences we accumulate due to which our questions, without us noticing it, recede further into the background, as if they had become unimportant and did not need any answer. 

Because our questions did not get answered, many of us are inclined to believe in  “a higher power.” Others practice methods that are meant to forget worries. The presumed answers from the former used to be what other people also believed in, but that is no longer the case. Nowadays, given our free access to information, we take pride in having own version of “spirituality.” Answers we give to ourselves are such that our questions stop: first, we stop asking others and then we stop asking ourselves. Our presumed lack of questions is a precarious self- concept. 

Anyone who questions anything we do is seen as our enemy. The person who knows the answer to our question, realizes that we have been asking the wrong questions. He or she will have to make it seem as if he or she is answering our question, but he or she is reformulating our question and answering that question. Even if we insist on answering the questions we ask ourselves, such a question is answered as if there is a separation between the one who asks and the one who answers. Rather than saying "I don’t know", we may pretend to be all-knowing, while we do not realize that our grandiosity is triggered by the separation of the speaker and the listener and is causing us trouble. Furthermore, we think that the questions other people have, are only their questions and we also think that their answers cannot be our answers, but no question or answer belongs to any individual or group.

Science proves that answers to questions have nothing to do with what any person or group thinks. To the extent that they have remained unanswered, mankind’s questions have remained the same. To the extent that questions were distracted from by making them seem personal or by finding solace in the answers that came from “trust” in “our higher power”, we are stuck with answers which represent our problems and which don’t generate the kind of conversation in which we can ask the right question and admit that we don’t know how to solve our problems. 

Admitting that we don’t know how something works is an essential first step in increasing our understanding. There are people who are willing to admit that they don’t know how to improve human relationship. They may not have the answers we demand and most likely they will come up with answers which go against what we believe, but they are the only ones capable of accurately assessing what is going on. Our questions trouble us so much that we fail to properly assess what is going on. We think it isn’t necessary to talk with someone who knows the answer, because most likely, such person doesn’t know what he or she is talking about. 

January 31, 2014

January 31, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

Today will be the last day that this writer will write in his journal. He has decided that at least for one month he wants to give it up because it is bothering his wife that he is always working on his laptop in the early morning. The issue this author wants to address today is that Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is behavior that is mediated by others, but that Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) does not fit that description. This is where all the confusion comes from. Because words are used, it is tempting to think of NVB as a form of communication. However, if we look at how the words are used it becomes clear that NVB is not communication, but the pretension of communication. Nothing is mediated by the other in NVB. In SVB a speaker might ask “can you pass me the salt?”  The listener passes her the salt, because he is sitting on that side of the table where he has access to the salt and the speaker can’t reach that far herself. There is nothing special about this case in that if the situation would be reversed then the listener would become a speaker and the speaker would become a listener. What this means is that the communication would work equally well if the listener, who became speaker would ask the speaker, who became a listener to pass him the butter.

However, the above is absolutely not the case in NVB. In NVB the speaker stays the speaker and the listener stays the listener; the speaker orders and the listener obeys. The listener is not allowed to become a speaker and will not be heard or responded to by the speaker. This role-division is not determined by the listener, but by the speaker. In NVB the speaker is supposedly more important than the listener and there is no turn-taking as in SVB. In NVB speech isn’t mediated by, but is enforced upon, others. There is a big difference between SVB and NVB and to make it seem as if NVB is mediated is to gloss over the immediate contact of the listener with the punitive contingencies that are created by the coercive speaker. Only in SVB is speech mediated by others, because only in SVB is there is reciprocal interaction in which speakers and listeners changes roles. In NVB there is uni-directional “interaction” which shouldn’t be considered “interaction”, because it is a one-way street. The mother who punishes her child while teaching it how to speak instills NVB in her child. 

January 30, 2014

January 30, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This letter type is called “Freestyle Script.” Coincidence has it that yesterday night this writer watched a documentary about hippies. It showed various European individuals who a long time ago travelled to India and had stayed there. Because the culture fit with their hippie behavior these individuals preferred to live in India. Each in their own way had looked for freedom, but what they had found was a place to stay where their behavior repertoire was allowing them to get by. One was a Dutch painter whose first wife died a couple of years ago. As he spoke of her you could tell he was still mourning her death. He remarried to a young girl that was offered to him by her mother. Although he loved his new wife and had more kids, he was sad, but this sadness also seemed to be playing a role in his incessant attempt to capture in his paintings the beauty of the land that he lived in. Recently, a friend of this writer, herself also a painter, explained to him that artists sort of go voluntarily insane. It is interesting to think about this and about other artists who live unhappy lives, but who nevertheless produce their works, which are products of suffering.. It is almost seems like a social norm for artist to be unhappy and to not find happiness.

Another character came from Switzerland. He argued with his wife in a nasty manner and complained about the Europeans youngsters who came to his place to party. He was a creepy character. Particularly sad was the story of his Indian wife, who, by marrying him, was ostracized from her family and her village. She expressed hopes of one day immigrating to Switzerland and was in fact applying for a visa. She was obviously not very fond of her husband, who had caused her so much grief. Nevertheless this ex-junkie build an entire house, a farm of sorts, with many rooms, but it looked as if it would never get finished. From how the relationship was, it sounded like these rooms would never be inhabited by them. He constantly talked about his father, who, on the one hand, he demonized, because he was such a wealthy, powerful man, but who, on the other hand, financially supported him. His wife made cynical remarks and showed openly her emotions about her need for a change of environment. 

There was also an Italian guy, who lived in a cave, an ashram of sorts, with a bunch of other sadhus of whom he seemed to be the leader. He was seen constantly smoking hashies in a pipe. He lived a regimented life that was full of rituals and mantras and his demeanor seemed totally integrated with the Indian culture. He was seen blessing many  children and his income derived from the European seekers that came to his residence. He stated that he went back to Italy one day and that all there was to do for him was to go and find a job, but he went back to India to seek self-realization. It did not seem to matter to him anymore whether he found or not, he was getting old.    

January 29, 2014

January 29, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

Words that are written as a function of a lack of sleep are very different than those which were written after a good night sleep. This author experienced this difference because he was recently having some problems sleeping. Luckily, these problems went away again. Since he writes almost every day, he noticed the difference and thought it is worth mentioning and to further explore in this writing. Readers probably have no clue what kind of words are written by insomniacs or by writers that are well-rested. This writer, who was last night having a good and long sleep, thinks that different words come from this rejuvenating experience. Also, he thinks that the nonverbal behavior of the writer leads to different verbal arrangements. In the case of a sleep-deprived writer, sentences will look very different. They may be more dragged out or perhaps unfriendly and short, because there is not enough energy available to produce them. There will be some kind of complaint or strain in such writing. A well-rested writer, by contrast, produces sentences which flow and are easier to read. The nonverbal experience of the latter is pleasant, while the nonverbal experience of the former is one of torment and suffering.

If people who are tired are generally not very good communicators then writers who are tired are probably not very good writers either. Tired writers wear out their readers like tired speakers do. That this goes unnoticed is because few know the symptoms of tired writing. These symptoms are easier to be recognized in spoken communication. Also in speaking we are not in the habit of doing this. Few people have any sense of how much talk is a function of a lack of sleep. Obviously, such talk is negative, because it is based on an unfulfilled need. Such talk is often demanding and challenging, because it represents a request which no listener can fulfill. Besides, writing may become the insomniac’s way of coping with his or her inability to sleep. Those who are used to reading before going to sleep may pick up on the insomnia of the authors, who without anyone noticing it induce their insomnia on their readers. Sleepy-deprived speakers make sleepy listeners and sleepless writers make sleepless readers. Moreover, people who are tired are more likely to pretend that they are not tired than people who are rested are likely to pretend that they are tired. Pretentious writing and speaking is always based on the claim: I am not tired and I am alive.

It is easy to see how Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) is determined by physiological states which have to do with the inability to relax. Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB), by contrast, is fresh and lively and has nothing to pretend. The verbal output of insomniacs has to be much higher than the number of words spoken by those who had a good night’s rest. Hyper-verbal behavior signifies how tense and stressed NVB communicators are. If we can’t relax with their words, neither can they. In NVB the words are more important than the nonverbal experiences we have. During NVB the nonverbal experience doesn’t seem to exist and if it exists it is only addressed in order to make us fixate on the verbal. The disconnect between verbal and nonverbal is part of our lack of sleep. More and better sleep results in more and better communication and writing would follow that trend. 

What many people don’t know is that most of what is written is written by people who are up at night. The more people are busy with written communication, the less they sleep. However, the more they are involved in spoken communication, in actual human relationship, the better they will sleep. We seem to have completely forgotten that nothing enhances sleep more than a good conversation. In SVB, things are said in such a way that the verbal and the nonverbal are aligned. When there is day in day out no alignment between our verbal and nonverbal behavior, this may cause sleeping problems. And, there are many other problems too, but today's writing focuses only on sleep. In our sleep we ideally completely forget anything verbal. Dreamless sleep is so beneficial to us because we retreat into the nonverbal realm of existence. Our inability to sleep is based on our addiction to the verbal. We can’t let go of all our thoughts, because we have no sense of our body. What we read is not helping us remember our body. Most texts disconnect us from our body. To read we must pretend as if we don't have a body. We disembody ourselves while we read, because we are already used to disembodying ourselves while we speak. Most writing and speaking makes readers and listeners dissociate from their body, from the immediate reality. Escape from the environment, by means of our verbiage, is causing us many problems, which also prevent us from sleeping. To sleep, we must return to our nonverbal environment. Without this return we can’t sleep. We can’t sleep when our words take us away from our nonverbal environment. In NVB the verbal excludes the nonverbal. In SVB the verbal is staying connected with the nonverbal. In SVB the verbal articulates the nonverbal in such a way that our nonverbal connection continues. In NVB the nonverbal connection is neglected, ignored and abandoned. NVB writers produce NVB writings, which produce NVB readers, who will have sleep problems.