June 11, 2014

June 11, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

 

This author reads papers that were written by other behaviorists almost every day. He isn’t interested himself in writing such a paper, because, while reading the papers of others, he realizes again and again how insignificant their writings are. He knows that he is one of the very few people who is reading these papers and that the majority of people don’t know and will never know anything about them. His interest in science is his connection to life itself,  but there are few scientists who have been willing to talk with him about his contribution. 

The scientific discovery of this writer pertains to spoken communication. It is possible to write about it, but it makes much more sense to talk about it.  This is why every month this writer facilitates a free seminar. He does what he can to let people know about it, but not that many people come to his seminars, even though they are always successful and worthwhile events. His work has developed over the years and ever since he found out that he is a behaviorist, he has been studying behaviorism. As a consequence, his writings have improved.

This writer often writes about speaking, because there are just not that many people to speak with. Next to speaking writing is the best thing. In the past, his focus was so much on speaking that he didn’t care about writing. He often said things which got him in trouble, but he never regretted saying them. The fact that he had said it was more important to him than the negative consequences which followed. He had always felt that expressing himself was his health. Things have changed and now he no longer feels the urge to say it because he writes. 

Although writing is not the same as speaking, it helped to pave the way for this writer to stay out of trouble. His previous life was negatively affected by his inability to keep his mouth shut. Much to his dislike, this writer has often been characterized as someone who wears his heart on his sleeve. The development of his writing has strengthened his private speech, which in the past was often expressed in his public speech. These days his private speech is only expressed in his public speech when the situation is in full support of it. 

While he grew up, his private speech was often expressed when nobody really wanted to hear about it. This improper behavior was nevertheless reinforced and it grew stronger through the years and it could have had much worse consequences than it did. He was often socially rejected for what he said, but since some people liked him for his ability to withstand the opinions of others, he never was able to see the mechanism at work. Ideally, a person’s private speech protects a person from what this writer repeatedly exposed himself to. 

This writing, in which this writer now elaborates on this process of being able to keep one’s thoughts and feelings to oneself, was not possible two years ago because this writer had not yet made the connection between his writing, his private speech and his public speech. If someone would have told him about this, he would have probably not believed him. This makes total sense in the context of this writing, in which he is telling it to himself. There are things we must say to ourselves, which others can’t help us with, because they are not us. 

Not too long ago this writer was sitting with a group of schizophrenics around a campfire. Everything seemed to normalize. Everybody knew that anyone who would come closer to the fire would get burned. The wind sometimes blew the smoke in different directions and the clients who happened to get smoke in their face would quickly remove their chairs, while laughing when the wind changed the direction of the smoke again and blew it in some else’s face. A perfect mechanism was at work in each of them as they instructed themselves to do exactly the right thing. Also, they were happy as children, while splashing around in the water of the lake and while they were canoeing, none of them suffered from mental health issues. They were in touch with the environment.