On the tradition of feces in personal growth / therapy
Some musings on the profession.
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For Freud it was a question of in or out - retentive or explosive.
For Fritz Perls? A former student of Freud and the founder of Gestalt psychotherapy, it was more a question of origin. Where did it come from? From what creature?
Was it a chicken? If so, not a problem really. Though greasy, stinky and rancid while fresh this delight washes away easily in the rain.
This of course was contrasted by Fritz with that of an elephant. Overwhelming. All encompassing. Life altering. Alienating in both mass and stench. These digestive leftovers insist on being addressed.
I have established my own theories of human excrement.
It is related to the wisdom I have discovered in grocery stores.
Grocery stores are where a lot of excrement comes from
Or they are filled with things that are pre-poo - restaurants specialize in the ornate delivery of pre-poo substances.
Regardless. People walk around grocery stores, they spend their time there picking up shit. At the check out they put their stuff on the belt. If they’re smart, they look around and blammo, down goes the shit separator.
That thing is magic. I’ve got dry salami. You’ve got chickpeas. I don’t wanna eat your shit. You don’t wanna eat my shit. You’ve got kale chips? Mine are kettle cooked. Again. We don’t want to eat each others shit. We don’t want to pay for it. We don’t want to take it home.
In the grocery store it’s clear. My shit your shit.
In life and relationships? It’s rarely that cut and dry. Relationships can be more like going into a grocery store staffed entirely by angry flying Wizard of Oz monkeys. Shit’s flying everywhere and no one knows what belongs to who.
People start improvising with it. Life turns into a giant game of ‘whose shit is it anyway’
And we all just wander around thinking that this Wizard of Oz monkey staffed grocery store is normal. We miss the monkeys.
We miss the monkeys because we’re the monkeys and we don’t know it.
We believe everything is normal.
So, it pays to every once in a while stop for a moment and examine the shit in our carts so we can determine if this is something we want to pay for, bring home and eat or, if this should travel with someone else.
Onederful Thing
Today notice the air.
Notice it as you inhale,
Notice it as you exhale.
Make it move.
Find some that’s moving.
Move through it.
Experience the air.
Imagine that you are air.
Imagine and act as though you are as light as air.
What can you learn from bringing this light presence to your day?
Reminded me of the song by Byrne/Talking Heads - Social Studies. Feels like that's all about shit in food's clothing too... and relationships and becoming each other.
"Social Studies"
(from "Music For The Knee Plays" soundtrack)
I thought that if I ate the food of the area I was visiting.
That I might assimilate the point of view of the people there.
As if the point of view was somehow in the food.
So I would make no choices myself regarding what food I ate.
I would simply follow the examples of those around me.
I would study menus very carefully,
Making note of important differences and similarities.
When shopping at the supermarket
I felt a great desire to walk off with someone else's groceries
So that I could study them at length
And study their effects on me.
As though if I ate their groceries I would become that person; until I finished their groceries.
And we might find ourselves going to the same places.
Running into one another at the movies
Or in a shopping mall.
Reading the same books.
Watching the same TV programmes.
Wearing the same clothes.
Travelling to the same places.
And taking the same pictures.
Getting sick at the same time.
And getting well again simultaneously.
Finding ourselves attracted to the same people.
Working at the same job.
And making the same amount of money.
Living identical lives - as long as the groceries lasted.
Hahaha I was expecting something else until I read excrement! Brilliant analogy! Going with a list in a grocery store decreases the quantity of shit I take. Buying groceries online while in quarantine, almost no shit bought :)
Great post Jim!
Regards,
Milan