TRANSCRIPT
I’ve recently been thinking a lot about what it means to be an outsider. Someone who is outside of some conventional system, outside of the norm, looking in, living beyond, not quite fitting in, or maybe not fitting in at all.
I think of this in my life, having been an outsider so much for so much of my life and for so many years, wanting not to be an outsider, wanting to fit in, wanting to fit into my family system as a child, to live up to their expectations, to fit into certain social norms with my peers, live up to certain expectations of society, of my teachers, yes, and of my parents, and certainly of my greater family system. Get a girlfriend, get married, have a normal job, a normal life, a normal career, be happy, be conventional, be comfortable, be acceptable, do the right things, wear the right clothes, drive the right car, take the right vacations, think the right things. And I really tried, and I couldn’t do it.
And I thought there was something wrong with me for this. I thought there was something deficient in me. It took me a long time to figure out— that sounds so arrogant to say, but it was true—that I was special in my differentness. There was something about me that had greater goals, greater expectations, a greater capacity, force, something. And yet it was so painful because why wouldn’t I have wanted to fit in? Why wouldn’t I have wanted the primary love objects in my life, my parents, to approve of me, to approve of my path, to approve of what I was doing, to say, “Good job, wow, amazing, fantastic what you’re doing, we support it fully”? I didn’t get that so often, especially as I grew, especially as I became healthier. And that became a theme throughout my life.
As I’ve grown older, I think of when I became a psychotherapist when I was 27 and started a private practice when I was 30, full time when I was 32. “Oh, it’s so impressive, you’re doing so great,” people said that. My parents, by that time, had already figured out that I was a dangerous kind of fellow because the more successful I was in their eyes, the more risk there was that people would actually believe me when I spoke about how troubled they were, their system was, their relationship had been, their ideals were. So they didn’t want me to succeed.
But with the outside world that didn’t have such knowledge about me, wasn’t so threatened by me personally, they said, “You’re doing great.” And yet it was very confusing for those same people when I quit being a psychotherapist when I was 38, when I said, “Not closing my practice, I don’t want to do this anymore.” I hadn’t had any trouble with my license; I was still licensed. I just wanted something bigger, wanted something greater.
So, my destiny on an internal level and being a psychotherapist had been part of my destiny. I think it was actually very important for me in light of the subject of being an outsider. For starters, because being a psychotherapist in New York City, having a private practice, being totally independent financially in that way really allowed me to experience professional societal success from the inside and to see how differently people treated me because of that. I compare it to when I was younger in my 20s and being a traveler or working at restaurants or working odd jobs or temping and not getting much respect. And yet when I was out and about in the world, when I was in my 30s and saying, “Oh yes, I’m a psychotherapist, I have a private practice,” people would be so impressed. It’s like, this guy is not an outsider; he is in, he is winning the contest.
And part of me liked it. Part of me liked it also because it was very curious. It was new for me to be that successful as an adult, and it made me realize why so many people strive for it. I think it’s the same reason why so many people have children; they become parents. It’s like you become a parent, you are in, you’ve cast your lot with the rest of society, and people find this very acceptable. That makes them comfortable. It’s an answer when they ask, “What do you do?” “Oh, I’m a parent, I work, I’m, you know, I have two little kids, etc., three kids, one kid.” “Oh, good job, nice job, you’re part of us.”
And when I quit being a psychotherapist, it elicited confusion from people. A very small number of people said, “Wow, you’re brave.” They wanted to know my reasons. And when I explained my reasons about wanting to be out in the world, having a greater perspective, having more freedom and real independence to explore my inner self, explore the world without having to literally worry about what was happening with my clients, some people got that. Some people really admired it. But most were like, “You’re making a big mistake, you’re leaving convention, you’re leaving the norm, you’re not setting yourself up for your retirement, and you’re only 38,” etc., etc.
So I left the system. I left the norm in a very big way, and what, it’s been pushing 13 years now, and I’m still out. I’m way more out than I ever was. I’m well in my early 50s now. It’s like, how did that happen? But I really see it more now that I’m getting older, past that 50-year-old mark, and really being different. It has affected me. At first, when I turned 50, it was sort of like, “Oh my God, what have I done? I’m so strange, I’m not living up to any of society’s expectations for a 50-year-old.” I’m more comfortable in being 50 now, in my 50s, and some part of me likes it. I think what I like is the perspective that I’ve gained.
But being an outsider, I see more and more it’s hard. It’s really hard. It’s, um, you know, it’s like not fitting in is painful. I think it’s part of human nature, real human nature, being a Homo sapiens, being this species, to want to be part of a social fabric. We are a social species. But maybe it’s healthier to not want to be a part of a social fabric when one sees that this social fabric is so disturbed and so destructive and self-destructive.
I think that’s a big part of why I was destined to be an outsider. I could see it. I could see my family was screwed up. I don’t want to be a part of this. I don’t want to be like them. Yes, I want their love. Yes, I want their approval. Yes, I want their nurturance, just like I want society’s nurturance and approval and acceptance. But I’m not gonna get it because this society, my family, my family being my first society, was too messed up to give it. And once I figured that out and started really pulling out of it, pulling out of the family, pulling out of society in a lot of ways, well, I had to start looking within and giving myself that love in a way. I had to become my own society.
So I think that was the real key for me. If I had been more normal, more conventional, more acceptable to my family and the world, I would have been an insider with them but an outsider in my relationship with myself. And that’s been the key for me—to have an inside relationship with me, to not be an outsider in my relationship with myself, to have a self, to know myself, to love myself, to nurture myself, to do what’s right for myself. And God, I did it wrong a lot along the way. I made a lot of mistakes in my desperation to fit in to these troubled systems. Yet here I am now, in my early 50s, in many ways because of my lifestyle, but more because of my internal relationship with myself, because of what I can see, what I do see. I really am an outsider, and I do see how painful it is.
And I want to share what, in a way, really sparked this video. It actually came from this YouTube channel. I’ve had this comment given to me probably 15, 20 times over the last few years by all sorts of people—men, women, younger, older, people from different countries, different cultures, different nationalities, religions, thought processes. Perhaps they have said fundamentally the same thing: they said, “You talk about healing.”
From trauma, all these examples of how you heal from trauma, how to heal. You talk that you’ve healed so much, and yet you don’t seem so happy a lot. You seem like you’re still doing all this healing work, like life is still painful and confusing in some ways. Where is the example that we want to live up to? Why are you not comfortable in your life? Why are you not more at peace with yourself?
And that’s where I really take those comments seriously, and I think about them. What I’ve come to is, first, the reply back. I was going to say the argument, but I mean it in the more general sense of a thoughtful reply that I have healed a lot. I’ve done a profound amount of healing my traumas, such that I’m way more connected with myself than I’ve ever been, perhaps since I was a very, very little baby. Me and me are friends. Me and me have a conscious connection. I know who I am. I live who I am. I am who I am. I share who I am, and I love this. And there is a peace with that, a peace that I never knew when I was younger, a peace that my parents never knew, certainly not throughout all my growing up years.
And since I left home a long time ago, and since I broke contact with them more than 10 years ago, a peace that I came to realize they’ll never know. But to the outside world, they might look very comfortable because I think they are more comfortable. They fit in in their relationships, in their work, in their connection to the outside world, in the approval the outside world gives them. So if they were sitting and making videos and talking about their lives, these same people who critiqued me for not being happy and comfortable and fitting in, expressing my peace, might actually think my parents had succeeded better than I. But that’s the question of perspective.
I think I am always going to be troubled in this way. I will be troubled as the outsider is always troubled. I will be troubled in the sense that how can I ever really be comfortable unless the world catches up? Unless I find myself a society of people who also are insiders in their connection with themselves and then find each other? I have a few people in my life who have a very strong internal connection, and around these people, I’m incredibly comfortable. Around these people, I’m fun. I laugh. I have a great time. It’s very easy for me to be spontaneous and authentic.
I do my best to reflect that in these videos to a camera, to an audience of people, most of whom I have not met. But in the outside world, it can be pretty tough. And what I have come to realize, and I think this is what I want to share because I think this is common for people who step outside of the norm and focus primarily on healing their relationship with themselves, loving themselves, I think it’s inevitably a difficult and painful journey. And it’s inevitably hard. It’s inevitably alienating to be an outsider.
But what I think is the world needs us more than ever because we can see what it is. We can see the world’s flaws. We can see what the world needs. And I think a lot of us actually have something to give people individually. The more we can give ourselves, the more we have a surplus to give the world. Even though we’re in a way outside of it, alienated from it, we’re like the shamans who live on the edge of society. But when society is having its issues, they come to us.
So in a way, I saw this as a psychotherapist. Yes, I was getting societal approval for being a fancy private practice psychotherapist from people who had no idea what it really meant, what I was doing. They had no idea who I was on the inside. But my clients knew. And also what I saw in my clients again and again and again—men, women, young, old, different races, cultures, backgrounds, sexual orientations, all of it—people were struggling with themselves, being outsiders. Because to go within in this crazy, screwed-up, traumatized world is to render oneself an outsider, is to honor the truth of oneself and to try something different, to try to grow, to try to heal.
And I’m glad when I think about it that I wasn’t promising people in psychotherapy, “Oh, you’re going to connect with yourself, and you’re going to be so much happier, and all your relationships are going to be better, and everything’s going to work better, and your job is going to be better.” It’s like, no. The informed consent that I shared is, “Put on your seat belt. If you grow, if you really grow, you will be able to give yourself more, but the world may not like it. Your life might become a lot more difficult and painful.” And in many ways, I see myself as living proof of this.
[Music]