Boys in the Basement – #62

Spoiler Alert for Nicky’s Current Psychotherapy Clients: Since psychoanalytic theory posits therapists can be more effective if details of their personal lives are unknown to the client, I did not disclose information regarding my time out of the office to you prior to my departure. Partial details of my time off will be revealed in the post that follows. I trust this literary sharing will not interfere with our therapeutic progress.

Special Note for General Readers: Because my quest continues to learn new words, I’m including some new-to-me words in the post below. I trust this will not interfere with your reading pleasure.  

Marking my calendar to be out of the office a week before and a week after attending a two-week Creativity and Madness Conference stirred up latent emotions of recklessness, privilege, and fear. Packing colorful summer clothes in the midst of a particularly drab winter called for all the imagination I could generate. Shelling out big bucks for travel insurance suddenly felt essential; friends in New Zealand recently experienced a medical emergency while touring India. 

Despite these internal and external challenges, I yearned to attend this conference. I was also eager to escape the beastly cold weather. My enthusiasm was further kindled when it snowed the day before we departed. I nurtured a deep inner knowing that everything would work out.

First stop: Bangkok. 

First speaker: Dr. Randall J. Bjork, M.D.

First Topic: Neurophilosophy: The Meaning of Life. 

It was a bit of a disappointment when the hotel meeting room at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel was almost the spitting image of a Holiday Inn meeting room in the USA. It was a bit of a disappointment when most of Dr. Bjork’s didactic lecture didn’t make sense to me. He used words like sapient, and teleology, and epiphenomenon.

But I wasn’t disappointed in the least when I heard him say: Boys in the Basement.

Dr. Bjork suddenly had my undivided attention. I was jolted out of my jet lag by the rhythm of the phrase and the unmistakable twinkle in Dr. Bjork’s eye.

It was, however, a disappointment when Dr. Bjork didn’t explain the boys other than to say that each of them represented an emotion: fear, anger, despair, and ecstasy; the types of emotion that are stored deep in our primitive brain. 

Internally I rushed to the conclusion, loyal to my somewhat repressed upbringing, that the first three boys needed to be kept in the basement. But ecstasy? Was Bjork going to suggest that ecstasy stay imprisoned in the basement?

I KNEW that I had to find out more from Dr. Bjork about the Boys in the Basement.  There wasn’t an opportunity to speak to him after his presentation was over because another presentation started immediately. My only option was to begin stalking Dr. Bjork in Bangkok. The group size allowed me to keep an eye on him when we were site seeing, but asking him questions about ecstasy in the presence of a 120 foot reclining golden Buddha with 10 foot feet inlaid with mother-of-pearl didn’t seem appropriate. (Google Wat Pho to see a picture of this extraordinary Buddha.)

Similar to the feelings that surfaced at home indicating that everything would work out, I felt confidant that there would be an opportunity to question him; now his name was Randy.

And I was right! Flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong, my airline seat was directly behind Randy’s!

I poked him. He turned around. We had eye contact. Flattery comes natural to me so I said, “Randy that was a good presentation,” and then, with no further ado, I asked him to explain ecstasy. His answer made color rise in my cheeks and I’m eager to share his answer with you but first:

Dear reader, I want to ask you what do you think about ecstasy? What  examples of ecstasy have you experienced? Which Boys, if any, do you think should stay in the Basement? Let me/us know what you think!

Tune in next week for Randy’s answer and to get further aquainted with the Boys in the Basement.

Thanks for returning to continue exploring the mystery with me – Nicky Mendenhall