There’s something to be said about psychologists, or those vested in the theory of psychology. Knowing too much can be a burden. No one likes you. No one wants to be around you, or trust you with their day-to-day activities, their personal info and anything that may be placed under scrutiny.
Then again, without scrutiny we would rein supremely ignorant. Can you imagine a world in which the insecurities of the bully were not revealed and monitored? The out-of-control macho types beating the shit out of women and weaker men and children and animals? The rabid femi-Nazis doing the same to anyone they feel keen on dominating and bossing around? The priests and mullahs and all kinds of clerics with their tall tales on how to secure salvation at a price, playing god among mortals? The politicians and their holier-than-thou approach to governance, their cynical way of operating on the whole? The salespeople selling junk to junkies and calling it enterprise, calling it marketing, no one putting a name behind the maladaptive and exploitative behaviors in ways that trace them out. They’re not just crimes, they’re traits and disorders ranging from sociopathic tendencies and delusions of grandeur, to diffusion of responsibility and pluralistic ignorance and learned helplessness — whatever it is, psychologists put a name to it and help people understand it and curb it in terms of not just abstract morality but knowledge.
The question, of course, arises: Who watches the psychologists?
The answer is, they themselves do — and while it may be a poor way of keeping them in check, there’s a certain amount of schadefraude and irony in the arrangement. As everyone knows, having a psychologist on your case all the time is a pain in the neck. Imagine being that psychologist, watching yourself all the time, being on your own case. Wow! Can’t catch a break, yeah? — meaning that while psychologists are not easily monitored by the system, they get to suffer for being who they are, having to endure themselves till the very end.
On a more serious note, psychology is a double-edged sword. Both asset and burden, it requires deft handling. Know too much and you end up being that person — the one who knows too much.
What that means depends on how you use your knowledge.
Never easy, knowing things.
From the bays of a blustery Pearl Coast,
Fish a ton of oysters, strike a black pearl.