Arkashean Q&A Session -- 076

LIAM: So my sensitivity, so to speak, isn't sensitivity at all.

THERRY: It's selfishness.

LIAM: Yeah.

THERRY: It's pure selfishness all the way across the board. Again, you have to bear in mind too-

LIAM: Selfish, not in the negative sense-

THERRY: Anything that causes you pain is negative. But you have to bear in mind too, that according to Universal Law, each individual must walk the Road of Self if he is to find the Road of Unity.

LIAM: Is that what this is?

THERRY: Yes. You're walking the Road to Self, and boy, are you walking the Road to Self. (Laughter) To such a degree that it's interfering-

LIAM: Walking the Road to Self, that means realizing your autonomy?

THERRY: No, it means your self-orientated.

LIAM: I'm self-?

THERRY: Orientated.

SHELLY: Oh, and you have to walk that?

THERRY: Yes.

LIAM: But am I aiming towards anything, which is dealing with my autonomy--

THERRY: Right. You're learning. Remember, the whole specie is just a little baby. So you can't expect the adults of that specie to be any more grown up than the specie is. And the specie is just a baby, therefore it is self-orientated. We are in the age of self-consciousness, so there will be the extremely, extremely developed individuals who is not selfish in different ways.

LIAM: There will be the extremely developed individuals?

THERRY: I said extremely developed individuals-

LIAM: Mmmm.

THERRY: -who is not selfish. Because this is the age of self-consciousness. The species is in the age where it is recognizing the existence of itself and its place within universal life forms. So, every individual is going to be basically selfish. Part of growth is whereby each individual rises above and beyond the pure selfishness that exists. (What is the relationship between the age of self-consciousness and extremely developed individuals-does that refer to a teacher or humans who are precocious? What is the Road to Unity, and how does it apply to universal life forms?)

JOSEPH: Wen, You've been quite for a long time. What are you feeling... What are you thinking of. Is there anything that you'd like to share with me?

TINA: I was just laying here... thinking how all I have is just a few days left to live... Yet I don't feel sad.

JOSEPH: How so?

TINA: In a way, I'm glad I asked to Hospice here at the Monastery... Everyone's so nice. I especially like that they don't look at me funny... or that they don't avoid me just because I'm dying of cancer.

JOSEPH: Yes, Therry is a good teacher, isn't he. I like the way he refuses to lie just to make you feel good, regardless of the situation.

TINA: Yes, ain't that the truth. During one of our sessions about the process going on in my body, I made the mistake--no, not the mistake--I asked the question of what was really, really going on with me and my patterns. When Therry told me that it was my pattern to link up with Dav and then leave early--via death--not always cancer like this time, I truly felt 'abandon hope' for the first time. What an idiot, why, I mean WHY would I continue to do this to myself. And, since here I was doing it again, obviously I haven't broken the pattern yet. My equilibrium rocked, my happy serene death experience interrupted by an unpleasant look in the mirror, I felt despair. Trapped. The idea of dying only to come back and do the same things over seemed like the height of irony. After a day or so of depression and talking it over with various people I came to feel that death is giving me an opportunity to start over again. I may be dealing with the same the pattern, and I may not break the cycle next time, but I do know that I've made some positive changes this life. Dealing with my death is a little like writing my own report card complete with suggestions from the teacher on how to improve my grades for next semester. So, abandon hope--yes and no. Yes, we are trapped in our illusions and we certainly know how to serve up pain for ourselves and others. And, no because by understanding this law, we can begin to release ourselves from our traps.

As for the ABSENCE/PRESENCE part, I think of this one with regard to karma.--There was a recent news story of a cab driver who was savagely beaten to death while all the neighbors watched from their windows, doing nothing. This is absence. You should have done something but you didn't. There is an accrual of karma for omitting actions just as surely as there is karma for committing actions, which would be presence--the presence of an act. Sadly, but too late, I can apply this pattern to myself as I continue to repeat the same deeds, or as I fail to commit these deeds forcing me to repeat the same cycles form fife to life. However painful, at least this life I can see how truthful the Abandon Hope cycles can be for those without OtherWorld Teachers to help guide you while you are making out your report card for the future. While it is sad to die of cancer, as I lay thinking about this long process of dying, I can truly say that I die a wiser person...This makes me feel the whole process of learning and growing worth it...Maybe next time I can break the cycle.

THERRY: When people ask me to tell them what to do, I always refuse. I may know what's best for them, but there's no way on this planet that I will ever tell them, because that would rob them of their chance of living. If I told them what was best for them, then I'd be living their life for them. I can help you understand patterns, help you understand what's happening for the moment, but I refuse to do more.

JACK: Where I'm going, as far as physically moving from Port Huron...I have three years so to speak as a merchant marine. My feeling has been that although, one I'm now certified as a merchant and I've got my time in to have my permanent document, and that sort of thing, circumstances have arisen in the past month, okay, that either I'm doing it to myself, okay, or the fingers are stirring the pot for ...that I'm not supposed to be merchant marine...things such as it taking so long to get the document, the permanent document.

THERRY: See again, if I go into the future a little bit, I gather you're trying to ask me what's the best course of action for you to do...and what it is you're going to end up being. I can't answer that. I can't tell you how to live your life.

JACK: Okay.

THERRY: I can't tell you how to not to waste, and how best to waste time and how best to achieve. I can't tell you. I can't tell people how to live their lives. All I can tell you is what the patterns show. Now if the patterns tell you something, then if you're smart, you'll follow them. If the patterns doesn't, then you keep going around and around...

JACK: Until I learn to read the pattern.

THERRY: Until you learn. That's correct.

JACK: What I was asking, okay, in one part, yes, what does the future hold and I understand you can't answer that, okay. And the other, as far as because its I feel its my actions in some way, okay, have in the three separate trips to Toledo, and the other as far as leaving the Z card at Walgreens in Chicago when I went through Chicago so that I would have a record of it if I did lose it, it would be easier to get another permanent document, okay. What I was wondering is that negative pattern that I've exhibited subconsciously because I don't think that I have actively think, well, I think I've leave it here again so that I'll have a problem getting it again.

THERRY: Again, I can't tell you that. I cannot tell you if it's a bad habit for you, or if it's the Universal finger stirring things up.

JACK: That's my...I have to come up with an answer for that?

THERRY: You have to come with an answer within yourself to get that answer. See, I refuse to act as a crystal ball for someone. The future comes within them, or it doesn't come at all.

JACK: As far as the actions we take. Now, when I asked you last night about living here, you haven't gotten the answers from the forces, so to speak.

THERRY: Right. But in terms of that, you living here, all I know is that there is something involved in it. Again, as I told you last night, it is a possibility, but surrounding it, I don't know. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that the Universe wants you to be a little bit more aggressive in terms of wanting to be here, or I don't know if the Universe wants you to work a little harder on working certain aspects of you. I don't know. All I know is that I cannot tell you, yeah, you can stay here. I can't tell you that. Only, as I told you last night, is that it's a big possibility. Beyond that, everything's in your hands.

JACK: Everything's in my hands.

THERRY: Beyond that, everything's in your hands, as far as I know.

JACK: As far as me coming to live here, the decision is mine, is what you're saying?

THERRY: In terms of what you do to accomplish it, yeah. I do know that there are a number of areas that you need changing.

JACK: Granted, that's an understatement, as far as I am concerned.

THERRY: And as you knock down or seek to knock down some of the walls in your life, I think that you'll have an easier time with your life. But as for me, to start telling you, okay, its nine o'clock, its time for you to start working. I can't do those things.

JACK: I have to put forth the effort

THERRY: You have to do whatever it is you have to do because YOU choose to do it, not because, "Hey, its time." If somebody else tells you, then its not really you doing, you're simply following them, you're being a mindless zombie, you're not doing your own thinking. You have to do things because you want them or else there'll be no change inside of you.

LIAM: Can we talk more about a conversation that we had on the phone when I called you and asked you if I should confront my father and get some of his angers an stuff out?

THERRY: Okay.

LIAM: And one of the things that you had said to me was, I had asked you logically how do you understand that logically you're not supposed to hold these grudges and forgive and all that. Logically, I understand, but I still can't give it up. How do you do it emotionally?

THERRY: You have to look at the rewards that you're getting for doing those. Look at your life, your purpose et cetera and find out what purpose does that anger serve.

LIAM: I don't think that it serves any purpose. It's a waste of my time and its ruining my life.

THERRY: It is serving a purpose for you otherwise you wouldn't have it. So you have to investigate and find out what purpose it is serving. Usually, though not always, if a person looks closely enough, they usually find one or two things, either resentment because they're trying to get love that they can't or anger, they're trying to get even.

LIAM: Well, I'm sure, I mean both of those are there, but how do I get those off, how do I not?

THERRY: Well, see once you know for sure, what it is that's happening, then you can reevaluate the situation and put new data into it, which could change the whole situation.

LIAM: Reevaluate the situation?

THERRY: Its obvious that you're dealing with the continuum of expectations and demands. So obviously you have to update that part of it that applies to you.

LIAM: You mean learn how not to have expectations?

THERRY: Where your dad is concerned. In other words, don't demand things from him that it is unlikely that you're going to receive.

LIAM: I think I'm even doing worse than that, 'cause I was talking to my sister once and it just kind of came out, I don't think I was even aware that it came out, its not so much that I want to get gripes off my chest that I've never expressed, I want, I want history to be different from what it was. Its like I don't want to make now and become a close family, and have this wonderful relationship. That's not even what I'm upset about. I want me as a little kid to have had the love, and affection and attention and--

THERRY: That's understandable. Obviously you have to come to recognize that there are some things that are just impossible.

LIAM: Yeah. But I know that logically, I know that's ridiculous, so how can I still have that emotion? Why doesn't the knowing it logically--

THERRY: If you check it out, you'll discover that it's resentment. And if you check it out even further, you'll discover that you're playing a game, that's "How dare you do that to me! Do you know who I am? I am Michele, that's the most important thing in the friggin planet! How dare you do that to me!

LIAM: No, I don't feel like that!

THERRY: That's the game you're playing. Check it out.

LIAM: I don't feel like I'm the most important person in the world. Or if I do, I'm not aware of it.

THERRY: Inside that game you feel that way.

LIAM: I feel that I'm more important that he acknowledged. I do feel like he owed me or something.

THERRY: Why would he owe you something?

LIAM: I don't know, you just explained, that if you just wanted to leave you in the street, then that's his right. I mean logically, I understand, but emotionally, I don't.

THERRY: Because, you're playing the resentment game. How dare you do that to me!

LIAM: But how do you get rid of it emotionally?

THERRY: You have to deal with it by walking through it.

LIAM: What does that mean?

THERRY: I've already told you, investigate it. Find out what the rewards are.

LIAM: There doesn't seem to be any. I'm tired of it.

THERRY: Well, on the one hand, you say that you're tired of it, but on the other hand, you 're still holding on to the same grudge.

LIAM: I don't know how to let it go.

THERRY: Because you don't know what it is you're holding unto. You can't change what it is you don't know of. That's why I said, look into it, walk through it. Find out what it is exactly what it is happening. Be very specific. Then once you can put a label to it, then you can manipulate it.

LIAM: You mean, examine exactly what it is that I'm mad about?

THERRY: Uh-hmm.

LIAM: Well, I'm mad about my whole childhood, my whole upbringing, I'm mad about the whole thing.

THERRY: The problem is that you can't lump it all together. 'Cause if you do, then there are no labels for you to deal with it and if you have no labels to deal with it, then there's nothing that you can do about it. You just feel.

LIAM: You mean be specific, like I'm mad that I wasn't loved, or didn't feel like I was loved or --

THERRY: Or you're mad that you were born black and you're in a white supremacist neighborhood or like that--

LIAM: No, that doesn't bother me.

THERRY: The point is you have to deal with absolutely every, little, tiny area and you have to walk through it and label each one, even though they may seem to you that they're so stupid. That's not involved at all. You have got to label it anyway.

LIAM: Just find each emotion and examine it specifically?

THERRY: --Each little tiny thing...-- and label it. Put a label on it. And once you've put a label on it, now you can manipulate your data according to your wisdom.

LIAM: Well, some of it I feel like I know already. A lot of it is that I feel like I wasn't loved as a child. I wasn't nurtured or protected and that annoys me.

THERRY: I find it difficult to believe that you weren't loved.

LIAM: Well, if I was loved I wasn't aware of it.

THERRY: That's a different thing, isn't it. So perhaps its not the fact that you were or were not loved, as it wasn't done to you according to what you wanted it to be.

LIAM: Well, I was abandoned, I mean, I didn't grow up with my father.

THERRY: So what?

LIAM: So the fact that he didn't raise us doesn't mean that he didn't love us?

THERRY: Correct.

LIAM: I was told when I was very young that they didn't love us by my grandmother who was just an awful person.

THERRY: Well, obviously you can't take that too serious, considering that she'd be filled with hate and emotions herself.

LIAM: Yeah, but I did at the time, I was four years old and I didn't know, you know...-- She was sending us away and we asked "Where's Mom and Dad, are they coming?" and she said, "No, they're sending you away, they don't want you anymore, you're bad kids." I was four years old. I was hysterical!

THERRY: Of course. It goes to show you the harm that people, adults, can do to children without realizing it.

LIAM: I'm sure that she did it on purpose. She was deliberately being nasty. So the fact that he was hardly around when I was growing up didn't mean that he didn't love me?

THERRY: Correct.

LIAM: I guess that's what doesn't make sense to me. I don't see how if I loved a child I could just give them up and--

THERRY: Alright, let me ask you a series of questions. Do you always do the things you should do?

LIAM: No.

THERRY: Do you always have and do the things that you love?

LIAM: Do the things that I love?

THERRY: Yeah.

LIAM: I think so.

THERRY: That's impossible. Circumstances of life would make that impossible.

LIAM: Oh, you mean, sometimes I can't do that I'd rather do.

THERRY: Right.

LIAM: Okay.

THERRY: Is that true?

LIAM: Yeah.

THERRY: During the times that you're doing the things that you must do, but you'd rather do the things that you'd rather do, does that means that you love the things that you'd rather do less because you can't do them?

LIAM: I think if it was important enough, you'd do them.

THERRY: Uh, uh.

LIAM: You wouldn't let things stop you from doing it.

THERRY: There are some things that just can't be done. You're not a magician; you can't change the world and the environment around it. For instance, if you have a tour, you have to go to Japan, that's your livelihood. And at the same time, you met a little child that you promised to take her shopping that day, what would you do when it came down to it?

LIAM: I'd go on tour.

THERRY: Does that mean that you would love to take that child shopping less?

LIAM: Less than I would like to tour.

THERRY: Only because you have to tour, you have no choice. That's your livelihood. You've got to live. Look at the touring and that little girl independent from one another. Do you love that little girl less because you've got to go on tour and you can't keep your promise to her?

LIAM: No.

THERRY: Why can't it be the same way with your Dad?

LIAM: Well, but he didn't just go on tour and come back.

THERRY: What difference does it make? It's still the same pattern.

LIAM: Well, because then it's not that he couldn't be with us, its that he chose not to be. He wasn't on tour three hundred and sixty five days a year.

THERRY: The same way with you, its not that you couldn't be with that little girl. You chose not to. You chose to go out and make a living instead.

LIAM: That doesn't seem to be the same thing though.

THERRY: It is the same.

LIAM: Because I'll come back to the little girl and then I'll take her shopping.

THERRY: But its already too late. That little girl has already been hurt...the time has been. Maybe that little girl moved on. You certainly moved on.

THERRY: Even if your Dad did come back, how can those words be changed?

LIAM: I don't know part of me is just--

THERRY: Again as I said, go search it out. Walk through the pain. Put a label on everything and don't automatically connect one item with another item. Keep them separate.

LIAM: What do you mean?

THERRY: Well--

LIAM: Oh, like, don't assume leaving the girl means you love her less because of the necessities of life.

THERRY: Yeah. Also, don't assume what your grandmother said was true because your Dad demonstrated it. Don't make that connection because its not true.

LIAM: Well, why did he take us back sooner than he did. The only reason he took us back sooner was my stepmother insisted on it when he remarried again. Her opinion was that if you have kids you've got to take care of them, its your responsibility. She made him have us come live with them from that point on. She told me that.

THERRY: That doesn't change anything.

LIAM: But he would have been happy just to leave us where we were.

THERRY: That doesn't change.

LIAM: Well, why would he do that if loved us, why would he not want us around.

THERRY: Aren't you forgetting that a person has got to do whatever they feel that they must do. Do you know everything that's going to happen in your life and why?

LIAM: No.

THERRY: Can't that be the same for him?

LIAM: Yeah.

THERRY: Couldn't it be possible that he was very busy trying to make something of his life--get out of the hold that he was in and since he knew that you were safe that he was free to do whatever it is that he had to do.

LIAM: Yeah. So, he still didn't take us back.

THERRY: How could he? Maybe taking you back prematurely would have prevented him from being able to achieve whatever he was looking for.

LIAM: Well, why wasn't it his idea to take us back when he did? Why was it--why did it have to be Mom's idea, my stepmother's idea?

THERRY: What difference does it make?

LIAM: Well, because if the reason why he wasn't taking us back was because he couldn't, how come he could when she suggested it? Why is it the fact that he--

THERRY: Why not look at it from the other point of view? What if he wanted to take you back but was afraid that she would not want it? What if he thought that taking you children back had to come from her, otherwise it would be apprehension?

LIAM: Well-l-l-l--

THERRY: Isn't that valid?

LIAM: Yeah. I don't know if I believe it, but it's a possibility.

THERRY: What if it were a truthful possibility? Since you have no way of really truly knowing which is truth and which is not, why not automatically think the good side rather than the bad side?

LIAM: 'Cause I guess I'm thinking what I would do in the situation. I can't imagine that I would leave my kids behind for my career.

THERRY: You would leave them in a flash.

LIAM: I would not.

THERRY: You would.

LIAM: Why do you say that?

THERRY: Because one hundred percent of every human would do the exact same thing when they're caught in the situation when there's nothing else to do.

LIAM: I'd just take them with me. That's what they did with my younger sister! They took her everywhere--she grew up on the road--my stepmother's daughter with my father. She had a whole different life than we had! They didn't leave her behind because of the career and traveling. They took her everywhere. They had a tutor privately on the road. It was a whole different story with her!

THERRY: And perhaps that's what you really resented.

LIAM: Yeah, its true. Its true, that was a lot of it in the past!

THERRY: And perhaps your younger sister is no longer around for you to resent, you--

LIAM: No, this is my younger sister--she's still around. This is my stepsister, my half-sister.

THERRY: Okay.

LIAM: It's true I did resent Aria? I still, just recently again. The thing that I'm finding I'm surprising myself about is that I thought that I'd stopped expecting things from my family. And I keep finding out that I haven't. I keep getting hurt by it. 'Cause this last Thanksgiving--Susan and I have Thanksgiving and Christmases combined in her apartment and I went and cooked dinner and did the whole thing and my parents and my sister called half an hour before they were supposed to be there and said they weren't coming 'cause they were too tired. And I was really upset about it. I was surprised at how upset I got.

THERRY: Uh-hmm. Because that told you you weren't important enough.

LIAM: Yeah. So how am I supposed to interpret that? Like how you say, well, he could still love you, you're just not important to him. That doesn't make any sense!

THERRY: Perhaps they're taking the view that, hey, you're grown up now. You're on your own.

LIAM: Well, so what?

THERRY: It makes a big difference. You're on your own now. Your life shouldn't depend on them, you should depend on yourself.

LIAM: Well, it doesn't depend on them. I mean, they've never supported me or anything.

THERRY: That's not true in terms of your feelings.

LIAM: Yeah, emotionally--

THERRY: So, therefore that's what you have to look at.

LIAM: I shouldn't have to feel love from my family?

THERRY: Correct.

LIAM: How do you not need for love from your family?

THERRY: It has to do with demands and expectations, doesn't it?

LIAM: Yeah, but how do you get to that state where you don't need it?

THERRY: Oh, I didn't say that you never need it. A child always needs it, always. But there's a difference between needing it and demanding it.

LIAM: I'm demanding it instead of just needing it?

THERRY: Uh-hmm.

LIAM: What would be the difference when I need but don't demand it, in terms of how I feel.

THERRY: Well, if they break an appointment with you, you'd still feel hurt, but you wouldn't feel the resentment and you wouldn't feel they hate you.

LIAM: I don't feel that they hate me. I just feel that they don't care. It's just like--

THERRY: That's because you're demanding.

LIAM: Well, how would I feel differently when it's just need and not demanding it?

THERRY: I told you, the hurt would still be there, but then, if you didn't demand it, then with time you could change that.

LIAM: Change the hurt?

THERRY: Yeah. You'd come to expect something differently from them than what you expect now. When they call and they say, "Hey" et cetera, "I can't come," whatever, regardless of whatever flimsy excuse, then the feelings that you would get would be, "Yeah, I sorta expected that. Okay, no big deal." And then you'd go on living your life... but it would still hurt...but it wouldn't interfere with your life the way it is now.

LIAM: Well, it is interfering with my life. You had said that that's part of the reason why I drank or take drugs, because I'm trying to demand their attention.

THERRY: Yeah. Your other younger sister, whatever, did the same thing-- It doesn't work.

LIAM: I recently stopped drinking, about five months ago. I finally admitted I was an alcoholic and quit. I don't know if the timing was right. I mean it was just a couple of months before I broke up with David.

THERRY: Okay. Makes it easier.

LIAM: Well, its okay, but I mean usually when I go through traumas, that's when I need to go out and drink or get stoned.

THERRY: Hmm-hmm. You used the wrong words there. That is not when you need to, that is when you choose to in order to run away from what it is you're doing.

LIAM: Right. That's what I meant. (Laugh)

THERRY: Uh-hmm.

LIAM: That'd be interesting to see if I start drinking again. I've been thinking about trying to get into therapy.

THERRY: I think that's always a good idea. Make sure that the person you find is qualified.

LIAM: You mean qualified, like a real doctor or something?

THERRY: Yeah, make sure that he's not just...psst, hey...

LIAM: No, I'm applying through the N.Y.U. Program. They have a sliding scale.

THERRY: Yeah, I think that's always nice. Psychologists can do a lot for people to help them understand. But they've got to be willing to make the change.

LIAM: Well, one thing that people--'cause Susan went through therapy and I know other people who went through therapy and they tell me that one of the things that they're going to tell me is to go and confront the people and get all of your aggressions out. Now you told me that I shouldn't do that with my father.

THERRY: No. I don't think so.

LIAM: So how--what should I say with the therapy?

THERRY: Well, you have to do whatever you feel is right.

LIAM: I don't think it would be right, for the same reason that you told me. It's the same reason I told Aria, my younger sister. It's 'cause, I would be upset when I wouldn't get a response.

THERRY: Yeah, because you're not going to change time at all.

LIAM: Yeah.

THERRY: The most that he will do is say, "Well, I was different then."

LIAM: He apologized about a year ago, which was pretty surprising.

THERRY: That's the most that you're going to be able to get from him.

LIAM: It was from like out of the blue. It was his birthday dinner, we went out to dinner, and he leaned over real quick and said "I just want to tell you that I' m sorry about everything in the past" and the whole thing was just--

THERRY: That all by itself shows that he does as much thinking about it as you do.

LIAM: Yeah. I was really surprised.

THERRY: Yeah.

LIAM: I hadn't mentioned it since then. But I had a real nice Father's Day. I spent the day with both of them, just this, you know, last few days. I mean--we seem, we're friendlier now, but there's still--we're still not the Brady Bunch. It's almost like a superficial relationship now.

THERRY: Only because you're holding grudges.

LIAM: Yeah. I still am. So I should just write everything down. Al l the different types of angers and this stuff?

THERRY: Start up a journal. Record everything in your journal.

LIAM: All my feelings and all?

THERRY: Everything.

LIAM: Like a diary? A daily diary?

THERRY: Yeah.

LIAM: Not specific, just whatever comes to mind?

THERRY: Not specific, right. You'd be surprised what will come out in time.

LIAM: I thought about that route, but I never get around to doing it.

THERRY: You'd be surprised how important that can be for someone.

LIAM: Hmm. You think that my breaking up with David was for the better?

THERRY: I think so.

LIAM: I mean I shouldn't ask you that, because you already said that.

THERRY: Yeah.

LIAM: Why do you feel so strongly about it?

THERRY: Because the two of you were too much at war.

LIAM: Yeah, that's true, we were.

THERRY: You guys used to fight about finding things to fight about. I mean that's a little bit much.

LIAM: Sometimes I'm glad about it, but then sometimes I think I'm making a big mistake. I should still try to work on it. I shouldn't pay any attention to that?

THERRY: Give it time. Let some of the bruises heal and the inflammation of the wars go down. Let time dull a few things and then see what happens.

LIAM: I think I'm just petrified about being single again and I'm--

THERRY. Okay, that I can understand. That's a different story then. See it for what it really is.

LIAM: The only other thing that bothers me about this too, is that this is...I'm getting to the age where I told myself that I should go ahead and hurry up to have children if I'm going to have children. Now what do I do. Because I don't want to be a single mother and have children. And how am I going to find someone real quick that I'm supposed to have children with?

THERRY: Well, there's a number of ways to look at that. You can always adopt.

LIAM: Well, I know.

THERRY: That will help you deal with the abandonment in you.

LIAM: Really-- more than having a child?

THERRY: Yes. Because in terms of having a child, you can always find somebody to get screwed by. I mean there's enough, yokels out there who'd be more than happy to do that--

LIAM: Yeah, I know, but I have ideas about how I would want to have some kind of--

THERRY: So, you've got to go out and choose what you want. But the point is, that in terms of having the child, there's enough yokels out there that'd be happy to serve, bang and go away.

LIAM: I'm getting too old. I'm going to have to hurry up.

THERRY: Nah, uh-hmm. The key is, don't worry about it. Don't make the error.

LIAM: Don't make that error?

THERRY: Yeah.

LIAM: Of thinking that I'm too old?

THERRY: Or, don't make that error of thinking that you have to get married and have a child now, because when the time comes, you can always have a child via adoption.

LIAM: I shouldn't be so concerned about giving birth?

THERRY: Correct.

LIAM: But I want to.

THERRY: Alright. I can accept that. But look at that for what it is. Don't look at it and disguise it and call it something else.

LIAM: You mean to ask myself why its so important to me to give birth?

THERRY: Yeah.

LIAM: I don't know. I haven't found out.

THERRY: I know. That' s what I'm saying. Look at it and find out. See many of the problems that you have are just feelings. You don't know a damned thing about them. You just feel. They are no labels.

LIAM: I don't know why I feel those feelings?

THERRY: Right. You don't know anything. You just feel it. And I'm saying you make an error doing that. Look into it. Put a label to it. Find out what's really involved. See, many women cop out by saying, "Ah, that's just the maternal urges." That's bullshit!

LIAM: Yeah, that's what I thought it was.

THERRY: Bullshit!

LIAM: There is no maternal urge?

THERRY: Course there is, but they don't suddenly come up when you're forty-five or ninety.

LIAM: (Giggle)

THERRY: And they sure as hell don't crop up just because you're in a fit of nostalgia. Maternal urges don't work that way.

LIAM: I can't imagine why I would like to give birth.

THERRY: Again, I think you came up with a pretty good idea when you said that you're thinking of going to therapy. They can help you unravel all of those--

LIAM: That's something that I should bring up in therapy?

THERRY: Sure. It's bothering you, isn't it?

LIAM: It doesn't bother me, the only thing that bothers me is that it doesn't look like its going to work out logistically.

THERRY: But it's still bothering you, isn't it? It's interfering with your peace of mind, isn't it?

LIAM: Yeah, that's true. I'm worried that I'm not going to be able to.

THERRY: Why would you want to go to a psychologist, if not for your peace of mind?

LIAM: Well, that's true. Hmmm. I never thought about it. I never thought that there was some reason that I wanted to give birth. I thought it was just a natural urge.

THERRY: Who knows? There might be, there might not be. A shrink will help you find out. Could also be that it's one of those inconsistencies that women always have. They want equal rights, but yet, they still want the old ways of bearing children. Maybe they don't know what it is they really want between the two of them. Or maybe they want them all.

LIAM: Maybe its like curiosity.

THERRY: But you won't know until you put a label to it.

LIAM: Its probably because I want to experience it.

THERRY: Alright. That's possible too. But you won't know until you walk through and put a label on it. A shrink can help you.

LIAM: Okay. I can't think of anything else.

THERRY: Okay. Okee-dokee