Yes. It’s official. We’ve gone around some kind of bend as the American television-watching public. I just saw a very thin woman explain how she lost weight by getting her treats at the Taco Bell drive through. I really did. I verify this statement because I’m aware there’s a television public that never goes near the sorts shows I have running…I respect you, but, I gotta let you know what kind of trash is out there….
Taco Bell…hmmm…This is the same company that had a campaign last year which said, “Late night snack? Don’t think of it as a snack, think of it as a fourth meal!”….Now that’s what America needs….a fourth meal.
How much of your life have you spent in activities you said “Yes” to, when you meant “No?”
The world is a constant demand situation. If you do not define yourself to the world…and other people…the world and other people will define you.
Could anyone convince you… that you were the sort of person who would like setting your alarm for five in the morning… dressing with a swimsuit as underwear… driving downtown to an ancient university gymnasium and… diving into a chlorine-heavy basement pool? And that you would do this without someone holding a gun on you?
….What could get a woman to not only do this once, but agree to do this insane routine five days a week for six weeks?
…Yep. The beast who agreed to the routine was, of course, my Emotional Guidance System. The same critter that landed me in the Water Tower Place shopping mall. (See previous post.) I agreed to the bizarre morning swimming routine because when my special person claimed that something called “aerobic swimming” was not the work of the devil, but something that I’d be glad I’d completed, and that he was leaping on the opportunity…
My brain shot right out the window and, for ever how long it took for me to sign up…
I ignored “the facts”… 1) I read into the late hours and get up grouchy; 2) I’m a terrible swimmer; 3) Indoor pools are yucky; 4) There was zero possibility that I would continue ‘aerobic swimming’ if I should be fortunate enough to survive the course. And the strongest fact of all, that if I had no intention of making ‘aerobic swimming’ part of my lifestyle…there really was no point outside a few weeks of bragging and living in the “lying to myself zone” that is what sells every new diet, new piece of exercise equipment, every project that depends on pretending we are on the verge of a personality transplant.
“Oh no,” he said. “You’ll like it,” he lied. “You are too rigid and unwilling to try new things. This would be good for you.” And yep. The challenge to my personality perfection along with the “good for you” baloney got me to question what I knew to be the facts about myself.
I did come to my senses. But it took three times of me quitting…the last departure quite public and spectacular. I did eventually engage my Thinking Guidance System, but not until I’d suffered through weeks of torture.
Here’s the picture. I arrived on the first day and hopped into my lane, ready. From there it was downhill. The pool was awful, the water was cold, I sucked royally at swimming, and nearly drowned on at least four occasions. Particularly amusing that first day was my exit when the class was over. The coach Nazi blew his whistle and said something diabolically cheery and that we were done. Everyone else, including my special person, bounded out of the pool and headed for the dressing rooms. Now this is the pool the swim team used early in the last century, which means that the lanes area had no ladder.
Unable to pull myself out of the pool and now surrounded by bouncy college students readying for swimming class…I flopped desperately against the side of the pool, one foot stuck up over the edge. I’d almost make it, then plop back in. I supposed that once my special person was dressed and ready, he’d notice I was missing and re-trace steps until he found me half in, half out of the pool. Either that, or he’d find me in two days when the class started up again.
The point here is how persuasion…or FUSION…can get us to waste time and energy in activities that are someone else’s idea, someone else’s challenge.
First, DIETBABBLE ALERT: New Scientific Breakthrough! The reason you’ve had a hard time losing weight is because you haven’t been eating according to your DNA! That’s right, folks. Now you can send in a saliva swab, the “lab” reads your “sample” and POOF… the exciting secret foods you need to avoid will be revealed and the weight just falls off. Of course, you have to coordinate this amazing scientific breakthrough with dieting according to your blood type and the phases of the moon.
Also, a thermos maker cashing in on “going green” by showing piles of plastic bottles (gallons) lists both ’saving the planet’ and ‘weight loss’ as results you can expect by using the thermos.
Still the favorite in my heart: the man walking along the beach with a split piece of metal, ending his spiel saying, “And my wife can’t stop talking about the weight I’ve lost since I’ve had my new metal detector.”
Anxiety. How far will you go to push down your anxiety?
It’s interesting to notice that recent celebrity drug deaths are overdoses … not of a drug that would make a person ‘high’… their deaths have not been the result of going too far with a substance known to make a person ‘happy’. Their deaths have been the result of taking drugs which make a person numb, even unconcious.
Anxiety.
Anxiety is the fuel and the product of the Emotional Guidance System. Anxiety is powerful, powerful enough to make a mess of a person’s life. We are all anxious. Dogs and cats and cows are anxious, too. Some dogs chew through doors when left alone, some cats hide even when hungry, cows stampede sometimes. People chew (overeat), hide (avoid), and stampede (run away), too.
The goal of this mysteryshrink journey we are on is to get a little better hold on anxiety. (See Wildebeest entry)..2 percent…a shift of only 2 percent can improve life experience.
What would happen if you could manage a 2 percent improvement in your ability to manage your anxiety when someone else is saying something that makes you anxious? Aha! Of course, no one can “make you anxious”… No one else can even reach your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM button… I was just giving you a little test…
Situation: The spouse and I are having breakfast in Kansas City during the Big Twelve Basketball tournament. As it happens, several team members are enjoying the same hotel buffet. My special other, being much better than I at realizing his importance or lack of importance in the world, is nudging me in the shin and teasingly suggesting I make up some story about a young nephew and collect a bunch of Texas Longhorn autographs. Since my Emotional Guidance System is always ready to exaggerate things, always ready with the caution, ”Don’t call attention to yourself! People will think you’re crazy! Your complete hick-dom background is going to show and you’ll never recover! What complete strangers think of you is incredibly important! A frown from a stranger will ruin your whole day!” “When your special person does something that he thinks is cute and you think is embarrassing after you’ve TOLD him how he’s supposed to behave to keep you calmed down…his continuing to be himself means he doesn’t love you!”
Okay, there I am, exposed for the sucker FUSION (See Fusion, think ropes twisted together.) And how do I FEEL? To what degree do the actions of another change (signal you to change) what’s going on inside you?
Anxiety 101. Tune in tomorrow for miraculous 2 percent victory in the terrifying autographing incident!
In our consumer culture products are produced–not to be kept as useful–but as fads that really change nothing. Thus, the latest exercise gadget, diet pill, or “secret food” revealed work on repeating inane simplistic promises. The producer knows no real change will occur (something lasting less than six months is not a change), but for a while, a critical period, people will buy the product.
I spent and hour and a half on-line and found 473 Diets. Ladies and gentlemen the problem IS NOT lack of information. The problems have to do with our functioning.
First: This is not a new diet. No secret is included. All I’m doing is reporting what one woman decided to do and did based on her work to get a big more in charge her EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM. Remember, no frowns or self-beatings. This is where your unconditional friend presides. And you are okay, so smile.
This woman, I’ll call her M, lived alone and had a limited social life. She was forty-six and had been divorced almost twenty-years. M worked at a good state job and enjoyed quiet evenings with her own company reading and watching favorite shows. She also enjoyed travelling. Limitation travelling was the reason she wanted to think through the weight issue.
To strengthen her access to her THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM, she constructed methods to break the rhythm of reflexive,
non-thoughtful, eating. Then she came up with her own program. For breakfast and lunch (meals she didn’t really enjoy) she ate an apple and two rice cakes. At nine in the evening she went through the Whataburger Drive Thru and picked up a double meat cheese Whataburger with double onions. She went home and enjoyed her meal in front of her favorite show. She did this for months. She lost the weight.
I know, I can practically feel “Yes, but…” missiles about nutrition, what time of day a person ought to eat, the importance of your astrological sign, and your body frame, someone pointing to a pyramid and, of course, plastic food. Somewhere out there is even a joy-killer somewhere saying, “But, Doc, 
don’t you think it’s WRONG to enjoy such bad foods. Don’t you think we should ‘eat to live’ instead of ‘live to eat’?”
Grrrrrrrrrrr. M lost the weight. Did all those nutritionist talks ever change anyone’s behavior? I mean anyone except that rude guy in the back chanting, “eat to live instead of eat to live.”
And Dr. L, of course.
Those of us following Nancy Grace and the Tot Mom who probably (used loosely) murdered her then two-year-old daughter have heard the jailhouse tapes and endless interviews with anyone who happens through the Tot Mom’s Florida neighborhood. Most remarkable has been the absolute ease with which Tot Mom
tells one lie after another trying to explain herself. Lies that are easily proved wrong.
The following is paraphrased. I’ve admitted I watch the show. But I deny memorizing it.
One of the interviewers asked an interviewee, “Why does she keep right on with the same self-destructive behavior after she can see that it isn’t working?”
The interviewee responded, “Because Casey Anthony only thinks ten minutes at a time. Just let me get myself out of this mess 
and I’ll worry about the rest later.”
I’ve been thinking about a simple way to introduce the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM. The quickest description is that the TGS is that part of our brain able to consider WHAT HAPPENS AFTER 10 MINUTES after we choose an action. I know, I don’t like it either, but just doing whatever we have to do to get rid of immediate anxiety, doesn’t work out so well.
10 Minute Fixes: TOO MUCH of something that’s okay in moderation–shopping, saving money, alcohol, internet surfing, 
food, dog scratching, sex, computer games [Solitaire should come with a warning: Kiss your life good-bye, this game is familystyle crack.], studying, partying, gardening, journaling, talking to strangers, talking, isolation, etc.
No guilt remember. Guilt is one of those 10 minute fixes.
Do feathers count when they’re invisible? I’m asking because this morning, I slung a few criticism feathers which went completely unnoticed by the person I was gossiping about.
Okay, so I’m at the gym on the treadmill. Yes, I’m burping peppers from the slab of pizza I had for breakfast. I can take the irony of that. But then this limber chick in a gold lame (okay, it was red, but, hey, the top and bottom MATCHED), jogging suit hopped up on the treadmill next to me and cranked up the speed to sure-fire heart attack level. 
She popped her IPod into her ear and ran halfway across the state.
But I forgave her. I did not spit one feather at the gym. I stepped off the treadmill in my orthopedically altered shoes and staggered to my car. Pretend Gold Lame Lady left at the same time.
Here’s where, as they say, THE FEATHERS FLEW. On my way home I turned into the Walgreens parking lot to pick up one of my many life-extending prescriptions. As I gimped to the door a black BMW shot into the handicapped parking spot RIGHT in front of the door.
As I always do, 
I checked to see if the car had the appropriate sticker or tag. It had neither. And here’s comes the knife in the criticism pillow.
Out of the BMW sprinted the Gold Lame Lady!! I know. The feathers were STUCK ON ME.
The first lesson in becoming more in charge of the EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM is: Let Others Be.
The feathers. As you all remember (Doubt entry) when the lady went up on her roof and split the pillow? She learned what happens when gossip, or any negative or positive bit 
(flake, feather, comment) is set free in the world. The effect is like thousands of little bits of what you say lands on, sticks to, and changes others. AND remember–NO GUILT here thinking about all the negative feathers you’ve shot into the atmosphere.
None. Stop it. 
You remember when something against the rules was done in your third grade class, and the teacher looked out across the room and said, “I’m not talking to all of you, only the one who did this…” You and I and the rest of the folks I see wanting to work on self… we cringed and felt bad and we hadn’t even done it.
And we’re not putting our energy there in 2009. We’re putting our energy on quieting the pillow-ripper, the feather blower in our own heads. Our INNER TORTURER.
Our ravaging EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM. Because that’s where the work starts. Until we get in better charge of our own INNER TORTURER, we’re spitting downer feathers because all those “you can’t do it” flakes we’re spewing on our lives keep us from even VISUALIZING what is possible.
So, I’m in the Dallas-Ft. Worth airport, in my third hour of waiting for a late plane. The best I can do is wander the stores and read magazine headlines. Which is when I asked myself, “Do the feathers blown into our brains off magazines, do they stick? The following are the lead stories from two of these.
Men’s Health: 
Lose Your Gut! See results in 8 days. 15 Powerful foods that fight fat. Free workout poster.
Women’s Health: Lose Your Belly! See results in 8 days. No poster.
So, that’s been the problem. 
No flipping poster!
I was going to lie low until the Spring as I have a book coming out in early summer, timing and all. But I can’t wait. Yesterday on the plane the man behind me chastised his wife, “You make decisions based on your emotions while I make decisions based on what I see and hear for myself.”
I had to mention this because so many times this argument is used as if WHAT YOU HEAR and WHAT YOU SEE isn’t determined by your emotions. Example later.
Lest there be any question, I did not intend to put down the struggling wife mentioned yesterday. Never. Some people have better “front offices” than the rest of us.
They hold in their anxiety, and thus they come across cool 
instead of HYSTERICAL like the rest of us. But the husband in the example was no more functional than the wife, just using means other than obvious “relationship dependence” to calm himself down. Who knows, maybe he had someone on the side (or gets someone) using relationship dependence in spades.
“Relationship dependence” is when we need 
a particular response from a particular other person to CALM DOWN, START THINKING AND GET BACK IN CHARGE of our lives.
And what’s particularly interesting and self-destructive about this method of calming ourselves down is that it DRIVES OTHER PEOPLE CRAZY. It drives AWAY the person we want to keep close. 
How nuts is that?
A supreme and successful effort to manage . . . RELATIONSHIP DEPENDENCE.
I was seeing a couple, both of whom were university professors. (All descriptions are disguised and combined to not apply to actual persons. I have enough wacky people in my family to use anyway.) 
The husband was frustrated with the marriage and had moved into his own apartment. Things were improving with therapy as each learned more about their reactivity and anxiety management, but the husband was not ready to re-commit. The wife had a research report tour scheduled which would take her on the road for two months and require her to make presentations to large groups, a process that was hard for her.
In the last session before she was to leave, she asked her husband to promise 
that their marriage was going to work out. Though she made it very clear he could cure her current anxiety by saying what she wanted to hear, he held his ground that he was still unsure. He was particularly worried that if they got back together she would end up leaning on him again for her sense of self. Prior to separating the wife had suffered panic attacks if left alone and all night bouts of anger insisting that her husband was not caring enough.
She upped the ante saying she couldn’t go on the trip, 
couldn’t fulfill her obligations unless he said they were going to make it as a couple. He did not give in.
The wife headed out on the tour. During the second week, while she was in New York, the husband called at around eleven to ask how she was doing. The first few minutes was enjoyable for both. The husband said “Goodnight,” as was pleasantly signing off when the wife shouted, “Stop!” 
He did. She started crying and saying he’d ruined her tour, that he’d never loved her, and that she was going out to find some man who did. He pleaded to continue the discussion the next day. She refused continuing to list his crimes and her own faults. After several more attempts to close the conversation, the husband hung up.
The wife called him back with more emotional blasting. 
After ten minues, he hung up. She called again. He hung up. She called again. He’d taken the phone off the hook.
The wife threw herself on the bed hysterical, more because she’d made such an absolute mess of things than anything else. The urge to hear from her husband was almost unbearable. She “felt” out of control and absolutely hopeless.
THEN, she remembered a word or two about taking the energy she was using to TRY AND GET A RESPONSE from another person . . .
And using that energy to MANAGE her OWN anxiety. 
Instead of rolling around on the bed, feeling worse and worse, ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED SHE COULD NOT FEEL BETTER, until she got the feedback she wanted from her husband–SHE DECIDED TO TAKE CHARGE. 
As she told me: “What did I have to lose,” I asked myself. “I got up, got dressed and went out on the sidewalk and started walking. I was in Times Square, so there were plenty of interesting people. Even though every cell in my body (okay, that’s my phrase) wanted to either try to contact my husband or wallow in continuing misery, I started LOOKING at the interesting people. I looked at the marquees. I told myself I was going to walk and walk and walk until I WAS IN CHARGE OF MYSELF. 
And I did.”
When her husband called, she apologized for dumping her anxiety into the phone call. He heard, for the first time, that she understood what it meant to be responsible for self.
Two phrases from two older movies will be the theme for a few days.
“I’M IN CHARGE!” 
from Hustle and Flow. (Think of both of these guys inside your head trying to be in charge.)
and “I COULDN’T HELP MYSELF!” from a whole bunch of others. 
Not to mention, these are the people who spend their lives in prisons — real and fabricated.
It’s about who’s deciding what goes on inside your chest cavity. Who decides your level of motivation. Who’s in charge.
Back later.
What does it mean when a parent says, “She’s so sensitive?”
Does it mean she’s, INFLEXIBLE, FEARFUL, LIKELY TO EXAGGERATE, LIKELY TO TURN ON HERSELF, LIKELY TO TURN ON OTHERS? (Fearful of what you ask? All those bad things, those waiting-to-get-you thought-streams in your imaginary lint tube. See yesterday.)
Ouch. “Sensitive” doesn’t sound so good. 
When others see you as “sensitive,” in what ways do others change their behavior so that YOU DO NOT GET ANXIOUS?
I know, I’ve been told. And, now I’m back.
And when I review the complaints over my absence, I remind myself of what I tell clients who complain that their spouse or parent or sibling “is always wanting me to spend more time with them.” 
I reply, “It could be the opposite, you know. Think about that. How would it feel to hear your spouse, sibling, or parent is always saying, ‘Gee, I wish I could spend less time with (your name here)’.”
The spin YOU put on your life as it plays out is UP TO YOU.
Everyday, in every way, work on that ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE. 
TOMORROW. YES, TOMORROW: Back to our efforts toward greater emtional maturity, to our efforts to have more of our actions determined by our best thinking and less determined by EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or from within the self.
I know this is hard. It’s really hard for me and I’ve been training a lot of years. 
But that emotional picture of the world I nurture inside my head–the one formed from my fears and anxieties, is one tough and relentless customer. My EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM wants: to prove I’m right, to show I’m not more wrong than anyone else, to seek relief by winning approval, to buy things that make me feel better, to eat things that make me feel better, to win over people to keep me safe, and that’s just the tip of the tip of the tip of the shaky self berg.
TOMORROW: Which is more important? The world I can touch, the world of facts? Or the world I am responding to, the one I’ve made up and nuture in my head?
AND, what does the answer to this question have to do with my tendency to feel criticized? 
How do I know when I’m using my BEST THINKING and when I’m making my decision as the result of EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from others or from within myself?
And what does BEST THINKING have to do with a near fatal stop sign incident?
Now, I’m being dreadfully honest here about my emotional immaturity, so do consider this stop sign thing happened a while back.
The incident and the realization that I’d better grow up in my marriage. 
Up until a few years ago, I showed horses–jumpers. I rode five days a week about three hours a day. Also, I worked full-time at a hospital, had a private practice, wrote a book, read all the time–and did I mention my parents live here? So, there’s more time from my wifely duties, obligations I filled pitifully, at best, if you go my typical standards.
And, poor soul, I had (still do) a husband. When the time spent riding issue arose, he didn’t think my defense that at least I spent no time cooking or keeping house was particularly impressive. Thus, anytime I was asked the question, “So when do you think you’ll be back from the stable tonight? my brain went whooshy. 
I’d stumble around for a time, check out his voice tone, and study the clock. My anxiety rose. And rose.
ALERT: If your first response to solving my anxiety (and huge guilt) problem was for me to sit down, tell my husband how anxious I was, and ASK HIM to change HOW he asked me when I’d be home. 
Or emotionally brow beat him until he promised to never again show frustration with my late hours . . . if he really loves me he’d want to help me wouldn’t he?
If these were your first thoughts–the stop sign incident is for you.
On this particular evening I was about forty-five minutes later leaving the barn than I had promised. And way anxious–about what he was going to say, about what a crappy wife I was. 
I approached a four-way stop intersection that I crossed every day. This time, rehearsing my excuses and my stomach in a knot, (no cell phones yet) I blew through the stop sign and missed T-boning a car by inches. 
The guy behind the wheel screamed at me. I shot him the bird. It was lovely. I was lovely. So together and mature.
ALERT: If you’re thinking the mean man behind the wheel of the other car shouldn’t have screamed at poor little me–well, I’m not sure I can help.
As I sat there assessing my situation, it occurred to me that I was not behaving or feeling differently than I had coming home late walking home from the third grade. 
With all the responsibilities that come with adulthood (not to mention a decade of training) it seemed like I could do better if I thought the situation through.
MY BEST THINKING: Time leaving the barn varied by how many people were there for show coaching, how many horses were backed up on the wash rack, and whether or not my horses were having a good day or a day requiring much remedial riding. 
In order to continue in this demanding hobby, I’d have to admit the variability of time required and face the consequences.
Immediately on arriving home, I sat down with the good guy 
and said that I had decided to stop making promises about when I’d be home from the stable. I acknowledged that I wouldn’t want to be married to someone involved in showing horses, but I loved what I was doing. Instead of being up front, I’d been making promises about when I’d be home when my best thinking was I didn’t have enough control over training to forecast how long coaching would take. 
He would have to trust my judgement and accept that I loved him very much and looked forward to being home with him as much as he looked forward to being with me.
Of course, I could and would make exceptions for those evenings when something special was planned or if he had a request.
After a bit of protest, all of which I recognized as valid, he said: “Well, I don’t like it. 
But I love you. I guess some people come with pianos– you come with horses.” 
I know, I know. People like comments and people have questions. Unfortunately, due to ethical considerations and the large volume of readers, there is no way for me to read and respond to comments.
It’s like the woman in the cartoon standing behind the car with the trunk open– suitcases, piles of clothes, and all sorts of recreational equipment piled on the ground. She’s saying, “Okay. I can either pack for this trip or go on this trip. I cannot do both.”
“If you don’t take your life seriously, it’s not worth living.”
“If you ONLY take your life seriously, it’s not worth living.” 
So, how’s that CONVERSATION with YOURSELF going today?
How critical are you . . . 
OF YOU? Like you needed any help. (Don’t forget Dr. P. in case you don’t dislike yourself enough.)
I keep being reminded in my practice– how the OPINION . . . your YOUR SPECIAL PERSON . . . has of you either EMPOWERS you or DIMINISHES your enthusiasm. Stop. That’s a lie. 
A big fat lie. You know, from our journey so far, that YOU, and only you, are responsible for your opinion of yourself. You are responsible for moving forward empowered or slinking back.
STILL . . . it sure is nice to be loved by someone who thinks you could can do anything you set your mind to. 
Life is harder if your closest person sees you as incapable, kicked around by your emotions, undisciplined, unmotivated, not so bright, a dreamer without courage . . . 
oh, that’s enough. Just thinking about that kind situation is a downer.
But, yea! NOT A PROBLEM! That person closest to you is YOU.
You are the one empowering you or doubting you. ONLY YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for your opinion of you.
Yea!
To be honest, other people don’t really have the time to take care of our opinions. It drives them crazy when we put them in that position.
**Stay tuned for “The Near Fatal, Life-Giving Stop-Sign Incident.”
Remember the social psychology experiment showing that people who rate themselves higher in social desirability than other people rate them actually have the best time?
Being a Self Defined Person means basing actions on Best Thinking rather than Emotional Pressure from Other People and EMOTIONAL PRESSURE from WITHIN THE SELF.
One nasty little personification of our Emotional Guidance System is our INNER TORTURER. You know her. She’s the voice of our anxieties and fears.
Famous lines booming in our heads that can STOP US IN OUR TRACKS.
About goals: “What makes you think you can do that? 
Who do you think you are?”
About love: “Why would anyone pick you? . . . Why would anyone stay with you?”
Examples upcoming. Goals: Horses, Jumps, and Foolish Practices
Love: Spending all night in a phone booth– dialing his number and smoking cigarrettes.
An event happens, say someone in our household disagrees with us. I mean, it could happen. And we RESPOND. How much of our response is OUR DECISION?
How much of our response is the mindless, (ouch, I know, that’s a rough word), automatic defensiveness of our EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM?
You remember our EGS. That part of our brains which CANNOT TOLERATE ANXIETY. That part of our brains that seeks ONE THING–relief from anxiety. That part of our brains able to ignore the fact that what we are doing IS NOT WORKING.
That part of our brain that DOESN’T LEARN from experience. 
But, just bulls on through. That part of our brain . . .
that believes we have NO CONTROL. And we do.
And what does all this have to do with the sect in El Dorado? The living dead women?
Later . . . tonight.
mysteryshrink @ April 22, 2008
I just heard a woman promising: “Get happier! Get slimmer! Get a NEW LIFE!”
“Just press ‘PLAY’.”
I’m serious. We’ve been working at the this becoming a Self Defined Person way too hard. All we need to do is order this “press-pocket” or “ab-detonator” or some such miraculous item that “scientists” have just discovered that . . . 
well . . . you know.
Later: Can love MAKE YOU HAPPY?
I haven’t forgotten the Frenchman sitting in the Paris cafe just waiting to share how he learned to be happy man.
