What do psychiatric patients get? They get a bill.

I think the problem between the psychiatrist and the patient is that the psychiatrist goes by the book, while the patient arrives because of what life has done to him or her. And even though the book may have certain insights, the pages are always the same in the book, and, each patient is a little bit different. There are many more individual problems than pages. Get it? There are too many mad people to do it by saying, “dollars per hour, when this bell rings, you’re finished.” That alone will drive any near-mad person to madness. They’ve just started to open up and feel good, when the shrink says, “Nurse, make the next appointment,” and they’ve lost track of the price, which is also abnormal. It’s all too stinking worldly. The guy is out to take your ass. He’s not out to cure you. He wants his money. When the bell rings, bring in the next “nut.” Now the sensitive “nut” will realize when that bell rings, he’s being fucked. There’s no time limit to curing madness, and there’s no bills for it either. Most psychiatrists I’ve seen look a little close to the edge themselves. But they’re too comfortable…I think they’re all too comfortable. I think a patient wants to see a little madness, not too much. Ahhhh! (bored) PSYCHIATRISTS ARE TOTALLY USELESS! Next question?

[T]hat quest for the authentic, is the very thing that causes the world to seem so unreal and staged.

People can’t stop themselves from competing for status. It is branded into the side of the brain before you are born. As a primate, status hierarchies are a part of life, and when you remove yourself from the competition in the mainstream you just join the competition in the counterculture. As long as there are clusters of people bent on avoiding what is most popular, within those clusters people will compete for status through conspicuous consumption of art and fashion, music and movies, furniture and gadgets, signaling to insiders the quality of their taste or the ingenuity of their search for the authentic, and signaling to the outsiders that they are not one of them.

[T]hat quest for the authentic, is the very thing that causes the world to seem so unreal and staged.

People can’t stop themselves from competing for status. It is branded into the side of the brain before you are born. As a primate, status hierarchies are a part of life, and when you remove yourself from the competition in the mainstream you just join the competition in the counterculture. As long as there are clusters of people bent on avoiding what is most popular, within those clusters people will compete for status through conspicuous consumption of art and fashion, music and movies, furniture and gadgets, signaling to insiders the quality of their taste or the ingenuity of their search for the authentic, and signaling to the outsiders that they are not one of them.