Chapter 21: (v.2) A Positive Memory

When he woke up, his parents had returned from work and were sitting in the living room.

“So, what brings you here?” Iulia asked when she saw him. “Tired of Thessaloniki, huh?”

To Christos’ eyes Iulia appeared tired from work, but she still didn’t look surprised from his return.

“I decided to take a small break,” Christos replied. “They really have us cornered in the masters course!”

“But are things so hard this year?” Petros asked.

“Yes, yes,” Christos replied. “They are. Imagine that I dropped a module!”

Upon hearing this, Petros appeared to become stressed and sad and went to his room.

Christos thought that it was his fault that his father felt this way. Guilt started to overwhelm and he became closed to himself for about two hours, and naturally, after being fed up of his inner turmoil, he began to get angry.

He went to his room and placed a pillow on top of his head. This time, instead of shouting, he bit the pillow like a beast that tears apart its victim, grunting as well from its rage.

Strangely, that didn’t calm him down. He had to release more anger. He did that by kicking and punching the air manically, as if he fought an invisible opponent.

Finally, after becoming physically exhausted, his rage dissipated and he lay on his bed. Thinking with clarity and following Teacher's counseling of how to remove guilt he thought, “I had no intention!”

The guilt left him, and Christos thought that he could eventually relax for that day.

At that moment, his mother walked through the main corridor of the house to go to the kitchen. She looked at him with a stern glance with the corner of her eye. “You are getting lazy, huh?” she said with a voice tainted with irony.

Then, a new memory surfaced:

During the first year of high school, Christos’ grades were relatively low. The day he got his grades for the second semester, his father went to hospital with horrible stomach pain and vomiting.

When she returned from school, his mother, holding his grades showily in her hand, said with an intense look on her face:

“It is because of you your father became sick!”

The consequences of this memory to Christos, was that every time somebody became sick or something bad happened to him, he wondered if it was his fault.

Remembering this memory, Christos became guilty again and full of despair. He turned off the desk lamp and felt as if life left him.

“I can’t take this anymore!” he thought and started crying.

“Exactly, stick to your isolation!” said Iulia coldly.

He fell asleep, feeling overwhelmed by his own tears.

***

The next day Christos woke up with a lot better mood, because with all his crying last night, his emotional tension dissipated.

He got out of bed to make coffee and noticed that no one was at home. Then he recalled the cruelty of Iulia last night and wondered if she wanted to get even for that event with the cockroach in the summer.

“Maybe it is so maybe not,” he rationalized. “No one can be sure what the reason of her malice is!”

However, deep inside, even after making that statement, he became enraged, as he feared that he would lose this battle and if this situation continued it would result in him losing the war and becoming the docile child he was before his outburst in the summer.

Walking out of the house and even though it showered, he walked towards the forest. With his hands on empty pockets, along with his rage, insecurity accompanied him as well as the previous day he ran out of cash.

There, deep in the forest, he saw a large pile of wet and chopped tree trunks. Next to them lay on the ground a fallen tree and a woodman's axe.

Taking the axe from the ground and acting impulsively, he began to chop the fallen tree to smaller logs, shouting with rage and cursing Iulia.

That kept on for quite a while and a smile eventually formed on his lips, when he chopped the last piece of wood. He managed to produce several logs, similar to the ones that lay on the pile. Then something unexpected happened.

All this time that he did a woodmans work, an old man stood about ten meters away and observed him curiously. Thin, average height and with a grey beard, he kept his weathered from use blue jeans from falling by holding his belt with his calloused hands.

Christos froze on his place when he saw that man. He thought, “Oh my! Who knows how long he has been watching! I must have made a fool of myself!” and felt embarrased.

“Eh, I am sorry for the logs!” Christos said uncomfortably. “I didn’t know they were yours!”

“You are a strong lad, aren’t you?” the old man asked not at all joking. “I came here to chop some woods to put at my fireplace but you did that before I did!”

“Oh, it’s nothing!” Christos replied still without knowing if the man said that in order to scold him or not.

“Come,” the old man said and drew out a 20 euro bill from the pocket of his jeans. “Normally I don’t pay for laborers because I do this work myself. But you made a lot of effort, so you deserve to be rewarded!”

Thanking the woodman, Christos accepted the 20 euro bill and left the woods. A forgotten memory then came to his mind:

He must have been around ten, it was Christmas Eve and they were out with some friends to sing the Christmas carols. The held a paper box where they put money in, however that year their box was almost empty.

“We haven’t earned anything!” Christos said sad. “The box is empty!”

Then, a man that walked on the street heard that and approaching their company told them, “So, the box is empty, right?” he asked. Reaching out for his pocket, he took two hundred drachma notes. “Now we will fill it up!”

Christos and the other kids were joyful afterwards.

The consequence of that memory was that when he ran out of cash, he unconsciously steered situations to receive money from others. As it happened with the woodcutter, who felt obligated to pay him for what he did.

The memory felt pleasant to Christos and brought him also pleasant thoughts. He realized that to manage to chop a big pile of logs out of a tree in such a short time gave hints of his competence and ability. His morale rose.

The rest of his stay in Aleksandroupoli passed relatively relaxed while taking walks in the city, the harbor and the forest. During his stay, he searched for memories in which he fled from a situation and he found one that happened quite recently, specifically the previous year. He decided to discuss it with the Teacher when he returned to Thessaloniki.

He didn’t see his parents at all until their second farewell. Truth be told, he didn’t want to see them.

At the moment of farewell, his parents appeared to Christos a bit formal, and maybe a bit frightened. Maybe they saw him when he kicked and punched air the other day, maybe not.

Christos arrived at Thessaloniki and the same afternoon he went to Teacher.

“Hey, traveler,” said the Teacher amiably when Christos set foot in his apartment. “What news from Aleksandroupoli? Has it changed since you left?”

“No, it hasn’t!” Christos replied and spontaneously, a thought came to his mind; whether the Teacher likened him to Aleksandroupoli or not.

“It’s okay, it will change, sooner or later!” the Teacher said.

They went to the Teachers office so they could start their meeting.

“So, have you made any diagnosis?” asked the Teacher. “Did you find anything interesting?”

“Yes,” he replied, “last year I fled again.”

“What happened then?”

“A group of students and I would meet to watch a concert at Aristotelous square.”

“And you fled all of a sudden? What did you think then? You remember?”

“Hmm. . .” Christos said. “I think I panicked with the idea of being with them, if it was necessary to talk and communicate. I feared that I would be ridiculed somehow.”

“What did you do eventually?”

“The same thing: I went to the bus station and traveled to Aleksandroupoli.”

“I see,” the Teacher said. “Ridiculed. When have you been ridiculed again in front of people in the past?”

At that moment, a memory popped to Christos’ mind, one he didn’t place any significant importance.

“When I had that accident on kindergarden (Ch. 18) and soiled my pants and kids laughed at me?” asked Christos.

“Exactly!” the Teacher replied. “Even for the presentation, this is exactly what you feared. Being ridiculed!”

“You are right!” Christos admitted. “I feared that they would ask me something I did not know, or that I could not speak! I froze with the thought that they would stare at me and start laughing! It felt as if I would lose the ground beneath my feet!”

“So here you have your existential fear Christos: Ridicule!”

“How did you find that?”

“You said that you would freeze and that you would feel as if you would lose the ground beneath you! These are clear signs of activation of the existential fear!”

“So, this is the memory that signifies the creation of my existential fear!”

“No Christos,” the Teacher replied, “in that memory your existential fear only verified itself!” He then went on, “Sometimes it is difficult to find out when your leader-parent gave you your existential fear, as this is usually done in a very young age. However, you can overcome that fear, using one of the methods we discussed in our previous appointments.”

“You mean with transcendence and negation?”

“Yes! Do you remember how to apply each method?”

“No, I don’t!”

“Let’s revise our theory then!”

The Teacher explained for a second time how transcendence and negation are applied (Ch. 18). Then he expanded further, “It happens many times that we cooperate for the existential to happen. We cause it to happen.”

“How do we cause it?” asked Christos.

“If, for example, my existential is that I must always be consistent to what I do, in order to verify my fear, I will go to my date delayed, where the other person rejects me and I suffer and die emotionally.”

Then the Teacher said, “Regarding the existential we must also know the following: it is very common for people who discover their existential fear to quit their efforts for self-improvement but after some time, they come back.”

“Why do they quit?”

“Because they fear that what they’ll find will make things worse.” The Teacher continued, “Additionally, the likens to an onion. As the onion has different layers, so does the existential have its own different levels. Do not be surprised if during your development, your existential changes.”

“So, if I understand correctly,” Christos said, “I am on the first stage of transcendence. My existential became verified and then I realized its verification!”

“Not exactly,” said the Teacher, “because you didn’t stand your ground to face it, but instead you fled!”

Unwillingly, Christos agreed. “So, what should I do now?” he asked then. “In case I have another panic attack?”

“Next time this happens, remember to not run away,” said the Teacher. “Stand your ground and face your fear!”

“And what if I can’t take it?”

“If everything goes wrong, this is why I am here!”

“Good,” said Christos who felt supported from Teacher's words.

“Anything out of the ordinary that happened with your parents?” asked the Teacher.

Christos narrated the event where his father became anxious that his son would drop the difficult module. He also referred to the guilt he felt and the anger that followed later, as well as the scolding words of Iulia, “Stick to your isolation!”

“Could it be that she took revenge with that event with the cockroach in the summer?”

“Maybe,” the Teacher said, “however I believe that she simply saw you weak and slapped you so that would sink even more!”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn’t want to see you grow and deep inside she wants you to stay home all the time, as you did in the past!”

Christos became angry with these words, as he remembered that what Iulia said, in combination with the memory with the grades (Ch. 21), made him feel like a piece of trash.

“As we said during the summer,” the Teacher continued, “your strife will meet resistance from your relatives, and they will do whatever they can to make you fall back! And they know very well what bothers you! Were you not isolated for so many years?”

“Yes, I was!” said Christos. “However, I am determined to move forward!” he stated after.

“That remains to be seen,” the Teacher said. “What really makes me curious, is why it bothered you so much that your father became stressed after you told him that you dropped the module!”

Christos told the memory with the grades in high school (Ch.21), where his grades were not good and the same day his father went to the hospital sick. His mother blamed him for his father's illness.

“Whaaaat?” the Teacher bounced back surprised, “how is it that you haven’t yet told me of that memory?”

“I just found it two days ago,” Christos replied.

“This is very serious,” the Teacher stated, “Iulia loaded you with guilt for something that happened to your father.”

“But didn’t he become sick because of me?”

“I assume it didn’t happen that way,” the Teacher replied, “and that Iulia made that up to punish you!”

Christos became furious again, like when he did when he recalled this memory for the first time, at Aleksandroupoli. He knew that this was the truth, but he also wanted to ask something else: “What if my father felt so sad because of the grades he saw that he became sick?”

“If something like that happened indeed, you had no intention to cause it!”

“No, I hadn’t!”

“So why feel guilty for something that you didn’t do?”

“For no apparent reason I guess. . .”

“Even if your father became sick because of his sadness or of his will to punish you, which is entirely possible, then it is problem, not yours.”

“But wasn’t I the reason he suffered the way he did?”

“No, no and again no!” the Teacher disagreed. “From the moment we reach adulthood, we are completely responsible for our own emotions!”

“And what if he kills himself because of me?”

“Then he will be the one who pulls the trigger, Christos,” the Teacher said. “What is your involvement with it?”

“That I might have made him so depressed that he will reach that point!”

The Teacher laughed. “What you don’t understand Christos,” he said, “is that if somebody is meant to commit suicide, then that person will do it whether you cross its path or not.”

“And why is that?”

“Because at that case, suicide is a part of that persons’ private logic,” the Teacher. “And as a part of its private logic, its verification is a matter of life and death.”

“I guess of death only,” Christos said laughing.

“See?” the Teacher said. “So, let those who want to live to live, and those who want to die, to die!”

“Okay, I will do that,” said Christos and being covered from Teacher's answers, he calmed down and as his guilt left him, a huge weight also left his shoulders.

“Anything else interesting that happened?” the Teacher asked.

Christos told the Teacher the event with the woodcutter and the Christmas Carols memory (Ch. 21).

The Teacher laughed. “Haha! So, here is a beneficial role your private logic has: When I don’t have, I make others give to me!” He continued, “You will see that as you continue your development, Christo, more and more positive memories will surface.”

“Is that normal?” asked Christos.

“Yes, it is, because when we clear what is negative inside, all that remains is the positive!” Then the Teacher added, “This is an indication that you are starting to wash away all the dirt inside! Keep it up, you are doing well!”

Feeling glad about Teacher's words, Christos said, “Thank you sir.”

“So, what will you do now?” the Teacher asked.

“I’m thinking of going out for a walk,” Christos replied.

“Very well then,” the Teacher said, “having a break is important.”

“So, time to leave, until we meet again!” Christos said and left Teacher's apartment.

On the way home, he considered calling some of his friends to go out. “The road goes on and on!” he thought.