First the news : for my regular readers, predictably, I will not be blogging during Vcon. Tomorrow’s column will go out, but Saturday there will be no column, and Sunday is not looking too probable either.

That said, it is not impossible that there will be some sort of public internet terminals available at the hotel, and I will get bored or be awake at the wrong time and end up writing anyhow.

But as far as my plans go right now, I do not plan to blog on Saturday at all, and Sunday we will likely get back so late that writing a blog for Sunday will be a missed opportunity.

If you catch my drift.

Had my first therapy appointment in two weeks today. The doc was surprised and pleased when I wished him a Happy New Year. Well, I figure you should do little things to show some cultural awareness, and it’s the day after Yom Kippur after all. I am no expert but I know that it’s the Jewish New Year, and he told me he was taking Rosh Hoshannah off. That was the whole reason it had been two weeks since I had a session.

And so I figured, wish the guy Happy New Year. What can I say, I am a sucker for cheap karma. It cost me very little to think to do that, and in return, I got to see him be surprised and pleased at my thoughtfulness and cultural awareness.

Any way you slice it, that is a darn good deal. Part have me has never understood why the basic benefits of being a good person are so opaque to so many people. Be nice to people and they will like you. Basic thoughtfulness pays enormous benefits. And it feels good too.

Why is that so hard for people to understand?

It is like when I first got my hands on a copy of that famous manual, How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie.

I was quite excited to get it. I mean, who doesn’t want more friends and influence? And as I read the intro talking about how long the book has been around and how many people swear by it, I grew still more excited. Surely, this was powerful secret knowledge.

But I found, as I read, that everything in it seemed blindingly obvious to me. Things like listening to people more than you talk at them. Treating their concerns as important and trying to work out a deal where you both get what you want. Ask powerful people for their help instead of demanding what you want from them. Things like that.

My first thought was, what the hell is wrong with people that they need to be told these things? What bunch of sociopathic pricks need Dale Carnegie to tell them that they should treat other people like they matter? For whom is this a major revelation?

And obviously, a lot of people need to learn these thing from a book, because the book has been around by the 1940’s for crying out loud. Apparently, generation after generation of businessmen and tradesmen and professionals all need someone like Carnegie to tell them there are benefits to treating people who are NOT you as though they are also valid and worthwhile.

Gee, who would have thought, huh? And not to sound like a gender traitor here, but you know what I notice about all the people who need or have needed Carnegie’s help? Most of them are men!

See just what kind of low emotional and interpersonal intelligence morons men become in areas without enough women around to provide men examples of effective negotiation?

Anyhow, after reading the book, I was forced to conclude that I apparently have all the right instincts to win friends and influence people. Pretty much everything in there was something that I either already knew or could easily figure out with a moment’s thought.

Hopefully, if I ever make it out of my shell and into the world of entertainment, my apparently excellent instincts for dealing with people will serve me well amongst the deal makers and risk takers of Hollywood.

Well, Hollywood North.

Another interesting note from my session today : When the doctor asked me if I had missed the session we missed because of the High Holy Days, I had to honestly say that I did not, not really. It felt weird to say it, not just because it seemed sort of rude (Why no, I didn’t miss you at all. Why would I?) but because it had not occurred to me until right then that it was true.

I really did not miss my session last week. Previously, when the doc took time off and I had to go a week without a session, it really took a toll on me and I kind of resented it. But this time, I barely noticed. Certainly, I was not thinking “I wish had a session today” or feeling sad.

And that is a somewhat scary thing to realize when you are used to thinking of yourself as weak and dependent on others. It is like when a child first realizes they crossed the room without holding on to anything. Their world just changed, and that always contains an element of fear, even when, in objective analysis, what just happened was a very good thing indeed.

So I am choosing to see this as a good thing. I am more independent and self-contained now. I am still in a painful transition period as I become aware of things I do to sabotage myself and give them up one by one, forcing myself to learn new ways to cope.

And part of me will always want to fall back on the security and comfort of the known bad things. And it might even happen from time to time, and that is not the end of the world.

But like I have said before, there is nothing about my previous self that I want to keep. It all can go. I am determined to become the person I most want to be.

And whatever gets in the way of that can go.