Everyone wants to be a guru

There was a psychologist seated in the bookstore coffee shop the other day. He eyed me speculatively behind his client’s head as I checked out the magazines, which bugged me. I ducked out of sight, but I could still hear his conversation with the timid man sitting opposite him. Why was he speaking so loudly? Why position yourself in the middle of a restaurant to give your “session” at all? Everyone in the area can hear him, and there are more than a few. The projected voice seemed for our benefit, as if the psychologist wanted me and the others aimlessly taking their coffee to admire his advice, his ability to see through people, his control over the minor problems and irritations that plague the rest of us in our lives. Perhaps he wanted us to stop by and ask for his card, so that we could then pay him to look up to him, too.

We could all hear him giving the standard advice, the condescension about “controlling your energy.” His slightly bored tone indicated he’d heard it all before, seen it all before, why can’t you, my idiot client, see it too instead of drowning in your own problems. He reminded the man opposite him—balding with a faint curliqued tonsure rimming his round face--of his continuing failings, the “problems with your sister and brother-in-law, your boss.” The man protested slightly…I could hear the edge of that’s-not-fair in his voice, though I couldn’t hear the exact words. Surely all life’s difficulties don’t stem from our own inabilities to handle annoying people? Surely not all stress will disappear once we learn to control the energy around us? But the shrink wwould hear nothing of it. His authority merged into browbeating. I could see him distilling further his client’s self-esteem.

I wanted to break in and tell the sad client to leave this sick man. Shave your head. Get a new hat. Tattoo a large heart on your upper arm. Do anything--but don't give all that power to him.