DT Transcript.

Hello I’m Julie. Obviously I know your public persona but here you have a chance to be simply Donald. Is that OK? / nod / Does that possibility excite you? / Look they told me to come see you. They think you might .. / Go on / … / Well ‘they’re not here and I don’t change people. What do you, Donald, want to get from this? / Me? What do I want? Hell I’ve got all I want, money, beautiful wife and now I’m P.. / but behind all those acquisitions, what does that Donald want? Your internal dialogue if you will / Well all the things I’ve got. Julie I got all those things, I deserve them, and they loved me on Apprentice, I was like a king on that show and … / and now you are it’s all different / Right, exactly / Why do you think that is? / You know I’ve always been able to get people to do what I want, it’s a natural ability. Ever since I was a kid, my parents, my school. I got all the girls you know, I was real handsome back then, then starting out in business and all the way through to the Apprentice people did what I wanted. I wanted the Presidency, I got it / Do you see any pattern there? / Of course, it’s obvious / No a different pattern. If I may you’ve always started out with the power over people. Your parents because they wanted the best for you, girls because you were handsome, boys because you could beat them up, business partners because you had the money and the Apprentice because; well it’s in the script. And now you’re dealing with people you don’t have power over. Is that right? / What are you saying? / Well I’m asking you do you have any experience of dealing with people who you didn’t have some natural, some might say privileged advantage over? Imagine you meet a complete stranger and for some reason you have to spend a week with them in a log cabin somewhere. How would it go? / You mean a nobody, an average Jo / OK / I’d shmooze him and if he didn’t come round I’d kick the crap out of him / Lets say he’s a linebacker for the Patriots, a black Muslim and really intelligent and he really doesn’t like you / Seriously? / nod / I’d find what he’s afraid of, work on his him and sell him a condo / Good. So it’s all about manipulating him to get a result, is that right? OK so he has no fears and he tries to befriend you, he’s a nice guy / Where are you going with this? / Donald I guess I’m trying to see how you would react to a situation ordinary people would see as ‘normal’ / But Julie I’m not normal now am I? / And you say that with a sort of pride right? / Of course / You take pride in being abnormal / Just better / And that ‘better’, that disdain cuts you off from being normal? And now you’ve achieved the ultimate position, the ultimate power, you’re finding the lack of empathy you have for ‘normal’ is somehow causing you sadness. You’ve come to the end of the road you’ve chosen and there’s no satisfaction there. You’ve found your special gift, your feeling of superiority is in fact your Achilles heal / … / How does that feel? / Look I just came here so you’d tell me I’m fine / And are you? 

Trump the Marvellous.

I marvel at Trump. Notice how he says things twice. Every policy statement he made in his speech he said twice. It’s like once consciously out loud and once as an echo of his own internal dialogue. Somehow it becomes more convincing, not because it’s twice but because one feels in the repeat one’s hearing his real thoughts; it’s not just empty rhetoric. Then by defaming everyone important he shows he’s fearless and powerful, and as such he knows things we don’t. And then he openly shows all the tricks he’s pulled in his campaign. Somehow this honesty makes him even more believable. Like a magician who’s duped his audience with some slight of hand and explained it it deserves twice the applause. He appears thus frank, honest, fearless, powerful and knowing; what more could you want in your leader? On the other hand he employs cheap verbal tricks, he shoots off at the mouth without consideration, shows no honouring of others and just says what you want to hear without any thought of achieving it. He will simply retract it later when he’s got what he wants. If he’s written the book on manipulation he’s almost certainly manipulating me so he must be the worst leader one can imagine. Such is the American divide. One side must come to terms with their own gullibility, the other with their own vacuity. Since the fifties our watching of entertainment has increase from 2 hours per week to forty plus, an increase of 2,000%. It’s no wonder we view reality as entertainment. But in reality when we stop liking the program we can’t just lean forward and turn it off. 

Open Sensitive Receiver.

Last night, 11.45pm, I snuggled into bed and turned on my little radio. Three women are describing how sleep depravation is ruining their lies. That’s the equivalent of watching an episode Bear Grills before embarking on a weekend’s camping in the Lake District. I’m sure it’ll be fine, no really it will be, trust me, snakebites and frostbite are rare in Ambleside. So I turned off the radio and employed my trusty method of entering the wonderful kingdom of nod. In the dark with one’s eyes closed one might assume one sees perfect blackness. Not so, after acclimatising to the near black one begins to perceive ever-changing shades and shapes. They’re probably remnants of nondescript mental activity. Anyway I begin to watch avidly for something meaningful or at least recognisable as one might an avant-garde art house movie. As a sound track I focus on the sound of my breath. With complete focus conscious deliberations are purged as if by a conscientious cinema usher with a flashlight. The screen shifts, a swirl, a shape, they meld, merge, separate and reshape. Often I see a face then more faces melding one to another but no one I recognise. And so it goes on until I can only presume I enter the realm of Nodsville. Once whilst camping I saw a vivid picture of flames coming from a rectangle, so vivid and specific I got up and looked for a fire believing it a possible premonition. Nothing. I rejoined my friend Liz who explained she’d just stopped a young guy pouring firelighter fluid into the hot rectangular mouth of a giant wood burning stove and preventing a nasty accident. What I’d seen was Liz’s imaginary picture of what could have happened. Spooky but I digress. I guess it’s all an arty version of counting sheep. But I’m left with, ‘how did Liz’s startled imagination transmit itself into my technicolour image some 40 meters away, half asleep and behind a tent?’ Could the dim faces, scenes and brief movies be weaker signals from other people? After that vivid example I think so. That would mean we’re all mind connected, however dimly in the normal run of things. It doesn’t seem much use to be honest except to realise the conditions necessary for one to be an open sensitive receiver.