Bill B

Let me be a psychologist again for a minute. Scott, I think part of what you’re addressing are the cognitive behavioral therapy tools being used to treat people. I would think AI would be particularly helpful in assisting the application of these tools. However, along comes Perry and his wife, Terry. They’re in love with one another. And they are Myers-Briggs opposites. Then along comes Carl Jung. He says to Perry: “you got caught up in your own shadow. Part of what’s going on here is that you and Terry are dancing with each other’s shadow. This is very powerful and extremely important.” To understand why Terry and Perry dance with each other’s shadow requires something other than cognitive behavioral therapy or cognitive behavioral understanding. It requires a deeper form of understanding. Their love probably cannot be captured with AI.

The moment when the two of them met and fell in love was probably not captured very well by AI. And Perry, obviously some of the stuff you’re going through with some of the challenges with your wife right now—these are wrenching moments that cannot be captured with AI. There are things going on with you and your wife now that are much, much deeper and in many ways are quite spiritual. And this is where I think Carl Jung came in. I also want to note, Jack, that you have said: “come to Yuma” after one of us has commented on the caring and humane perspective you bring to your medical practice.   And all of this requires more than a six-minute appointment.

Jeremy

I want to chime in on some things. This has been a fantastic conversation. I think the core challenge that I heard Scott announcing in the beginning was loneliness. I can remember Perry saying, we really need to focus on young people. And I totally agree with you, Scott. If you can get the parents to work like Perry and Terry have done–with their ability to see each other, understand, love each other, complement each other, and recognize perhaps in a provocative way that we fall in love with our shadow. I love the shadow metaphor, Bill. To compromise, I think is one of the key words that comes to my mind. Finding common ground, was the way Perry announced it. It is common ground for the common good. And that concept appears to be thin right now in our society, maybe in our world. I’m thinking of our congressional folks and politicians. Compromising is disallowed currently. The skill set appears to be disappearing. I don’t know if it’s because of the internet. I’m not fully aware of all the casualties that the Internet inflicts on us. However, polarization appears to be decreasing the sense that we can find common ground. So, I really appreciate that we are bringing this language into what we’re doing. It’s really helping people meet in the middle—which I think is a beautiful way of putting that.

I wonder. I’m in the phase of life where I have a launching son. Now he’s much older than I was when I launched. So, I’ve had an intolerance of his protracted adolescence—for which he is personally responsible and for which our society is responsible.  My wife and I have been reinforcing his behavior–without really realizing it. It is our inability in some ways to work in harmony with our son–in the way that Perry has mentioned with his wife. So, we’re on that learning curve which I find kind of provocative. As Scott has suggested, there is a large group of young people who are very lonely. Right? We already know that the number of relationships in their life are way down. Meaningful personal relationships with living people are way down. Their relationships with avatars appear to be increasing. I’ve noticed in that age group that boys are struggling in particular.

Scott

The stats support that trend.