Please, call me Al

The following question was posed to me by a friend named Forrest, to whom I gave a book about a so-called “bipolar” person:

What difference might it make if everyone simultaneously began referring to ‘bipolars’ as ASSHOLES?

I think Bipolar is as arbitrary as asshole, don’t you agree? Everyone has two emotional poles… everyone has… well, you can finish the thought.

Every human being I have ever met, has Ups and Downs - two poles, Bi-polar. As many aptly say, I think, the problem is not in being Bi-polar, the problem lies in a pattern of going to extremes on one or both of these poles, to a point where there is upset or pain or suffering, or some other undesired result.

The problem is not in having two poles, it is in repeatedly going to the extremes of the poles, to the point where you, or those around you suffer. Hence we have the term, Bipolar Disorder.

This makes sense, no?

But then along comes this slang usage… which doesn’t make literal sense, at least.

“Hi my name is Joe and I am bipolar.”

I get what I think Joe means, but he’s not even using the defining word of the phrase: disorder.

Let’s say Joe means that he has been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.

Is he thinking and behaving in disorderly ways? What’s going on in his life? What is the pain and suffering that he has caused by thinking and acting in ways that (maybe) could be characterized as him acting like a “man-child” (assuming Joe is an “adult” of course)

I think many would make the case that it is highly likely, regardless of gender, that if you are this “bipolar” as they say, you may very well be behaving like an ASSHOLE. You know the saying, if it looks like one, smells likes one…

What would happen if people simply did not just say “I’m bipolar” and somehow had the habit of explaining the pattern of thinking and behavior that has caused them to be “tagged” with the label: “bipolar disorder?”

I’m thinking EASILY five, if not all ten out of any ten “bipolars” could be described just as accurately and validly as ASSHOLES. I think this is possible. How possible? Well, don’t get me started on how everything is relative. Time? Space? They were just the beginning. I was talking about everything, people, including language.

And that is why I have come back… to talk about relativity again, but in a different way.

I am back to talk about all this language around a particular subset of human thought and behavior, as defined by a RELATIVELY very small group of people, known as the American Psychiatric Association.

That is why I am back - to remind the minds of science, and society in general, about the relative nature of language and its implications in the so-called science of “mental health care” that claims to be out to help people have better lives.

I have a lot to say, and I will take my time in doing so.

But for now, back to this bipolar/asshole question. I suggest gather your own data, think and form your own opinions, ideas, thoughts and hypotheses…

Maybe I’ll suggest my friend read some more honest stories written by people who describe themselves or are described by others as “bipolar.” Maybe this ASSHOLE hypothesis will holdup? One could assert that when one is reading these “bipolar” books by “bipolars” one is reading the work of an asshole or at least someone who has been an ASSHOLE in the past.

Wait a minute, isn’t that pretty much everyone?

Sure… but I guess the “bipolars” are the Real Assholes. The chronically Asshole-ish then. Does that work?

I think many “chronic ASSHOLES” if you will, know they are ASSHOLES to themselves and others and don’t care how you label them. In fact, that is probably part of being an ASSHOLE - knowing you are a total ASSHOLE, but completely ignoring the label of ASSHOLE placed on you by some learned mind of science and medicine.

Whatever you call them, according to many people, these ASSHOLES, (I mean the patients, mind you) may very well be text-book-case “bipolars.” If a man or woman of science say they are, then these ASSHOLES are actually “mentally ill;” some, would go as far as to say that they have a “disease.”

Who knows? Maybe this is so, and saying so makes them, or maybe even you, feel better. Maybe they say to themselves, there’s a medical reason that we’re ASSHOLES, it’s not “our fault” per se, and some might suggest that all they have to do is buy and swallow certain special tablets, daily… for the rest of their lives, and they can drastically reduce the chances of continuing to be ASSHOLES in the future.

Now does that make sense? I’m not as clear on this one.

I understand how and why society ends up creating pills to solve the ills associated with the human mind and body. I get that. What confounds me, at times, is the reluctance of people to even consider that their less-than-stellar ORDINARY decision-making performance could be the entire cause of their problem, not some hard to define and apparently impossible to pinpoint disease of the brain.

I’ll give you a different hypothesis. I suggest that MANY of the so-called illnesses of the mind may be a product of nothing other than being a human being, and an expression of how well someone is doing in learning how to deal with their particular flavor of the same human condition we all share.

What difference might it make if we changed Bipolar to ASSHOLE?

At first, I thought it was a ridiculous idea with little practical value in seriously contemplating, but the more I think about it, the more I see the upside-down genius in it.

My answer is that I think it might make a big difference. Changing the words people use is how you change the world… people. ASSHOLE is certainly not the word I would choose here, but I think it might make quite a difference… but who the hell am I?

If I had actually been in my grave when I heard the news, I might have rolled over when TIME Magazine named me the person of the century… WITHOUT changing the name of their publication.

Think about it.

I really wonder how much of a difference I, this supposed “genius of geniuses,” really even made. How many people even get that time and space probably don’t exist like they probably think they do? How few get that, in the ways that I am credited with pointing out? And at the end of the day, does it really matter if they do or not? Did I even matter? Don’t get me started on that one, either.

You people would not believe how JUST LIKE YOU I am. Genius? Sure I am, just like you. And when you’re willing to admit your genius to the world, people might turn your name into a word too.

Better yet, they might make a movie about you… you probably know this friend Forrest who posed the question originally. I think some refer to him as an “idiot” while others see the genius in his innocence, his last name is Gump, that’s right, Forrest Gump.

You can check in on him over here.

In the meantime, I’ll be here thinking. I invite you to keep thinking, too.

I am Einstein… but please, call me Al.

And I apologize if my “new voice” puts you off…

Peace.