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When we examine the psychopathology of our daily lives, we find two personal and cultural forms prevailing: addictions and paraphilias. Addictions are found in our reflexive, frequently unconscious anxiety-management behaviors. It is too simple to label the more overt forms of such management strategies, such as drug abuse, as addiction and let it go at that. All of us have daily rituals, the unconscious motive of which is the warding off of some supposed evil. We have television programs, computers, the internet to plug into, reflexively, to assure ourselves that the world of diversions is out there, predictably, and that we are wired to it. We flee solitude, the only serious treatment for loneliness. We avoid dialogue with ourselves, the only person present in all scenes of our drama. We dismiss dreams, the ongoing commentary offered by the Self as to just how things are going and how they might be better. We ignore our history, with its many clues as to the autonomous agents that are making those self-defeating patterns for us.
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life
James Hollis
John Kelly tried to prevent intelligence from being taken upstairs to the president or left in Trump’s possession after briefings. Trump’s behavior illustrated why Kelly was concerned: Trump waved items such as his letters with Kim Jong-un, which he appeared to believe the North Korean leader had written himself, at visitors to the Oval Office, including reporters. Some saw nefarious ends in this behavior while others believed he was operating with the emotional development of a twelve-year-old, using the intelligence data to get attention for himself.
Confidence Man
Maggie Haberman
Informal, backchannel diplomacy between the United States and North Korea continued. Former U.S. government officials met with current North Korean officials to keep a dialogue open. These were most often called Track 1.5 meetings. Government-to-government meetings were called Track 1. If both sides were nongovernment or former officials these meetings were called Track 2. “We’re has-beens, but they’re not,” in the words of one former U.S. official deeply involved in the Track 1.5 meetings. One meeting had been held recently in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with the vice foreign minister of North Korea. Former U.S. negotiator Robert Gallucci said the North Koreans warned him at this meeting, “they will always be a nuclear weapons state.” A second Track 1.5 meeting with the head of North Korea’s American affairs division followed the 2016 election and took place in Geneva. “The North Koreans don’t take it seriously,” said one former U.S. official, because they know the U.S. representatives can’t propose anything new. “But they’re probably better than not having” the meetings.
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