One day a man who previously wrote many songs that never went anywhere, wrote one called “this stinks more than the other thing that also stinks”, and instantly had a hit, everyone liked it. He was contacted by Universal records. The video went viral. Soon he was touring the world and having a ball. Then he noticed despite all his success he often got hung up about things he felt as though he had failed at doing. And then a strange idea hit him, it seemed everyone else is also disappointed with themselves and he wondered is this a program running inside people? Is our natural state of being to find fault with ourselves? Is that what makes us move forward since it seems all pervading? He experimented and tried to change his thinking but no matter how many positive affirmations he made in the mirror, no matter what type of organic ingredients he added to his smoothies, no matter what type of crystals he wore as a necklace or which shiatsu shoe inserts, self-disappointment kept floating to the top of his consciousness so often he could no longer keep track of it. Everyone was singing about the blues, about what went wrong, about what they wish was better but never about the fact they all were singing about the same thing. That’s more or less when we met, in the waiting room of the same optometrist. He asked me if I played that thing (noticing my guitar case) and I recognized him from the video and said aren’t you the guy who wrote this stinks more than the other thing that also stinks? He said ya that was me but I’m not singing anymore. That stinks too, I said. Tell me about it he said, I loved singing and writing but now I feel like I realized something and nobody understands me. Do you mean you can’t move forward without the approval of others? I don’t know he said, maybe, maybe not, it’s just that I’m starting to not trust my own thinking. You mean you don’t know whether your thoughts are your own? Yes, you could say that. Well if they’re not your thoughts whose are they? That’s it, that’s the question.