Secrets & Lies

" ....And so She has undergone The Transformation, and what is her initiation? 

Typically, it is to sit, in a little hut 

for a certain number of days, 

and realise What She Is.

She Sits There.

 

St. Bethany of Shermer :

Why?!?

What the fuck do You want from me..?!

I fucking hate You..!!

I hate You..!!

The Voice :

He can't Hear You, you know --

That's Why We Needed You.

St. Bethany of Shermer :

Why didn't you tell me?

The Voice :

Would you...

Could you have believed me?

It was something you had to come to gradually.

Only after Everything You've Seen...

Everything You've Heard... 

Could you possibly be able to accept 

The Truth.

BETHNAY :

I don't want This.

It's too big.

The Voice :

That's what Jesus said --

I had to tell Him.

And you can imagine how that hurt The Father,

not to be able to tell The Son Himself 

because one word from His lips 

would destroy the boy's frail Human form.

So I had to deliver the news 

to a scared child 

who wanted nothing more than 

to play with other children.

I had to tell this little boy, that 

He was God's Only Son...

and it meant a Life of Persecution and eventual crucifixion 

at the hands of the very people 

He'd come to enlighten and redeem.

He begged me to take it all back.

As if I could.

He begged me to

"make it all Not-True."

I'll let you in on something, Bethany, 

something I've never told anyone before.

If I had The Power...

I would have.

It's unfair.

It's unfair to ask a child to shoulder that responsibility 

and it's unfair to ask you to do the same now.

I sympathise. I do.

I wish I could take it all back.

But I can't.

This... is 

Who You Are.

BETHNAY :

Everything I am has been A Lie?

The Voice :

No! Knowing What You Now Know 

doesn’t mean you're not 

Who You Were -

You are Bethany Sloane.

No one can take that away from you, not even God.

All this means is a redefinition of that identity.

The incorporation of this new data into Who You Are.

Be Who You’ve Always Been.

Just... be this as well — from time to time.

She’s now a Woman. 

And what is a Woman? 

A Woman is a Vehicle of Life, and Life has overtaken her. She is a Vehicle now of Life. 

A Woman’s What It is All About; the giving of birth and the giving of nourishment. 

She’s identical with The Earth Goddess in her powers, and she’s got to realize that about herself.”

[Ready room]

PICARD:
Come.

TROI:
Captain, I just wondered if there's anything you wanted to talk about.

PICARD:
I don't think so, Counsellor.

TROI:
I would have thought having a Borg on the ship would stir some feelings.

PICARD:
I'm quite recovered from my experience, thank you.

TROI:
Sometimes even when a victim has dealt with his assault there are residual effects of the event that linger.
You were treated violently by the Borg.
Kidnapped, assaulted, mutilated.
PICARD:
Counsellor. Counsellor, I very much appreciate your concern for me, but I can assure you it is quite misplaced.
I have carefully considered the implications of having a Borg on this ship.
I have weighed the possible risks, and I am convinced that we are doing the right thing.
Now, I am quite comfortable with my decision.


TROI:
I see. Well, if at any point you want to talk more.

PICARD:
I shall certainly avail myself of your help. 

ROBERT PICARD: 

I was always Your Brother, 

watching you receive the cheers, 

watching you Break Every Rule 

Our Father made 

and 

get away with it.

JEAN-LUC PICARD: 

Why didn't you break a few rules?

ROBERT PICARD: 

Because I was The Elder Brother, 

The Responsible One. 

It was My Job to look after you.

PICARD: 

Look after me? You? 

You were a bully.

ROBERT: 

Sometimes. Maybe. 

Sometimes I even enjoyed bullying you.

PICARD: 

All right. Try it now.

ROBERT: 

Did you come back, Jean-Luc? 

Did you come back because 

you wanted me to look after you again?

PICARD: 

Damn you!

(And he punches his brother, sending him flying over some barrels into the vineyard proper. There they fight in the muddy irrigation ditches, through the vines until they finally fall back laughing)

PICARD: 

You were asking for it, you know.

ROBERT: 

Yes, but you needed it. 

You have been terribly hard on yourself.

PICARD: 

You don't know, Robert!You don't know!

They took Everything I Was. 

They used me to Kill and to Destroy, 

and 

I couldn't stop Them. 

I should have been able to stop Them!

 

I tried. I tried so hard, 

but I wasn't strong enough. 

I wasn't good enough. 

I should have been able to stop them. 

I should! I should!

 BORG QUEEN :  

What's wrong Locutus? 

Isn't this familiar?
Organic minds are such fragile things. 

How could you forget me so quickly? 

We were very close, 

You and I --

You can still hear Our Song
.
PICARD: 

Yes, ...I remember You. 

You were there all the time. 

But that ship and all The Borg on it were destroyed.

BORG QUEEN: 

You think in such three-dimensional terms. 

How small you've become. 

Data understands me. 

Don't you, Data?

(Data is standing in a Borg cubicle)

PICARD: 

What have you done to him?

BORG QUEEN: 

Given him what he always wanted, 

Flesh and Blood.

PICARD: 

Let him go. 

He's not the one you want.

BORG QUEEN:

Are you offering yourself to us?

PICARD:

Offering myself....? 

...That's it. I remember now. 

It wasn't enough that you assimilate me. 

I had to give myself freely to the Borg, ...to you.


BORG QUEEN:
You flatter yourself.
I've overseen the assimilation of countless millions.
You were no different.

PICARD:
You're lying. You wanted more than just another Borg drone. 

You wanted a human being with a mind of his own, who could bridge the gulf between humanity and the Borg.
You wanted a counterpart, but I resisted. 

I fought you.

BORG QUEEN:
You can't begin to imagine the life you denied yourself.

PICARD:
It's not too late.
Locutus could still be with you, just in the way you wanted. An equal. 

Let Data go and I will take my place at your side, willingly without any resistance.

BORG QUEEN:
Such a noble creature.
A quality we sometimes lack.
We will add your distinctiveness to our own.
Welcome home, ...Locutus.

ROBERT: 

So, my brother is a human being after all. 

This is going to be with you a long time, Jean-Luc. A long time. 

You have to learn to live with it. You have a simple choice now. 

Live with it below the sea with Louis, or above the clouds with the Enterprise.

PICARD: 

You know, I think you were right after all. 

I think I did come back so that you could help me.

ROBERT:

You know what? 

I still don't like you, Jean-Luc.

JINX

Let a man begin to think that there is a "jinx" about, 
and he is done for for the time being.

jinx (n.)

1911, American English, originally baseball slang; perhaps ultimately from jyng "a charm, a spell" (17c.), originally "wryneck" (also jynx), a bird used in witchcraft and divination, from Latin iynx "wryneck," from Greek iynx.

Jynx was used in English as "a charm or spell" from 1690s.

Most mysterious of all in the psychics of baseball is the "jinx," that peculiar "hoodoo" which affects, at times, a man, at other times a whole team. Let a man begin to think that there is a "jinx" about, and he is done for for the time being. ["Technical World Magazine," 1911]

The verb is 1912 in American English, from the noun. Related: Jinxed; jinxing. 

Billy Beane: 

David, you're 37. 

How about you and I be honest about what each of us want out of this? 

I want to milk the last ounce of baseball you got in you, 
and you want to stay in The Show. 

Let's do that. 

Now, I'm not paying you for the player you used to be - 
I'm playing you for the player you are right now. 

You're smart, you get what we're trying to do here. 

Make an example for the younger guys, be a leader. 

Can you do that?

David Justice: 

Alright, I got you.

Billy has a heart to heart with David Justice, explaining that he really needs him to step up and be a true team leader. 

He also diplomatically (ahem) points out that he's not really paying him the true big bucks - and neither are the Yankees. 

David's time to be "told" he can no longer play the game is coming. 

For now, though, he's got a chance, as Billy says, to stay "in the show."

David Justice:

Scotty H.

Scott Hatteberg:

Yo, what's up, D.J.?

David Justice:

Pickin' machine.

[Scott laughs]

David Justice:

How you likin' first base, man?

Scott Hatteberg:

It's, uh... it's coming along. 

Picking it up. You know, tough transition, 
but I'm starting to feel better with it.

David Justice:

Yeah?

Scott Hatteberg:

Yeah.

David Justice:

What's your biggest fear?

Scott Hatteberg:

A baseball being hit in my general direction

[Hatteberg and Justice share a laugh]

David Justice:

That's funny. 

Seriously, what is it?

Scott Hatteberg:

No, seriously, that is.

[uncomfortable pause; Hatteberg leaves]

David Justice:

Well, hey, good luck with that.

“The next day, the drinker wakes up, badly hungover. So far, this is just unfortunate. The real trouble starts when he discovers that his hangover can be “cured” with a few more drinks the morning after. 

Such a cure is, of course, temporary. It merely pushes the withdrawal symptoms a bit further into the future. But that might be what is required, in the short term, if the misery is sufficiently acute. So now he has learned to drink to cure his hangover. 

When the medication causes the disease, a positive feedback loop has been established. Alcoholism can quickly emerge under such conditions. 

Something similar often happens to people who develop an anxiety disorder, such as agoraphobia. People with agoraphobia can become so overwhelmed with fear that they will no longer leave their homes. 

Agoraphobia is the consequence of a positive feedback loop. The first event that precipitates the disorder is often a panic attack. The sufferer is typically a middle-aged woman who has been too dependent on other people. 

Perhaps she went immediately from over-reliance on her father to a relationship with an older and comparatively dominant boyfriend or husband, with little or no break for independent existence. In the weeks leading up to the emergence of her agoraphobia, such a woman typically experiences something unexpected and anomalous. It might be something physiological, such as heart palpitations, which are common in any case, and whose likelihood is increased during menopause, when the hormonal processes regulating a women’s psychological experience fluctuate unpredictably. 

Any perceptible alteration in heart-rate can trigger thoughts both of heart attack and an all-too-public and embarrassing display of post-heart attack distress and suffering (death and social humiliation constituting the two most basic fears). The unexpected occurrence might instead be conflict in the sufferer’s marriage, or the illness or death of a spouse. It might be a close friend’s divorce or hospitalization. 

Some real event typically precipitates the initial increase in fear of mortality and social judgment. 

After the shock, perhaps, the pre-agoraphobic woman leaves her house, and makes her way to the shopping mall. It’s busy and difficult to park. This makes her even more stressed. The thoughts of vulnerability occupying her mind since her recent unpleasant experience rise close to the surface. They trigger anxiety. 

Her heart rate rises. She begins to breathe shallowly and quickly. She feels her heart racing and begins to wonder if she is suffering a heart attack. This thought triggers more anxiety. She breathes even more shallowly, increasing the levels of carbon dioxide in her blood. Her heart rate increases again, because of her additional fear. She detects that, and her heart rate rises again. 

Poof! Positive feedback loop. Soon the anxiety transforms into panic, regulated by a different brain system, designed for the severest of threats, which can be triggered by too much fear. She is overwhelmed by her symptoms, and heads for the emergency room, where after an anxious wait her heart function is checked. There is nothing wrong. But she is not reassured. 

It takes an additional feedback loop to transform even that unpleasant experience into full-blown agoraphobia. The next time she needs to go to the mall, the pre-agoraphobic becomes anxious, remembering what happened last time. 

But she goes, anyway. On the way, she can feel her heart pounding. That triggers another cycle of anxiety and concern. To forestall panic, she avoids the stress of the mall and returns home. 

But now the anxiety systems in her brain note that she ran away from the mall, and conclude that the journey there was truly dangerous. Our anxiety systems are very practical. They assume that anything you run away from is dangerous. The proof of that is, of course, the fact you ran away. So now the mall is tagged “too dangerous to approach” (or the budding agoraphobic has labelled herself, “too fragile to approach the mall”). 

Perhaps that is not yet taking things far enough to cause her real trouble. There are other places to shop. But maybe the nearby supermarket is mall-like enough to trigger a similar response, when she visits it instead, and then retreats. 

Now the supermarket occupies the same category. 

Then it’s the corner store. 

Then it’s buses and taxis and subways. 

Soon it’s everywhere. The agoraphobic will even eventually become afraid of her house, and would run away from that if she could. But she can’t. Soon she’s stuck in her home. 

Anxiety-induced retreat makes everything retreated from more anxiety-inducing. Anxiety-induced retreat makes the self smaller and the ever-more-dangerous world larger. 

There are many systems of interaction between brain, body and social world that can get caught in positive feedback loops. 

Depressed people, for example, can start feeling useless and burdensome, as well as grief-stricken and pained. This makes them withdraw from contact with friends and family. Then the withdrawal makes them more lonesome and isolated, and more likely to feel useless and burdensome. Then they withdraw more. In this manner, depression spirals and amplifies. 

If someone is badly hurt at some point in life—traumatized—the dominance counter can transform in a manner that makes additional hurt more rather than less likely. This often happens in the case of people, now adults, who were viciously bullied during childhood or adolescence. 

They become anxious and easily upset. They shield themselves with a defensive crouch, and avoid the direct eye contact interpretable as a dominance challenge. This means that the damage caused by the bullying (the lowering of status and confidence) can continue, even after the bullying has ended. 

In the simplest of cases, the formerly lowly persons have matured and moved to new and more successful places in their lives. But they don’t fully notice. Their now counterproductive physiological adaptations to earlier reality remain, and they are more stressed and uncertain than is necessary. In more complex cases, a habitual assumption of subordination renders the person more stressed and uncertain than necessary, and their habitually submissive posturing continues to attract genuine negative attention from one or more of the fewer and generally less successful bullies still extant in the adult world. 

In such situations, the psychological consequence of the previous bullying increases the likelihood of continued bullying in the present (even though, strictly speaking, it wouldn’t have to, because of maturation, or geographical relocation, or continued education, or improvement in objective status).”