“What do you want to know?”
“Hmm?”
“There’s no other context.” He scratched the skin of his nose with his index finger, before repeating his question, ”what do you want to know?”
The other squinted his eyes as he pondered for an answer, “I guess... Knowledge of how to be happy? I’d want to know how to be the happiest, I suppose.”
He continued to scratch his nose as he got up from his chair and glanced around the room. “What would you do if you had that knowledge?”
“Use it to make me happy, I’d imagine?”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He walked to a drawer and took out one of the folders. “You know what’s in here?”
“What?”
“The knowledge on how to be happy.”
“Well, that’s convenient.”
“No, it’s not. Because you won’t do anything with it.” He scratched his nose, before continuing, “you wanna know how I know?”
“How?”
“Because it’s your own report.” He shoved the folder back in the drawer and sealed it. “You aren’t like most patients, buddy, you already know everything, the only thing that you don’t know is that you know everything.”
“Well, if I have all the answers, why am I not doing anything?”
“Why am I not eating fried squid tonight?”
“What?”
“There’s no other context.” Scratching his nose, he repeated his words, “why am I not eating fried squid tonight?”
“I have no clue...” the guy answered wearily.
“Precisely.” He took out the folder again and laid it on the table. “You don’t care about death, I suppose, but you wouldn’t like to be hurt, right?”
“Uh... Yeah, of course.”
“Good, now listen, I’m terribly sorry for having to resort to this, but from your record, you’ve been to... How many therapists you said?”
“24”
“Right, and you’ve stayed this way for how long?”
“17 years.”
“You know, my friend,” he began scratching his nose, “there’s a famous saying, ‘you can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves’, and well, you can, except that this happens to be the only way.” He walked over to a closet and pulled out a sleek, jet-black bayonet. “I know your address buddy. And those keys that you lost last week, you didn’t lose them, I took them without your notice to make a duplicate. So here’s the deal,” he pressed the bayonet to the table. “I will frequent your house, and if at any point I catch you drinking, or even just staring at the ceiling while you’re lying awake in bed, you would leave me no option but to tear out your eyes with this knife. And don’t think for a second that I won’t do it, because there is a reason why I don’t have a license, you can have a look at my criminal record if you want, I put it right there in the same folder with your report.” He laid the bayonet back in the closet before turning back to his patient. "The session is over, good luck.”
The patient sat motionless.
Some days later, from a local news report:
“A therapist was found guilty of threatening assault towards his patient. Upon questioning, the patient appears to express his sympathy, ‘His solution wasn’t right, but his intentions were good. I wish him well in the future.’”