This Thursday morning I attended to an assignment from my psych of personal adjustment class that had me look at the influences on my views on sexuality. I had the option of writing about this and turning it in as my weekly journal. As I reviewed all the influences my report became a simple recollection of the past, I imagined that my experience was the same as many people: parents, church, society shaped my early inhibitions with emotional coercions of shame and guilt, then the media informed me at an early age about more permissive attitudes and I became caught up in the sexual revolution. My views progressed incrementally from openness, to fantasy, to desires, to indulgence, to excess, and to the propagation of the sexualized attitudes socially. Eventually I found myself in a lifelong struggle to indulge, manage, and moderate my sexual drives, on both a physical and relationship level. My conception of sex was a powerful natural drive that had to be sated otherwise I would go crazy. I also believed that I was born with a level of sex drive that was greater than most as a characteristic of my race.

Upon reviewing them I came to the realization that the process of personal inventory and character building were the biggest influence. That after the typical influences of parents, religion, media, society, etc. that in the end it was the self examination that exerted the greatest insight.

After my class I had a scheduled meeting with the professor. She didn't have a specific agenda, it was a meeting to have a one on one conversation. It was an enjoyable talk and one particular question stayed with me after the meeting. She asked "have you always been this thoughtful?" My first reaction was to resist a prideful interpretation. I don't think she was asking "have you always been this wise?" but my ego wanted to go there. I decided that she must have meant "have you always been this aware of the thought life." I also thought that she might be asking "are you certain that you have the temperament to be a counselor?" I should have sought clarification at this point. I answered with some points from my "why I want to help people" essay, about how I have always been interested in inter and intra personal dynamics since my youth. I think the right answer should have been "I had to become conscious of the thought life for the sake of sanity and sobriety, when all else failed."