a poorly written essay on operant conditioning

I need to tell someone. I’ve got to be frank.

I have this conversation in my head a lot, in the mirror sometimes, walking to class, elsewhere I’m sure. Always with other people of course. A professor, a friend, someone I see as a mentor although the relationship I see in my head is probably delusional. And that’s it, I need to be frank that I fear delusions. I fear my own insanity. I fear failure, mediocrity, regret, overt drunken behavior, judgement, misspellings and bad grammar. To compensate I convince myself that I am great! I am meant for extreme notoriety in creative success and for this I have overwhelming fear of failure and mediocrity… and for that I fear my insanity and trickle-down-to-psychosism. Which is all relative. Edgar Allan Poe had similar cognitions of self as ‘unrespectables,’ yet achieved timeless notoriety (though mostly post-death as is the case with many a creative chaotics.) I don’t compare myself to Poe though, only to reference the great referential divide between ‘acceptable’ psychosis and unsuccessful psychosis. To treat or not to create, that is the question. To believe or not to ego. To exist or to exist in reality- within the sober norm. Is it a commonality or is it a common insanity?

Anyway, I can’t actually be frank with anyone.