This paper points out that though mental illness is correlated with biological complications that in the final analysis it is exactly what it says, mental illness, mental disorder, thinking disorder, thought disorder. The mentally ill appreciates the ephemeral and transient nature of their being in body and separated ego selves and concludes that as they are they are mortal and nothing. They wish to become something important and immortal.

This paper points out that corruption is so rampant in Nigeria that it is appropriate to ask whether Nigerians are human beings as we know them to be or whether they are aliens who came from a different planet hence do not understand the detrimental effects of corruption on their polity.

This essay is a sort of psychoanalysis of why I hated my fellow Africans because they sold their people into slavery and how to overcome that hatred by recognizing that they are loving and caring persons, that slavery was an aberration not the norm.

This little vignette says that those gifted with extraordinary creativity, folk like Michael Jackson, are, unfortunately, also gifted with pain. Such is the tragedy and comedy of human existence on planet earth. Pained folk may seek solace in drugs but there is a better way out, philosophy, psychology and science.

This essay says that Oriental religions aim at shrinking folks swollen egos and believes that since humility generally facilitates learning that Oriental religions and culture in general contribute to Orientals doing better than the rest of us at intelligence tests. The hypothesis is, of course, not demonstrated as true; it is, at best, heuristic. Empiricists ought to do research to prove or disprove it.

This essay talks about changing the quest for ideal, perfect self to acceptance of the imperfect self. It says that this transformation of the self, from ideal questing to imperfect accepting, is the goal of psychotherapy and that when it is attained the individual feels peaceful and happy and generally operate in a more mature manner in the imperfect world we live in.

In many essays, I attempted to explain why Nigerians seem motivated by an inner pressure they cannot resist to seek external sense of importance, such as seek empty titles. In this essay, I provide yet another explanation, this time from an existential perspective, their fear of worthlessness, death and finitude. Big, big titles would seem to give them worth and make them seem special in a world they have neither.

This paper explores the nature of delusion disorder, its variants, such as schizophrenia, paranoid type and paranoid personality disorder and how they relate to a specific African group. The paper will be developed in a workshop (to which folks are called to participate in). What is said about delusion disorder applies to all human beings; therefore, any one who so wishes could learn from it. The writer, however, found it necessary to delimit his focus of analysis to a specific African group and that is not to say that the issue does not affect other African groups or human beings in general.

This essay examines idealism and realism and shows the pitfalls of both; it seeks a way to reconcile what is good in them in what it calls idealistic realism. It hopes that in time a new man and a new civilization would emerge, one where we answer Cain’s question (am I my brothers keeper?) by resoundingly stating that we are each others helpers.

This essay points out that there is a pattern of thinking and behaving that is characterized by idealism. Here, the individual rejects his actual self, posits an idealized self and identifies with that idealized self and from its perspective thinks and behaves. Behavior that is predicated on the wished for idealized self is characterized by pride, fear and anger. The individual must therefore ascertain from what part of his mind that he is thinking and behaving from: real self

These are random observations on human beings effort to live from their ideal selves; their denial and rejection of their real self (unified spirit self) and hateful attitudes to their actual selves (the self that identifies with the body, ego).

This piece is a guide for those trying to make career choices. It lists areas where human beings always need folk to perform services for them, hence areas where there are always jobs. Clearly, some vocations, such as the social sciences and humanities, are secondary and do not provide much employment opportunities. Human beings have different aptitudes and interests and can match their unique values to available vocational areas.

This write up was in response to a letter from a fellow to me. Because it, more or less, summarizes my view of Igbos, I decided to publicize it. It points out that many Igbos are politically naïve and, as such, are easily manipulated by clever Machiavellians. Therefore, they need to be helped to become politically sophisticated rather than made fun of or taken advantage of.

This piece points out that the only thing that matters in this transitory and ephemeral world is love. Love is union; to love is to unify with loved objects; to unify with people is to find peace and happiness in this seeming unhappy world. Love is the most important thing in this world. The ego attention seeking mechanism of pursuing mindless wealth, power and fame undertaken by Nigerians is a poor substitute for love.

After self analysis and understanding that much of ones problems are rooted in pursuit of false goals, one gives up all efforts to live from what Karen Horney (1950) called the false, ideal self and Alfred Adler (1909) called false, superior self and now lives from the actual self, the imperfect human self. Ultimately, one must try to live from the real self. The real self is an unknown self but it can be construed as a spirit self provided that one does not have the arrogance of pretending to know what spirit is.

This essay posits the thesis that the mentally ill are persons who saw the meaninglessness of being and seek out of it, want to die and get it over with. This approach to existence obviously is cowardly for the courageous thing to do is to make the most of our apparent meaninglessness world. The courageous person studies science and technology and with those, given the circumstances of being, makes living on earth as exciting as is possible for all persons.

This essay points out that the human personality is the individual’s pattern of thinking and the behavior predicated on that patterned thinking. It says that the individual’s pattern of thinking, his personality, is rooted in his inherited genes and his childhood experiences.  To change the individual’s personality is to change his pattern of thinking and behaving, and since those are rooted in his biological constitution, a variable we cannot yet change, the individual’s personality cannot be completely changed.

This essay points out that contrary to what we tell ourselves regarding the nature of conscience and morality that they are, in fact, means of making sure that the individual and other members of society survive; that they are pragmatic instruments for law and order and are not divinely instituted. It says that guilt feeling is a social variable, not a sign of the divinity of man, as religionists claim.

This brief essay says that there is a thinking element in animals; that in the case of human beings that element thinks through our bodies and society’s cultures to produce a self for each of us. The self concept and self image cannot be understood apart from the biological and social context it is formulated. Once invented the individual identifies with the self and its body and does everything to make sure that it survives, for he sees that its death as his death.

This brief essay asserts the solipsistic, idealistic philosophy that the world is in our minds. It is kind of like the philosophical sow: if a tree falls and there is no human being to observe it did a tree fall? Is empiricism all there is to life or is idealism a legitimate philosophy? You take your pick.

This essay points out the critical nature of thinking in human beings and says that many persons have thinking disorders that need to be corrected; it sees the function of psychotherapy as changing thinking from negative to positive thinking patterns.

This is a potpourri of ideas from my notes to me. They coalesce around the theme of concepts and perception and how limited they are. The world of perception is the world of separated things and in as much as the looker is not the thing he is looking at he cannot entirely understand it. Thus, perception and concepts cannot show us true knowledge, partial knowledge, may be. Only unified state can reveal the true knowledge of things.