Tommy Chung, hello, Eric, hello, I'm the chair today, not voluntarily, but Doc made me. Well, this will be interesting to have a different perspective on it though. I'm sure you look great. Hey, Clamans. Ooh, we have shiny and very crisp screen sharing again. Oh, yes, and that is because I use windows. I mean, I don't know why that is. I hope nobody ever takes me seriously when I praise the products of Microsoft that I'm not involved in. To be fair, the surface book are awesome. Yeah, they are. I have the surface to the surface book to and I'm super happy with it. Ainsley. This is actually ginger. Oh, yeah, ginger. I have got to figure this out. That's right. I think Doc made the same mistake. Yeah, it's really annoying. No change. You can rename it. So Zoom gives you the option to click on your name on the participant's list and rename it. So that's what I have to do every time. It's just annoying. Yes. Hello, Hines. Hello, hello. God. Varun. Howdy. Vladimir. Good morning. Matias. Good morning. See, I know how to pronounce that. I have to leave early today. That's okay. I think this will be relatively short because we don't have a lot of PRs. There's one ongoing discussion where I'm not sure that Alan is going to show up, but I can probably talk to it. Klaus is here. Hello. And there's someone on the phone.<PHONE_NUMBER>. Good morning. This is John Mitchell. Okay. As I said earlier, Tim, Doggy has asked me to take over the chair for the day since he's out. And I was not in a position to say no. I'm just thrilled that you got here, Clemens, because otherwise I was up on deck somewhere, like number three. I would have been number two. Yes, that is true. And the only reason why that is so is that there was a, I was supposed to be on a flight in a Zeppelin, but the weather is bad, so they canceled it. So that's why I'm, yeah. But now I have the pleasure to spend time with you all, which is great. Matias, Matias, you're doing all kinds of things there that allowed you. Sorry. I think the rule is waiting until three minutes after the hour. So we'll do that soon. Gabrielle, Daniel, Marker, I'm here. Hello, Kristoff. Hi. Hi. I find typing in front of so many people frightening. Well, I should be doing more demos. Tim. Yeah, the demos at KubeCon were super fun.  That'll collapse your document. Turn off print mode. I can, I barely, so I don't think I'm even editor in this thing, so I can probably make a proposal and then someone has to go and accept it and I don't want to break anything. I'm just, I'm just going to go and make annotations in this document, which will later be accepted by someone and then hopefully I don't break anything. All right. So, but I hope you can see. So Doug is out right now. I'm not sure what he's doing, but he asked me that I take over the call for this week and I think next week someone else is doing the call. So I think it's going to be relatively quick because we don't have a lot of PRs and we have a few issues and then there's going to be the SDK call. It's going to be afterwards, but so question community time. Anybody have anything of importance to raise? That is not the case. The SDK subgroup is going to meet after this call and probably within this hour if we're quick enough. But the incubator proposal, I don't know. I don't know what the status is of there. Neither do I have insight into the KubeCon proceedings and so we should proceed to PRs and issues. There is Tim provided an update for the, this is relatively new. Did you just, did anyone just ask that? I added it. It seems to be just a correction of an example. So I thought it might let's go and let's go and take a look at this because I've seen it and you just, okay, so you just added this hour ago. So formally that's too late, but I think Yes, I think we usually wave through PRs that are just corrections of some text. Yes, we do. So change here. Do you want to talk about it? Do you want to say what you fixed? I just added it to the document because I thought it might be discussed today. I'm not the one who created it. Oh, okay. Yes. I don't know if Tim is in the call. So Oh, sorry. Yeah. Okay. He might not be okay. So, but I have commented on this. It's relatively easy. We have effectively a leftover in the average document is that data is represented as base 64, which is senseless in Avro because Avro understands bytes. So it just changes that to something that makes more sense. Now we can make this a little bit more complicated, but that's what the correction is. I would not take this right now and it would still come in because data content type, this should be data content type. And I would probably go and refer if this was not using the content type at all, but would use it something that's the data field would have a simple value. So I would, I think this is a patch that we should take personally, but I would not take that right now. Comments? No. It's been too late. So let's go and take this next week. So that was the, that's the only PR I think that's in the list. Let's go and take a look at the list per se. I think there's anything that's, this is a new one. This one is, is one that we're going to talk about in the SDK call. And this has been discussed with Alan is not here to defend it. But let's take a look at this briefly. So what this, so Alan is not here unfortunately, but I've been in that discussion. So let me, let me try to explain that. Effectively, we have not made clear that the context that all context attributes need to be of the, the inside the type system. And Alan has been concerned because that is missing, specifically for extensions that would cause interoperability issues. So this is effectively tightening up that text. That's the goal of this. And then he also clarifies, and that's something that I've been, that has been, I think explicitly clear that we have this canonical string representation, and we must be able to convert to it from it. So he's now adding this text. So I think the rule, the, the thing, I think the rule that he wants to add here is effectively the extension attributes must also adhere to that rule that extension attributes specifically also must follow the canonical string encoding to avoid ambiguity with other string encoders. Personally, I don't have a strong feeling about this comments. Anybody has thought about thoughts about this? Does anybody think that this text is improving on what we have or helps with interoperability better? Christoph? I don't see so much what it adds to be honest, but it doesn't make things worse, I guess. So I don't really have an opinion. Scott? Yeah, that's correct. So the, the, I think, I think the journey of an extension attribute is that it may start out as a native integer in, in AQP, and then if it gets, if it gets reserialized on, on a, on a route, it may hit a transport where, or format where it must be represented as a string, and then it gets turned from the native representation into the string representation and it stays that way. And so what bad, what bad thing would this language prevent happening? Because I can't think of any. Yeah, neither can I. Because I think possibly maybe the, the conical form is the, the type that's safe to go into headers versus what's acceptable to go into JSON versus something else, non, non-escaped string, potentially. So let's, let's see what, what fixes 508. So, so I think his point, his point was in the beginning as we started this discussion is that interoperability isn't possible because the extension is not, the, the extensions are not to, not defined to be within the type system. And I think that's the, the, the goal of the fix is to make sure that they are. And I think that's the, that's the objection that he has. But since extensions are just context attributes, I'm not sure that that's true. Okay. Once again, it would really help if somebody could explain the problem as fixes and how it fixes it. Yeah. I would see where to go to table this one. Because I think Alan needs to come up, if Alan cares about this more than we seem to seem to, then he needs to come and defend it. Agree? I think the first line kind of makes sense. The first strings or context attributes must be one of the type listed. I mean, it already says that, but, but the rest I, he really needs to go and explain it. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, I have no problem with this, but let's go and make this part of the, the review then next, for next week. Perhaps someone could make a comment on the PR asking for clarity of what's being fixed. That'd be great if someone could do this. So let's, wow, how do I do that now? Oh, the link to his PR is already lower in the document, actually. Was it? Oh, all right. Great. And then that's also from Alan. There's another thing, which is somewhat unfortunate that he's not here. Yeah. Since we got rid of data content encoding. Oh, okay. So that's already closed. Okay. Sorry. Closed. I had a question about data content encoding. Yeah. If, let's say you're trying to translate a, an HTTP structured encoded message into a binary encoded message, would you expect for, for the body to be base 64 encoded and then have the normal header set or, or is that not a concern? Like if you preserve that for that translation. If you go from what, from structure to binary? Yes. If you go from structured with a data base 64, that goes via the, so it's a binary. And it's treated as a binary, which means that database 64 goes as binary into the entity body of the HTTP request. Keep it, do you keep it base 64 or do you? No, you read it. So, so basics, we have now made basics before a, a feature of JSON. So underscore basics, the force of, is a feature of the JSON binding, which means as if you read it in a underscore basics, the force effectively a flag, it's a, it's an attribute, if you will, on the data field that says this here is JSON and this is JSON string, but you ought to treat it as a binary. So you read it in and it becomes a binary in your in memory structure, whatever you use. And this is, if you turn that memory structure back into an HTTP request, well, then you just sterilize the binary out as binary. So the base 64 goes away as you're, as you're deserializing as the, the event. Okay. Okay. All right, that sounds good. So let's go and take a look at issues that were open. There's one issue that's also theorized by Allen, which makes it even sadder that he's not here. And that comes from, so this is the issue from Tim that Tim is trying to fix with that PR. And now we have affected two things which are related. The inconsistency integer type mapping for MQP. We explicitly define our integers as having 32-bit range, which I'm going to go in, we're going to take a look at that in a second. But the MQP spec maps to MQP long and that is 64-bit long. So arguably the MQP mapping is too wide in numbers, in terms of numbers and bits. And then, and here, and then Allen raises this, says, because we're now going to 1.0, he just wants to make sure that that we're addressing this. The C spec uses 32-bits for integers. So those two things are related. If we make the range bigger than the misspatch with MQP is gone. So he's like, shall we make this 64-bit? So let's take a look at that briefly. Here's that. So I think what's being raised here is the question of, since we're not talking about bits here, we're, well, actually we say this is within the range of assigned 32-bit, 32-bit literature. Whether we shall expand that to 64-bits, whether we shall leave that at 32, does anybody have any feelings? Yeah, I think it would probably be dangerous to extend them to 64-bits because a very high proportion of the data shuffling back and forth around the internet is in JSON. And in JSON, the only thing you can expect to be interoperable is 64-bit floats, which means you really only have 53-bits of integer. And essentially, if you require it to support 64-bits, that means you probably can't transmit it in JSON unless you encode it as a string, which is icky. Tim, I would like to go on a world tour with you and start limiting JSON from the internet, but it's probably not going to happen. I like JSON. I wouldn't do that. No? Well, okay. I think it's terrible. Anyhow, you really have 64-bit integers if JSON is a first-class citizen. That is the truth. Anybody have dissenting opinions? I think before 1.0, we should minimize the amount of such changes, so I think we should stick to 32-bit. I agree. I'm not sure how to add links to that thing if I can. Issues. Let's do this like this. Oops. 64-bit to first key because timing and JSON support for inverse. Okay. And then I don't think the mapping to NQP long hurts because NQP is actually pretty clever about how it encodes things. If the number is short, the encoding will be shorter. That's mostly between Al and me, I would say, for the NQP mapping. I don't have any problems with the issue that he raised there, so let's go and also make a comment on this one. Unless someone wants to speak up in favor of clipping it to an int. Anybody wants to speak up in favor of any of the issues that are here? Good. Well... Just a formal question. Is the mapping thing somehow a v1, version 1 issue? Well, I think bits with bit sizes are something that's a decision that's pretty heavy in terms of you know, back and forth compatibility. You can always go longer, but you can't really go shorter. So, yeah, I think that's a thing that Alan raised specifically and he called that out. He said, this is something we should just go and discuss before we go v1. And I think we just did that. Okay. Anything else anybody wants to raise? No. Good. Well then. Then I have a few people that I think we're done then. There will be an SDK call right after this. If everybody is here for the SDK call, which kind of seems like we can start that right away after that. Otherwise, I wish you a great day. Christian Laxina joins. Hello. You got my name right. Thank you. Hello. And then Alvin I've seen. And these are, I think this is everybody who has captured. All right. I think that's it. So thank you very much for showing up. And the next meeting, we'll have a few people missing because there's a holiday in Germany and doggies are not going to be here, but we still have business to close out. So you should nevertheless show up even though some of us are not. And that's it. SDK folks, just stay on the line, I would say. Or if you insist that we do this in half an hour, we can do that too. I have to say these calls feel a lot less, a lot more formal when I'm not running them. And that's not because of Doug, but that's mostly because of the missing separation between writing and talking. Did Doug give you his gavel? No, he actually contacted me over Slack and said, you're going to do it. Well, no, he asked so nicely that I couldn't say no. So there is no gavel here. All right. Scott, so do we feel we need to wait until the top of the hour? Or do we have everybody we need? I think. I think we have the crew. I think so too. Great. So Scott, I have now done the homework and I've read through your amendments for the SDK documents. I'm sitting down. And I have no objections. I think this is good. Oh, are you feeling okay? What? I think that's fine. That's a pretty view. Now, let's see what does the red mean and what does the green mean? I think yellow is a diff. Red is deleted and green is added. Exactly. So I don't disagree with what you wrote. I just feel like it's hard to be this prescriptive for every language that we may want to use for cloud events. Yeah. And so I've done a little bit of go exercising between whenever, well, you know, because my scope in that work is growing a little bit. So I need to be, while I will not gain proficiency, probably I should be able to read the code well. And so I've been taking some courses, et cetera. So I now understand better where you're coming from. And so it's definitely a slightly uncomfortable from like the Java world where everything needs to have setters and getters. And you're like, what do you mean I can just reach down in and modify stuff? It's a language. So since I've been cursory, I've been reading go code for a while, obviously, but now I've actually went in and did the proper course in it. And it's clear that this is the revenge of the C people for C++. That's what it looks like to me. And so it has a lot of, it's very C-like in the original sense of like the unpolluted original sense of C in a way with lots and lots and lots of modern elements and more safety, but it clearly has a very C feeling to it. Like from when I first learned C, that seems like a very natural upgrade path, also from a mindset perspective, et cetera, and kind of fixing all the problems that C had without going through the terrible, horrible, thicket of barbed wire that is C++. Yeah, there's a Twitter joke right now. People are looking at making go plus plus. Oh, God, no. So I actually have, I've been working on the SDK this week. I've done several PRs and I now can produce most of the 1.0 spec. Sorry, I'm getting distracted. So reword the SDK. Looks good. Sure. Let's merge it. It's great. Yeah. For me, that's fine. That's fine as it is. And does anybody, I don't know, does anybody else have opinions about this? Did anybody else read it? All right. Does anybody object to merging this? No. Well, that's good. Then I think in drafting this, I realized that the go lang SDK needs to have some adjustments, which Alan and I are actively working on. Okay, great. So record it that. Let's go back here. Because I think that's in terms of SDK-related documents, that's the last thing that we have. So we're going to go and do this and I'm going to take mine. I'm going to do that immediately. I'm going to close that one. Good. So amongst the coders, do we think we should do a cross SDK code review effort? How do we think about that? I would love to know how other people are having, like what the experience upgrading to 1.0 has been. Are there any other active developers that are working on SDKs? I know, Clemens, you've done this. Yes, I've done this.  And then we started cutting the map support now towards 1.0. And I think that was the biggest significant change. And then we had also rules around simplifications around data content type, et cetera. But I didn't have anything that really stuck out as a giant issue. What I've been doing in the SDK is basically allow for in the strongly type representation of the event, there I'm effectively tracking the latest version. And that's what you need to program against. And if you want to go and this is kind of towards 1.0, you know, you pick the SDK and the SDK has a particular version that it is biased towards and you take those bits and use those. The internal core, so I have this class called the cloud events attributes. And that's the thing that does the serialization and does the validation. That thing just operates on a dictionary and that thing then gets kind of loaded up, if you will, by the strongly typed shim that's around it. So I've been doing like all most of the upgrade work happened in there and I didn't find, yeah, for me, that wasn't very complicated. It was mostly just, it was a cutting code in the sense of, you know, stashing it away if it's not 1.0 rather than rather than making anything more complicated. So I think we've been doing some simplification work here, which has, which is helping. Actually, so in the primer, there's a, there's language that says the specification places no restrictions on the type of extension attributes, meaning they may be simple types, strings and integers, complex, structured, or undefined collection of attributes. How about you follow PR to go and fix that? Yeah. I've been highlighting things that I need to follow up on. So I have several things that I've found that are slightly inconsistent, but I'm, this, this is incorrect, right? Like we don't allow multi-level extensions into the payload anymore, or sorry, not the payload, the attributes. I can't say like food.bar.baz is a string. No, you can't. And, and that's the, I think that's a leftover. So this, I don't think anybody has, has paid as close attention to the primer as we should. And I think the primer is also a document where, that is the most patchwork. So one of the things for next week, I think, is look at, so we've, we're within the two week period, I think where we all said that we want to go and take a little closer look at documents. So basically out of the development experience, it would be great to go and make a, take a pass through the primer specifically and see where there's stuff that needs to be patched up. And it could be that there's even you know, duplication between paragraphs or that, you know, one paragraph doesn't really flow with another one. So doing some editorial patches there would be, would probably be helpful. And the primer is the document that is not normative, but it's really just the explanation. And if there's stuff that is just wrong because we've made changes and nobody cared to track them in the primer, then we should go and correct that. That's, that's, the primer is a document also that we can probably keep revising and clarifying beyond V1 because that's not, I don't think that, I don't think that document is versions. The, as far as the spec goes, the only inconsistency I found is there is a must in attribute naming convention. It says attributes must begin with a lower case letter, but they also say that they're case insensitive. Yeah, I think they, I think the rule, the rule is that they all need to be lower case. I think that's what we agreed on. So that, let's, let's go and find that. Oh, I see. So it's, don't use uppercase letters. Use, don't use uppercase at all because we had this, we had this, we had a debate about this. And because you already get it, get an issue with, you know, permitted, where were we? Yes, must consist of lower case letters and digits must begin with a lower case letter, arguably we can delete because that's implied. Yeah. And my one other thing is I've been calling, you know, like HTTP and AMQP and NAT things, transports, but the spectrum protocol. But I think it mixes the terminology between transports and protocols and transport particle bindings and things like that. Which, which is the preferred word to use. I want to change things in my side. If you, if you aim for perfection, then I think that those are applications. The things we have bindings for all application protocols, because the, the transport underneath is where, you know, TCP or UDP or quick. And then we, we really map to app for the application protocols. They're not really transports. That's the purity of it. But then what they do for us is they obviously act as transports. So I will say in that case, I will say in that case that I'm probably too deep in that terminology hole that I can probably not see clearly what works better for the normal people. And so I'm not going to take a, take a position on that. Why, I'm trying to get the SDK language to be as close to the spec as possible. So I think I'm going to rename everything to protocols and not transports. Yeah. Protocol binding. That's all I have. I'm, I'm still working through it. I think I've, you know, there's a lot of, I'm doing a bunch of casing too, but it's, it's to avoid complicated logic paths because we've simplified a lot of things. So that's nice. Hi everybody. Sorry I'm late. I didn't have the time for this meeting in my calendar. Hello, Alan. Hello. Hello, Clemens. Remember me? Is that me or is that him? Oh, no, I'm sorry. Carry on. I'm no need to.  Yes. Oh, wait. I have not, I have not, sorry. I had some, I had some network issues or I'm having network issues, oddly, even though this is my house. Alan, hello. My wife is always complaining about the network and she's using our house. Yeah, well, that's true. Oh, so what's about this networking stuff?  So Alan, we had, what, what did you tell me while I couldn't leave? I was just saying hello. Okay. We, it would have been great if you had been here 45 minutes ago because we had your, we had your PRs on the table or sorry, your issues on the table in terms of business of integer. Yes. And so Tim Gray said, well, we can't expand it to, we can't expand to 64 bit because of the width of JSON, which is something that I think you also mentioned. Well, yeah, it's kind of, that was kind of the opposite argument. I don't really feel strongly about it. I just thought we should make sure we haven't done it, made a mistake before we go to press the width of JSON in practice. JSON doesn't specify anyway, but in practice, it's the width of the integer part of an IEEE 64 bit float, which is about 52 bits. Yes, Tim, Tim mentioned that, he mentioned that exactly. So that's why we didn't take that and for MQP and so the MQP issue that we also talked about that, since the MQP long actually encodes into whatever bits you need ultimately because of the way how the type system works in the MQP, I don't care. I mean, there's separate wire types. There's a short for 16 and in for 32 and a long for 64. No, no, but there's a, but the long actually has a short, has two short representations. Like it actually looks at the value and then picks a subtype that then has the appropriate length. Oh yeah, and has a zero special case and all that weird stuff. Yeah, exactly. It has all that. The longest, the longest certainly able to do everything it needs to be. It's just, the int would do just as well. Yes, but I, so I don't care. That's okay, neither do I then. Good, consider it not cared then and we'll just have to add integer 64 later if we have to. Yes, because I don't think that hurt at all. Good. So we get disconnected or did Klemens suddenly stop talking? I think Klemens dropped for a second. I guess his household network issue. Oh, wow. Maybe it's your video upload speed is not having good times. Oh, that is because Alan joined and Alan has the video on and that's why I'm, that's why I'm getting screwed here because I'm not, I'm not sure what's wrong. I'll hide myself again. That's less fun though. Anyone else want to speak up non C sharp or go laying SDK authors? Are we concerned that the, there's not progress on the other SDKs? I am somewhat concerned. I have to say if it's slow people behind me that are getting nervous. I think, I think product implementation will help there. So if I can assure you that we will go and ship product with cloud events. And then from what I, what I hear Tim telegraphing, it seems like they're going to, going to do cloud events too. And I think that problem would solve itself. The question is whether that's going to be the official SDK for our, for what we are going to do in C sharp. It looks like my engineering team is actually looking at using the, this SDK as the core, which is a good, which is a good thing because then they will take ownership of it because they hate whenever I write code. And so we're probably going to build on top of the, the official SDK for our, for our purposes. And I would assume that in your world, Scott, that's going to be similar. And I think for other languages, for other languages, I mean, we have a, we have a specification that people can build to. And what we've created is reasonably compatible with, with existing stacks that people have so that like, if you want to send an, an, a binary event, you need nothing but a regular HTTP client, right? That's all you need. And that was kind of the one design goals. And you can get pretty far with just having a, a, you know, JSON encoder and HTTP client, which means you probably don't necessarily need to have the SDK for simple cases. So I'm not, I'm not too concerned because I think we kept the spec easy enough so that it's fairly approachable from standard clients. So I'm not too concerned about scenarios with JavaScript, you know, TypeScript, I need to type on of those languages for something that's more, a little more sophisticated and C sharp, Java and, and go and the expectations that developers have, you know, strongly typed experiences, et cetera, et cetera. That's more important. I haven't looked at the Java, at the Java state of the world of the Java SDK. I haven't either. And that's, that's one that I'd be, keep getting asked about. Yeah. And that's understandably. So do, do we know, do we know who, who it's not. Oh, Matthias does. Then we should, then we should start, we should probably nag and see, probably can get some little bit more, more traction on that. And then probably the next one is JavaScript because there's a lot of JavaScript devs. Yeah. Yes. So, let's go and start filing issues and, and deciding those to people, I think, say, Hey, where, how's this going? Okay. Sounds good. I think that's all I have on my side. Great. Fabulous. And I will not keep you longer if there's no other business anybody cares about. And you will all meet next week in here. Well, I'll, me and the other Germans and Doug will not be here. Until then. All right. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Thank you, everyone.


Cool view from the back of the green here. Garcia. Another birdie. He might be very excited to know that Urban Meyer is here. He'll go on for a long time on the golf course. He keeps himself in great shape. Warshall at seven. Keep it going, Billy Warshall. That moves him to four under on the round. Back to the first. It's got Piercy's third. The chip-ins continue. It's getting boring. And Day for birdie. Sampoer went in at the first. Day at Ophmott. He'd go on to shoot 76 and lose to Dustin Johnson by three. Finally, we've seen a lot of shots spin back like that on four, on seven, but get into the rough. Go to 11. Webb Simpson. One of the best rounds going today. This is for birdie. What a confident-looking stroke there by Webb Simpson. Here's Cantley for birdie at three. Here's Cantley at four. Four playing three, 24 today to the hole. It's gonna be fun to watch these leaders and what decision they make on the tee and look at this shot. That's the best one of the day by far, Curtis. A bunch of players have gone for this green. That's the only ball to get on the green. Here for birdie is Tiger Woods at the par three, seven. Good ones, Anders Schoffley for birdie. Number 10 player in the world. Second shot, Tiger at eight. Just hit repeat. Second shot for Reed at 15. Adam Scott, his second shot at three. Always thought the U.S. Open made a man out of you more than any other tournament. It's a moment.


straight black hair. Look, he's cute. You know I can talk to her. Well, I went in to have my head combed by Deb, which I'd done many times. This visit occasioned the greatest sorrow to me that ever I knew in this world before at this point my marriage turned on emergency headlights. Our car accelerated down the hill, no brakes because while Deb Willett was combing my head, my wife comes up suddenly and did find me embracing the girl. My hand saw the suit quotas, my mane and her cunny, and in comes my wife. She sees it, she's struck mute. She's frozen. I mean, not like, you know, when you pick up a few things in the grocery store or like, pedal your bike, no, for rows, totally paralyzed. Then her voice finally comes to her and grew quite strange and out of order. Okay, so that night we bet I'm very tentative. And my wife says very little also, we couldn't sleep all night. And then at about two in the morning, she starts raging. She goes on and on. At last it appeared plainly what her trouble was, what she saw.  You know, my mind is in this rapid interplay between impression and fact. You know, but after her much crying and reproach, reproaching me for philandering, I did thus promise my love to her and for swear any hurt that I did to her. Until, at last, she seemed to be at ease again. So toward morning, very innocent. Okay, so the 26th, rows and up, but my mind is lightly troubled for the girlie, dad, but who I fear I have undone by this, my wife. She's telling me she will turn dad out of doors and then at dinner silent between my wife and me.  So all evening, I'm busy.  So about midnight, she wakes me and falls foul of me again. But I notice her rhetorical style is radically changing. Her language is blunt and sharp. And now she's reaffirming that she saw me hug and kiss the girlie, the latter I deny, the hugs I can twist. But not more of this. I don't know what she actually saw. So I'm awning up to some of the expressions, but at the same time, I am emphasizing that there was really no harm in it. You know, I'm coming up with this strategy on the fly, right? She at last was quiet and so asleep. And I am hoping that things blow over. 27. What then happened was this in the morning when I'm up, my mind hurt. I was troubled for the poor girlie, but I couldn't figure out how to get an opportunity to speak with her, which I needed to do. And so my wife toward bent time started to rame me, threaten me. So I wore two glasses of Chardonnay floors and adjusted her to the couch and I gently led her to sit and I lit a candle and I put on some quiet piano music and I tucked a small blanket around her feet. And then I might be made of my business to appease her all I could possibly. And by good words and fair promises, I did make her peaceful. She stared at the edge of the rug for a while and then we went to our bed. I've said that there are deer in the woods, but there is so much of quiet. It's not fair. October 28 1668. Next day, we rose with perfect good peace inside. I am freaking about the girlie, who I have no mind to part with. Look, I write her name on bathroom walls and truck stops. I learned sad and confused songs and I sing them in empty dive bars and try to catch her without my life seeing. And if I can find a way, I need to pass a note to to tell her what I haven't confessed to, you know, the main of the coming issue. She should never read a word about that. So this morning I flamed note as she passes me in the hallway. Later, she flings back at me and I am in agony. My desire is legible. Its edges clearly rendered 29th 30th. I'm not a certified forklift driver and I am driving this one without a license on a rocky piece of earth 31st. I vowed tomorrow to buy my wife a petticoat and some rich lace. 30th. I go downtown to the office noon to dinner and I'm home. I spy my wife eyeing my eyes looking into Deb's eyes, which I could not but do her charm. It's like an icicle in the brightest sun. An icicle in a state of sparkle and melt. And then I see the poor girlie drop of tear. She is indeed my sacrifice for Deb. So that night, my wife tells me of her desire of firing Deb. It must be. So therefore, though it cannot be grieved me, I must bring my mind to tolerate her leaving. Truth is, though it hurts, I think it'll be better. I mean, she should be gone for both my wife's peace and mine and some reasons of finance as well. It'd be best for me to do that. Her go listen. You know, I think it would be good if when you get married, you make an agreement with your partner that you have to get remarried every seven years so you can always be in like an active relationship to your choice. Although the no escape clause has a certain comfort for it. This is actually the day's writing of the fifth though it stands under the sixth. My mind is so troubled, so cluttered. It's no wonder that I fall into these mistakes in my journey. Seven. I want to say they're a wild animal in the city and we can use spikes, nets, tracks, poison, but let's concede they will inevitably nest under our roof. Eighth, Lord's Day. And at my chamber all morning, the girlie's still with us. I see her cowering in my back kitchen, her dark print dress lending into the wallpaper.  This pains me. I love the girlie. No matter how much muscle I put into it, I cannot undream, unwant, unlove. November 9th. There are protocols, regulations for missing documents, long lost orphans, stolen property, but there are no boots for this kind of downpour. So today up and I again in despair. I fling another note today and in the note I advise her that I continue will continue to deny that ever I kissed her. Now I'm thinking you know maybe the main in the county thing. I'm rethinking the evidence. Maybe it never happened. You know it's kind of like a racing in my mind. I'm generally uncertain about everything at this moment. And by the way, as I'm thinking this, I know it sounds contradictory. I am simultaneously asking for God's pardoning me this act if it did happen, which I'm not completely sure it did. November 10th. Tomorrow, I shall bind my wife to the most fine cloth and let her wear black patches if she desires, which are much in fashion 11. First thing in the morning, my wife tells me about all the men that she herself reviews out of faithfulness to me where several she found very hot, which I did acknowledge and left. And at last, we're pretty good friends. So today, but after a half an hour of sleep, she wakes me frantic, a lurching clown in the red wing. She is in attack mode. There are no boots for this kind of downpour. It is quite a scene. I mean, I'm in tears myself. She's mad with raving. Though I wouldn't totally buy in the ratings. Who do I think I am? 13th. So first thing this morning, we called Daniel into my chamber and there did with tears in my eyes discharge her. But as I'm doing the bidding of my wife, something shifts in me. Suddenly, it hits me as possible if not probably. Dead is a cunning girlie, if not us. What? This misery is not my fault. I have been put under her spell. She's a witch. I've been seduced by her dark powers that I cannot understand. They existed some other realm of reason. We were both fighting and loving an idea simultaneously. Because this is how I felt as I fired the girlie 14. So that evening, I hear my wife Deb say that the girlie has found employment and she will be gone tomorrow morning. Good news. That's good news. But part of me is stunned. The truth is that I have a good mind to have the maiden head of this. But she'll be gone and I know not with her. 15th. Were you ever a bird flying into a glass window? This morning, I have a mighty urge to encounter, animate and engage with the girlie. So I'm wrapping up 40 suits in paper to give her as a farewell gift. But I hear my wife already going down to the kitchen and she comes back up. She says Deb is in the kitchen. Therefore, I cannot go in and then out of nowhere. My wife Casamine eye upon me.  I wish it was rotten at this point. So I could be less emotional. Of course, I bore her approaches in a vast silence and in this silence, we both hear the coach leaving outside the window. I know Deb will it is gone. All is quiet. I'm to the office. My heart is sad. But I decide then and there I shall forever be a slave to my wife. She deserves it. Later in bed with more pleasure that night with my wife than I think in all the times of our marriage before I realize now I want ultimately to roost in a warmer, more stable environment. 17. The Lord's Day. So to the office to write down all this in my journal for six or seven days, my minds haven't been so instructed and shadowy as never to get the time nor the clarity to do it. Which you can tell by the mistakes I've made in the journal these days. But concerning Deb, I must confess I know now that I would be glad to find her though I fear it would be my ruin. My mind is drawn to an aftermath which hasn't occurred yet but must. 18. Early the next morning I go to Wettstone's Park, a place totally I'd never lived in. And I understand from overhearing my wife that Deb is working there for a doctor. So I look around, I cruise the district, maybe I'm hoping to see her in a window or passing by a shop. And then home to my wife. I'm taking her temperature, she seems pretty calm. So I am in mighty ease in my mind about my hopes to find Deb without the knowledge of my wife. No equation has ever been so perfectly designed. A pristine trying. 19th of November 1668. Lay long in bed talking with my wife. She'd be unwilling to let me go out alone for fear of my going to Deb, which I do passionately deny. But, God forgive me, as soon as I'm out, I coach directly to Somerset House to find out where the doctor's lodgings are. So I talked to some bike messenger and he tells me that he'll inquire about this little gentle woman, one Deb will it. And I send him to see how she's doing at last. I see the guy riding back and my heart is pounding. He tells me Deb says I may see her and he gives me her address. I completely lose control of the car. I am veering off the road. I am going to total it, which I don't care. I am code red. I know I must go to her this very night and so by foot it's by now it's dark. I go in my God. She comes to meet me. Her charm is like an icicle in the brightest sun, an icicle in a state of sparkle and melt. I want to say I wasn't looking snow, but it is coming now. So home and there I told my wife a fairy tale. She's distracted. She's hacking the new damask curtains that the upholster just delivered. I decide I'm going to buy her trim for her new vomit.  I am practically skipping home. I run upstairs to see the upholsters. They're busy, you know, at work hanging the graves, silken floor legs, grapes in my study, but I find my wife sitting sad in the dining room last night. She looks in my eyes and she names me false and mean. I know she knows that I was with death yesterday and my mind is racing. Was she following me? How does she know this? Nevertheless, I begin to deny it with all my heart and then I experience this radical change in my life in a desperate wish to forever discharge my heart of this witness. I did confess about yesterday's experience, which she doesn't exactly. She says she wants 400 pounds from me and then she'll walk away. But that's not good enough.  But I'm not anticipating going public with her data is going to win her cohorts. Data can be fabricated and or discredited. Then I see it from a wide shot. I wonder if perhaps this entire episode binds us tighter in the bunting of our original promise. So at last I swore with my hand on the Bible, never to see death as long as I live. Wow. I know that she takes the hand on the Bible thing very seriously. She comes down on a dime, stops threatening me and there beyond my hopes she looks at peace.  So what happens next even surprises me in desperation and in earnest. I fold my knees in my chamber and begin to pray to God and ask for his help. I am a desperate beginner. I'm a mess on the floor and I am giving myself up. This day the upholster has finished the hanging in my best chamber but my heart sorrow is so great. I can't enjoy how great my house is starting to look with the redo. 20 seconds. This morning to white hole by water my friend Howie is with me. He's supposed to go with me everywhere until my wife trusts me again. I've lived with this because I've resolved before God never to do her wrong again. But when I come home I find my wife on her bed in a horrible rage a friend is pulling my hair.  So I did write the letter with the whore with no one. Howie's going to wipe that heart out. So this letter please my wife she gives it to Howie to carry to the girly you know at the doctor's office. So when Howard left I fell upon my knees in prayer calling for the help of my doctor and so I vowed to pray every night from now on hoping this gives me some relief. 23rd. First thing in the morning I meet Howie for coffee. He tells me he crossed out the whore part in the letter but he tapped in the part that I never want to see her again and hate her. So it's done. 24th. Lord's Day. Today is Lord's Day and my wife's day of goodness. Well she spends the whole day making herself cleaner after four or five weeks in this continued dirt. I feel it would be unfair for me to comment on this but now it is like ritual bath time. I'm cluttering around the house. I'm knocking up nails. I'm making little repairs to things I've neglected, whistled and then to the office to get back to my journal. Some days I've been leaving it in perfect and this matter might grieve us to me I could not write well. Or at all. 25th. 26th. 27th. 28th. 29th. 3rd. Lay long and bed with my life. My business is going better than ever. I think the prayer is helping though I'm going to be perfectly honest. If the mind is a butterfly, mind is resting lightly on the flower of death. 31st. Thus ended this month with very good content that has been the most sad to my heart and the most expensive to my purse.  New coach and horses, fine as anything we've ever had. It makes me look like a rich man. And so and on with the evening we went through the town.


Okay, thank you. Good morning. It's nice to be here. So as stated, I'm going to talk about some observation also some intermittent strategies towards the end I think I think of this sort of maybe building on Danny's talk to say there's a group of patients who have just a favorable biology They have good prognosis and perhaps we can incorporate into our approach to patients taking advantage of that of their good prognosis So again, I'll talk about indolent biology. I'll talk about initial observation and then I guess maybe more broadly taking a break in Systemic treatment both our retrospective and our prospective experience So this is a slide I've showed many times. This was actually I believe a KCA sponsored Analysis and it looked at a very large number of patients That received cytokine therapy So I think we can argue this is probably the natural history of kidney cancer and really what it's meant to show is that What you all know from clinical practice is that kidney cancers extremely biologically diverse I find myself saying that to patients a lot because they'll come in and say Yeah, I read on the internet that kidney cancer slow-growing or I read that it's fast-growing or aggressive or whatever and I say, you know what? It's it's everything right? It's probably the most biologically diverse solid tumor that we see in this graph really shows it where you have Patients on these curves over here who have a median survival measured in about six months Which is as bad as any solid tumor and then patients out here who have a median survival measured in many years Again with probably what we could argue is minimally effective therapy who clearly have a favorable natural history There's some very old data from Tim Oliver now many many years ago that looked at sort of initial basically was Initial versus delayed interferon so fairly small number of patients you see here And the progression rate and really what it's meant to show obviously most patients progress progress fairly quickly So if you take an unselected population the median PFS is about two months Basically when you do the next scan their disease is worse not surprisingly But I would point out that you know there is a subset of patients I would estimate it's about five to ten percent in part I would say that based on these data saying about ten percent of patients didn't progress even after a year So after these patients walked in with metastatic disease and you watched them about one out of ten patients Didn't get significantly worse after twelve months of observation And I think importantly whether you gave in this case interfere on up front or later The response rate was identical So I often tell patients whether you're going to respond to this drug whether it's Sunitinib or Pozapinib or whatever You're gonna respond today just like you're gonna respond in a month just like you're gonna respond in a year I believe that and I think we're starting to collect data in that regard So in whom do we delay? Therapy well that the first bullet point is sort of they catch all so obviously good performance that is patient These patients should be asymptomatic from their disease I have low volume and slow growing growing in quotes there because I know when I see it But I'm not sure I know how to define it And I think you all sort of know it from looking at scans and taking care of patients You know just from sort of that gestalt of looking at the scans how much tumor burden there is and hopefully you have a scanner to To help to help you understand the natural history of this particular patient's disease So a common patient that we would observe is patients who had an effect to me a few years ago And then they have maybe some little nodules and maybe they've grown and maybe they've grown and so you have a few scans to sort of Reassure yourself of what the natural history is in this particular patient We recently collaborated with the centers you see there around the world doing a prospective study that will present it ask Oh, but I will tell you a little bit about in a few slides Basically because we all do this in clinical practice and it's a lot of retrospective experience And when patients walk in the door with already several months if not years of scans It doesn't those patients are obviously selected so it doesn't really help you understand the natural history if you look at it Retrospectively so we wanted to prospectively understand the natural growth rate in this subpopulation To look at clinical outcome and treatment is started so we could say to a patient that we can safely observe you and when we start your Treatment in six months or 60 months. You're gonna have the same response rate We looked at some anxiety and depression scales thinking that this that the burden of watching in untreated cancer might be hard on patients And we also collaborated with Jim Finke my main immunologist looking at their immunomitulatory profile such as MDSC's and t-rags thinking these patients might have Sort of different profile a naturally favorable profile if you will And then in terms of when to start treatment in this particular study was obviously left to the to the discretion of the treating physician For myself and what I told patients at the start is that if they had an increased pace of disease If they had new organ sites if they developed symptoms from disease Which I don't think happened to anybody or if the doctor or the patient got nervous Then we would start treatment and it was really sort of the first one or the first two and we're collecting The data of why they started treatment also on this trial So I'll present sort of the full data at ASCO But here's a little bit of a taste so this is there were 52 patients that were put on you could see the patient characteristics I would point out the median age was a little bit older 67 So again sort of like in the example not surprisingly patient Physicians that are a little more out to watch Patients who are a bit older that 50 52 year old were a little nervous about watching that patient We want to be more aggressive with quote-unquote younger healthier patients otherwise Mostly male obviously E.C.I.G. zero clear cells so these are sort of typical what you would expect about one out of ten patients had prior metastasectomy So the eligibility for the trial was that you had to be diagnosed with metastatic disease within a year of enrollment And the reason we did it that way is because we often saw patients who came in and they had to scan three months ago With those small lung nodules and then we saw them and lung nodules were a little bit bigger And so in essence in retrospect they were they were clinically diagnosed with metastases three months before we saw them So we needed to allow a little bit of that Time to have passed in order to be able to enroll those people on study But about 10% had had prior metastasectomy again speaking to the favorable favorable biology You don't take patients to metastasectomy over rapidly growing disease I think maybe somewhat surprisingly when we looked at Danny's risk groups most people were intermediate risk So you would have expected maybe that this would be a very predominant Favorable risk group, but I'm actually most patients were intermediate and we'll look at the specific breakdown and then baseline tumor burden again, I think goes into our our gestalt about Whether we should watch a patient and the baseline tumor burden was just over three centimeters so I would I think that would probably classify as low volume and we looked at a Separate analysis of patients receiving soon it and when we were looking at tumor burden characteristics I think our baseline tumor burden was more about 12 or 14 centimeters for patients walking in the door So this is obviously low volume. Although you see there are some high volume patients who were observed The median time until systemic therapy was started was just over a year about 14 months And you could see the 12 and 24 month rate there So on average we were able to watch people about a year before starting systemic therapy keeping in mind that the start of therapy was Entirely physician slash patient driven there wasn't an equation to say if their disease increases by this much or at this pace Then you have to start And then just some sort of bullet points here One thing I thought was interesting is that the median growth rate again in this highly selected population Was about point one four centimeters per month. So about a millimeter and a half per month now again We're not necessarily we're using resist here So we're not necessarily capturing every single site of disease right if they have ten lung nodules We can only measure three right three five overall and three and one organ So it doesn't necessarily capture everything, but but I thought that was surprisingly small But half the people have come off observation 25 patients have gotten therapy and I just looked at these data before I came They've really gotten a mix of therapy So I'm not sure we're gonna be able to say a lot about their response to systemic therapy Some of these people who are at our center they go back They drive a long way to see us and then they've been observed for a few years They get tired of driving they go back to their local doctor And so we don't have the follow-up on their systemic treatment to be able to record We looked a little bit preliminarily and we'll look a lot more at this in terms of how fast do people grow and who is the best Observation patient IE who has the slowest growth rate over time The only thing we found sort of on a preliminary look that was of borderline significance was baseline tumor burden That you see there obviously patients with smaller tumor burden being observed longer and that makes sense again as a Physician when you see that scan with accumulating disease you get more and more nervous about withholding treatment on that patient Location or number of matastatic sites did not impact the length of observation and we did all these fancy anxiety depression scales And they really didn't tell us anything patients We were concerned maybe that patients wouldn't this trial would be hard to accrue that patients wouldn't want to be observed And in fact patients love not getting treatment. They're not anxious about it They're actually anxious and depressed about getting treatment. So we didn't really find anything and we didn't find anything in the At least on first look in the immunologic parameters in these patients They clearly have a more favorable profile than Patients who receive immediate systemic treatment within this group at least on first look nothing that was striking Turning out is sort of taking breaks in systemic therapy. So Starting several years ago when we started using systemic therapy We'd have patients who are on therapy for a period of time months to years and they'd come to us and they say Gee, I'm tired of taking these pills. Can I stop and so that was sort of the night is to say, okay Gee, maybe we can give patients holidays And again, we'll present it ask her this year pretty much all is one of my fellows who will present this in a poster highlight session We've collaborated with Bernardus Goudier's group and we published these data initially and this is sort of an update of those data Basically looking at kidney cancer patients on targeted therapy Who had a period of drug cessation for greater than or equal to three months? And that was our completely arbitrary definition of how we define patients who took a break Obviously, we didn't want them progressing and taking a break. That's not the patients We're looking at we're talking about patients doing well on therapy Who choose to take a break? So we have 112 patients so fairly large experience I think we're our comfort level in doing this has grown over time you can see the characteristics there again not all Favorable risk although I in this particular group of more of a predominance of bid risk patients again You're taking advantage of that natural biology to either delay therapy or in this case take a break from therapy And here's sort of first sort of blush at the data If you look at the treatment here is is basically the break So remember there's 112 patients that all took a break so the first break everybody took right That's how they got in to this analysis And then there were smaller groups of patients who took a second break and a third break and a fourth break And that's what these bottom three rows focus on But again if you just sort of focus your attention here patients were on therapy a little over a year And then we're able to take a break from therapy that was almost a year and a half again highly selected retrospective experience We would certainly admit this is not necessarily average patient I'm not saying the average patient can take a year off therapy, but there's a I would say sizable minority of patients Who have a favorable biology who may be able to take a prolonged break of therapy and again obviously no no therapy No toxicity right that's the best part patients love delaying therapy They love even more taking a break from therapy, especially if they've had side effects Which is often why these patients took a break not necessarily any one terrible grade three side effect It was often an accumulation of grade two side effects as you might imagine And then I'll end just talking about our prospective intermittent study We've presented these data at asco last year and the paper is working its way into draft form this was Again based on that retrospective experience. We say well gee maybe we can look at this prospectively Maybe we can treat people for a little while and then take a break and then retreat and when they grow and give them some time off therapy This was the study schema. So this was a up front metastatic clear cell patients no prior treatment They got four cycles of standard Sunitin of 50 milligrams for two four cycles was a completely arbitrary time point But it was felt to be enough that generally if you're going to see a response in tumor shrinkage You see it within the first scan or two if patients had their overall tumor burden decreased by 10 percent again Arbitrary threshold would felt to represent something that that was meaningful that represent some reasonable degree of Anti-tumor effect then we held their drug scan them approximately every two months and then started their drug again when their tumor burden grew by That same 10 percent compared to the tumor burden when they stopped So they had 10 centimeters of tumor burden when they stopped when they grew to 11 centimeters Then they would they would start again and you can see that again 10 percent threshold was set fairly low So as not to withhold treatment from from patients who we thought needed it again an arbitrary but reasonable threshold They then got two more cycles and again if they shrank again Then they held again and sort of entered this on and off intermittent phase Obviously patients who had more primary refractory disease either continued if it was appropriate or changed therapy So here the results again not sort of in final form But but fairly final 37 total patients 20 were eligible for in for the intermittent therapy and all entered the intermittent phase and actually when we Sent this study to scientific review many years ago. They said well G Why would patients who are on a therapy that's working stop and we don't think that that it would be ethical to do this or we don't Think actually patients will go for it. So why don't you make your primary endpoint feasibility? Feasibility that patients who are eligible to stop therapy actually stop so fine So we did that and ever and again patients love stopping therapy. I've had patients on this study say to me I can't believe some people just keep taking the drug So all patients entered the intermittent phase Patients who didn't really were just patients who had progressed before four cycles a couple people who had either toxicity or with your consent And you see that I'm trying to my point you're here that Almost all patients 80 percent did have that 10 percent tumor burden increase at the next scan So for this is obviously a less selected population than the observation patient These were just same as any patients we put on frontline trials most people not all but most people had that 10 percent increase at that first Scan after the break they increased by about 1.5 centimeters. So not much these patients weren't taking off in disease all this Discussion that G when you give edge at TKI's and then you stop it. There's this rebound effect and patients grow faster I happen to think it's a bunch of nonsense I think these data show that patients do not take off when they when they stop therapy they increase actually fairly modestly And we had sort of an interesting group of patients And I'll show you some graphs who who didn't have a tumor burden increase Offsunit and who were able to sort of maintain that off period for longer a longer period of time I'll show you this sort of soft-tooth patterns. There's different and you can see here again We sort of just crunched some numbers basically saying that we gave you know about a third A third reduction or so of the Sunit and that normally would have been given So we're giving let less drug yet able to control disease for a reasonable period of time So here just some representative tumor burden changes mostly what we saw was what we call this stable sawtooth pattern So if you take this is just one patient Here's a baseline tumor burden not quite seven centimeters It's very typical Sunit and in response most of the tumor shrinkage after two cycles a little bit more after four cycles Then we hold their drug they grow by about you know a centimeter or so Then we started again. They shrink again. They grow again. They shrink again So they're going up and down, but the the pattern of their tumor burden is generally stable over time We saw some patients who had a declining sawtooth pattern again. The name says it all it's going up and down But it's generally getting less over time So I think you could make an argument that this particular patient probably Could take longer breaks than the eight or ten weeks that we gave them everybody got the same break Of course in a prospective study, but in retrospect you could say gee if we want to keep this patient's tumor burden Sort of that you know where they were at their at their response point. We could probably take longer break Some patients had an increasing sawtooth pattern This is obviously more worrisome and when we saw this when we saw this repeated in this kind of patient We would take them off the internet and or we would shorten it So we'd say gee eight to ten weeks is too much Let's try four to six weeks and then in some patients obviously for clinical reasons We said this is not for you. You just need to be on standard drug And then we had some interesting patients This is probably our most interesting who had biopsy proven metastatic disease had had a metastasectomy Previously had some pancreatic meths came down after two cycles and four and held and has really been in this holding pattern now for Four I believe a couple years. So these are patients. I don't understand. They're obviously the most interesting But they're not not typical And this is just the aggregate over the first three-stop start period is basically saying that for most patients They come down and are in the stable pattern, but I showed you the individual patients just now So in conclusion kidney cancers are very biologically unique disease It has a wide spectrum including I think a fairly significant subset of patients with inherently indolent growth I think we can better take advantage of that natural biology Including observing some patients and some for a long period of time if that patients on our observations study I believe for at least three to four years and some of the longest patients and also intermittent therapy And really it's all about balancing risk and benefit, right? These drugs aren't curative these current options aren't curative And so we're trying to balance control of disease with the day-to-day toxicity And I think there's more work to do for defining the appropriate Subset for how we can sort of apply what I told you today. Thanks for your attention


I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited. Pathological narcissism is an addiction to narcissistic supply, attention, admiration, adulation. This is the narcissist's drug of choice. He actively seeks attention in order to regulate his sense of self-worth.  The narcissist, like other types of addicts, derives pleasure from these exploits. But they also sustain and enhance his grandiose fantasy that is unique, superior, entitled, and chosen. These addictive behaviors place him above the laws and pressures of the mundane and away from the humiliating and sobering demands of reality. They render him the center of attention, but also place him in splendid isolation from the madding and inferior crowd. Such compulsory and wild pursuits provide a psychological exoskeletal, external skeletal.  They afford the narcissist with an agenda, timetable, goals, and four achievements.  He does not regard his condition as dependence. The narcissist firmly believes that he is in charge of his addiction, that he can quit at will and on short notice. The narcissist dindies his cravings for fear of losing face and subverting the flawless, perfect, immaculate, and omnipotent image that he is trying to project. When caught red-handed at one of these addictive behaviors, the narcissist underestimates, rationalizes, and intellectualizes his addictive and reckless behaviors. He converts them into an integral part of his grandiose and fantastic forcelle. Thus, Francis' drug-abusing narcissist may claim to be conducting first-hand research for the benefit of humanity. He may say that his substance abuse results in enhanced creativity and productivity for the benefit of mankind. The dependence of some narcissist becomes a way of life. The busy corporate executives, race car drivers, or professional gamblers, may all be narcissists engaging in these behaviors. The narcissist's addictive behaviors take his mind off his inherent limitations. They divert him from his inevitable failures, from his painful and much feared rejection, and they serve to bridge what I call the grandiosity gap, the abyss between the image that the narcissist projects, his false self, and the injurious truth, his drab reality, his shabby existence. This gap is very painful for the narcissist, and he uses these compulsive, reckless behaviors – doing drugs, drinking, gambling, recklessly driving, pathological lying – uses these behaviors to bridge the gap. This conduct relieves his anxiety, resolves the tension between his unrealistic expectations of life, and his inflated self-image, and the incommensurate achievements, his low position and status, his non-recognition, his mediocre intelligence, his non-existent wealth, and his less than impressive physique. Thus, there is no point in treating the dependence and recklessness of the narcissist without first treating the underlying personality disorder. The narcissist's addictions serve deeply ingrained emotional needs. They intermesh seamlessly with the pathological structure of the narcissist's disorganized personality with his character faults, with his primitive defense mechanisms. Techniques such as 12 Steps may prove more efficacious in treating the narcissist's idiosity, rigidity, sense of entitlement, exploitativeness, and lack of empathy. This is because, as opposed to traditional treatment modalities, the emphasis is on tackling the narcissist's psychological makeup, rather than on modifying his behavior, or merely modifying his behavior. The narcissist's overwhelming need to feel omnipotent or powerful and superior can be co-opted in the therapeutic process. Overcoming an addictive behavior can be truthfully presented by the therapist as a rare and impressive feat worthy of the narcissist's unique mettle. It can be presented to the narcissist as a challenge. If he is truly omnipotent and all-powerful and superior, can he stop his habits? Can he cease to take drugs? Can he not dream anymore? It's a challenge, and the narcissist will rise to the challenge nearly in order to support his fallacious self-image and to restore his self-confidence, self-esteem, and sense of self-worth. Narcissists fall for these transparent pitches surprisingly often. But this approach can also backfire, unfortunately. Should the narcissist relapse, which is almost a certain occurrence, narcissists are recidivists? What should he relapse back to his old habits? He will feel ashamed to admit his fallibility, his need for emotional sustenance, and his impotence. He is likely to avoid treatment altogether then, and convince himself that now, having succeeded once to get rid of his addiction, he is self-sufficient and omniscient. He needs no one. He can do it all by himself next time. So it's a double-edged sword. Playing up to the narcissist for self-coopting it, leveraging it to cure the narcissist of his addictive behaviors, may backfire. Next time around, the narcissist may be too ashamed to admit reality, and may sort of go into a delusional mode of phase and live forever in a fantasy world where he is in control, regardless of his uncontrollable urges and behaviors.


What's going on everyone? Sam here with late in sports cards, ripping 22-23 Panini Prism Premier League soccer hobby for Anthony C, one box of it of course. Brand new just came out today so good luck here Anthony. No, yesterday, right? Yeah yesterday. Yeah, yesterday. That's right. Can people at home earlier? I know, that was pretty nasty. Oh man. Thomas, that is a Vladimir Kufal on the wave. Into the impact is Jordan Ayu. I don't blame you, be honest. I appreciate the Panavak. Coming to Bruina. Fabio Carvala, rookie. Zay Lucas Dine. Silver Michael Olyse, go Lewis. Nice one there for where's he? Man City. There's a Nathan Patterson, rookie. Silver Georgina. Scott McKenna on the blue mojo, 8 of 25. Nice one there. Very cool on the blue mojo. Love it. It's for Nottingham Forest, that's Forest Squad right there. Pink is Patrick Bamford. Pink's R2-199, Leeds United. Guimaris, mojo coming up. Telemans, say Luis Dunk. Kalechi Ayanacho, that is mojo, not numbered. It's weird that the mojo is not numbered. Just feels wrong. Tried to get because they switch it for every sport, but it's just odd. Just feels weird. Julian Alvarez, rookie. Aaron Ramsdale for Arsenal on the blue-green wave. Four packs to go here, Anthony. Got Red Mojo, Harry Maguire. Nice one there for Man City to 99. Harry Maguire. Silver Eve Massuma, so we got our auto in this pack. It is Jeffrey Shlup to 175. Nice one here. It's going to be Radamel Falcao, that is four men united on the Silverado, again, 8 out of 49. Very nice. Congrats on that one there, Anthony. Here is Nathan Patterson. Gabriel Martinelli, then Pearson. Check, there is no big rookies in that last one. Nope, all good. Pink is a Julio Inquiso to 199 for Brighton, Brighton Hove. Anthony Silver, Anderson. There's a Vladimir Kufal on the wave. Got a Kaleidoscope. Is Alexander Mitrovich for Fulham. Nice one there. Congrats on that. Very nice, Anthony, on the Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscopes are pretty cool. I like the Kaleidoscopes. I think it was a debut on this one, right? The Kaleidoscope debut. That's what it's saying on cardboard connection. Very nice. Campbell. That'll do it for your break there, Anthony. Congrats on all your hits buddy. We'll get them right out to you, man.