Why am I drawn to bad influences?
A friend says one more drink. A colleague says quit. Everyone calls this person a bad influence, and you keep going back. It looks like a taste for trouble. Often the reason is quieter.
Oscar Wilde sets up this scene in chapter II of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The painter Basil Hallward warns Dorian that Lord Henry is a very bad influence on his friends. Dorian asks Lord Henry if that’s true, and he replies:
"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence is immoral"
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, chapter II
A lecture against influence
Lord Henry goes on. Under someone’s influence, he says, you stop thinking your own thoughts and play someone else’s part. Then he tells Dorian to live fully and give form to every feeling.
The lecture is itself influence. Dorian listens and feels something in him waking up. Lord Henry tells him nothing new. He says out loud what Dorian already wanted to allow himself.
What the pull is toward
So the pull isn’t toward vice. It’s toward a voice that grants permission. Someone else says the forbidden thing, and the decision seems to become theirs.
Wanting someone to just tell you what to do is a related pull, with its own page. Here the voice does more than decide. It also permits.
What the novel leaves
Wilde doesn’t say whether Lord Henry is right. He shows how quickly Dorian hands him the decision. That leaves a question: what am I waiting for someone else to permit?
Epimelea is an app built around the existential school. The conversation carries over from one meeting to the next. The archive is encrypted on the device and belongs to the person who wrote it.
About the app: an AI therapist for long-term therapy
This page is about a school of psychotherapy. It is not medical advice and not emergency help. If you are in danger right now, contact your local emergency number, or find a helpline in your country at findahelpline.com.