Once again, your description of the conversation is quite inconsistent with the words written on the page, but I think there's not much hope in making any progress.

I'll share a piece of advice that a good friend of mine told me a few years ago: The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.

I didn't really understand what he was talking about at the time, I thought it was just another one of those silly platitudes that people who've smoked a bit too much drugs say. But after pondering it over the years, it has become one of my very favorite sayings.