People say strange, incoherent things in such a state.” “Her words do not strike me as incoherent or random. You suggested, Doctor Breuer, that I should simply interject any comments that occur to me. Let me make an observation: I find it remarkable that you are responsible for all of your thoughts and all of your deeds, whereas she” – Nietzsche’s voice was stern, and he shook his finger at Breuer – “she, by virtue of her illness, is exonerated from everything.
Your task is to accept yourself – not to find ways to gain my acceptance.
She was a rigid training analyst in a rigid institute that valued interpretation as the singular effective action of the analyst. Of her thoughtful, dense, and carefully worded interpretations, I remember not a one. But her reaching out to me at that time, in that warm manner – that I cherish even now, almost sixty years later.
To live in despair because life is finite or because life has no higher purpose or embedded design is crass ingratitude.
Pass, then, through this little space of time in harmony with nature and end thy journey in contentment, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.
The last gift a parent can give to children is to teach them, through example, how to face death with equanimity.
You say that imperishable happiness lies elsewhere. Tell me about this ‘elsewhere.’” “I only know that it does not lie in perishable objects. It lies not outside but within. It is the mind that determines what is fearful, worthless, desirable, or priceless, and therefore it is the mind, and only the mind, that must be altered.” “What.
Analiza regretlor duce mereu discutia intr-o zona mai profunda.
Iata ce-am invatat despre cancer: iti arata ce inseamna o boala incurabila si apoi te azvarle inapoi in lume, in propria ta viata, cu toata placerea si dulceata ei, pe care le simti acum mai mult ca niciodata. Si stii ca ti s-a dat ceva si ti s-a luat ceva.
Third, after each meeting I dictated and mailed to the members a weekly summary which was not only a narrative of the content of each session but also self-revealing. I described my experience in the group – my puzzlement, my pleasure with certain of my contributions, my chagrin at errors I had made, or issues I had overlooked, or members I felt I had neglected.
The enemies of conformity are, of course, freedom and self awareness.
Spinoza says that reason is no match for passion and what we must do is to turn reason into a passion.
Emotion has the power to obscure and falsify knowledge: that the whole world assumes a smiling aspect when we have reason to rejoice, and a dark and gloomy one when sorrow weighs upon us.
Better, Josef, far better, to have the courage to change your convictions. Duty and faithfulness are shams, curtains to hide behind. Self-liberation means a sacred no, even to duty.
By keeping death in mind, one passes into a state of gratitude, of appreciation for the countless givens of existence. This is what the Stoics meant when they said, “Contemplate death if you would learn how to live.
Heightened sexuality is a common response to confrontation with death.
But surely,” Breuer.
Sometimes death anxiety is dismissed as trivial in its universality. Who, after all, does not know and fear death? Yet it is one thing to know about death in general, to grit one’s own teeth and stoke up a shudder or two; it is quite another to apprehend one’s own death and to experience it in the bones and sockets of one’s being. Such death awareness is a terror that comes rarely, sometimes only once or twice in a lifetime-a terror that Marvin now experienced night after night.
People fear contact with the afflicted because they wish not to be confronted with the death that awaits each of them.
His visitor must have sensed her misstep, Breuer thought, noticing how she rushed to continue her narrative.