Phoenix Ad Aeternum

One Life, One Voice

2007-11-28T22:50:00.000Z

Most people that know me know that if there is one single issue that makes me move is Human Rights.

And that I am a person that tries to use modern technologies as doors that could open opportunities to intervene, opening apparently closed doors.

This is why I leave an invitation! I forward a challenge!

Humans are born with the right to exist, the right to be free, to love and be loved, to respect and be respected.

But, day after day, those rights are taken, by unfair imprisonment, incoherent judicial systems, inequality in treatment, persecution, massacres, and genocides.

This is the reason, this is the goal: to create an active network that shows our general dissatisfaction with this.

On December 10th, International Day for Human Rights, I’d like to have us all working together, as One World, One Life, in such a way that our readers could bear in mind that we are, in fact, One World and One Life.

For those who have a blog and whish to be a part of this, it is very simple: There are no limits to your imaginations (simply because unity should be achieved through diversity!).

You could chose a specific or general situation;
Write on economics and human rights, religious perspective and human rights, psychology of human rights, movies on human rights, poems, music videos, paintings, drawings;
Your imagination is the limit!

Those without blogs, but whishing to have an active participation, should not forget that technology is a means and not an end.

Use your hi-5, orkut, or even your messenger nickname;
You can publicize this campaign to others who have blogs;
Or even just write and make publicity of our facebook community.

Should one single member of the human body suffer, I'd suffer too.
Because, there is only one world, and there is only one life:Human Life.

Our main goal is to remember that we are all One Body, One Life.

So, if you want to take part of this initiative:

Send me an email;
Tell us through our facebook page;
Or just leave a comment here.

You should choose (at least) one of the logos, developed by Lino Resende, in case you choose to join this adventure for human existence.

Thank you all!

Head in the sky

2007-04-13T09:55:00.000Z

When we put our heads in the sky, flying around systematically, we can develop mental health problems (psychotic episodes, lack of contact with reality, ...).

This is the result of an investigation published in The Lancet, a British scientific weekly. After the analysis of more than half a thousand articles on flying and health, they have found reports of weak cognitive performance and mental health problems. The investigators became also aware that the female crew can suffer from perturbation of their menstruation cycle.

This is all due the timetable and the hour changes. So, a piece of friendly advice given by the researchers: in case you stay less than three days in another country, maintain your homeland eating and sleeping habits, because some changes are just not supposed to happen!

Sad day for psychology...

2007-04-06T14:38:00.000Z

I've just read this news and I thought most of you might not have heard the news yet, since it happened only a few time ago. Personally, I am sad because this great specialists in our field, Paul Watzlawick, like so many others are going away, at the same time I am concerned with the carrying out of their legacy, because it is in our hands: day after day we should remember our precious duty!

This is my way of paying respects to his family, his friends, his colleagues and all our "psychological society".

Paul Watzlawick, psychology theorist

STANFORD PROFESSOR IN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

Associated Press

Article Launched: 04/05/2007 01:39:04 AM PDT

Paul Watzlawick, a pioneering Stanford University family therapist and communications theorist who believed people create their own suffering in the very act of trying to fix their emotional problems, has died. He was 85.

Mr. Watzlawick died Saturday of a heart attack at his home in Palo Alto, according to colleagues.

Born in Austria, Mr. Watzlawick gained fame for parting with Freudian psychoanalysis in favor of an approach to therapy that emphasized relationships over introspection. He trained at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland, and in 1960 joined the staff of the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto.

As a scholar and a practicing therapist, Mr. Watzlawick wrote 22 books translated into 80 languages for both academic and general audiences. Emotional health, he believed, hinged on abandoning the ego and achieving well-being through effective communication with others.

In popular books like "The Situation is Hopeless, but not Serious" and "Ultra-Solutions: How to Fail Most Successfully," Mr. Watzlawick playfully promotes his theory that the worst way to find happiness is to actively seek it.

Mr. Watzlawick's research into the processes and principles of communication formed the foundation of the outward-looking therapeutic approach he developed with his Mental Research Institute colleagues, known as MRI Brief Therapy.

Mr. Watzlawick became a licensed psychologist in 1969. He stopped seeing patients in 1998.

In 1967, he became a member of the clinical faculty in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University Medical Center and was clinical professor emeritus at the time of his death.

He retired from the Mental Research Institute in late 2006.

Mr. Watzlawick donated his body to science and requested that no services be held.

10-20 % of adolescents have mental health problems

2007-04-04T09:32:00.001Z

Neuropsichiatric problem is the most common illness (right after cardiovascular) at the European nations, and mental health issues are affecting one in every four European citizens (at least once in a lifetime).

And, according to Erio Ziglio (head of WHO's European Regional OfficeHead of Investment for Health and Development"), around ONE MILLION youth in Europe suffer from some sort of mental ills.

Suicide is the main cause of death among young adults (overwhelmed only by traffic accident), from 15 to 35! And 9 of the 10 list countries with higher suicide rate are in Europe!!!

Rank Country Suicides per 100,000 inhabitants per year:
1 Lithuania 42.0
2 Russia 37.4
3 Belarus 35.0
4 Latvia 34.3
5 Estonia 33.2
6 Hungary 32.1
7 Slovenia 30.9
8 Ukraine 29.4
9 Kazakhstan 28.7
10 Finland 24.3

What can be done?

Good question!

I vote for real measures that make us, as European citizens (and world citizen) to stop concerning and start acting. Peseschkian would say we should start changing ourselves first. Frankl would say mankind should revive its sense of meaning. But what we really need is to give attention to our youth population, hear their thoughts and help them improve their self-steam, making them aware of their manifold potentials and helping them make their limitations a target of improvement, because we should see:

Man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom

(Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 161).

The world is but one country

2007-03-26T21:19:00.000Z

Iran and the rest of the world are in constant dispute... But, amazingly the Associated Press just published a text that starts this way: "The Christian concepts of heaven and hell originate in Iran. The Jewish holy Talmud is littered with Iranian words and ideas. And some Iranians cherish the Israeli city of Haifa as a sacred place".

Another sentence you can find in the same text is: "Concepts such as the survival of a person's soul after death, the Day of Judgment, heaven and hell, and holy angels all derive from Iran's surviving Zoroastrian faith, a 3,000-year-old religion that predates Islam and Christianity"

Attention: this is not a glorification of the History of Persia, or Iran, or anything else. It is just one of the many things that show us, humans, that our bonds are stronger than we think, that our reality is one, that our world is so strangely interconnected that we cannot deny our co-existence.

This is a way of reminding that the Earth is, indeed, one country and humankind its citizen!

Recreating Eden - Baha'i Gardens - Haifa

2007-03-12T20:48:00.000Z

Educational Genocide

2007-03-09T00:30:00.000Z

As some people know, in Iran, Bahá’ís are denied some basic rights. Amongst them the right to access to Universities.

After international pressure, the Islamic Government decided to stop the policy of asking for religion on the exams to enter Universities. This way, Bahá’í youth was able to apply and access the University.

Then, a new process started. Universities didn’t accept them, despite their marks being far superior to others. At the end, from the thousands accepted only approximately 100 got in.

And now? Seventy (after other seventy during this year) of them were expelled! According to the Povo of Bahá (a Portuguese blog), the Iranian Government has denied the allegation of religious grounds on the expulsion! Asked by Reuters (published on February, 28th), a member of the Iranian delegation in the United Nations affirmed: "No one in Iran is stopped of studying because of religion".

But, then again, we also find out information (written, printed, and signed information!) about Iranian Leaders. Issued on November, 2nd 2006 by the direction of the Payame Noor University you can read the following document:

Central Protection Office

Protection Office of Region 5

(Provinces of Fárs [Fars], Búshihr [Bushehr], KahKílúyih [Kahkiluyeh] and Buyr-A:mad

[Boyer Ahmad])

To the honourable directors of all the centres,

Greetings,

With respect, according to the ruling of the Cultural Revolutionary Council and the instructions of the Ministry of Information and the Head Protection Office of the Central Organization of Payám-i-Núr University, Bahá’ís cannot enrol in universities and higher education centres.

Therefore, such cases if encountered should be reported, their enrolment should be strictly avoided, and if they are already enrolled they should be expelled.

Confirmation comes from God alone.

[Signature illegible]

Central Protection Office of Payám-i-Núr University

Protection Officer of Payám-i-Núr University, region 5

[Signature]

(Provinces of Fárs, Búshihr, KahKílúyih and Buyr- A:mad)

[Stamp]

CONFIDENTIAL

Mu‘allim Square-Avval-i-Himmat-i-Junúbí

Samti chap-Payám-i-Núr University, region 5

Post Office Box: 1774

Telephone: (0711) 628323809

Fax: 6283727

The Bahá’í International Community Representative, Ms. Dugal makes the following remark, with which we must agree:

"In its public face, Iran claims that it has finally opened the doors to Baha'i students, after some 25 years of keeping them out of public and private universities in Iran. But, as evidenced by this confidential memorandum from the Payame Noor central office, the real policy is apparently to simply expel Baha'is as soon as they can be identified".

And… The questions lied ahead: What are we doing to stop this Educational Genocide?

A bird named Mankind

2007-03-08T13:07:00.001Z

“The world of humanity is possessed of two wings: the male and the female. So long as these two wings are not equivalent in strength, the bird will not fly”

(‘Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace).

Woman’s emancipation and the total equality between genders, is essential for humans progress and the transformation of society.

Inequality slows not only the advancement of woman, but the whole progress of all human species. And, worse, our insistence in amputate the rights of more than a half of the world’s population is not only an insulte to the dignity of our species but a cancer that destroys us from inside, leaving unbearable sequels in our familiar, social and universal tissue.

And, even worse, still today, in some parts of the world, women are seen as fragile and, therefore, inferiors. Diverse cultures from yesterday and today have an approach on this issue and we, human, haven’t still understood that they all say the same!

Notice that according to Hinduism (religion with manifold millennia of existence!), human population depends of the chastity and fidelity of women and, just like children they could “be unleaded, women have similarly the propensity to degradation. This is why women, just like children, need constant protection of the family” (A. C. Prabhupáda). Krishna Himself speaks of men saying they could occupy themselves with “prejudicial and horrible works destined to destroy the world” (Bhagavat-Gita), but He doesn’t say that of women …

At the Jewish-Christian Theology, woman is that one who has conceded “the right of redemption by the glorification of Mary’s virginity” (Carr, A., 1997), having her origin at the “the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man” (Génesis, II:22).

And, of course, we could not approach this subject without talking about the Islamic World. In Iran, for instance, a country that, unfortunately as so many others, women lack basic and simple human rights (even though we can feel some progresses), it aroused a young poet, Táhirih, that “marked [her] century (…) with heroic transcendence” Conjugated beauty, wisdom and eloquence such, that attracted multitudes of men and women, inclusively awaking the interest of the Shah of Persia himself. Abandoning the use of the veil, despite the millenary costume of her motherland (…) and partaking hot debates on mystical and spiritual themes, accumulated victories after victories against the male exponents and best representatives of the thought of her age”. It was exactly because of that that the Government arrested her, lapidated her on the streets, exiled her city to city: because she defended, feverously, the rights of her sisters, women. Finally, she was sentenced to death and, according to the testimonies of that age, she was incisive: You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women!” (Araújo, W., 1994).

Táhirih’s inspiration came from the Bahá’í teachings that so bravely embraced. “The Lord, peerless is He, hath made woman and man to abide with each other in the closest companionship, and to be even as a single soul” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Selections from the Writings). Appearing that we are encouraged to go back to that one un-sexual being, from whom the rib was taken. It is also said that “the education of girls is even more important than that of boys, for in time these girls will become mothers, and, as mothers, they will be the first teachers of the next generation” (Esslemont, J.; 1975). Showing itself adapted to the requisites of our times, we can also find on their writings:

“According to the spirit of this age, women must advance and fulfill their mission in all departments of life, becoming equal to men. They must be on the same level as men and enjoy equal rights. This is my earnest prayer” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Compilation of Compilations, Vol. II).

Can we fight our Chromosomes?

2007-03-04T12:41:00.000Z

At V. Willour, P. Zandi, J. Badner, J. Steele, K. Miao, V. Lopez, D. MacKinnon, F. Mondimore, B. Schweizer, M. McInnis (2007). "Attempted Suicide in Bipolar Disorder Pedigrees: Evidence for Linkage to 2p12" in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 61, Issue 5 (pp. 725-727) one can read that there might be a genetic disposition to attempt suicide.

Investigations held by the University of John Hopkins (Maryland, USA) and others seem to agree with the idea that there is a relationship between Chromosone 2 (the 2p12 area of the Chromosone) and suicide.

These studies have tried to scan a pattern between bipolars with known attempts of suicide and their families, examining the data of 162 families and including 417 people with diagnosed schizoafective or bipolar ills.

These findings can serve to identify people at risk of suicide, according to the main investigator Virginia Willour, but then again... Once more we seem to find deterministic ways of seeing people, forgetting that we can have our last decision, despite our biological conditionings...

Or can't we?

St. Valentine, frustration and meaning

2007-02-22T11:21:00.000Z

I’ve just read, on Europe Press, that the seeing all those hearts on the shops, all that publicity on TV with lovers offering gifts to each others, and all those movies with love and romance abounding during St. Valentine Season, can provoke some anguish and frustration to those who want to have partners but, simply, don’t.

At least that’s what Leonor Casalins said.

She said that “all this stimulation offered day after day” could lead to a bigger desire and need of having a partner, “frustrating” those who don’t have but want. According to her, “there is a need to share life with someone e some moment” and “most people need a partner”, among other “biological needs”.

This reminds me, once more, of Viktor Frankl, who once said:

By his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of the what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.

This is a fact: by loving we allow ourselves to show our potentialities. And, usually people is unaware of that. We know that love is good, and relationships amazing, but we just don’t know why.

And we keep searching and searching for this true love to come, to make ourselves more complete, more unique, more humans. Like Majnun searching for Layli everywhere:

It is related that one day they came upon Majnun sifting the dust, and his tears flowing down. They said, “What doest thou?” He said, “I seek for Layli.” They cried, “Alas for thee! Layli is of pure spirit, and thou seekest her in the dust!” He said, “I seek her everywhere; haply somewhere I shall find her.”

Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 6.

Maybe we should be aware our Layli could be everywhere. But should we be looking for her everywhere? I don’t recall reading Majnun ever finding her, just like the poem from Saná’í:

Never the covetous heart shall come to the stealer of hearts,

Never the shrouded soul unite with beauty's rose.

Frankl explains us that by searching pleasure by itself we shall end up frustrating both the will of pleasure and the will of meaning. Furthermore he adds that pleasure should be the secondary effect of our meaningful actions. Only this way, the “covetous heart” can progress to a degree where it shall attain the hearts, and the “shrouded soul” “unite with beauty's rose”.

Now, let us sleep with such a noise!

2007-02-20T13:49:00.000Z

I've read, in some printed news that there is no place, amongst 65 compared countries, where more youth is killed than in Brazil. Besides that, the Country is the third, in a 84 ranking, in which more youth between 15 and 24 year old dye by murder. This was made public by the Violence Map 2006, a study divulgated on November, 16th, in Brasília, by the Iberoamerican States Organization (OEI). The document points that 15.5 thousand Brazilians between 15 and 24 lost their lives in 2004 because of accidents, crimes or suicides caused by a fire gun, which results in 43 deaths per 100 thousand. From the 65 compared countries, only Venezuela comes close to Brazil, with a rank of 38 deaths per 100 thousand youth. Even Israel, a country that lives a situation of armed conflict, has a much lower ranking: 5,3 death per 100 thousand. Despite the increase of 64,2% in the number of murders amongst youth from 1994 to 2004, it was registered a decline of the problem from 2003 to 2004. To the author of the study, Julio Jacobo Waiselfisz, in good measure, the reduction is a reflection of the Disarming Act, applied since 2003. There is no magic solution. Brazil’s debt is historical. Now, let us sleep with such a noise!

Washington Araújo

(published in www.CidadãodoMundo.org, Brazil, November 2006)

Arrive at Rome, pass through her, think of her...

2007-02-16T19:32:00.000Z

Arriving at Rome and passing through her, anyone’s life could change. Having been in Italy, before, in the North, I am amazed with the difference and the beauty that Rome so proudly exhibits.

And I am not even talking about that pride in being pretty, but about that one pride that can lead an entire civilization to such a decline that converts it in the tale of the world. Lets look at history: what happened to the Macedonia of Alexander (the Great!!!)?, where is the Mongolia of Genghis Khan?, where did the Egypt of Ramses loose itself?, in which atrocious situation we can find the Persia of Cyrus, of Koorosh or of Darius?

The arrogance of the lords of power leads always to a fall, with the consequent difficulty in getting up. It is said, in physics, that all that goes up has to go down. I should disagree! We can rise and progresses, piano a piano, we can even toddle, walk, and even run, and go lontano. But we do not need to consider ourselves the holders of divine and absolute knowledge!

The extreme organization of Milan and the extreme chaos of Rome…

The taciturn monotony of the fashion city versus the joyful life of the capital of the Empire …

In Rome, people is capable to love and hate, simultaneously. They step on each other (literally) to get into a bus, they offend to demonstrate anger, they mock the unknown at the same time they appreciate differences.

The Rome of the Empire is today the lost Rome, the Rome in search of si stessa, looking for her place in the world. Fluctuant between lefts and rights as almost every European capitals, Rome symbolizes the world civilization, incapable in conceiving her origins in a past that melts cultures (how much of the Roman Apostolic Christianism, for instance, isn’t resulted from the Mithraism Zoroastrianism?), that looses herself in a present of high diplomats and sages at the same time that underestimates herself as the tale of Europe, struggling to go back being who she was not knowing who she is …

ROME, ROMA, the first letter of ROMANCE! ROME, city of Christianity. ROME, cradle of the old order. When shall you wake up, rise and strive to become the City you were once?

The city that can held the bridge towards new world order, where worldly dichotomies between nationals and foreigners, between northern independentists and southern nationalists, between poverty and wealth, between religious exclusivity and the impetus of integration nullify themselves and your citizens are converted in the heralds of a new world order?

When will your paúra be converted in an active force?
Let it be Let deeds, not words, be your adorning, oh sweet and long-missed Rome!

Saddam: from Dictator to Martyr (1 of 4) - from Iraq to the world

2007-02-01T12:35:00.000Z

You have probably noticed some things that recently happened in the world…
Democrats won the intercalary elections (USA), in part, due to the presidential agenda in Iraq.
Tony Blair lost the leadership of his party (UK), in part, due to his implication in Iraq.
Zapatero (Spain) won the presidency of the government, against what the sounding said, due to bombings said to be connected to terrorist activities resulting the invasion of Iraq.

Iraq leads the world panorama!

For or against the military invasion of Iraq (began in March 2003), any neutral observer can verify that peace was not only unattained, as its vision doesn’t seem to be in the Iraqi population’s horizon. For or against death penalty, on the words of those who did it, the world lost one of the most terrible dictators ever: Saddam Hussein.

Born in 1937, in Tiqrit, son of unknown father, Saddam, with only 21 years old was demonstrating his incapability to tolerance, killing his brother-in-law, from whom he diverged “politically”.

Like other character who arrived to power, Saddam started from the bottom. After an absence of four years, he returned to his country, in 1963, to participate in the coup d’état which would lead him to power, in 1968, through the Revolutionary Command Counsil under the leadership of his cousin al-Bakr, from whom we would take the presidency in 1979, beginning a new period of conflicts in the zone.

Saddam is held today, by the eyes of the ample majority of the people, as the main responsible of the Kurdish genocide (1988), that totalized five thousand deaths – like the Armenian genocide by the government of the Young Turkish, during the I World War; of the Jewish and Gipsy communities, at II World War, under the leadership of Hitler; of the Tutsis, in Rwanda, by Akayesu, who personally supervised the extermination; the genocide of the Bosnian population, in a total of eight thousand dead, under the power of Milosevic; the cultural genocide of the Bahá'ís in Iran, since the Islamic Revolution; the genocide perpetrated by the Janjaweed militias in the Darfur since, at least 2004, and that, due the absence of condemnation by the International Community spread, some months ago, to Chad. Today, the world is interlinked and it is worthless to close our eyes. Yesterday, Iraq wouldn’t influence global panorama, today the earth assumes itself as one country.

Sam Cyrous
(published in Psicologia Actual, Portugal, January 2006).

Saddam: from Dictator to Martyr (2 of 4) - beasts and power thirst

2007-01-31T19:52:00.000Z

“The beasts and demons that are asleep in the interior of the individual” emerge when man is invaded by a power that he cannot grasp and when he finds himself under a mass that supports him", Jung explains us. “In reality, we always live like if we were on the top of a volcano, and humankind doesn’t dispose the preventive resources against a possible eruption that would annihilate every person under its range”. Humankind prefers not to develop such means.

Instead, we prefer, like Frankl would explain, to alienate us searching superficial pleasure and ephemeral power, when, in reality, power should serve us as means to the search for meaning in a collective existence, which would have, as a “reward”, collective pleasure. Thirsty of power, we worry in getting to the top, going over everyone, transposing limits. And, again, Jung affirms: “the more man is able to dominate his nature, the more pride over his knowledge and power goes over his head” and “the bigger the power, the weaker and unprotected the individual” who owns it.

Sam Cyrous
(published in Psicologia Actual, Portugal, January 2006).

Saddam: from Dictator to Martyr (3 of 4) - from present, past and (perhaps) future

2007-01-30T12:58:00.000Z

We live in a society where everything is fast, even human rights are rapidly broken in astonishing speeds, and international community sits unperturbed, letting yesterday’s mistakes to repeat themselves. A society that is ruled by characters Adler wouldn’t refrain himself from using as examples to his theory, because, probably, they hold inferiority complexes, needing to manifest themselves, to grow publicly, to show off and tread, trough the systematic extermination of any free thinker or population that they please.

That is why Jung affirms that “one little disturb of the equilibrium of the heads of some chiefs is enough for the world to become blood”. And its result is genocide across the world; this is the consequence of wars for peace; this is the aim of judgments that are called impartial and fair.

A certain George affirmed, once, that war prefigures the ideal shape to crash, and launch into the stratosphere or to sink to the maritime abyss products that, otherwise, could serve to give an excessive comfort to the masses, and consequently, at large term, make them extremely lucid. War is the distraction factor, in the way the dictator – that would be hunted till the end of his days – deviates attention and alters the chain of human needs: people no longer focus on freedom of expression, need of equality, compulsive education, alimentation and health right, but on the need of safety and protection above all.

In the book 1984, George Orwell (and not W. Bush) speaks also about the theme of the incredibility of the leaders, of a dictatorial state, in the masses capability to make a revolution by their own initiative. That is what systematically happens: the Germany and the Italy of the II World War, the Serbia of the yesterday, the Iraq of today and the Iran of tomorrow; the leaders think they are legitimized by the people. Saddam himself, proudly echoed his 100% at the presidential elections!

Yet, with the same speed that it goes up: it falls. This is the law of physics! Another of physic’s laws is that we cannot alter the past: December, 13th 2003 Saddam Hussein was found at 17:30 (GMT) in Adwar, in an under-earth hole, a hole to scape from the forces that wanted to stop him; and December, 30th 2006 he was hanged in the peer out dawn (6:00 local time and 3:00 GMT), when less expected. But it is also from physics that we take our idea presented by Schrödinger, of the existence of diverse futures: from December 2006, present time, we see various future alternatives ramified, various probable realities (according to Sartre) – a choice falls under humankind’s shoulder. The choice of peace or the choice of war, of concord or discord, between the right and the easy.

Sam Cyrous

(published in Psicologia Actual, Portugal, January 2006).

Saddam: from Dictator to Martyr (4 of 4) - epilogue

2007-01-29T22:17:00.000Z

It is possible that the world is a calmer place since Hitler’s suicide, since Milosevic’s detention and strange death and, even, since the capture and the hanging of Saddam. But shall the world be free and safe while the defenders of peace rise themselves in unfruitful contend? While part of humankind is amputated under the look that ignores the rest? While a dictator, that didn’t allowed his people to breath peacefully, a dictator that killed thousands, that eliminates members of his own family in cold blood is killed by a pseudo juridical system, also in cold blood?

The world will only live in peace when – by fair, neutral and impartial means – people like Saddam Hussein (and so many others that are out there freely) are taken to international justice, demonstrating that international community does not tolerate their actions. Humankind will only give the next step ahead when the means of justice show to all dictators, that they are not judged because they have lost international prestige or power, but because they didn’t fulfill the most basic human rights. Humankind will only progress when she no longer gives the opportunity to people like Saddam Hussein to convert themselves into martyrs, making others responsible for their current situation, dying with a Koranic prayer and the religious comment – “God is great” – another patriotic – “The nation shall be victorious” – and, at last, the ultimate political comment – “Palestine is Arab”.

Thus, the memory of Saddam Hussein walks towards two sides: to the pantheon of the infamies assassins, dictators and genocides, at the same time that he strives the path of the saint and holly man, the martyr of Iraq and of an auto-proclaimed Islam. Once he tortured, killed, slaughtered; and yesterday he claimed the union between all Iraqis, for an Iraq free of the occupation forces. Sentenced for only one of his most atrocious crimes (the extermination of 148 Shiites), Saddam shall never see the light of an impartial court that makes him responsible for the million lives lost during the war with Iran or for the 180 thousand Kurdish exterminated.

He overused his last days for his last clamor: for the union amongst Sunnites and Shiites, amongst Arabs and Kurds, saying, on the lecture of his unchangeable sentence: “I call you not to hate because hate leaves no space to the person to be fair and blinds you and closes all the doors of thought”.

With his death announced, he raised his head and dreamed for himself the position of a martyr for his cause. Humankind helped him in his conversion into a hero of the post-war. And, one day, this same humankind will wake up and the father of the modern psychology, Freud, shall say it was nothing but a strange dream; a dream where there was the unconscious need to destroy, afraid to love – because, perhaps, humanity must have never learned how to love.

Sam Cyrous
(published in Psicologia Actual, Portugal, January 2006).

From coward to brave...

2007-01-27T13:14:00.000Z

That to which the coward goes is the opposite of that to which the courageous goes; the one, for example, is ready to go to battle, and the other is not ready.

Plato
Protagoras in Protagoras or the sofists

Fifteen years later...

2007-01-25T12:47:00.001Z

Today… Today is the anniversary of my departure from the Americas, the continent of the “new world”, with no certitude of the return, on the printed feeling of the returning dreams.

5.500 days that are multiplied into centuries when I think of my friends, left behind, of my lost childhood, of the fun of being a junior-citizen. 5.500 days divided in mere seconds, invested in my adolescence and youth, in the present and in my profession.

If I were there, how would it be? Each of life’s decisions takes us towards the following decision, in a meaningful opportunity, gaining autonomy, with more human plenitude. I would not have the friends I have now (I’d have others) or even work where I work now (perhaps I’d have another profession)… But, despite all, I would be me!

Today, despite the difficulties a foreigner feels, I feel not like a citizen of this or that country, but of Europe. Here I have found a continent that assumes itself as an organic entity, searching for meaning, not knowing how to grow, not knowing what to do… Today’s Europe is no longer the one oscillating between conservatism and excessive liberalism: it is the Europe of the cultural and social renewal: the Europe of integration; the Europe of Union!

From Europe, I absorb the pillars of Western knowledge, from Europe I take the linguistic plurality, with Europe I find the future in unity in diversity. But also there, in the Americas, I’ve found the idealistic dream of progress and expansion, we can find innovation, we find the capability to reflect and create; there, we also have pluralism and integrationalisms: the functional and real, not the theoretical one.

Thus, at the same time I feel an European citizen, I feel an American citizen (and even, an Asiatic citizen). We learn half-dozen tongues in a life time, we can pass through a dozen countries, meet half hundred people from the countries of the world and, certainly, we are not who we were before our previous decisions, or fifteen years before!

Mankind walks, in large but firm steps, towards that position in which, surely, no more we pride ourselves for being citizens of this or that nation, of this or that continent, but in having our role in this garden whose beauty comes from its multi-colority, in this garden that is but one country called Earth!

15.500 days later, thank you to all my friends that have helped me to strive this path towards plenitude, as a citizen of Earth!

Who let the dogs in?

2007-01-22T11:17:00.000Z

A few years ago, the song Who let the dogs out was a top hit in manifold nations of the world. Amazingly, it wasn't called who let the cat out... That is because it seems that we think more of dogs that of cats. On the movies The Blue Bird, the dog was always trustworthy and the cat was all for jealousy and envy.

The Brodway show created and produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Hannah-Barbera's Top Cat are exceptions to the rule. SuperBoy's best friend was Ktypto, a dog; Mickey Mouse had a dog named Pluto and one of his best friends was Goofy, a dog; even Scooby-Doo was a dog!

We eat hot dogs and we sing "The hounds of winter". How many foods are named after a cat, and how many movies dedicated to them? I can't remember of many.

That is probably because dogs are our best friends!!!

Deborah Wells (Queen's University) explained, in the British Journal of Health Psychology, that dog owners appear to suffer from fewer minor ailments as well as fewer serious medical problems, having lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels (perhaps due to regular walks with their pet-buddies).

I had a friend that could tell you that dogs are also good to call girls' attention. According to Dr. Wells, "The ownership of a dog can also (...) facilitate the development of social contacts, which may enhance physiological and psychological human health in a more indirect manner".

Other studies show that the presence of a dog can help chronically ill children endure potentially painful medical procedures, being able to sniff out malignant melanomas or the onset of low blood sugar in diabetics. In Israel, nation of the four great religions and the forecommer of many scientific discoveries, was also suggested that pets can help people with schizophrenia to feel calmer and more motivated.

In other words, if you want a pet: dogs are the ones!

From Poirot to life: the reason for mistery to work out

2007-01-19T14:32:00.001Z

I grew up watching Perry Mason solving his mystery crimes on court, and Poirot doing the same on an abandoned house in some eastern nation or in a train moving on... Just like life: moving on towards an incredible and surprising ending.

We never knew who was the "one", we never new it because we didn't have all those infos an intels Mason's people gave him during court or Poirot discovered somewhere in between-scenes. But, we could guess!

When Pierce Brosnam played Murder 101 he taught me that the thrill of mystery stories is based on one simple premise: surprise!

And now, according to a U.S.-German study – with Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick of Ohio State University and Caterina Keplinger of Hanover University as the co-authors –, understanding mystery novels (on paper or screen) has to do with our self-esteem: the lesser our self-esteem is, the more we need to have our ideas confirmed by our surrounding environment, in this case, by the movie that makes us feel smarter. So, if we believe that one character is the responsible for the mystery and it really happens: we get happier and, perhaps, that could even help the improvement of our self-perception as capable and smart beings.

But we can't have movies that we know what will happen at the end, like the cult movie Star Wars 3. The authors seem to agree that we, as humans, enjoy some amount of surprise: everyone seems to enjoy mystery stories, specially those in which we don't have many clues of how the plot will end: just like life!

Are you phobic?

2007-01-17T11:42:00.002Z

You might have heard strange words ended with a "-phobia" component.

Basically, a phobia is a fear to have fear. You are more afraid of the response you and your body can give others than on what really could happen.

That is why in Logotherapy they talk about derreflection and paradoxical intention - things I hope I can talk about later on - so that the ones that think they are phobic can stop thinking in themselves and offering their thoughts to other subjects and persons.

Like on a speech: if you think "I’ll say something wrong", "I will sweat", "they will laugh because of what I am saying", think "they have me here, because they wanted", "I can offer them something", "we can relate to each other".

Focus your thought and actions on the others, not on yourself. Communicate: give yourself away!

And here is an interesting quiz on Kendra Van Wagner's blog.

And we are still analyzing 2006...

2007-01-15T17:24:00.000Z

Not even a month has passed and we are still analyzing 2006, the year that brought with it great challenges and appeased great torments. It was an year filled with the best and the worst of humankind, in the arts, in politics, in humanism. It was an year that made us be angels among demons and devils amongst saints.

2006 was the year that presented me to great creators of cinema like Oliver Sacks and George Romero and, made me find hope in the worse of circumstances in City of God and The Constant Gardener, of the Brazilian Fernando Meirelles, that allowed us to find beauty and serenity in corruption and peace in human vileness, being serene without being monotonous, sad without being piegas and realistic without taking our hope away!

On television Jack & Bobby (USA): a story of how, under circumstances of life, decisions may lead us to the highest heaven; and Sinhá Moça (Brazil): the unstopable struggle towards the unstopable equality between human beings.

2006 was also the year of the deaths of Milosevic (without certitude of the circumstances), of Saddam (without certitude of correctness), and of Pinochet (without certitude of justice), and the rebirth of Lula and Chavez, the sandinism in Nicaragua, and the doble victory in Mexico. It was the year that the governments of Iran and of Egypt used, once more, to tread the Bahá'ís; the year in which they put in cause the genocides perpetrated during the I World War and the the II World War. The year of the war in Syria and in Israel, of the fall of the republicans in the US, of the alleged fall of Blair... It was the year of the fall and of the elevation!

It was the year that permitted me assist the elevation of a formerly dream that was Psicologia Actual - the first divulgation magazine of Psychology in Portugal – and of the completion of my Master's final essay (with a change of subject and two months to work the new theme...). Three couple-friends elevated themselves to the ultimate commitment (marriage), and I, now, can add to the places I've visited the Basque Country (Spain/France) and Malaga (Spain), finding Positive Psychotherapy in Wiesbaden (Germany).

But the year that was just born shall be an even more complete year (after all, the sum of its numerals is 9, the most perfect and complete number, including within all the inferior numbers). It will be during 2007 that we shall refind Sudan and Chad and Somalya and Ethyopia on the headlines of the world; we shall see the Brazilian and the Venezuelan constitutions towards a change and the European constitution towards somewhere; we shall see if Yazdí continues with the thirst of elimination of all post-Islamism; if second generation occidentals will understand that they are the result of a beautiful trans-culturality, and if the natives open their arms to the embeautment of their mono-cultural gardens.

On my side... I have started to work on what I like and make what I want; see movies like The Transformers, The Spiderman 3 and Charlotte’s Web – cartoons that rested so much influence during my childhood – at the same time I expect do see great master pieces like Freedom Writers, East of Eden and Next.

I will try to see each and every movie that transmits me persons between two worlds: the world they always considered real, correct and just, and the world that is in fact the real one, the incorrect one, the unjust and the hypocrite one – and the decisions they'll have to take between one and the other realidaty... I shall see at the news how much it costs to save lives in Europe and in the Americas... Is it at the cost of the breeze of gardeners of lives that don’t know how to be constant? What’s the cost of the end of a war in Africa or in Asia, or the cost of the lives lost on those wars, the cost of the rebirth during the real life? These are the questions I want to see answered during 2007.

This shall be the year that I’ll be taken by life, in all of its dimensions and aspects and shapes. 2007 shall be the year in which I will read more and write more.

Miguel Garrido, the director of my Master course, used to say in our classes that university courses and academic titles were of few use if we didn’t read ten books per year. I went beyond that: during 2006 I've finished reading more than twenty books (many others shall walk by my side to be finished in 2007). There were three the genre and three were the authors that marked me this year, and most probably shall mark me during 2007: the pragmatic mysticism of'Abdu'l-Bahá in ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, the psychological humanism of Viktor Frankl in Will to Meaning and the pragmatic humanism of Orhan Pamuk in his The White Castle. From the Nobel prize Pamuk, I underline the following passage, in which I whish to leave you all a 2007 full of meaning:

Man must enjoy the life he has choosen, to the point that he ends up assuming it.

And you: which choices did you like to make in 2006, and how are we assuming them for 2007?

Making love, making speeches

2007-01-12T12:37:00.002Z

I have just read an interesting article named “Make love, very healthy to your work life”, based on Stuart Brody's study, recently published in the New Scientist. Several people were monitored to check how can sex influence stress levels.

And, he found out that those people participating as volunteers in the investigation, practicing observed sex presented lower stress-related blood pressure and performed better on public speeches.

You could think that whoever makes sex in public is able to make anything in public, but, according to Brody, this is because some cranial nerve is controlling some of our psychological processes, releasing oxytocin, the hormone that works out during sexual act, and that has a calming effect!

Now, remember what Frankl could say about this: sex shouldn’t become the means to a good speech, but the reason to start giving yourself to others. Making love could be, just like giving speeches, a experiential value that allows you to connect with another human, a human that, just like you, is able to give and to receive!

Twofold life (3 of 3)

2007-01-10T18:30:00.000Z

Dwelling in that fear (that most times is not even conscious), each one of us strives to know the other... in an effort that only permits us to know what the other likes to read or do, what kind of food he/she is pleased by, or the type of movies he/she prefers... without understanding that we are keeping ourselves in a superficial plan. We do not know the true interests or the aims the other wants to achieve, we do not see the way he/she interacts in family or even what the conception of family may be. Preferring not to take a risk, we maintain ourselves in the ephemeral world of pleasures and diversion!

Diversion and pleasure are a part of life, undoubtedly! But the next reflection, the third step, should really be: “which is the aim, the objective: the pleasure by pleasure, or a twofold life?”. That is because a life of total hedonism has never permitted, nor shall ever permit, reaching a twofold life filled with meaning. Pleasure should be seen as a natural reward for something that is done, and not as an aim of everything we do!

And that is probably the biggest cause of couple-conflicts... or even couple-split: the shock when trying to live a twofold life, they find out they barely know each other and live two lives of one.

I once had the opportunity of observing, in therapy, a couple with decades of matrimony, then unstructured by suspicion, envy and dispute. Being asked by the therapist: “if it is so bad, then why did you marry him?”, she lowers her tone of voice, like in complicity with the therapist, or by shame, or perhaps simply by not having a better answer, she smiles and says: “you know, sex was too good!”.

Only when we have given the next step, finding responsibility in knowing the true character of the other, and not worrying only about the pleasures of life, we shall be able to reach that state in which hell is no longer the other (paraphrasing Sartre), and we start agreeing with Gabriel Marcel when he says “others, for me, are heaven”. Only in this state of transcendence one and one no longer are two, existing only as one being, new, that lives a twofold life.

Sam Cyrous

(published in Psicologia Actual, March 2006).

Twofold life (2 of 3)

2007-01-08T16:31:00.000Z

Only through reflecting, and the positioning between those two extremities, will there be forward steps in the relationship. Better said, why speak of relationships when we can talk about meeting? It is by meeting the other that I see who I am, that I see how I act, how I think, and react. It is through this communication (that in Latin could mean “put in common”) that commitment appears (“sending myself to the other”).

And how do two lives become one, one twofold life? Some great thinkers affirm that the human being is a giving being. That means, the same way it is the nature of the fountain to outpour water, showing itself alive and transmitting life, it is the nature of the human being to endow himself incessantly – endow his richness, endow his time, his energy, his values, his support and his love to all those surrounding him.

Nevertheless, it needs preparation; a firm and conscious effort of self-knowledge and knowledge of the other. It is this way that, once more, we come to the meeting. It is in this meeting that the “I” and the “You” transcend to a monadic “We” in which the human being becomes able to overcome his limits.

Knowing the other means knowing myself; because I reflect myself on the other, as a shadow that manifests itself only when there is a light to shine.

And this light might well be Love! A love that should not be blind, but, once again, conscious!

And the problem comes when love, which is born blind, wants to remain blind– or better – when we insist to remain blind, afraid of knowing the real character of the other, the companion we have idealized, afraid that knowing we no longer want him/her; afraid of being abandoned; afraid of solitude: afraid!

Sam Cyrous
(published in Psicologia Actual, Portugal, March 2006).