“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.

Labels: battle-war, death, fear, Frankl, human nature, human rights, Jung, leadership, violence, world citizenship, world unity

# posted by SAM @ 31.1.07 0 comments

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.

Labels: battle-war, death, fear, Freud, human nature, human rights, leadership, violence, world citizenship, world unity

# posted by SAM @ 29.1.07 0 comments

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!

Labels: communication, fear, Frankl, phobias, reasons

# posted by SAM @ 17.1.07 0 comments

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!

Labels: emotions, fear, Frankl, human nature, love, reasons, relationships, sex

# posted by SAM @ 12.1.07 0 comments

Labels: couples, family, fear, meaning, values

# posted by SAM @ 10.1.07 0 comments

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).

Labels: communication, couples, fear, human nature, love, relationships, self-knowledge, transcendence

# posted by SAM @ 8.1.07 0 comments