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Why is it so hard to truly get to know a person? Just when you think
you understand a friend, a lover, a spouse, you are surprised by
behavior, words or attitudes you had completely overlooked. A man
with a good reputation does something evil and people can’t
believe it. Or an evil person does an act of kindness and again
people cannot believe it.
We humans are truly complex beings. We are full
of contradictions. We say what we don’t mean, and don’t mean
what we say. We confuse our friends and loved ones with our
behavior. When asked to explain ourselves, we cannot because we have
difficulty understanding ourselves. We do what we don’t want to
do, and don’t do what we want to do.
I was reminded of the many mysteries that lie
within each and every one of us when I read a piece by Theodore Reik,
a psychoanalyst and one of my favorite authors. Instead of trying to
paraphrase him, I prefer to let you read what he wrote. There is a
lot of depth here. It’s a bit heavy, but very insightful.
“The frontiers of the personality reach
farther than we think. Moreover, what we hate and what we love, what
propels us and what hinders us, all constitute a part of us. ‘ The
soul is a wide country’, says Schmitzler. It has room for so much:
opposite tendencies can coexist in us, feelings contradicting each
other live together, and what is true and what is false can be
confused.
“A man said to his mistress who had been
trying to convince him that she had spent the last few days with her
girl friend, ‘Please stop lying; I already believe you’. Did he
believe or disbelieve? So much lives in us: wishes and their
denials, faith and mistrust, appetites and distastes. They change
places so frequently that what is fair becomes foul and what is
foul, fair.
“Psychoanalysis has demonstrated that
the ego has built up an ego-ideal, a picture of oneself, an image of
oneself as one wishes to be. Analysts have neglected taking the
opportunity to find the counter-picture: the ego horror, a picture
of oneself at which we shudder, the picture of an ego-possibility
that frightens us and that we reject. Ego–ideal and ego–horror
are sharply contrasted with each other.
“The frontiers of the personality reach
farther in both directions: into what is commonly called good and
what is commonly called evil. “There are mysterious repetitions in
the choice of similar objects of love, puzzling resemblances in
failure and success, friendships broken up under the same
circumstances, affairs that take the same development along with
seemingly quite unexpected interludes that show the reverse side.
“There are self deceptions about one’s own
personality and role, interrupted by sudden insights. There are
necessary ‘life-lies’ that go hand in hand with a clear
understanding of the truth; tendernesses that are only the cover for
cruel actions; and cruel actions that hide affectionate feelings.
“Dr. Jekyll is shocked because he is really
Mr. Hyde, but Mr. Hyde is also astonished when he discovers that he
is Dr. Jekyll. We are still living with the preconceived idea of the
unity of the human soul, and man appears to us to be made of a
single material, like a statue. We say a person is good or evil. In
reality, he is good and evil, better and worse than he thinks.”
So true. So much wisdom expressed in so few
words.
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If you have problems about drugs, alcohol and
behavior/attitude call my office at 8206107 or 8251771 or e-mail me
at gvcbuenca@vasia.com or write me at P.O. Box 2099 MCPO, Makati
City.
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