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LIVING SILENCE PREVENTS ALTRUISTIC SUICIDE
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5:18 AM - 7/19/15
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ALTRUISTIC SUICIDE
It is difficult and anxiety-provoking to change what one is doing,
to change or reinvent one’s way of interacting with others;
powerful forces from within and without tend to restrain change,
and so most of us keep up the way of life that has been slowly “doing us in”.
Therefore, we become sick, and it is usually with some measure of surprise.
It is still an unsolved question why the sickness is “physical” for some and “psychiatric” for others.
I am coming to suspect that those who are often physically ill
are people who commit “altruistic suicide” by slow degrees.
They are slowly destroying their bodies,
as it were, for the preservation of their roles and the social systems
in which they regularly participate.
They are victims of their sense of duty.
The psychiatrically ill seem to resemble rebels without courage or effectiveness.
Being sick is a temporary respite from the dispiriting conditions of our existence up to the onset of illness.
Incidentally, if it seems to a patient that his usual life,
the one that made him sick, cannot be changed,
he may never get well.
Why should he?
Or if he does recover but then resumes his usual life,
he’ll be sick again before long.
As he leaves the hospital, we could safely say, and mean it, “Hurry back”.
From
The Transparent Self
Sidney Jourard
It is difficult and anxiety-provoking to change what one is doing,
to change or reinvent one’s way of interacting with others;
powerful forces from within and without tend to restrain change,
and so most of us keep up the way of life that has been slowly “doing us in”.
Therefore, we become sick, and it is usually with some measure of surprise.
It is still an unsolved question why the sickness is “physical” for some and “psychiatric” for others.
I am coming to suspect that those who are often physically ill
are people who commit “altruistic suicide” by slow degrees.
They are slowly destroying their bodies,
as it were, for the preservation of their roles and the social systems
in which they regularly participate.
They are victims of their sense of duty.
The psychiatrically ill seem to resemble rebels without courage or effectiveness.
Being sick is a temporary respite from the dispiriting conditions of our existence up to the onset of illness.
Incidentally, if it seems to a patient that his usual life,
the one that made him sick, cannot be changed,
he may never get well.
Why should he?
Or if he does recover but then resumes his usual life,
he’ll be sick again before long.
As he leaves the hospital, we could safely say, and mean it, “Hurry back”.
From
The Transparent Self
Sidney Jourard
Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say: “Be more silent.”
Die and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running from silence.
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
–Rumi
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/07/be-quiet_18.html
Die and be quiet.
Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died.
Your old life was a frantic running from silence.
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.
–Rumi
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/07/be-quiet_18.html
- Having had several teachers in my life,
I held fast to one above all others,
My own Heart,
And the Unbearable Longing,
That Shone there, unrelenting.
It was into and as that Longing
That "I" eventually Vanished.
And in that Vanishing,
Both Lover and Beloved Disappeared,
Leaving only Causeless, Unconditional, Love.
Chuck Surface
- https://www.facebook.com/InTheGardenOfTheBeloved
- Email [email protected]
- Website http://www.GardenOfTheBeloved.com/
“The people who influence us most
are not those who buttonhole us
and talk to us
but those who live their lives
like the stars in heaven
and
the lilies in the field,
perfectly, simply and unaffectedly.
Those are the lives
that mold us.”
William Law
are not those who buttonhole us
and talk to us
but those who live their lives
like the stars in heaven
and
the lilies in the field,
perfectly, simply and unaffectedly.
Those are the lives
that mold us.”
William Law
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