Background Image
...
Does Not The Possibility Or The Power To Do Something About The Situation At Hand Confer On One The Responsibility To Do It?
-Rollo May
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

Does Not The Possibility

Rollo May
...
Does Not The Possibility Or The Power To Do Something About The Situation At Hand Confer On One The Responsibility To Do It?

Understanding the Quote: "does not the possibility or the power to do something about the..."

This quote by Rollo May reflects deeply on the theme of character. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Character, Responsibility, Hands, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Rollo May interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Rollo May

Rollo May is celebrated for insightful thoughts on character and responsibility. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 8
Topic
Character
Responsibility
Hands
More From Rollo May
We Receive Love — From Our Children As Well As Others — Not In Proportion To Our Demands Or Sacrifices Or Needs, But Roughly In Proportion To Our Own Capacity To Love.
Love
Capacity To Love
Capacity
Freedom Is Man's Capacity To Take A Hand In His Own Development. It Is Our Capacity To Mold Ourselves.
Freedom
Men
Hands
To Believe Fully And At The Same Moment To Have Doubts Is Not At All A Contradiction: It Presupposes A Greater Respect For Truth, An Awareness That Truth Always Goes Beyond Anything That Can Be Said Or Done At Any Given Moment.
Truth
Believe
Doubt
Intimacy Requires Courage Because Risk Is Inescapable. We Cannot Know At The Outset How The Relationship Will Affect Us. Like A Chemical Mixture, If One Of Us Is Changed, Both Of Us Will Be. Will We Grow In Self-actualization, Or Will It Destroy Us? The One Thing We Can Be Certain Of Is That If We Let Ourselves Fully Into The Relationship For Good Or Evil, We Will Not Come Out Unaffected.
Relationship
Self
Evil
Finding The Center Of Strenghth Within Ourselves Is In The Long Run Best Contribution We Can Do To Our Fellow Man
Running
Men
Long
Every Act Of Genuine Creativity Means Achieving A Higher Level Of Self-awareness And Personal Freedom.
Mean
Creativity
Self
This Is Hard For Parents To Say Genuinely.
Parent
Hard
Indeed, Compulsive And Rigid Moralism Arises In Given Persons Precisely As The Result Of A Lack Of Sense Of Being. Rigid Moralism Is A Compensatory Mechanism By Which The Individual Persuades Himself To Take Over The External Sanctions Because He Has No Fundamental Assurance That His Own Choices Have Any Sanction Of Their Own
Choices
Fundamentals
Existentialism
Ecstasy Is The Accurate Term For The Intensity Of Consciousness That Occurs In The Creative Act.
Creative
Consciousness
Intensity
Creativity Is Not Merely The Innocent Spontaneity Of Our Youth And Childhood; It Must Also Be Married To The Passion Of The Adult Human Being, Which Is A Passion To Live Beyond One's Death.
Passion
Creativity
Childhood
They Pursue Meaninglessness Until They Can Force It To Mean.
Mean
Purpose
Force
Power Is Required For Communication. To Stand Before An Indifferent Or Hostile Group And Have One's Say, Or To Speak Honestly To A Friend Truths That Go Deep And Hurt These Require Self-affirmation, Self-assertion, And Even At Times Aggression. ... My Experience In Psychotherapy Convinces Me That The Act Which Requires The Most Courage Is The Simple Communication, Unpropelled By Rage Or Anger, Of One's Deepest Thoughts To Another.
Hurt
Communication
Simple
Science, Nietzsche Had Warned, Is Becoming A Factory, And The Result Will Be Ethical Nihilism.
Nihilism
Becoming
Existential
Therapy Isn't Curing Somebody Of Something; It Is A Means Of Helping A Person Explore Himself, His Life, His Consciousness. My Purpose As A Therapist Is To Find Out What It Means To Be Human. Every Human Being Must Have A Point At Which He Stands Against The Culture, Where He Says, "this Is Me And The World Be Damned!" Leaders Have Always Been The Ones To Stand Against The Society - Socrates, Christ, Freud, All The Way Down The Line.
Mean
Leader
Lines
Now, I Believe In Life, And I Believe In The Joy Of Human Existence, But These Things Cannot Be Experienced Except As We Also Face The Despair, Also Face The Anxiety That Every Human Being Has To Face If He Lives With Any Creativity At All.
Believe
Creativity
Joy
The Relationship Between Commitment And Doubt Is By No Means An Antagonistic One. Commitment Is Healthiest When It Is Not Without Doubt But In Spite Of Doubt.
Relationship
Peace
Mean
Those We Call Saints Rebelled Against An Outmoded And Inadequate Form Of God On The Basis Of Their New Insights Into Divinity.
Saint
Divinity
Form
Intimacy Requires Courage Because Risk Is Inescapable.
Risk
Intimacy
Self Actualization
There Is No Authentic Inner Freedom That Does Not, Sooner Or Later, Also Affect And Change Human History.
Character
Doe
Sooner Or Later
Neither Kierkegaard Nor Nietzsche Had The Slightest Interest In Starting A Movement – Or A New System, A Thought Which Would Indeed Have Offended Them. Both Proclaimed, In Nietzsche's Phrase, Follow Not Me, But You!
Phrases
Movement
Starting
We Must Be Fully Committed, But We Must Also Be Aware At The Same Time That We Might Possibly Be Wrong. People Who Claim To Be Absolutely Convinced That Their Stand Is The Only Right One...is A Dead Giveaway Of Unconscious Doubt. Commitment Is Healthiest When It Is Not Without Doubt, But In Spite Of Doubt.
Inspirational
Commitment
People
Mass Communication--wonder As It May Be Technologically And Something To Be Appreciated And Valued--presents Us Wit A Serious Daner, The Danger Of Conformism, Due To The Fact That We All View The Same Things At The Same Time In All The Cities Of The Country. (p. 73)
Country
Communication
Views
There Can Be No Stronger Proof Of The Impoverishment Of Our Contemporary Culture Than The Popular - Though Profoundly Mistaken - Definition Of Myth As Falsehood.
Stronger
Culture
Definitions
Whatever Sphere We May Be In, There Is A Profound Joy In The Realization That We Are Helping To Form The Structure Of The New World. This Is Creative Courage, However Minor Or Fortuitous Our Creations May Be.
Courage
Creativity
Profound
If You Do Not Express Your Own Original Ideas, If You Do Not Listen To Your Own Being, You Will Have Betrayed Yourself.
Depression
Ideas
Creating
What If Imagination And Art Are Not Frosting At All, But The Fountainhead Of Human Experience?
Art
Imagination
What If
Fortunately, However, We No Longer Have To Argue That Self -love Is Not Only Necessary And Good But That It Also Is A Prerequisite For Loving Others.
Love
Self
People In Your Life
Artistic Symbols And Myths Speak Out Of The Primordial, Preconscious Realm Of The Mind Which Is Powerful And Chaotic. Both Symbol And Myth Are Ways Of Bringing Order And Form Into This Chaos.
Powerful
Speaks Out
Order
In Religion, It Is Not The Sycophants Or Those Who Cling Most Faithfully To The Status Quo Who Are Ultimately Praised. It Is The Insurgents.
Sycophants
Status Quo
Dissent
Courage Is Necessary To Make Being And Becoming Possible.
Becoming
Tools And Techniques Ought To Be An Extension Of Consciousness, But They Can Just As Easily Be A Protection From Consciousness. Then The Tools Become Defence Mechanisms... Against The Unconscious.
Technique
Tools
Consciousness
It Is Dangerous To Know, But It Is More Dangerous Not To Know.
Dangerous
Knows
If We Admit Our Depression Openly And Freely, Those Around Us Get From It An Experience Of Freedom Rather Than The Depression Itself.
Depressing
Ifs
Memory Is Not Just The Imprint Of The Past Time Upon Us; It Is The Keeper Of What Is Meaningful For Our Deepest Hopes And Fears.
Meaningful
Memories
Past
It Is An Old And Ironic Habit Of Human Beings To Run Faster When We Have Lost Our Way; And We Grasp More Fiercely At Research, Statistics, And Technical Aids In Sex When We Have Lost The Values And Meaning Of Love.
Running
Sex
Ironic
Professors Will Lecture With More Inspiration If They Occasionally Alternate The Classroom With The Beach: Authors Will Write Better When, As Macaulay Used To Do, They Write For Two Hours, Then Pitch Quoits, And Then Go Back To Their Writing. But Certainly More Than The Mere Mechanical Alternation Is Involved.
Beach
Inspiration
Writing
The Individual Human Is Still The Creature Who Can Wonder, Who Can Be Enchanted By A Sonata, Who Can Place Symbols Together To Make Poetry To Gladden Our Heart, Who Can View A Sunrise With A Sense Of Majesty And Awe.
Heart
Views
Sunrise
The Rebel Is Committed To Giving A Form And Pattern To The World. It Is A Pattern Born Of The Indomitable Thrust Of The Human Mind, The Mind Which Makes Out Of The Mass Of Meaningless Data In The World An Order And A Form.
Data
Order
Giving
What Is Courage? This Courage Will Not Be The Opposite Of Despair. We Shall Often Be Faced With Despair, As Indeed Every Sensitive Person Has Been During The Last Several Decades In This Country. Hence Kierkegaard And Nietzsche And Camus And Sartre Have Proclaimed That Courage Is Not The Absence Of Despair; It Is, Rather, The Capacity To Move Ahead In Spite Of Despair.
Country
Courage
Moving
It Requires Greater Courage To Preserve Inner Freedom, To Move On In One's Inward Journey Into New Realms, Than To Stand Defiantly For Outer Freedom. It Is Often Easier To Play The Martyr, As It Is To Be Rash In Battle. Strange As It Sounds, Steady, Patient Growth In Freedom Is Probably The Most Difficult Task Of All, Requiring The Greatest Courage. Thus If The Term "hero" Is Used In This Discussion At All, It Must Refer Not To The Special Acts Of Outstanding Persons, But To The Heroic Element Potentially In Every Man.
Courage
Moving
Hero
Whereas Moral Courage Is The Righting Of Wrongs, Creative Courage, In Contrast, Is The Discovering Of New Forms, New Symbols, New Patterns On Which A New Society Can Be Built.
Courage
Creative
Patterns
Purpose In The Human Being Is A Much More Complex Phenomenon Than What Used To Be Called Will Power.
Purpose
Used
Will Power
We Must Always Base Our Commitment In The Center Of Our Own Being, Or Else No Commitment Will Be Ultimately Authentic.
Inspirational
Commitment
Enviromental
It Is Infinitely Safer To Know That The Man At The Top Has His Doubts, As You And I Have Ours, Yet Has The Courage To Move Ahead In Spite Of These Doubts.
Moving
Men
Doubt
All People Are Struggling To Be Creative In Some Way, And The Artist Is The One Who Has Succeeded In This Task Of Life.
Struggle
Creativity
Artist
The Schizoid Man Is The Natural Product Of The Technological Man. It Is One Way To Live And Is Increasingly Utilized And It May Explode Into Violence.
Men
Violence
Way To Live
All Our Feelings, Like The Artist's Paints And Brush, Are Ways Of Communicating And Sharing Something Meaningful From Us To The World.
Meaningful
Artist
Feelings
Communication Leads To Community That Is, To Understanding, Intimacy, And The Mutual Valuing That Was Previously Lacking. Community Can Be Defined Simply As A Group In Which Free Conversation Can Take Place. Community Is Where I Can Share My Innermost Thoughts, Bring Out The Depths Of My Own Feelings, And Know They Will Be Understood.
Communication
Community
Feelings
... What The Artist Or Creative Scientist Feels Is Not Anxiety Or Fear; It Is Joy. I Use The Word In Contrast To Happiness Or Pleasure. The Artist, At The Moment Of Creating, Does Not Experience Gratification Or Satisfaction... Rather, It Is Joy, Joy Defined As The Emotion That Goes With Heightened Consciousness, The Mood That Accompanies The Experience Of Actualizing One's Own Potentialities.
Creativity
Artist
Creating
Receptivity Requires A Nimbleness, A Fine-honed Sensitivity In Order To Let One's Self Be The Vehicle Of Whatever Vision May Emerge.
Self
Order
Vision
No One Can Separate Themselves From One's Social Group And Remain Healthy, Because The Very Structure Of Personality Is Dependent On The Community.
Personality
Community
Healthy
There Is A Curiously Sharp Sense Of Joy - Or Perhaps Better Expressed, A Sense Of Mild Ecstasy - That Comes When You Find The Particular Form Required By Your Creation.
Joy
Creation
Form
This Personal Freedom To Think And Feel And Speak Authentically And To Be Conscious Of So Doing Is The Quality That Distinguishes Us As Human.
Thinking
Quality
Speak
The Receptivity Of The Artist Must Never Be Confused With Passivity. Receptivity Is The Artist's Holding Him Or Herself Alive And Open To Hear What Being May Speak.
Confused
Artist
Listening
Poets May Be Delightful Creatures In The Meadow Or The Garret, But They Are Menaces On The Assembly Line.
Lines
May
Poet
The Creative Act Arises Out Of The Struggle Of Human Beings With And Against That Which Limits Them.
Struggle
Creative
Limits
Physical Courage In Whatever Scene ... Seems To Hinge On Whether The Individual Can Feel He Is Fighting For Others As Well As Himself.
Fighting
Scene
Individual
Terrorism And The Whole Drug Scene Are Vivid Examples Of The Fact That What Persons Abhor Most Of All In Life Is The Possibility That They Will Not Matter.
Drug
Vivid
Matter
Dogmatism Of All Kinds--scientific, Economic, Moral, As Well As Political--are Threatened By The Creative Freedom Of The Artist. This Is Necessarily And Inevitably So. We Cannot Escape Our Anxiety Over The Fact That The Artists Together With Creative Persons Of All Sorts, Are The Possible Destroyer Of Our Nicely Ordered Systems. (p. 76)
Artist
Creative
Anxiety
The Mature Person Becomes Able To Differentiate Feelings Into As Many Nuances, Strong And Passionate Experiences, Or Delicate And Sensitive Ones, As In The Different Passages Of Music In A Symphony. Unfortunately, Many Of Us Have Feelings Limited Like Notes In A Bugle Call.
Strong
Symphony
Mature Person
The Most Effective Way To Ensure The Value Of The Future Is To Confront The Present Courageously And Constructively.
Way
Values
Insight Comes At A Moment Of Transition Between Work And Relaxation.
Relaxation
Transition
Moments
It Is Necessary For The Birthing Process To Begin To Move In Its Own Organic Time. It Is Necessary That The Artist Have This Sense Of Timing, That He Or She Respect... Periods Of Receptivity As Part Of The Mystery Of Creativity And Creation.
Moving
Creativity
Artist
When You Are Completely Absorbed Or Caught Up In Something, You Become Oblivious To Things Around You, Or To The Passage Of Time. It Is This Absorption In What You Are Doing That Frees Your Unconscious And Releases Your Creative Imagination.
Time
Creativity
Imagination
Joy Is The Effect Which Comes When We Use Our Powers.
Joy
Use
Effects
One Central Need In Life Is To Fulfill Its Own Potential.
Needs
Life Is
When I Fall In Love, I Feel More Valuable And I Treat Myself With More Care. We Have All Observed The Hesitant Adolescent, Uncertain Of Himself, Who, When He Or She Falls In Love, Suddenly Walks With A Certain Inner Assuredness And Confidence, A Mien Which Seems To Say, "you Are Looking At Somebody Now." For This Inner Sense Of Worth That Comes With Being In Love Does Not Seem To Depend Essentially On Whether The Love Is Returned Or Not.
Life
Falling In Love
Being In Love
The Turtle Only Makes Progress When It's Neck Is Stuck Out.
Inspirational
Turtles
Progress
The First Thing Necessary For A Constructive Dealing With Time Is To Learn To Live In The Reality Of The Present Moment. For Psychologically Speaking, This Present Moment Is All We Have.
Reality
Firsts
Moments
Man Is The "ethical Animal" Ethical In Potentiality Even If, Unfortunately, Not In Actuality. His Capacity For Ethical Judgment Like Freedom, Reason And The Other Unique Characteristics Of The Human Being Is Based Upon His Consciousness Of Himself.
Unique
Men
Animal
Depression Is The Inability To Construct A Future.
Sad
Depression
Depressing
It Is Well To Remind Ourselves That Anxiety Signifies A Conflict, And So Long As A Conflict Is Going On, A Constructive Solution Is Possible.
Motivation
Long
Anxiety
Consciousness Is The Awareness That Emerges Out Of The Dialectical Tension Between Possibilities And Limitations.
Consciousness
Awareness
Possibility
It Is Amazing How Many Hints And Guides And Intuitions For Living Come To The Sensitive Person Who Has Ears To Hear What His Body Is Saying.
Life
Sensitive Person
Intuition
A Historical Perspective Can Also Help Free Us From The Ever-present Danger -- Especially At Danger In The Social Sciences -- Of Absolutizing A Theory Or Method Which Is Actually Relative To The Fact That We Live At A Given Moment In Time In The Development Of Our Particular Culture.
Perspective
Historical
Facts
Creativity Arises Out Of The Tension Between Spontaneity And Limitations, The Latter (like The River Banks) Forcing The Spontaneity Into The Various Forms Which Are Essential To The Work Of Art Or Poem.
Art
Creativity
Rivers
A Myth Is A Way Of Making Sense In A Senseless World. Myths Are Narrative Patterns That Give Significance To Our Existence.
Giving
World
Patterns
What Anxiety Means Is It's As Though The World Is Knocking At Your Door, And You Need To Create, You Need To Make Something, You Need To Do Something. I Think Anxiety, For People Who Have Found Their Own Heart And Their Own Souls, For Them It Is A Stimulus Toward Creativity, Toward Courage. It's What Makes Us Human Beings.
Courage
Heart
Creativity
Freedom Does Not Come Automatically; It Is Achieved. And It Is Not Gained In A Single Bound; It Must Be Achieved Each Day.
Doe
Each Day
Bounds
Finding The Center Of Strength Within Ourselves Is In The Long Run The Best Contribution We Can Make To Our Fellow Men. ... One Person With Indigenous Inner Strength Exercises A Great Calming Effect On Panic Among People Around Him. This Is What Our Society Needs - Not New Ideas And Inventions; Important As These Are, And Not Geniuses And Supermen, But Persons Who Can Be, That Is, Persons Who Have A Center Of Strength Within Themselves.
Running
Exercise
Men
Creativity Occurs In An Act Of Encounter And Is To Be Understood With This Encounter As Its Center.
Creativity
Encounters
Understood
Creativity Is The Process Of Bringing Something New Into Being.
Creativity
Something New
Process
Care Is A State In Which Something Does Matter; Care Is The Opposite Of Apathy. Care Is The Necessary Source Of Eros, The Source Of Human Tenderness.
Care
Matter
Doe
Many People Feel They Are Powerless To Do Anything Effective With Their Lives. It Takes Courage To Break Out Of The Settled Mold, But Most Find Conformity More Comfortable. This Is Why The Opposite Of Courage In Our Society Is Not Cowardice, It's Conformity.
Opposites
People
Our Society
The Ultimate Error Is The Refusal To Look Evil In The Face.
Errors
Evil
Looks
The Constructive Schizoid Person Stands Against The Spiritual Emptiness Of Encroaching Technology And Does Not Let Himself Be Emptied By It. He Lives And Works With The Machine Without Becoming A Machine. He Finds It Necessary To Remain Detached Enough To Get Meaning From The Experience, But In Doing So, To Protect His Own Inner Life From Impoverishment.
Spiritual
Technology
Becoming
Every Human Being Must Have A Point At Which He Stands Against The Culture, Where He Says, This Is Me And The Damned World Can Go To Hell.
Culture
World
Hell
Violence Arises Not Out Of Superfluity Of Power But Out Of Powerlessness.
Violence
Arise
Powerlessness
Creativity Is The Encounter Of The Intensively Conscious Human Being With His World.
Creativity
Creating
Encounters
Tenderness Emerges From The Fact That The Two Persons, Longing, As All Individuals Do, To Overcome The Separateness And Isolation To Which We Are All Heir Because We Are Individuals, Can Participate In A Relationship That, For The Moment, Is Not Of Two Isolated Selves But A Union
Love
Life
Funny Relationship
Suffering Is Nature's Way Of Indicating A Mistaken Attitude Or Way Of Behavior, And To The Nonegocentric Person Every Moment Of Suffering Is The Opportunity For Growth. People Should Rejoice In Suffering, Strange As It Sounds, For This Is A Sign Of The Availability Of Energy To Transform Their Characters.
Attitude
Character
Opportunity
Many People Suffer From The Fear Of Finding Oneself Alone, And So They Don't Find Themselves At All.
People
Suffering
Introspection
A Myth Is A Way Of Making Sense In A Senseless World. Myths Are Narrative Patterns That Give Significance To Our Existence. Whether The Meaning Of Existence Is Only What We Put Into Life By Our Own Individual Fortitude, As Sartre Would Hold, Or Whether There Is A Meaning We Need To Discover, As Kierkegaard Would State, The Result Is The Same: Myths Are Our Way Of Finding This Meaning And Significance.
Giving
World
Patterns
Our Thesis Is That Symbols And Myths Are An Expression Of Man's Unique Self-consciousness, His Capacity To Transcend The Immediate Concrete Situation And See His Life In Terms Of 'the Possible,' And That This Capacity Is One Aspect Of His Experiencing Himself As A Being Having A World.
Unique
Men
Self
In My Clinical Experience, The Greatest Block To A Person's Development Is His Having To Take On A Way Of Life Which Is Not Rooted In His Own Powers.
Block
Destiny
Development
The Danger Always Exists That Our Technology Will Serve As A Buffer Between Us And Nature, A Block Between Us And The Deeper Dimensions Of Our Own Experience.
Block
Technology
Dimensions
One Longs For The Presence Of A Leader Like Lincoln, Who Openly Admitted His Doubts And As Openly Preserved His Commitment.
Leadership
Commitment
Leader
Heroes Are Necessary In Order To Enable The Citizens To Find Their Own Ideals, Courage And Wisdom In The Society. The Hero Carries Our Hopes, Our Aspirations, Our Ideals, Our Beliefs. In The Deepest Sense The Hero Is Created By Us; He Or She Is Born Collectively As Our Own Myth. This Is What Makes Heroism So Important: It Reflects Our Own Sense Of Identity And From This Our Own Heroism Is Molded.
Inspiring
Hero
Order
It Is Interesting To Note How Many Of The Great Scientific Discoveries Begin As Myths.
Discovery
Interesting
Existentialism
Inner Sense Of Worth That Comes With Being In Love Does Not Seem To Depend Essentially On Whether The Love Is Returned Or Not.
Life
Being In Love
Love Is
Creativity Is The Result Of A Struggle Between Vitality And Form. As Anyone Who Has Tried To Write A Sonnet Or Scan Poetry, Is Aware, The Form Ideally Do Not Take Away From The Creativity But May Add To It.
Struggle
Writing
Creativity
One Must Have At Least A Readiness To Love The Other Person, Broadly Speaking, If One Is To Be Able To Understand Him.
Able
Existentialism
Readiness
Recall How Often In Human History The Saint And The Rebel Have Be The Same Person. (p. 35)
Rebel
Saint
Humans
There Is Nobody Who Totally Lacks The Courage To Change.
Change
Courage To Change
Vanity And Narcissism — The Compulsive Need To Be Admired And Praised — Undermine One's Courage, For One Then Fights On Someone Else's Conviction Rather Than One's Own.
Fighting
Vanity
Needs
Creativity Is Neither The Product Of Neurosis Nor Simple Talent, But An Intense Courageous Encounter With The Gods.
Courage
Creativity
Simple
The Value Of Dreams, Like ... Divinations, Is Not That They Give A Specific Answer, But That They Open Up New Areas Of Psychic Reality, Shake Us Out Of Our Customary Ruts, And Throw Light On A New Segment Of Our Lives. Thus The Sayings Of The Shrine, Like Dreams, Were Not To Be Received Passively; The Recipients Had To "live" Themselves Into The Message.
Dream
Reality
Light
Courage Is The Capacity To Meet The Anxiety Which Arises As One Achieves Freedom. It Is The Willingness To Differentiate, To Move From The Protecting Realms Of Parental Dependence To New Levels Of Freedom And Integration.
Courage
Moving
Anxiety
One Does Not Become Fully Human Painlessly.
Reality
Doe
Humans
That Because Of This Interplay Of Conscious And Unconscious Factors In Guilt And The Impossibility Of Legalistic Blame, We Are Forced Into An Attitude Of Acceptance Of The Universal Human Situation And A Recognition Of The Participation Of Every One Of Us In Man's Inhumanity To Man.
Attitude
Acceptance
Men
Every Authentic Artist Is Engaged In This Creating Of The Conscience Of The Race, Even Though He Or She May Be Unaware Of The Fact.
Artist
Race
Creating
Intimacy Requires Courage Because Risk Is Inescapable. We Cannot Know At The Outset How The Relationship Will Affect Us.
Risk
Intimacy
Self Actualization
Artists Love To Immerse Themselves In Chaos In Order To Put It Into Form, Just As God Created Form Out Of Chaos In Genesis. Forever Unsatisfied With The Mundane, The Apathetic, The Conventional, They Always Push On To Newer Worlds.
Artist
Order
Forever
There Is No Meaningful Yes Unless The Individual Could Also Have Said No.
Meaningful
Individual
Said
Love Is Generally Confused With Dependence; But In Point Of Fact, You Can Love Only In Proportion To Your Capacity For Independence.
Confused
Love Is
Independence
It Is Highly Significant And Indeed Almost A Rule, That Moral Courage Has Its Source In Such Identification Through One's Own Sensitivity With Suffering Of One's Fellow Human Beings." (p. 16-17)
Suffering
Moral
Significant
It May Sound Surprising When I Say, On The Basis Of My Own Clinical Practice As Well As That Of My Psychological And Psychiatric Colleagues, That The Chief Problem Of People In The Middle Decade Of The Twentieth Century Is Emptiness.
Practice
People
May
The Ancient Greeks, As Plato Reports, Believed That We Discover Truth Through "reminiscence," That Is By "remembering," By Intuitively Searching Into Our Own Experience.
Plato
Greek
Remember
The Purpose Of Psychotherapy Is To Set People Free.
People
Purpose
Existential
The Hallmark Of Courage In Our Age Of Conformity Is The Capacity To Stand On One's Own Convictions - Not Obstinately Or Defiantly
Courage
Conformity
Hallmark
Humor Is The Healthy Way Of Feeling "distance" Between One's Self And The Problem, A Way Of Standing Off And Looking At One's Problem With Perspective.
Distance
Self
Perspective
I Learned That Healing And Cure Are Active Processes In Which I Myself Needed To Participate.
Healing
Process
Cures
A Dynamic Struggle Goes On Within A Person Between What He Or She Consciously Thinks On The One Hand And, On The Other, Some Insight, Some Perspective That Is Struggling To Be Born.
Struggle
Thinking
Hands
The Opposite Of Courage In Our Society Is Not Cowardice, It Is Conformity.
Courage
Soulmate
Self Esteem
Anxiety Is An Even Better Teacher Than Reality, For One Can Temporarily Evade Reality By Avoiding The Distasteful Situation; But Anxiety Is A Source Of Education Always Present Because One Carries It Within.
Teacher
Reality
Anxiety
Artists Do Not Run Away From Non-being, But By Encountering And Wrestling With It, Force It To Produce Being.
Running
Wrestling
Artist
Lacking Positive Myths To Guide Him, Many A Sensitive Contemporary Man Finds Only The Model Of The Machine Beckoning Him From Every Side To Make Himself Over Into Its Image.
Men
Sides
Machines
Unconscious Insights Or Answers To Problems That Come In Reverie Do Not Come Hit Or Miss... They Pertain To Those Areas In Which The Person Consciously Has Worked Laboriously And With Dedication.
Dedication
Missing
Answers
Creativity Is A Yearning For Immortality
Creativity
Immortality
Yearning
Existential Psychotherapy Is The Movement Which, Although Standing On One Side On The Scientific Analysis Owed Chiefly To The Genius Of Freud , Also Brings Back Into The Picture The Understanding Of Man On The Deeper And Broader Level Man As The Being Who Is Human. It Is Based On The Assumption That It Is Possible To Have A Science Of Man Which Does Not Fragmentize Man And Destroy His Humanity At The Same Moment As It Studies Him. It Unites Science And Ontology .
Men
Humanity
Understanding
Joy Is The Zest That You Get Out Of Using Your Talents, Your Understanding, The Totality Of Your Being, For Great Aims...that's The Kind Of Feeling That Goes With Creativity. That's Why I Say The Courage To Create. Creation Does Not Come Out Of Simply What You're Born With. That Must Be United With Your Courage, Both Of Which Cause Anxiety, But Also Great Joy.
Courage
Creativity
Using Your Talents
Forge In The Smithy Of Your Soul.
Soul
Your Soul
Communication Leads To Community, That Is, To Understanding, Intimacy And Mutual Valuing.
Inspirational
Life
Sympathy
Creativity Is The Process Of Bringing Something New Into Being. Creativity Requires Passion And Commitment. It Brings To Our Awareness What Was Previously Hidden And Points To New Life. The Experience Is One Of Heightened Consciousness: Ecstasy.
Passion
Creativity
Commitment
Understanding And Love Require A Wisdom That Comes Only With Age.
Maturity
Understanding
Age
Does Not The Possibility Or The Power To Do Something About The Situation At Hand Confer On One The Responsibility To Do It?
Character
Responsibility
Hands
Creative People... Are Distinguished By The Fact That They Can Live With Anxiety, Even Though A High Price May Be Paid In Terms Of Insecurity, Sensitivity, And Defenselessness For The Gift Of 'divine Madness,' To Borrow The Term Used By The Classical Greeks.
People
Creative
Anxiety
Competitive Individualism Militates Against The Experience Of Community, And That Lack Of Community Is A Centrally Important Factor In Contemporaneous Anxiety.
Responsibility
Community
Anxiety
Our Age Is One Of Transition, In Which The Normal Channels For Utilizing The Daimonic Are Denied; And Such Ages Tend To Be Times When The Daimonic Is Expressed In Its Most Destructive Form.
Age
Normal
Transition
People Attain Worth And Dignity By The Multitude Of Decisions They Make From Day To Day.
Life
People
Decision
Courage Is Not A Virtue Of Value Among Other Personal Values Like Love Or Fidelity. It Is The Foundation That Underlies And Gives Reality To All Other Virtues And Personal Values. Without Courage Our Love Pales Into Mere Dependency. Without Courage Our Fidelity Becomes Conformism.
Courage
Reality
Like Love
One Of The Easiest Ways To Be Irresponsible About Power Is To Forget You Have It.
Way
Planning
Forget You
The Essence Of Being Human Is That, In The Brief Moment We Exist On This Spinning Planet, We Can Love Some Persons And Some Things, In Spite Of The Fact That Time And Death Will Ultimately Claim Us All.
Essence
Spinning
Facts
When One Read's Kierkegaard's Profound Analyses Of Anxiety And Despair Or Nietzsche's Amazingly Acute Insights Into The Dynamics Of Resentment And The Guilt And Hostility Which Accompany Repressed Emotional Powers, One Might Pinch Oneself To Realize That One Is Reading Works Written In The Last Century And Not Some New Contemporary Psychological Analysis.
Reading
Emotional
Profound
The Daimonic Refers To The Power Of Nature Rather Than The Superego, And Is Beyond Good And Evil. Nor Is It Man's 'recall To Himself' As Heidegger And Later Fromm Have Argued, For Its Source Lies In Those Realms Where The Self Is Rooted In Natural Forces Which Go Beyond The Self And Are Felt As The Grasp Of Fate Upon Us. The Daimonic Arises From The Ground Of Being Rather Than The Self As Such.
Lying
Fate
Men
Life Comes From Physical Survival; But The Good Life Comes From What We Care About.
Life
Good Life
Survival
To Love Means To Open Ourselves To The Negative As Well As The Positive - To Grief, Sorrow, And Disappointment As Well As To Joy, Fulfillment, And An Intensity Of Consciousness We Did Not Know Was Possible Before
Love
Life
Disappointment
Human Freedom Involves Our Capacity To Pause, To Choose The One Response Toward Which We Wish To Throw Our Weight.
Wish
Weight
Capacity
When We Are Dealing With Human Beings, No Truth Has Reality By Itself; It Is Always Dependent Upon The Reality Of The Immediate Relationship.
Reality
Existentialism
Humans
One Of The Few Blessings Of Living In An Age Of Anxiety Is That We Are Forced To Become Aware Of Ourselves.
Blessing
Anxiety
Age
Symbols Are Specific Acts Or Figures, While Myths Develop And Elaborate These Symbols Into A Story Which Contains Characters And Several Episodes. The Myth Is Thus More Inclusive. But Both Symbol And Myth Have The Same Function Psychologically; They Are Man's Way Of Expressing The Quintessence Of His Experience - His Way Of Seeing His Life, His Self-image And His Relations To The World Of His Fellow Men And Of Nature - In A Total Figure Which At The Same Moment Carries The Vital Meaning Of This Experience.
Character
Men
Self
We Express Our Being By Creating. Creativity Is A Necessary Sequel To Being.
Creativity
Creating
Sequels
It Requires Greater Courage To Preserve Inner Freedom, To Move On In One's Inward Journey Into New Realms, Than To Stand Defiantly For Outer Freedom. It Is Often Easier To Play The Martyr, As It Is To Be Rash In Battle.
Freedom
Moving
Journey
Courage Is Not The Absence Of Despair; It Is, Rather, The Capacity To Move Ahead In Spite Of Despair.
Courage
Moving
Despair
In Any Discussion Of Religion And Personality Integration The Question Is Not Whether Religion Itself Makes For Health Or Neurosis, But What Kind Of Religion And How Is It Used? Freud Was In Error When He Held That Religion Is Per Se A Compulsion Neurosis. Some Religion Is And Some Is Not.
Errors
Personality
Neurosis
What Kierkegaard Said About Love Is Also True Of Creativity: Every Person Must Start At The Beginning.
Creativity
Love Is
Said
Mark Tobey Fills His Canvases With Elliptical, Calligraphic Lines, Beautiful Whirls That Seem At First Glance To Be Completely Abstract And To Come From Nowhere At All Except His Own Subjective Musing. But I Shall Never Forget How Struck I Was, On Visiting Tobey's Studio One Day, To See Strewn Around Books On Astronomy And Photographs Of The Milky Way. I Knew Then That Tobey Experiences The Movement Of The Stars And Solar Constellations As The External Pole Of His Encounter.
Beautiful
Stars
Book
However It May Be Confounded Or Covered Up Or Counterfeited, This Elemental Capacity To Fight Against Injustice Remains The Distinguishing Characteristic Of Human Beings.
Fighting
Covered Up
May
Poets Often Have A Conscious Awareness That They Are Struggling With The Daimonic, And That The Issue Is Their Working Something Through From The Depths Which Push The Self To A New Plane.
Struggle
Issues
Self
By Whatever Name One Calls It, Genuine Creativity Is Characterized By An Intensity Of Awareness, A Heightened Consciousness.
Creativity
Names
Consciousness
Courage Is The Basic Virtue For Everyone So Long As He Continues To Grow, To Move Ahead.
Courage
Moving
Long
It Is An Ironic Habit Of Human Beings To Run Faster When We Have Lost Our Way.
Inspirational
Running
Wisdom
Hate Is Not The Opposite Of Love; Apathy Is.
Friendship
Depression
Hate
Beauty Is The Experience That Gives Us A Sense Of Joy And A Sense Of Peace Simultaneously.
Beauty
Peace
Giving
Our Powerful Hunger For Myth Is A Hunger For Community. The Person Without A Myth Is A Person Without A Home...to Be A Member Of One's Community Is To Share In Its Myths.
Powerful
Home
Community
The Insight Is Born With Anxiety, Guilt And The Joy And Gratification That Is Inseparable From The Actualizing Of A New Idea Or Vision.
Ideas
Joy
Anxiety
We Cannot Will To Have Insights. We Cannot Will To Have Creativity, But We Can Will To Give Ourselves To The Creative Experience With Intensity Of Dedication And Commitment.
Commitment
Creativity
Dedication
The Daimonic Is Any Natural Function Which Has The Power To Take Over The Whole Person. Sex And Eros, Anger And Rage, And The Craving For Power Are Examples. The Daimonic Can Be Either Creative Or Destructive And Is Normally Both.
Sex
Creative
Example
Apathy Adds Up, In The Long Run, To Cowardice.
Running
Long
Apathy
Generally, The Shaking Is Consciously Felt In Its Positive Aspects — As The Wonderful New Heaven And Earth Which Love With Its Miracle And Mystery Has Suddenly Produced. Love Is The Answer, We Sing. Our Western Culture Seems To Be Engaged In A Romantic - Albeit Desperate - Conspiracy To Enforce The Illusion That That Is All There Is To Eros.
Life
Falling In Love
Love Is
The Acorn Becomes An Oak By Means Of Automatic Growth; No Commitment Is Necessary. The Kitten Similarly Becomes A Cat On The Basis Of Instinct. Nature And Being Are Identical In Creatures Like Them. But A Man Or Woman Becomes Fully Human Only By His Or Her Choices And His Or Her Commitment To Them. People Attain Worth And Dignity By The Multitude Of Decisions They Make From Day By Day. These Decisions Require Courage.
Courage
Mean
Cat
Everyone Has A Need For Significance; And If We Can't Make That Possible, Or Even Probable, In Our Society, Then It Will Be Obtained In Destructive Ways.
Way
Needs
Our Society
Human Freedom Involves Our Capacity To Pause Between The Stimulus And Response And, In That Pause, To Choose The One Response Toward Which We Wish To Throw Our Weight. The Capacity To Create Ourselves, Based Upon This Freedom, Is Inseparable From Consciousness Or Self-awareness. (p. 100)
Self
Wish
Weight
People Only Change When It Becomes Too Dangerous To Stay The Way They Are.
People
Way
Dangerous
Reason Works Better When Emotions Are Present; The Person Sees Sharper And More Accurately When His Emotions Are Engaged.
Emotion
Reason
Persons
The Function Of The Rebel Is To Shake The Fixated Mores Of The Rigid Order Of Civilization; And This Shaking, Though Painful, Is Necessary If The Society Is To Be Saved From Boredom And Apathy. Obviously I Do Not Refer To Everyone Who Calls Himself A Rebel, But Only To The Authentic Rebel. Civilization Gets Its First Flower From The Rebel.
Flower
Order
Civilization
The Amazing Thing About Love Is That It Is The Best Way To Get To Know Ourselves.
Love Is
Way
Knows
The Creative Process Must Be Explored... As The Expression Of The Normal People In The Act Of Actualizing Themselves.
Creativity
Expression
People
Anxiety Is Essential To The Human Condition. The Confrontation With Anxiety Can Relieve Us From Boredom, Sharpen The Sensitivity And Assure The Presence Of Tension That Is Necessary To Preserve Human Existence.
Worry
Boredom
Anxiety
A Person Can Meet Anxiety To The Extent That His Values Are Stronger Than The Threat.
Anxiety
Stronger
Threat
Something Is Born, Comes Into Being, Something That Did Not Exist Before - Which Is As Good A Definition Of Creativity As We Can Get.
Creativity
Definitions
Born
The Poet, Like The Lover, Is A Menace On The Assembly Line.
Lines
Lovers
Poet
Joy, Rather Than Happiness, Is The Goal Of Life, For Joy Is The Emotion Which Accompanies Our Fulfilling Our Natures As Human Beings. It Is Based On The Experience Of One's Identity As A Being Of Worth And Dignity.
Emotional
Goal
Joy
To Say A Person Is A Coward Has No More Meaning Than To Say He Is Lazy: It Simply Tells Us That Some Vital Potentiality Is Unrealized Or Blocked.
Lazy
Coward
Blocked
In Order To Be Open To Creativity, One Must Have The Capacity For Constructive Use Of Solitude. One Must Overcome The Fear Of Being Alone.
Inspirational
Quiet People
Being Alone
Deeds Of Violence In Our Society Are Performed Largely By Those Trying To Establish Their Self-esteem, To Defend Their Self-image, And To Demonstrate That They, Too, Are Significant.
Self Esteem
Society
Trying
There Is An Energy Field Between Humans. And, When We Reach Out In Passion, It Is Met With An Answering Passion And Changes The Relationship Forever.
Love
Inspirational
Passion
The Authentic Rebel Knows That The Silencing Of All His Adversaries Is The Last Thing On Earth He Wishes: Their Extermination Would Deprive Him And Whoever Else Remains Alive From The Uniqueness, The Originality, And The Capacity For Insight That These Enemies Being Human Also Have And Could Share With Him. If We Wish The Death Of Our Enemies, We Cannot Talk About The Community Of Man. In The Losing Of The Chance For Dialogue With Our Enemies, We Are The Poorer.
Men
Community
Enemy
Humans Have A Habit Of Running Faster When They Have Lost Their Way.
Running
Way
Habit
In Any Age Courage Is The Simple Virtue Needed For A Human Being To Traverse The Rocky Road From Infancy To Maturity Of Personality. But In An Age Of Anxiety, An Age Of Herd Morality And Personal Isolation, Courage Is A Sine Qua Non. In Periods When The Mores Of The Society Were More Consistent Guides, The Individual Was More Firmly Cushioned In His Crises Of Development; But In Times Of Transition Like Ours, The Individual Is Thrown On His Own At An Earlier Age And For A Longer Period.
Courage
Maturity
Simple
When People Feel Their Insignificance As Individual Persons, They Also Suffer An Undermining Of Their Sense Of Human Responsibility.
Responsibility
People
Suffering
If The Will Remains In Protest, It Stays Dependent On That Which It Is Protesting Against.
Forgiveness
Protest
Remains
Real Freedom Is The Ability To Pause Between Stimulus And Response, And In That Pause, Choose.
Real
Stimulus And Response
Ability
Evil, In This System Of Ethics, Is That Which Tears Apart, Shuts Out The Other Person, Raises Barriers, Sets People Against Each Other.
People
Evil
Tears
Courage Is Required Not Only In A Person's Occasional Crucial Decision For His Own Freedom, But In The Little Hour-to-hour Decisions Which Place The Bricks In The Structure Of His Building Of Himself Into A Person Who Acts With Freedom And Responsibility.
Courage
Responsibility
Decision
Good Art Wounds As Well As Delights. It Must, Because Our Defenses Against The Truth Are Wound So Tightly Around Us. But As Art Chips Away At Our Defenses, It Also Opens Us To Healing Potentialities That Transcend Intellectual Games And Ego-preserving Strategies.
Art
Healing
Games
We Define Religion As The Assumption That Life Has Meaning. Religion, Or Lack Of It, Is Shown Not In Some Intellectual Or Verbal Formulations But In One's Total Orientation To Life. Religion Is Whatever The Individual Takes To Be His Ultimate Concern. One's Religious Attitude Is To Be Found At That Point Where He Has A Conviction That There Are Values In Human Existence Worth Living And Dying For.
Religious
Attitude
Intellectual
By The Creative Act, We Are Able To Reach Beyond Our Own Death.
Creativity
Creative
Able
I Became A Psychotherapist Because That's Where People Will Unburden Themselves, Where They Will Show What Is In Their Hearts.
Heart
People
Shows
The Word Courage Comes From The Same Stem As The French Word Coeur, Meaning "heart." Thus Just As One's Heart, By Pumping Blood To One's Arms, Legs, And Brain Enables All The Other Physical Organs To Function, So Courage Makes Possible All The Psychological Virtues. Without Courage Other Values Wither Away Into Mere Facsimiles Of Virtue.
Inspiration
Heart
Blood
Trending Author
David Brinkley
George Clooney
Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa
Mark Leyner
Ann Richards
Terry Pratchett
Category
Information