Love's Executioner Quotes

I knew from the moment I heard you, the moment I saw the gun and realized that this lovely, petit woman was the executioner, that you would never die waiting for me to save you - that you would save yourself.

Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that person dies, the whole cluster dies, too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?

Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a "giving to," not a 'falling for"; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.

He shook his head, staring at her like a condemned man who beheld the face of his executioner. "Aline," he whispered, "Do you know what hell is?" "Yes." Her eyes overflowed. "Trying to exist with your heart living somewhere outside your body." "No. It's knowing that you have so little faith in my love, you would have condemned me to a lifetime of agony." His face contorted suddenly. "To something worse than death.

Four givens are particularly relevant for psycho-therapy: the inevitability of death for each of us and for those we love; the freedom to make our lives as we will; our ultimate aloneness; and, finally, the absence of any obvious meaning or sense to life.

One of the great paradoxes of life is that self-awareness breeds anxiety.

I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.

I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy—I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. I hate to be love’s executioner.

Some people are wish-blocked, knowing neither what they feel nor what they want. Without opinions, without impulses, without inclinations, they become parasites on the desires of others.

The human being either asserts autonomy by heroic self-assertion or seeks safety through fusing with a superior force: that is, one either emerges or merges, separates or embeds. One becomes one’s own parent or remains the eternal child.

Love, the deadliest of all things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't. But that isn't it, exactly. The condemner and the condemned. The executioner; the blade; the last-minute reprieve; the gasping breath and the rolling sky above you and the thank you, thank you, thank you God. Love: It will kill you and save you, both.

But also remember: if you have any genuine feelings, hide them like treasure; never let anyone so much as suspect them, or you're lost. Instead of being the executioner, you'll be the victim. And if you ever fall in love, keep that absolutely secret! Never breathe a word until you're completely sure of the person to whom you open your heart. And to protect that love, even before you feel it, learn to despise the world.

People who feel empty never heal by merging with another incomplete person. On the contrary, two broken-winged birds coupled into one make for clumsy flight. No amount of patience will help it fly; and, ultimately, each must be pried from the other, and wounds separately splinted. The

The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.

come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. A good working formula is: the more unlived life, or unrealized potential, the greater one’s death anxiety.

As a general rule, the less one’s sense of life fulfillment, the greater one’s death anxiety.

Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains in the bum or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, that there aren’t any windows. And now the thing bears down on him. He feels a hand on his sleeve, smells a stinking breath, as the executioner’s assistant leans almost amorously toward him. “Your turn next, brother. Kindly step this way.” And in an instant his quiet terror is transmuted into a frenzy as violent as it is futile. There is no longer a man among his fellow men, no longer a rational being speaking articulately to other rational beings; there is only a lacerated animal, screaming and struggling in the trap. For in the end fear casts out even a man’s humanity. And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life. Fear of the much touted technology which, while it raises out standard of living, increases the probability of our violently dying. Fear of the science which takes away the one hand even more than what it so profusely gives with the other. Fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for while, in our suicidal loyalty, we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the Great Men whom we have raised, and by popular acclaim, to a power which they use, inevitably, to murder and enslave us. Fear of the war we don’t want yet do everything we can to bring about.

Perhaps the sexual life is the great test. If we can survive it with charity to those we love and with affection to those we have betrayed, we needn't worry so much about the good and the bad in us. But jealousy, distrust, cruelty, revenge, recrimination ... then we fail. The wrong is in that failure even if we are the victims and not the executioners. Virtue is no excuse.

Four major existential concerns—death, meaning in life, isolation, and freedom—play a crucial role in the inner life of every human being and

Whether you come as a lover or an executioner, I am ready to receive you.

Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation. A

It’s the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals, the relationship that heals—my professional rosary.

When you meet someone, you know all about him. On subsequent meetings, you blind yourself to your own wisdom

Παρόλο που η ψευδαίσθηση συχνά αναπτερώνει και ανακουφίζει, στο τέλος πάντα αδυνατίζει και περιορίζει την ψυχή.

Mind thinks in images but, to communicate with another, must transform image into thought and then thought into language. That march, from image to thought to language, is treacherous. Casualties occur: the rich, fleecy texture of image, its extraordinary plasticity and flexibility, its private nostalgic emotional hues - all are lost when image is crammed into language.

He dropped to his knees, and the air between them rippled with Karou’s crippling magic and with memory. The day of her death, this is what she had seen, this: Akiva on his knees, sick with the weight of this same magic coursing off Thiago’s soldiers, and he had struggled to hold his head up and look at her—just like this—with horror and despair and love—and she had wanted more than she had ever wanted anything to go to him and hold him, whisper to him that she loved him and was going to save him, but she couldn’t, not then, and she couldn’t now, not because of shackles or pinions or the executioner’s ax but because he was the enemy. He had proven it beyond any horror she would ever have believed, beyond any betrayal she could ever have dreamed, and he could never be forgiven, not ever. But… then… her hands fell to her sides.

The more the therapist is able to tolerate the anxiety of not knowing, the less need there is for the therapist to embrace orthodoxy.

Indeed, the capacity to tolerate uncertainty is a prerequisite for the profession. Though the public may believe that therapists guide patients systematically and sure-handedly through predictable stages of therapy to a foreknown goal, such is rarely the case: instead, as these stories bear witness, therapists frequently wobble, improvise, and grope for direction. The powerful temptation to achieve certainty through embracing an ideological school and a tight therapeutic system is treacherous: such belief may block the uncertain and spontaneous encounter necessary for effective therapy. This encounter, the very heart of psychotherapy, is a caring, deeply human meeting between two people, one (generally, but not always, the patient) more troubled than the other. Therapists have a dual role: they must both observe and participate in the lives of their patients. As observer, one must be sufficiently objective to provide necessary rudimentary guidance to the patient. As participant, one enters into the life of the patient and is affected and sometimes changed by the encounter.

The portrait artist must acknowledge human complexity with each brushstroke. The eyes, nose and mouth that compose a sitter's face, just like the suffering and joy that compose his soul, are similar to those of ten million others yet still singular to him. This acknowledgment is where art begins. It may also be where mercy begins. If criminals drew the faces of their victims before perpetrating their crimes and judges drew the faces of the guilty before sentencing them, then there would be no faces for executioners to draw.

Principles are what people have instead of God. To be a Christian means among other things to be willing if necessary to sacrifice even your highest principles for God's or your neighbour's sake the way a Christian pacifist must be willing to pick up a baseball bat if there's no other way to stop a man from savagely beating a child. Jesus didn't forgive his executioners on principle but because in some unimaginable way he was able to love them. 'Principle' is an even duller word than 'Religion'.

In general, e mai bine sa nu ataci un mecanism de aparare, decat daca acesta creeaza mai multe probleme decat solutii si daca ai ceva mai bun de pus in loc.

Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes over flow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.

Decision invariably involves renunciation: for every yes there must be a no, each decision eliminating or killing other options (the root of the word decide means “slay,” as in homicide or suicide).

Once, he’d been the Seducer, the Executioner, the High Priest of the Hourglass, the Prince of the Darkness, the High Lord of Hell. Once, he’d been Consort to Cassandra, the great Black-Jeweled, Black Widow Queen, the last Witch to walk the Realms. Once, he’d been the only Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince in the history of the Blood, feared for his temper and the power he wielded. Once, he’d been the only male who was a Black Widow. Once, he’d ruled the Dhemlan Territory in the Realm of Terreille and her sister Territory in Kaeleer, the Shadow Realm. He’d been the only male ever to rule without answering to a Queen and, except for Witch, the only member of the Blood to rule Territories in two Realms. Once, he’d been married to Hekatah, an aristo Black Widow Priestess from one of Hayll’s Hundred Families. Once, he’d raised two sons, Mephis and Peyton. He’d played games with them, told them stories, read to them, healed their skinned knees and broken hearts, taught them Craft and Blood Law, showered them with his love of the land as well as music, art, and literature, encouraged them to look with eager eyes upon all that the Realms had to offer—not to conquer but to learn. He’d taught them to dance for a social occasion and to dance for the glory of Witch. He’d taught them how to be Blood. But that was a long, long time ago.

A nightmare is a failed dream, a dream that, by not “handling” anxiety, has failed in its role as the guardian of sleep.

If one is to learn to live with the dead, one must first learn to live with the living!

Love dies in different ways. For most, it is a slow, agonizing death. Meche, however, cut her love the same way the executioner might chop a head: with a single, accurate swing.

The fact is that when you admit that you can’t blame anyone or anything else, you begin to blame yourself. The human mind gives up trying to find an executioner, but still it must blame someone. Anger that is not expressed tends to turn inward and, instead, attacks the very one who feels it. You move from anger and guilt into depression.

Think of life as a story. Each one must come to an end, for it to have form and meaning. What gives life to the stories are the bodies at the end of them.

How disquieting to realise that reality is an illusion, at best a democratisation of perception based on participant consensus.

though the fact, the physicality, of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.

The unexamined life is not worth living.

Translation error is compounded by bias error. We distort others by forcing into them our preferred ideas and gestalts, a process Proust beautifully describes: We pack the physical outline of the creature we see with all the ideas we already formed about him, and in the complete picture of him which we compose in our minds, these ideas have certainly the principal place. In the end they come to fill out so completely the curve of his cheeks, to follow so exactly the line of his nose, they blend so harmoniously in the sound of his voice that these seem to be no more than a transparent envelope, so that each time we see the face or hear the voice it is our own ideas of him which we recognize and to which we listen.

That was the first important discovery I made about Betty: she was desperately isolated, and she survived this isolation only by virtue of the sustaining myth that her intimate life was being lived elsewhere. Her friends, her circle of acquaintances, were not here, but elsewhere, in New York, in Texas, in the past. In fact, everything of importance was elsewhere. It was at this time that I first began to suspect that for Betty there was no “here” there.

sometimes, in pursuit of a greater peace, a man must stand by and lets those he loves suffer the injustices of men ho cares only about their own beliefs and nothing about the faith or feelings of others-- even when it pains him to the very core of his spirit

Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a “falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.

The one will triumph who first died for the victims then also for the executioners, and in so doing revealed a new righteousness which breaks through vicious circles of hate and vengeance and which from the lost victims and executioners creates a new mankind with a new humanity. Only where righteousness becomes creative and creates right both for the lawless and for those outside the law, only where creative love changes when is hateful and deserving of hate, only where the new man is born who is oppressed nor oppresses others, can one speak of the true revolution of righteousness and of the righteousness of God.

From both my personal and my professional experience, I had come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully.

That just seems to be the way we’re built.

The last gift a parent can give to children is to teach them, through example, how to face death with equanimity.

Therapists have a dual role: they must both observe and participate in the lives of their patients. As observer, one must be sufficiently objective to provide necessary rudimentary guidance to the patient. As participant, one enters into the life of the patient and is affected and sometimes changed by the encounter. In

I have noted two particularly powerful and common methods of allaying fears about death, two beliefs, or delusions, that afford a sense of safety. One is the belief in personal specialness; the other, the belief in an ultimate rescuer.

Ah, Hah! But you see, Baron, I know as a Mentat when you will send the executioner. You will hold back just so long as I am useful. To move sooner would be wasteful and I'm yet of much use. I know what it is you learned from that lovely Dune planet - waste not? True, Baron? -Piter De Vries

We cannot help where we are born or how we are raised," Tel Hesani said. "But we can reject the twisted beliefs of those around us if we need to. Our loved ones and elders don't always know what is best. A man should listen to his heart and make his own decisions about what is wrong and what is right.

This is precisely why the mainstream media’s language has failed us, it has not been telling us what we really need to know, because their language marches in step with that of the bankers, warmongers, oppressors, and executioners. We need a new language of radical love not radical hate.

I had come to believe that the fear of death is always greatest in those who feel that they have not lived their life fully. A good working formula is: the more unlived life, or unrealized potential, the greater one’s death anxiety. My

The second, “alternatives exclude,” is an important key to understanding why decision is difficult. Decision invariably involves renunciation: for every yes there must be a no, each decision eliminating or killing other options (the root of the word decide means “slay,” as in homicide or suicide).

The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, must be conducted obliquely.

Ο Θερβάντες ρωτούσε: «Τι προτιμάς: σοφή τρέλα ή ανόητη λογική;»

One of the great paradoxes of life is that self-awareness breeds anxiety. Fusion eradicates anxiety in a radical fashion—by eliminating self-awareness. The person who has fallen in love, and entered a blissful state of merger, is not self-reflective because the questioning lonely I (and the attendant anxiety of isolation) dissolve into the we. Thus one sheds anxiety but loses oneself. This is precisely why therapists do not like to treat a patient who has fallen in love. Therapy and a state of love-merger are incompatible because therapeutic work requires a questioning self-awareness and an anxiety that will ultimately serve as guide to internal conflicts. Furthermore,

Love is not just a passion of spark between two people, there is an infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a "giving to", not a "falling for", a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.

How could I ever tell her how sorry I was? Sorry for all the stupid mistakes I'd made. Sorry for my never-ending selfishness. Sorry that she was so unfortunate as to have inspired this first, and last, tragic love of mine. Sorry also for the things beyond my control — that I'd been the executioner chosen by fate to end her life in the first place.

Όποτε ο ασθενής αρχίζει ν' αναπτύσσει συμπτώματα στη σχέση του με τον θεραπευτή, τότε έχει πραγματικά αρχίσει η θεραπεία, και η εξερεύνηση αυτών των συμπτωμάτων θ' ανοίξει το δρόμο για τα κεντρικά του ζητήματα.

There was the Son of God being so himself that even a Gentile executioner sensed it. On the cross we see the Bridegroom, loving to death; the Lord of glory, giving out his life; the Lord of hosts, crushing Satan; the King, enthroned. 

One’s efforts to escape isolation can sabotage one’s relationships with other people. Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation.

My task as a therapist (not unlike that of a parent) is to make myself obsolete—to help a patient become his or her own mother and father.

Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a “falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person. Though

People who feel empty never heal by merging with another incomplete person.

The sentiment that one "should have done something more" reflects, it seems to me, an underlying wish to control the uncontrollable. After all, if one is guilty about not having done something that one should have done, then it follows that there is something that could have been done - a comforting thought that decoys us from our pathetic helplessness in the face of death.

Beware the powerful exclusive attachment to another; it is not, as people sometimes think, evidence of the purity of the love. Such encapsulated, exclusive love—feeding on itself, neither giving to nor caring about others—is destined to cave in on itself. Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love. Rather, love is a way of being, a “giving to,” not a “falling for”; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person. Though

The big man glanced at the princess in chains for permission, hefting his axe suggestively. Jael expected her to nod and give him the go-ahead to serve as her executioner. Instead, she put out a hand and took the weapon from him. Her green eyes were like chips of jade in her pale, bloody countenance. This was the face of the Dread Queen. "Kneel," she commanded, and the command had an inexorable weight. Not only did Priest drop to his knees, so did the other men in the vicinity; two belonged to Silence. The Speaker frowned at this. In a single swing, she took her enemy's head. The crowd roared. And Jael fell a little in love.

The search for meaning, much like the search for pleasure, must be conducted obliquely. Meaning ensues from meaningful activity: the more we deliberately pursue it, the less likely are we to find it; the rational questions one can pose about meaning will always outlast the answers. In therapy, as in life, meaningfulness is a by-product of engagement and commitment, and that is where therapists must direct their efforts—not that engagement provides the rational answer to questions of meaning, but it causes these questions not to matter.

Nietzsche claimed that a philosopher’s system of thought always arises from his autobiography, and I believe that to be true for all therapists—in fact, for anyone who thinks about thought. At a conference approximately

-... Geçici dostlukları kim ister? - Bu yaklaşımın sakat tarafı, sonunda kendini insansız bir yaşamın içinde bulman. Belki de içindeki boşluk duygusu kısmen bundan kaynaklanıyor. Şöyle ya da böyle her ilişki bitmek zorunda. Ömür boyu garanti diye bir şey yok. Güneşin batışını görmekten üzüntü duyduğun için doğuşunu izlemekten zevk almayı reddetmek gibi bir şey bu.

A small revenge is humaner than no revenge at all. And if the punishment be not also a right and an honor to the transgressor, I do not like your punishing. Nobler is it to own oneself in the wrong than to establish one's right, especially if one be in the right. Only, one must be rich enough to do so. I do not like your cold justice; out of the eye of your judges there always glanceth the executioner and his cold steel. Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes?

At other times Betty expressed anger at my forcing her to think about morbid topics. “Why think about death? We can’t do anything about it!” I tried to help her understand that, though the fact of death destroys us, the idea of death can save us. In other words, our awareness of death can throw a different perspective on life and incite us to rearrange our priorities.

Ubijeđen sam da su, u tim zanosima prvih susreta, Dan i žena pogrešno tumačili ono što u vidjeli jedno u drugom. Svako od njih je vidjeo odraz sopstvenog preklinjanja, ranjen pogled i pogrešno ga protumačio kao želju i ispunjenost. Oboje su bill ptići sa slomljenim krilima, koji su tražili da lete privijeni uz drugu pticu sa slomljenim krilima. Ljudi koje se osjećaju isprazno nikada se ne izliječe stapanjem sa drugom nepotpunom osobom. Naprotiv, dvije ptice sa slomljenim krilima spojene u jednu će letjeti nespretno. Nikakva količina strpljenja im neće pomoći da lete; i, konačno, svaki mora biti poduprt različitim stvarima, a rane se stavljaju u odvojene udlage.

Simtindu-ne neajutorati si derutati in fata aleatorului, a evenimentelor fara nici un tipar aparent, cautam sa le ordonam si, prin aceasta, sa avem senzatia ca le controlam. Chiar mai important decat atat, intelesul da nastere valorilor si, mai departe, unui cod de comportament – astfel, raspunsurile la intrebarile despre de ce (de ce traiesc?) furnizeaza un raspuns la intrebarile despre cum (cum sa traiesc?).

Freedom as a given seems the very antithesis of death. While we dread death, we generally consider freedom to be unequivocally positive. Has not the history of Western civilization been punctuated with yearnings for freedom, even driven by it? Yet freedom from an existential perspective is bonded to anxiety in asserting that, contrary to everyday experience, we do not enter into, and ultimately leave, a well-structured universe with an eternal grand design. Freedom means that one is responsible for one’s own choices, actions, one’s own life situation. Though the word responsible may be used in a variety of ways, I prefer Sartre’s definition: to be responsible is to “be the author of,” each of us being thus the author of his or her own life design. We are free to be anything but unfree: we are, Sartre would say, condemned to freedom.

Why think about death? We can’t do anything about it!” I tried to help her understand that, though the fact of death destroys us, the idea of death can save us. In other words, our awareness of death can throw a different perspective on life and incite us to rearrange our priorities.

Asa-zisa „psihologie pentru mase” bate intr-una moneda pe „asumarea responsabilitatii”, dar nu sunt decat vorbe goale: este extraordinar de greu, ba chiar terifiant, sa accepti ideea ca tu si numai tu esti acela care iti construiesti viata, felul in care o traiesti. Ca urmare, problema in psihoterapie consta intotdeauna in a sti cum sa treci de la o apreciere in plan intelectual, care se dovedeste ineficace, a unui adevar despre tine insuti la un mod saul altul de a-l simti in plan emotional. Abia din clipa in care terapia mobilizeaza emotii profunde, incepe sa devina o forta redutabila in favoarea schimbarii.

This encounter, the very heart of psychotherapy, is a caring, deeply human meeting between two people, one (generally, but not always, the patient) more troubled than the other. Therapists have a dual role: they must both observe and participate in the lives of their patients. As observer, one must be sufficiently objective to provide necessary rudimentary guidance to the patient. As participant, one enters into the life of the patient and is affected and sometimes changed by the encounter.

While there is no solution to existential isolation, therapists must discourage false solutions. One’s efforts to escape isolation can sabotage one’s relationships with other people. Many a friendship or marriage has failed because, instead of relating to, and caring for, one another, one person uses another as a shield against isolation.

O özel olma,büyülü bir gücün etkisinde olma, kuraldışı olma, sonsuza dek korunuyor olma duygusu- ona böylesine yararlı olan tüm bu aldanışlar ikna etme güçlerini ansızın yitirmişlerdi. Artık kendi yanılsamalarının ötesini görebiliyordu ve daha önce yanılsamaların kalkan gibi koruduğu şey şimdi önünde bütün çıplaklığı ve korkunçluğuyla uzanıyordu.

believe I already wrote in my notes that love was very similar to torture or surgery. But this idea can be developed in a most bitter way. Even if two lovers are very much in love and full of mutual desires, one of the two will always be calmer or less possessed than the other. The former is the operator or the executioner; the latter is the subject, the victim. Do you hear these sighs, preludes to a tragedy of dishonor, these groans, these cries, these gasps? Who hasn't uttered them, who has resisted extorting them? And what do you find to be the worst part of the torment applied by the careful torturers? The revolting sleepwalker eyes, the limbs with muscles that jump or stiffen as if they were galvanized; certainly, not even the most furious effects of intoxication, delirium or opium could provide such horrible and curious examples. And the human face, which Ovid believed to be made to reflect the stars, is now wearing an expression of crazy ferocity or slackening in some sort of death. Surely, I would think it a sacrilege if I used the word "ecstasy" for such decomposition.

I had helped him understand that he had lost sight of his personal boundaries. It is natural, I had told him, that one should respond adversely to an attack on one’s central core—after all, in that situation one’s very survival is at stake. But I had pointed out that Carlos had stretched his personal boundaries to encompass his work and, consequently, he responded to a mild criticism of any aspect of his work as though it were a mortal attack on his central being, a threat to his very survival. I had urged Carlos to differentiate between his core self and other, peripheral attributes or activities. Then he had to “disidentify” with the non-core parts: they might represent what he liked, or did, or valued—but they were not him, not his central being.

In choosing to enter fully into each patient’s life, I, the therapist, not only am exposed to the same existential issues as are my patients but must be prepared to examine them with the same rules of inquiry. I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.

A man in love ... is the master, so it seems, but only if his lady friend permits it! The need to interchange the roles of slave and master for the sake of the relationship is never more clearly demonstrated than in the course of an affair. Never is the complicity between victim and executioner more essential. Even chained, down on her knees, begging for mercy, it is the woman, finally, who is in command ... the all powerful slave, dragging herself along the ground at her master's heels, is now really the god. The man is only her priest, living in fear and trembling of her displeasure.

He no longer saw the face of his friend Siddhartha, instead he saw other faces, many, a long sequence, a flowing river of faces, of hundreds, of thousands, which all came and disappeared, and yet all seemed to be there simultaneously, which all constantly changed and renewed themselves, and which were still all Siddhartha. He saw the face of a fish, a carp, with an infinitely painfully opened mouth, the face of a dying fish, with fading eyes—he saw the face of a new-born child, red and full of wrinkles, distorted from crying—he saw the face of a murderer, he saw him plunging a knife into the body of another person—he saw, in the same second, this criminal in bondage, kneeling and his head being chopped off by the executioner with one blow of his sword—he saw the bodies of men and women, naked in positions and cramps of frenzied love—he saw corpses stretched out, motionless, cold, void— he saw the heads of animals, of boars, of crocodiles, of elephants, of bulls, of birds—he saw gods, saw Krishna, saw Agni—he saw all of these figures and faces in a thousand relationships with one another, each one helping the other, loving it, hating it, destroying it, giving re-birth to it, each one was a will to die, a passionately painful confession of transitoriness, and yet none of them died, each one only transformed, was always re-born, received evermore a new face, without any time having passed between the one and the other face—and all of these figures and faces rested, flowed, generated themselves, floated along and merged with each other, and they were all constantly covered by something thin, without individuality of its own, but yet existing, like a thin glass or ice, like a transparent skin, a shell or mold or mask of water, and this mask was smiling, and this mask was Siddhartha's smiling face, which he, Govinda, in this very same moment touched with his lips. And, Govinda saw it like this, this smile of the mask, this smile of oneness above the flowing forms, this smile of simultaneousness above the thousand births and deaths, this smile of Siddhartha was precisely the same, was precisely of the same kind as the quiet, delicate, impenetrable, perhaps benevolent, perhaps mocking, wise, thousand-fold smile of Gotama, the Buddha, as he had seen it himself with great respect a hundred times. Like this, Govinda knew, the perfected ones are smiling.

Existential isolation, a third given, refers to the unbridgeable gap between self and others, a gap that exists even in the presence of deeply gratifying interpersonal relationships. One is isolated not only from other beings but, to the extent that one constitutes one’s world, from world as well. Such isolation is to be distinguished from two other types of isolation: interpersonal and intrapersonal isolation. One experiences interpersonal isolation, or loneliness, if one lacks the social skills or personality style that permit intimate social interactions. Intrapersonal isolation occurs when parts of the self are split off, as when one splits off emotion from the memory of an event. The most extreme, and dramatic, form of splitting, the multiple personality, is relatively rare (though growing more widely recognized); when it does occur, the therapist may be faced (...) with the bewildering dilemma of which personality to cherish.

And what about the most merciful Christian God, slowly roasting in the fires of hell all those who would not submit? Was He not an executioner? And was the number of those burned by the Christians on bonfires less than the number of burned Christians? Yet - you understand - this God was glorified for ages as the God of love. Absurd? No, on the contrary: it is testimony to the ineradicable wisdom of man, inscribed in blood. Even at that time - wild, shaggy - he understood: true, algebraic love of humanity is inevitably inhuman; and the inevitable mark of truth is - its cruelty. Just as the inevitable mark of fire is that it burns. Show me fire that does not burn. Well - argue with me, prove the contrary!

Madeleine saved herself when she was abducted. Taken while she was a scared woman, one who'd once been veiwed as nothing more than weak and easily controlled, she'd proven that she had the heart of a lion, that she had the spirit of a warrior, that her strength didnt exist only in her ability to fight, but in her ability to endure, in her ability to survive. Most importantly, through her strength and her bravery, Maddy had not only saved herself, but also Aaron: By opening her eyes and discovering that hidden deeply within the recesses of the executioner's soul, there was goodness, there was compassion, there was love and there was honor; but above it all...deep within the infinite darkness... There was light.

But that which pleases us in people who are rising pleases us less in the case of people who are falling. We only love the fray so long as there is danger, and in any case, the combatants of the first hour have alone the right to be the exterminators of the last. He who has not been a stubborn accuser in prosperity should hold his peace in the face of ruin. The denunciator of success is the only legitimate executioner of the fall. As for us, when Providence intervenes and strikes, we let it work.

Είχα την αίσθηση πως ένα σημαντικό μάθημα που θα δίδασκε την Μπέττυ η επίγνωση του θανάτου ήταν ότι τη ζωή πρέπει να τη ζεις τώρα. Δεν μπορείς να την αναβάλλεις επ' άπειρον. Εύκολα μπορούσα να της απαριθμήσω τους τρόπους με τους οποίους απέφευγε τη ζωή: την απροθυμία της να κάνει σχέσεις με άλλου (γιατί φοβόταν το χωρισμό), την υπερκατανάλωση φαγητού και την παχυσαρκία της που την απέκλειαν από μεγάλο κομμάτι της ζωής, την αποφυγή του άμεσου παρόντος τρέχοντας να χωθεί το συντομότερο στο παρελθόν ή στο μέλλον.

On behalf of those you killed, imprisoned, tortured, you are not welcome, Erdogan! No, Erdogan, you’re not welcome in Algeria. We are a country which has already paid its price of blood and tears to those who wanted to impose their caliphate on us, those who put their ideas before our bodies, those who took our children hostage and who attempted to kill our hopes for a better future. The notorious family that claims to act in the name of the God and religion—you’re a member of it—you fund it, you support it, you desire to become its international leader. Islamism is your livelihood Islamism, which is your livelihood, is our misfortune. We will not forget about it, and you are a reminder of it today. You offer your shadow and your wings to those who work to make our country kneel down before your “Sublime Door.” You embody and represent what we loathe. You hate freedom, the free spirit. But you love parades. You use religion for business. You dream of a caliphate and hope to return to our lands. But you do it behind the closed doors, by supporting Islamist parties, by offering gifts through your companies, by infiltrating the life of the community, by controlling the mosques. These are the old methods of your “Muslim Brothers” in this country, who used to show us God’s Heaven with one hand while digging our graves with the other. No, Mr. Erdogan, you are not a man of help; you do not fight for freedom or principles; you do not defend the right of peoples to self-determination. You know only how to subject the Kurds to the fires of death; you know only how to subject your opponents to your dictatorship. You cry with the victims in the Middle East, yet sign contracts with their executioners. You do not dream of a dignified future for us, but of a caliphate for yourself. We are aware of your institutionalized persecution, your list of Turks to track down, your sinister prisons filled with the innocent, your dictatorial justice palaces, your insolence and boastful nature. You do not dream of a humanity that shares common values and principles, but are interested only in the remaking of the Ottoman Empire and its bloodthirsty warlords. Islam, for you, is a footstool; God is a business sign; modernity is an enemy; Palestine is a showcase; and local Islamists are your stunned courtesans. Humanity will not remember you with good deeds Humanity will remember you for your machinations, your secret coups d’état, and your manhunts. History will remember you for your bombings, your vengeful wars, and your inability to engage in constructive dialogue with others. The UN vote for Al-Quds is only an instrument in your service. Let us laugh at this with the Palestinians. We know that the Palestinian issue is your political capital, as it is for many others. You know well how to make a political fortune by exploiting others’ emotions. In Algeria, we suffered, and still suffer, from those who pretend to be God and act as takers and givers of life. They applaud your coming, but not us. You are the idol of Algerian Islamists and Populists, those who are unable to imagine a political structure beyond a caliphate for Muslim-majority societies. We aspire to become a country of freedom and dignity. This is not your ambition, nor your virtue. You are an illusion You have made beautiful Turkey an open prison and a bazaar for your business and loved ones. I hope that this beautiful nation rises above your ambitions. I hope that justice will be restored and flourish there once again, at least for those who have been imprisoned, tortured, bombed, and killed. You are an illusion, Erdogan—you know it and we know it. You play on the history of our humiliation, on our emotions, on our beliefs, and introduce yourself as a savior. However, you are a gravedigger, both for your own country and for your neighbors. Turkey is a political miracle, but it owes you nothing. The best thing you can do

From the beginning, of course, I had known that the pure forcefulness of my argument would not penetrate deep enough to effect any change. It almost never does. It’s never worked for me when I’ve been in therapy. Only when one feels an insight in one’s bones does one own it. Only then can one act on it and change. Pop psychologists forever talk about “responsibility assumption,” but it’s all words: it is extraordinarily hard, even terrifying, to own the insight that you and only you construct your own life design. Thus, the problem in therapy is always how to move from an ineffectual intellectual appreciation of a truth about oneself to some emotional experience of it. It is only when therapy enlists deep emotions that it becomes a powerful force for change. And powerlessness was

Nestes dez contos sobre psicoterapia há poucas discussões explícitas acerca do significado da vida. A busca de significado, muito semelhante à busca de prazer, deve ser conduzida indiretamente. O significado resulta da atividade significativa: quanto mais o procurarmos deliberadamente, menos provável será seu encontro; as perguntas racionais que alguém pode fazer a respeito do significado sempre excederão as respostas. Na terapia, assim como na vida, a presença de significado é um subproduto do vínculo e do comprometimento, e é nesse sentido que os terapeutas devem dirigir seus esforços - não que o vínculo ofereça uma resposta racional às perguntas sobre significados, mas porque faz com que essas perguntas não tenham importância.

Do you know anything about hearts, Jona? The Senta know hearts. Hearts are not one organ. Inside a mother's womb, two pulsing bags of blood seek their eternal mate." Her hand reached out to his. She opened his palm, and traced a finger down his lifeline, then his loveline. She lifted it up to her own face. She placed it on her cheek. "Lungs are fine apart," she said, "Hands do not need another but to clap. Brains gnarl like roots in the nothing of soul, and guts spin in knots around the nothing of hunger. But hearts are made by two complete parts merging together. Once the two pieces sense each other in the blood flow, they cross every bloody cliff inside of us. The arteries bind the halves close. The veins make love to each other in the life pulse that makes all life from love entwined.

Controversy has always existed among psychiatrists and psychologists about the validity of personality diagnosis. Some believe in the merits of the enterprise and devote their careers to ever greater nosological precision. Others, and among them I include myself, marvel that anyone can take diagnosis seriously, that it can ever be considered more than a simple cluster of symptoms and behavioral traits. Nonetheless, we find ourselves under ever-increasing pressure (from hospitals, insurance companies, governmental agencies) to sum up a person with a diagnostic phrase and a numerical category. Even the most liberal system of psychiatric nomenclature does violence to the being of another. If we relate to people believing we can categorize them, we will neither identify nor nurture the parts, the vital parts, of the other that transcend category. The enabling relationship always assumes that the other is never fully knowable.

Brightly and merrily swaying, like an April shower, came the young lady. Perhaps if she had been sad and conscience stricken, like certain dames of old who left the site of their illicit love as woe-begone as the passing moment that never returns; if the lady had approached in full cognizance of her frailty, ready to forego a man's respectful handkisses of greeting, and trembling in shame at the tryst exposed in broad daylight, like Risoulette, sixty-six times, whenever having misbehaved, she hastened back home teary-eyed to her Captain; or if a lifelong memory's untearable veil had floated over her fine features, like the otherworldly wimple of a nun . . . Then Pistoli would have stood aside, closed his eyes, swallowed the bitter pill, and come next winter, might have scrawled on the wall something about women's unpredictability. Then he would have glimpsed ghostly, skeletal pelvic bones reflected in his wine goblet, and strands of female hair, once wrapped around the executioner's wrist, hanging from his rafters; and would have heard wails and cackles emanating from the cellar's musty wine casks, but eventually Pistoli would have forgiven this fading memory, simply because women are related to the sea and the moon, and that is why at times they know not what they do.