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Philosophy in general helps us to resist any adversity and catastrophes, – psychologist Dmitry Leontiev reflects. – Firstly, it gives shape and strength to our inner world – the only one on which we can rely when the outside world is not favorable to us in everything. Secondly, philosophy helps to see patterns in the world, connect causes with effects, and thereby understand whether we can influence the situation and explore the limits of our capabilities.
Dmitry Leontiev – Doctor of Psychology, Professor of Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov. Among his books is The Psychology of Meaning (Sense, 2003).
Cicero: “The most reliable refuge from life’s storms is philosophy”
“Philosophy in general helps us resist any adversity and disaster,” says psychologist Dmitry Leontiev. – Firstly, it gives shape and strength to our inner world – the only one on which we can rely when the outside world is not favorable to us in everything. Secondly, philosophy helps to see patterns in the world, connect causes with effects, and thereby understand whether we can influence the situation and explore the limits of our capabilities. Thirdly, philosophy sets a different, more correct scale for comparing and evaluating events, not allowing a tragedy to be inflated from a trifle and, conversely, devalue what is really important.
About it: Cicero “Philosophical Treatises”, Science, 1995
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- 3. Read philosophers
Montaigne: “The greatest thing in the world is to be yourself”
“It would seem that being yourself is so simple that there is nothing to even talk about. But man is the only being who has such a developed ability to go beyond what is given to him and transform himself that he sometimes abuses this, trying to become someone else. The famous Hasidic sage Rabbi Zusya from Ganipol said before his death: “In another world they will not ask me:“ Why were you not Moses? They will ask me: “Why were you not Zusya?” *. Psychologist Karen Horney has shown that the origins of all neuroses begin when, instead of realizing oneself, a person begins to try to realize the ideal image of the “I” that he wants to be, betraying his real “I”. But without peace and mutual understanding with oneself one cannot go through the dangerous thresholds of life’s vicissitudes without loss.
* M. Buber “Hasidic Traditions”. Republic, 1997.
About it: M. Montaigne “On the art of living with dignity”, Children’s literature, 1975.
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- Find beauty at any age
Seneca: “Old age, the happiest age in life”
“I do not presume to judge what I myself have not yet experienced. But the fact that old age frees us from many unnecessary pressures and demands, freeing up our resources for what we like (unless, of course, we have to fight for survival, which, alas, falls to the lot of quite a few who are deprived of funds in old age). and family support). The main question is whether you have something to do with your freed time, without killing it with anything, an activity that allows you to rediscover yourself, a meaning that casts a new reflection on a life that is not yet over.
About it: Seneca “On the brevity of life”, Glagol, 1996.
Viktor Frankl: “The past is the most reliable form of being”
“Viktor Frankl paradoxically wraps up the ancient sad wisdom “Everything passes”, revealing unexpected resources of optimism in it. Nothing goes into the past, it remains there. It is by falling into the past that thoughts, deeds and events fall into eternity, which extends to the threshold of the present. What has passed has already taken place, and no one can erase it from life or question it, unlike what is ahead, whether it will happen or not … Hence Frankl’s paradox: we are not moving from the past into the future, and from the future into the past, “man’s own past is his true future, which he must wait for.” And only when life is over, it becomes finally held.
About it: V. Frankl “Man in search of meaning”, Progress, 1990