Among the questions to the Armenian radio — the hero of numerous late Soviet jokes — was the following: «Is there life on Mars?» «Not either,» the radio replied.
Today, interest in distant planets is noticeably inferior to interest in the human psyche. More interested in whether there is life after death. But more importantly, is there life before it.
We used to call life everything that happens to us between birth and death. This is quite an exaggeration. There is a huge amount of non-living things in our life. The great psychotherapist James FT Bugental likes to use as an illustration a cartoon he once saw in a Saturday paper. Dad, mom and son of 10-12 years old leave the cinema, and the child asks thoughtfully: “Are we alive or on film?” The question is not idle, Bugental calls it the most important question of our life.
In our psyche — all without exception — there is a huge amount of «taped» forms of behavior, words, feelings, reactions to all kinds of situations. Some of them are habits developed by repetition, some are acquired in a finished form from the family, from people around them, from books, films, etc.
“PERCEIVE THE WORLD WITH OPEN EYES, CLEAR CONSCIOUSNESS AND INCLUDE YOUR WHOLE “I”.
The tapes turn on themselves in a suitable situation and begin to play the recorded. And, like any record, they play the same way every time. The repertoire of tapes makes our life easier, saves time and attention in many routine situations and makes us ready for many repetitive events. However, we only truly live when we refuse to turn on the finished recording and perceive what is happening for the first time — with eyes wide open, clear consciousness and the inclusion of all his «I». When we are interested in what else the world will bring us, and we are ready to enter into a dialogue with it. When we do not know what will happen in the next moment, but we are ready for the fact that he will bring something unknown with him. “He who does not expect the unexpected will not know the hidden,” said Heraclitus.
Life is the most important occupation that requires involvement, clear consciousness and effort. A lot of people don’t take it seriously. We are surrounded by many people who eat, drink, work, have fun, breed, but do not live. After all, living is something that changes, which can always be different. And when a person dotted all i’s and recorded ready-made answers to all questions on tape, he psychologically already died.
“They already have names and feelings prepared for everything,” said Teddy, the hero of Salinger’s story of the same name, about such people. The textbook image of a person who died during his lifetime is a Chekhovian man in a case. Life is a struggle with the dead in oneself. The struggle not to die before death.