Contents
Author — Fedor Efimovich Vasilyuk.
The life world of a person (living being) is divided into the outer world and the inner world.
The outside world can be «easy» or «difficult». Under the «lightness» of the external world is understood the guaranteed security of all the actualized needs of the creature living in it, and under the «difficulty» — the absence of such.
The inner world can be «simple» or «complex». The “simplicity” of the world is most conveniently presented as the one-component nature of life, i.e., as the existence of a single need or a single life relation in a “simple” being. «Complexity» is accordingly understood as the presence of several relations entering into collisions.
The intersection of these oppositions gives the following categorical typology:
Internally simple and externally easy world
This is an infantile life world, the way of life of an infantile person.
His desire is for the immediate (here-and-now) satisfaction of his only (“this is always”) his need. The norm of this world is complete contentment, therefore the life of the being living in it is reduced to immediate vitality and obeys the principle of pleasure. The slightest pain or dissatisfaction is perceived as a global and eternal catastrophe.
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Internally simple and externally difficult world
This is a realistic world, a realist way of life.
The difference between this world and the previous one lies in the fact that the goods necessary for life are not directly given here. External space is saturated with barriers, the resistance of things, and therefore the main «organ» of the life of a creature living here becomes objective activity, equipped with psyche. This activity, due to the simplicity of the inner world, i.e., the striving of life to satisfy a single need (the chronotope “this is always”), is constantly energetically charged, knows no distractions and fluctuations, and is problematic only from the external, technical side (how to achieve it?). In order to be successful, activity must conform to external material reality, and therefore, along with the principle of pleasure, the principle of reality appears here, which becomes the main law of this world. Since the pleasure principle with the demand for here-and-now satisfaction does not disappear from the composition of the world, a fundamental mechanism of «patience-hope» is formed in it, designed to control affects during inevitable delays in satisfying needs.
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Internally complex and externally easy world
This is a valuable world, the world of human existence, living in the world of internal values.
The main problematic of life in an easy and complex world is not external (How to achieve a goal? How to satisfy a need?), but internal (What goal to set? For what to act?). If the psyche develops in the realistic world, then in the easy and complex — consciousness, as an “organ”, the purpose of which is the coordination and conjugation of various life relationships. Inner wholeness is the main vital necessity of this world, and the only principle capable of coordinating multidirectional life relationships is the principle of value.
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Difficult on the inside and hard on the outside
This is the world of creativity, the way of life of a creative person.
In a complex and difficult world, its own specific problems arise, which cannot be reduced to the sum of the problems of the «realistic» and «value» worlds. The main internal necessity of the subject of this world is the embodiment of the ideal supra-situational plan of his life as a whole. This problem has to be solved on the basis of specific situational actions in the face of external difficulties and constantly renewed internal disagreements. At its core, such a task is creative, because it never has a ready-made solution algorithm. Therefore, this type of world is called creative. For life in it, along with the psyche, activity and consciousness, a new “organ” of vital activity is needed — this will.
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