"The daily confrontation with the...gremlins of fear and lethary obliges us to choose between anxiety and depression...Anxiety will be our companion if we risk the next stage of our journey, and depression our companion if we do not...
"Clearly, psychological or spiritual development requires a greater capacity in us for the toleration of anxiety and ambiguity. The capacity to accept this troubled state, abide it, and commit to life, is the moral measure of our maturity.
"[invoking Jung] '...Fear is a challenge and a task, because only boldness can deliver from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is somehow violated'."
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, James Hollis, PhD
Hmm....
1. Oh thank goodness! because many of my tasks these days involve overcoming fear, so now I have that smug feeling of double-billing - not only am I taking care of some things I've needed to, but also I'm exhibiting a very moral maturity.
2. That phrase "moral maturity" gives me the little tiny creepies feeling generally accompanying my resistance to anything I hear as arrogant, condescending, exclusive, or dogmatic. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure Dr. Hollis is none of these - this is a book of firm advocacy toward a person's own liberation through maturity, and my experience is of being uplifted by reading it.
3. The image opening the quote would make a great classical painting, don't you think?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
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