Use the power of philosophy to activate the self-healing power of life

Self-healing power is often related to a wound repair mechanism, such as immunity, which becomes the source of self-healing. But philosophically, can everything really be restored to its original state? This may well just be a comfort. For example, we believe that the device can be recycled after charging, but the life loss of the battery itself is irreversible.

"The ability to heal makes us all forget the obvious truth: everyone will eventually die, and many things in life are beyond your control." The Self-Healing Power of Philosophy finds ways to practice thought from the wisdom of words and deeds of philosophers such as Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Epicurus, and Socrates, and tries to match them with contemporary spirituality and individual life. This book rediscovers the virtues of philosophy and the ethics of life: moderation and integration of psychological elements, knowing and contemplating the self.

Any self-healing power

None of them can stop the loss of life

The author offers a rather unusual perspective: what we call self-healing is often full of contradictions. On the one hand, it gives people the illusion of returning to normalcy and normality from a crisis or shock, and at the same time, it also means that a new round of self-consumption will be opened, and the cycle will be repeated. In fact, we often say "full blood resurrection", staying up late to make up sleep, can not restore the "original state of the factory". It is just a blunting of self-perception, which belongs to hypnosis and suggestion. In my opinion, the healing power is a turnover in a trend of consumption, not a cycle back to the beginning. It is like an oversold rally in the investment market, far from a trend reversal.

"Just as you are a living being, you are also a living being on the way to death." Heidegger's "life to death" recognizes this trend. Philosophy has always homogenized the two ancient propositions of "remembering that man will die" and "knowing thyself". No self-healing power can stop the loss of life. The Stoics used optimism and secularism to meditate on death: speak of it, foresee it, face it. As Seneca says, "When misfortune strikes, never say, 'I didn't expect it,' in fact, you should have foreseen them so you wouldn't be caught off guard." ”

Optimism and self-healing power cannot be equated, because optimism also has positive and negative, true and false. The former is based on past successes and confidence in the future, which is a virtuous circle. The latter is based on fantasy, and even does not believe in the possibility of realization. "Most of us live in this fantasy, but this fantasy is divorced from reality and hides the fear of the fantasy actually coming true." – Malcolm X This false optimism is similar to the self-protection mechanism behind self-healing. It may be a pipe dream, not related to successes, "but often related to our resistance, repeated experiences, and the vicious circle in which we have been trapped for years."

It is worth noting that the authors do not view self-healing as an absolutely positive recovery mechanism, and it may also be "mechanical blindness", taking selective avoidance. "If we ignore all of this and only look at the goal, trying to convince ourselves that all the difficulties do not exist, then when difficulties arise, we will not have the resources and tools to overcome them." On the other hand, daily foresight of various resistances, even death, is not the same as negative emotions and negative thinking. It may be confronting and measuring reality, using obstacles "as a springboard for the fulfillment of wishes." We seem to find these two obscured tendencies in this discernment.

Philosophy plays the role of coachman

Balancing the infinite variety of "ego appeals"

So, what effect can philosophy play in this? This is the focus of the whole book. I think it is a philosophical re-understanding of the mind as a whole, which is intended to re-release the mental system and integrate and harmonize the various psychological elements. Desires, desires and emotions must be understood by themselves. "Emotions are the fuel that propels us forward, desire is the arrow that points the way, talent is the tool to move forward, hobbies are feelings in the process, and moderation is the sense of balance, responsibility, and self-management we feel along the way." What happens when everything is in place at the same time? We feel lucky and feel the power of the individual. ”

This means that the mind and the brain must be one, not simply separated by duality. "Lucky, that is, the ability of the body to perceive consciousness in a physical sense." The author describes and divides direction, motivation and practicality. Desire provides direction, which is divided into real desires related to self-actualization, and "induced desires" that have nothing to do with oneself. In this way, the direction of action has the right path and the wrong path. But in fact, it is difficult to draw the line between these two types of desires, so we will easily fall into the fog of consumer society. As Deleuze says, we are all "machines of desire." Nowadays, the popularity of the concept of low desire is essentially the simplification of desire. Only after minimalism will it be easy to discover what is really necessary and which is a false temptation.

Emotions, as the driving force, are the intersexual factors between the body and consciousness, realizing the interconnection between the two. "Emotions, while processed by the limbic system of the brain, often flood other areas of the brain in complex and surprising ways." In other words, emotions can directly affect desire and reason, acting on the mind and body. The author borrows two metaphors from "Gergieff's carriage" and "Plato's winged chariot" to illustrate the organic system of soul reason, body lust, and other factors. Philosophy needs to play the role of a coachman, control various emotions and desires, and coordinate and balance the infinite variety of "ego appeals". Self-knowledge is always based on balancing different and dividing the self. "Everyone is bound to self, needs, desires, purpose, desires, and limitations." Philosophy helps us integrate and maintain the collection of multiple selves and build the wholeness of self-meaning.

Talk about it philosophically

"Signposts" on the road to self-realization

"The Self-Healing Power of Philosophy" yearns for the original state of ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, that is, the teachings that are always about life, the art of conversation, and the art of survival. Life is once again placed at the center of speech, not theories and systems. The author uses philosophy to talk about the "signposts" on the road to self-actualization—various psychological factors, the depth of which lies in the recognition that they are always dichotomy and dialectical. In other words, this view transcends the one-dimensional nature of conventional perception. Having a talent is not necessarily beneficial, it can be a useless burden, or even harmful. Talent should be seen as a tool that can both help blessings and accelerate destruction.

"You can surely cite dozens of stories of people who have been ruined by their talents." I think talent is like "leverage", you have the right to choose whether to increase or deleverage, maximize your possible success, but also take the greatest risk. Talent is the visible judgment of the external world, which others think is obvious, and we can make life choices logically. This is also the cause of many people's pain: because of what talent they have, they must choose what to do. We changed "it doesn't have to be" all to "it all has to be." Sometimes giving up talent and listening to hobbies, emotions and desires means a liberation. "Who says that to have a talent you have to develop it?"

Hobbies, on the other hand, are summoning power from the heart, which breaks the path of objective evaluation of external success. We start from hobbies and do things that we are not good at, which is to follow the inner scale. It pays more attention to self-feeling and has nothing to do with the effect of purpose. Its philosophical meaning is deep, that is, self-facing is only effective if it relies on self-examination, and it constitutes the psychological basis of reflection.

Establish an inner scale

Revalue self-actualization

"There is never an objective external answer that tells us whether a person has achieved self-realization, because self-actualization is also a process of self-education, and this process is based on doubting, asking questions, and listening to one's emotions and physical feelings." This process actually implies that ancient Greece approached philosophy through repeated questioning, and ancient Rome was concerned with self-spiritual training. Michel Foucault once summed up this aesthetics of survival with "self-technique" and "caring for oneself". "We need time to take care of ourselves, take a deep breath and reorient. This direction is related to intellectual, emotional, spiritual, physical. It's a feeling that the ancients groped and cultivated, but we left it behind. ”

What does Maula Gonzidano mean by the "self-healing power of philosophy"? The answer is self-reflection. The ancient Greek oracle "Know thyself" is also a practical link and an important starting point for self-contemplation. At its core, in my opinion, is to establish an internal scale and revalue self-actualization. It is not indifferent to the world and others; Rather, it seeks to establish new connections between the body and soul of the self and the world and others by changing the attitudes, perspectives, and ways of perceiving, living. This is the philosophical self-healing power, which differs from self-healing in the medical and engineering sense: it does not seek to restore the original state, but to seek self-renewal.

The author repeatedly uses the labyrinth of the mind as a metaphor for the dilemma of survival, aiming to show that life has no end, only a lifetime to explore their own path to realization. Self-understanding, self-education, self-contemplation, self-writing and other training are all processes of self-understanding. Essentially, it overlaps with self-actualization. The reason why ancient philosophy emphasizes self-contemplation stems from the fact that others cannot be replaced, and the standard is self-judgment. Comfort and happiness, unlike the secular indicators of success, are good feelings that the spirit acts on the body. Just like whether shoes fit or not, only the feet know.

And we have clearly forgotten the importance of this endogenous life. Contemplative life and spiritual cultivation that focus on oneself will only be regarded as useless and inefficient in a society that values efficiency and practicality. "In fact, the life of contemplation is not an inactive life, but a time dedicated to recalling, listening, meditating, thinking about the meaning of life, during which we can reap the meaning of life, find our hobbies, and clarify the direction we want to pursue." As Heidegger said, we forget about "existence" itself and spend our days in "trouble". Pierre Ado mentioned the crucial significance of spiritual practice for philosophy.

Philosophy should first and foremost be the art of life, "the emphasis of which lies not on rational speculation, but on the concrete attitude towards life." Its purpose is not only to acquire and accumulate information, but also to understand oneself." And the cognition of the modern view of time in life determines that we lose free time. "We have to optimize, fill, capitalize time from a young age, and free time is worthless. Yet time should be free time, not filled time. In other words, our view of time is always linear, cumulative, compensable, always anticipating that retirement can be redeemed once and for all; They are unable to establish a balance, moderation and integration between active work and a contemplative life. Leisure is the state of freedom to cultivate wisdom; Boring also contains time, waiting and space. This may be the premise that philosophy needs to heal itself. (Author: Cultivate)

Source: Liberation Daily