Transcendance of the Biological Life Cycle
Life of man and animals alike is subject to a developmental, biological cycle. This cycle may be studied in a general or a detailed way. In a general way, cyclicality pertains to the development of man, beginning with birth, through early and late childhood, puberty, youth, adulthood, and the period of aging. Growth and development, a period of stabilization, weakening and decline of powers, and finally death determine the course of life for human beings and animals.
When the life cycle is studied in a more detailed way, we can observe certain departures from its usual course, caused by the activity of internal secretion glands, and, in relation to that activity, periods of intensive energy and of its weakening resulting from various kinds of life stress and from transformations due to puberty, adolescence or menopause. In a detailed approach to the human life cycle we can notice certain strong psychological elements in the realm of development of interests, the sexual instinct, the social instinct, etc.
The lower the phylogenetic standing of a species, the smaller is the number of differences between individuals; the life cycle unfolds in a more unified, integrated manner. It is characterized by uniformity and lack of individual differences. The higher the phylogenetic standing of a species, the more common are individual differences. Among human beings there are considerable differences in the age at which puberty begins, considerable dysfunctions between psychological and physiological maturity, and symptoms of psychological infantilism. Sometimes creative activity increases in middle and old age. In some individuals exclusiveness in love is not weakened although the partners grow older. Love does not disappear, even after the death of one of the partners. Although the survivor is still capable of sexual life, he does not remarry and maintains exclusive feelings.
There are a great deal of phenomena that have been termed by many psychiatrist as “sexual deviations”. This term should not be taken literally. Many of those “deviations”, for example, certain forms of necrophilia, fetishism, or masturbation may fulfill a negative or positive role in the human life cycle, depending on what they represent and on what level of human sensitivity.
Their positive role would be indicated by, inter alia, the accompanying dynamisms of sexual inhibitions controlled by higher centers and their genetic elements, e.g. emotional exclusiveness, existential anxiety, tenderness of feelings, etc. In any case these symptoms indicate certain disturbances in the human life cycle, frequently of positive nature.
Departures from the common path of development frequently occur in the form of neuroses and psychoneuroses in which basic instinctual forces are weakened, inhibited, suppressed or their direction is changed. As a result, the content and rhythm of the human life cycle may undergo considerable transformations.
An individual who inhibits many of his lower drives because of needs arising from higher dynamisms; who excessively develops his Initial, marginal tendencies and inhibits basic tendencies, characteristic of a species or group, departs from the common life cycle.
Excessive empathy, authenticity, development of meditation and contemplation, the experiences and strivings of a Don Quixote, realization of a high hierarchy of ideals until the end of one’s life -- all those symptoms express transcendence of basic human needs, of immediate reality, and traditional forms of adaptation. This attitude expresses a turning away from basic organismic needs and drives, and therefore, a turning away from the human biological life cycle.
Asceticism, empathy, or voluntary death for “higher purposes” clearly contradict the basic dynamisms of the human life cycle. They indicate overcoming of biological determination, appearance of dynamisms of self-determination in one’s life, and growth of the inner psychic milieu and an autonomous hierarchy of values. They are indications of the formation, under the influence of the third factor, of one’s own, autonomous life cycle, and of the rejection of many elements of a biologically determined, “normal” life cycle.
All tendencies to autonomy, authenticity, and self-determination, to the formation of a hierarchy of values and localization of the disposing and directing center on a higher level, express “deviations” from, or rather a climbing, beyond the biological life cycle of man. The described phenomena are symptoms of the transcendence of the human life cycle, its disintegration, and in certain aspects, its degeneration for the sake of a slowly formed own plan, own program, -- indeed human -- conduct, accompanied by subordination of the existing cycle to the autonomically formed cycle.
There are, then, in regard to the human biological cycle, two types of development: (1) One within the framework of the common human life cycle, similar to the biological cycle of animal life; (2) Another within the framework of a “suprabiological” cycle (or, rather, within transcending the biological cycle), which involves an autonomous, authentic development, based on a growing hierarchy of aims, building of an inner psychic milieu, and self-determination. The rise of the second type of development is based on a strong hereditary developmental potential and the gradual development of autonomous factors.
On that level, such interesting phenomena arise, as: a high level of mental activity in severely ill people, even those who are struggling with death; a high level of scientific, moral, and political activity of people in a very advanced age (Gandhi, de Gaulle); compensatory mental activities at the level of genius in individuals with considerable atrophy of the cortex (Pasteur).
These phenomena indicate that the lower structures and dynamisms are subservient to the higher. The latter maintain their independent function, although lower functions, on which they are based according to the generally accepted view, are weakened or lost.
Even when certain features of that process are not present, basic departures from the human biological cycle through opposition to the animalistic species-specific tendencies, transformation of the lowest levels of drives, and rebellion against a definite reality accompanied by inclination to asceticism, sacrifice, or suicide -- indicate good prospects in this direction.
The following is an excerpt from the autobiography of one of my patients: “How bored I am by the monotony and automaticity of life: get up, go to work, eat, sometimes movies, superfluous conversations, automatic adaptation to the group. I am becoming restless and dejected through the observation of monotony and rigidity of children’s behavior during puberty, behavior of women during menopause, behavior of old men. It is the same, all the same . . . Everything is under the influence of physical determinism, hormonal glands, psychological type, etc. No freedom, no independence, no truly humanistic attitudes. Everything is determined without regard for our independence, but we are led to believe that we decide something, that certain matters depend on us. How difficult it is to get out of all that! And how to do it? Perhaps through sainthood or suicide.”
Definition
Transcendence of the biological life cycle consists of the formation of new Dominants of conduct and behavior, of a plan and a program of one’s own strivings that are characterized by breaking the rigid dependence on the biological cycle and by gaining freedom from the subordination to the basic, common dominants; it consists of gradual liberation from the biological cycle and of growth of autonomous, authentic mental functions, and a disposing and directing center or centers on a higher level which are independent of the biological life cycle.
