Be greeted psychoneurotics!

[Renaissance]

http://members.shaw.ca/positivedisintegration/greet.htm

A poem by K. Dabrowski.

"Be greeted psychoneurotics!

For you see sensitivity in the insensitivity of the world,
uncertainty among the world's certainties.

For you often feel others as you feel yourselves.

For you feel the anxiety of the world, and
its bottomless narrowness and self-assurance.

For your phobia of washing your hands from the dirt of the world,
for your fear of being locked in the world’s limitations.
for your fear of the absurdity of existence.

For your subtlety in not telling others what you see in them.

For your awkwardness in dealing with practical things, and
for your practicalness in dealing with unknown things,
for your transcendental realism and lack of everyday realism,
for your exclusiveness and fear of losing close friends,
for your creativity and ecstasy,
for your maladjustment to that "which is" and adjustment to that which "ought to be",
for your great but unutilized abilities.

For the belated appreciation of the real value of your greatness
which never allows the appreciation of the greatness
of those who will come after you.

For your being treated instead of treating others,
for your heavenly power being forever pushed down by brutal force;
for that which is prescient, unsaid, infinite in you.

For the loneliness and strangeness of your ways.

Be greeted!

From: Dabrowski, K. (1972) Psychoneurosis is not an illness, London: GRYF Publications.

 

[Redrock12]

Thanks for writing this K. Dabrowski. And thank you Shane, for posting it.

 

[SeekingtheTruth]

Thank you for posting this! I am going to have this framed!

 

[Mr. Premise]

Nice quote.

I would, though, want to balance it with Gurdjieff's statements on Obyvatels. There is a need for "psychoneurotics" to learn to make their way in the world in a practical way before beginning esoteric work. In other words, some care should be taken, I think, in celebrating maladjustment. But since the world usually denigrates maladjustment, the quote is a good corrective.

 

[Renaissance]

Nice quote.

I would, though, want to balance it with Gurdjieff's statements on Obyvatels. There is a need for "psychoneurotics" to learn to make their way in the world in a practical way before beginning esoteric work. In other words, some care should be taken, I think, in celebrating maladjustment. But since the world usually denigrates maladjustment, the quote is a good corrective.

I'm sure feelings of maladjustment can be easily twisted by lower drives to reject the world and make one inactive. However, I don't think Dabrowski would have included such under positive maladjustment. The corrective aspect you mentioned was probably the intention of Dabrowski and I think goes in the same direction of becoming a good obyvatel. I think the acceptance of devaluation or perhaps even the dehumanization of those 'abnormal' feelings directed to an abnormal world may be more debilitating in efforts to become a good obyvatel than the 'chaos' of neurosis. To feel valid in sensing a connection to humanity is liberating; I think that was what Dabrowski was trying to cultivate.

 

[Mr. Premise]

I agree, well put.

I thought about it some more and came to think that we could distinguish between primary adjustment and secondary adjustment. Real Obyvatels would be examples of primary adjustment. They basically come into the world very comfortable with it. People who are on a path start out with primary maladjustment and may proceed to secondary adjustment and then begin esoteric work, or maybe achieve secondary adjustment with esoteric work.

Nice quote.

I would, though, want to balance it with Gurdjieff's statements on Obyvatels. There is a need for "psychoneurotics" to learn to make their way in the world in a practical way before beginning esoteric work. In other words, some care should be taken, I think, in celebrating maladjustment. But since the world usually denigrates maladjustment, the quote is a good corrective.

I'm sure feelings of maladjustment can be easily twisted by lower drives to reject the world and make one inactive. However, I don't think Dabrowski would have included such under positive maladjustment. The corrective aspect you mentioned was probably the intention of Dabrowski and I think goes in the same direction of becoming a good obyvatel. I think the acceptance of devaluation or perhaps even the dehumanization of those 'abnormal' feelings directed to an abnormal world may be more debilitating in efforts to become a good obyvatel than the 'chaos' of neurosis. To feel valid in sensing a connection to humanity is liberating; I think that was what Dabrowski was trying to cultivate.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

I agree, well put.

I thought about it some more and came to think that we could distinguish between primary adjustment and secondary adjustment. Real Obyvatels would be examples of primary adjustment. They basically come into the world very comfortable with it. People who are on a path start out with primary maladjustment and may proceed to secondary adjustment and then begin esoteric work, or maybe achieve secondary adjustment with esoteric work.

Dabrowski actually talks about these as well. He called them positive adjustment and negative adjustment.

 

[Renaissance]

Here's a short quote from Dabrowski which touches on a similar dynamic Gurdjieff described in being a good obyvatel before doing the Work.

{bold is in the original to identify an implication of D's Theory of Positive Disintegration, followed by an explanation}


Authentic love of mankind, empathy toward and responsibility for all people cannot occur before the growth of deep and exclusive emotional bonds with family, friends, small communities, profession and nation.

Authentic feelings toward mankind must be preceded by authentic and empathic feelings toward above-mentioned communities. Sometimes the growth of feelings of a universal nature is followed by a genuine interest in and concern for local communities, traditions, etc.

This showed for me how much I've identified with feelings of 'love for humanity' while doing the Work because the deep emotional bonds that Dabrowski described at the most basic level are lacking in my life. The obstacle of living in a ponerized society where few are seeking to be normal surely makes things difficult, but I wonder how much of that can be used as a rationalization. Perhaps the idea of 'deep and exclusive emotional bonds' has to be adjusted for each relationship and developed through external consideration.