Neuroscientists, studying lobsters, have concluded that unsuccessful humans tend to be physically and psychologically more reactive to events that arouse emotions, especially negative ones, due to their low serotonin levels. In contrast, successful humans will have the opposite disposition: they will be less reactive, less alert, distinguishing themselves as calm and confident individuals. Ah, how beautiful simplifications are! Is it really true that, except in extreme cases, the unsuccessful man becomes reactive and psychologically fragile, while the successful man becomes a kind of psychological fortress, serene and at peace? Or is it that, more often than not, when psychological adolescence is overcome, failure teaches humility and success tends to inflate self-esteem, which imprisons, disturbs, paralyzes, and ultimately causes such severe heartbreak that the humble man can only conceive of it with great effort? Which of them fears failure more? Which one is more concerned with what he might lose? … This is the biggest problem in science. The mature man, who is not just a pile of molecules, if he looks back on the past, will surely say, “Thank God I failed.”
Category: Notes
Suffering Is the Quintessential Human Experience
However much we want to avoid it, suffering is the quintessential human experience, universalizing the words of Buddha to Jesus Christ, the music of Beethoven, and the poems of Camões. One cannot be human without it; to feel is to suffer. Ultimately, reflection ends up demonstrating its value. And something good springs from it, as the great and impeccable Louis Lavelle once said. Thanks to suffering, we are understandable and we can understand.
More Than Once, These Notes Have…
More than once, these Notes have expressed lamentations in the face of injustice. And it is sad to see that, apparently, they will never cease. Modernity has made it much easier to hate. It has made targets more visible, more accessible, and, above all, it has benefited the grouping of hordes, whose actions are both systematic and diffuse, easily destroying a reputation. Hence, we repeatedly see the example of that good man who devoted his entire life to study and, at the end of his life, when the years had given him maturity of speech, had his life destroyed in response to his sincere exposition. May at least the words and example of Jesus serve as consolation.
Curiously, Influence and Success…
Curiously, influence and success are often accompanied by controversy, and controversy by envy, hatred, and defamation. This rule applies regardless of the personalities and the nature of what is exposed to the public, which loves and hates, admires and envies. Polemicists know it as well as saints and spiritual leaders. The noble and the scoundrel, the impassioned and the refined, are all familiar with it. Thus, to seek the former without understanding the natural course of things is to subject oneself to a rather unpleasant ordeal from which there seems to be no escape.