In 1951, Juan José López Ibor noted that, at least since 1945, there had been those who considered psychoanalysis to be “definitivamente muerto. Polvo y ceniza”, then declaring: “el ciclo psicoanalítico está terminado”. And yet, there it is… What is most striking about this, and other cases, is that it does not make the slightest difference if an idea, theory or doctrine is intellectually refuted and destroyed: once conceived, its survival will depend on other factors than its solidity in the intellectual field.
More unjustifiable than the obsession…
More unjustifiable than the obsession with originality is the embarrassment arising from the realization that what was said now had already been said a long time ago. What to say? The author who, recording his own impressions, notices something that has already been noticed before, instead of being embarrassed that he was not the first, or that he did not know the primary source—which is often untraceable—should be satisfied with having come to the same conclusion through direct perception, rejoicing as do those who find something in common in the other.
The Author Who, for Example, Says Something…
The author who, for example, says something already said by one author, and then says something already said by another, has produced something new: creating a new unity, can already be considered original. It is the same with style, which is almost always a kind of blend, a kind of personal concatenation of different traits learned from different sources which, together, acquire an unprecedented unity. Just as one does not create from nothing, what one creates only consciously dispenses the quality of creation.
It is always a great challenge to balance…
It is always a great challenge to balance conflicting tensions when a predominant tendency manifests itself in the spirit, either compelling externalization or internalization. The personality often reveals this difficulty, the main problem of which is not to follow or move away from the innate tendency, but to deal with the opposite, which often presents itself as a duty. A duty, then, to act against one’s nature, to continually do the most painful thing, under constant threat of condemnation by one’s conscience! Perhaps this is the greatest usefulness of biographies: to record the sprouts of this conflict in the lives of those for whom living is opposed to doing work.