Tag: philosophy

Lavelle makes an interesting distinction between the free man and the slave, identifying the former as the one who makes joy coincide with his most habitual activity, and the latter as the one who separates them. Thus, what distinguishes them is the satisfaction in what they do, which goes beyond the circumstances to which they are subjected. Of all the things that flow from this vision, this is perhaps the most important: sometimes it takes little to be free, and sometimes one is a slave without knowing it.

Another one by Lavelle:

Toute notre responsabilité porte donc sur l’usage des puissances qui nous appartiennent en propre. Nous pouvons les laisser perdre ou les faire fructifier. Ainsi notre vocation ne peut être maintenue que si nous restons perpétuellement à son niveau, si nous nous montrons toujours digne d’elle. Le rôle de notre volonté est plus modeste qu’on ne croit ; c’est seulement de servir notre génie, de détruire devant lui les obstacles qui l’arrêtent, de lui fournir sans cesse un nouvel aliment : ce n’est point de modifier son train naturel ni de lui imprimer une direction qu’elle a choisie.

The most obvious distinction for he who seriously discusses topics such as vocation, happiness, and fulfillment is to use words such as responsibility, effort, and duty. The “will”, therefore, can never be understood as an inclination toward the pleasant, the pleasurable, the Freudian infantile pleasure, but only as an effective commitment to overcoming obstacles, as a resistance that prevents the individual from moving away from his own center, and does so only by stimulating him to be what he is.

Another one by Lavelle:

Tout le secret de la puissance et de la joie est de se découvrir et d’être fidèle à soi dans les plus petites choses comme dans les plus grandes. Jusque dans la sainteté, il s’agit de se réaliser. Celui qui tient le mieux le rôle qui est le sien, et qui ne peut être tenu par aucun autre, est aussi le mieux accordé avec l’ordre universel : il n’y a personne qui puisse être plus fort ni plus heureux.

The most curious thing about this truth, expressed by Lavelle in the clearest and most direct way imaginable, is that it can only be understood by those who have experienced it to some degree. “Il s’agit de se réaliser”—and the means by which it can be done are so varied that it is very difficult to grasp it as a common experience, as perhaps necessity, destiny and individual duty. The worst thing is to see that, in many cases, there is no one other than the individual himself capable of identifying and judging “le rôle qui est le sien”.

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.