Friday, August 1, 2008

What Doesn’t Kill Us

For Eve, remembering Sky
(February 17, 1979 - August 26, 2007)


More drew us together even
with (because
of, I would have said) two children than pulled
us apart or so
I thought for thirteen lonely (I see
now) years. It was a suicide that divided us
at last: your baby brother who could no longer
bear Atlas’s burden, could
no longer be what
being is. The earth
rolled off
his lean shoulders—a boulder crashing
down the long ravine you
& I walked, hand-in-
hand with our children—cracking the
wind, knocking you off
your feet, knocking you for
a loop, breaking
the ties that bind; your entrails ripped
from far beneath your heart & just
above your womb.


Saturday, January 26, 2008

What MUST You Be?

"Musicians must make music, artists must paint, poets must write if they are to be ultimately at peace with themselves. What human beings can be, they must be. They must be true to their own nature. This need we may call self-actualization."
~Abraham Maslow,
20th century humanistic psychologist,
from Motivation & Personality


Abraham Maslow taught that the need to grow, to reach our potential, and to self-actualize is an absolutely fundamental need.

According to Maslow, this need to actualize is not a "wish" or a "desire" or a "sure would be nice to have" kind of thing. It's a NEED (like that need we have for oxygen).

To the extent that we’ve taken care of our more basic needs and we’re not satisfying this need to self-actualize, we’re gonna live with anxiety, regret and disillusionment. Period.

The specific manifestation of our self-actualizing process is obviously unique and varies greatly from person to person. As Maslow points out, in one individual it may "take the form of the desire to be an excellent parent, in another it may be expressed athletically, and in still another it may be expressed in painting pictures or in inventing things."

However, in all cases, the question remains: What must you be?

From Brian Johnson's thinkArete.com