We have to realize that we are as deeply afraid to live and to love as we are to die.
R. D. LaingRead
Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.
Interpretation
Madness can lead to both destruction and a new understanding or liberation.
R. D. Laing's quote suggests that madness should not be viewed solely as a negative experience or breakdown; instead, it can also represent a breakthrough, a potential for personal liberation and renewal. This suggests a duality in the concept of madness, highlighting that while it can lead to suffering and existential crises, it can also pave the way for profound personal transformation and insight.
In practice
In a mental health seminar discussing the positive aspects of mental illness.
We have to realize that we are as deeply afraid to live and to love as we are to die.
Whether life is worth living depends on whether there is love in life.
The experience and behavior that gets labeled schizophrenic is a special strategy that a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation.
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.
Here we have the paradox, the potentially tragic paradox, that our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being.
There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.
There is a very real relationship, both quantitatively and qualitatively, between what you contribute and what you get out of this world.
All who have lived according to God still live unto God, though they have departed this life. For this reason, God is called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, since He is the God, not of the dead, but of the living
Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.
You can know all there is to know about life and mankind, but what do you really know about yourself?
That's all an angel is....an idea of God.
Maybe he hadn't thought the war through. It had seemed like simple fun when he had first pictured it, with a glorious beginning, a difficult but valor-filled middle, and a victorious end. He hadn't accounted for the fact that there might not be much of a resolution to the battle, and he hadn't imagined what it would feel like when the war just sort of ended, without anyone admitting defeat and congratulating him for his bravery.
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