I was reading “Care of the soul” by Thomas Moore last night on the plane trip home. This is a book about looking after you soul. It is deep and very thoughtful and filled with some clever psychological insights. It is a very interesting read. I do have to read it very carefully as it is quite deep and I am not well studied in matters psychological.
One of the thoughts that emerged for me was that I do not know everything there is to know about my subject. In fact the deeper I look, the more I find that I do not know anything at all. The more I look back, the more I see how far I have come and this is an interesting paradox because I feel that I know less now that I ever have and yet I have undertaken more soul searching than ever before. Pretty strange huh! Reading the Care of the soul” also makes me feel that I am pretty stupid when it comes to understanding the motivations and rationale for many of my actions and thoughts and emotions. The author as a psychologist (I have been corrected - see comment - Thomas Moore is a psychotherapist amongst other things) obviously has a big head start here in that this is what he does for a living. I myself cannot hope to fully understand or appreciate all of the concepts that he has included. I am going to be writing this book as a broken and incomplete person. I am going to make statements and have feelings that are filled with error or misunderstanding. I am not going to be right in all that I assert. This is interesting as this is what I want other people to go out and buy and then read and then take something out and then act. Is this a dangerous thing to do? Should I be waiting till I am older and more complete and wiser before I actually write this book. Is there also a catch 22, the older I get the more fixed and unwavering become my view points on the world vs the younger I am the more incomplete is my view.
On the other hand, I will be writing about my experience about making this change. I was asked today if I have done extensive reading on this subject. I must admit that I have not. I do understand that I am the only one that can make sense of my thoughts and fears and expectations and longings and dreams. I hope that through sharing this stuff, others will be able to think more deeply about themselves and hopefully together we can build a better world. My ambitions are small as you can read!!!!
4 comments:
Hi Mark, Thanks for blogging about Care of the Soul. It's a worthwhile book to read carefully and slowly. Moore has been a psychotherapist, not a psychologist, but his insights can be found in other disciplines as well. If you'd like to read more about him and his work, check out Barque: Thomas Moore at http://barque.blogspot.com which talks about his reflections and perspectives. You can also join a free forum associated with Barque which attracts people interested in his work. Good luck with the book and incorporating the helpful comments into your own life.
Hi Ed,
Thanks for the correction - most appreciated - I did a bad thing and assumed!!
You are right about the carefully and slowly - I have accepted the fact that this is book to be read more than once if you really want to get the essence. I will include the link as a useful blog in mine!
I am but a mere engineer responding in a world of complex psychology but for what its worth, here's my 10 pense worth. So who is the judge of what is ignorance and what is worthy - it comes from deep within and is not written in a book that sits somewhere in this oh so confined world in which we all live in. Allow the inner self to express without the narrow constraint of what some other might perceive to be flawed or incorrect thinking. So much structure and such an intense need to try and understand why and how we should all be - there is this thing they call a concience that is the eternal lighthouse of our deepest being that somehow is able to recognise right from wrong. Let's not let the narrow perceptions of what the world believes to be true influence the endless possibilities of the mind!
Hi Victor,
Thank you for taking the time to share your 10 pence worth. As someone who is attracted to Moore's approaches, I think your observation is helpful and directs discussion toward distinguishing between cure and care. Moore's writings generally support a Care approach rather than a Cure approach. James Hillman's work also looks at issues about who decides between ignorance and worth, flawed and correct, right and wrong. Both writers have expressed interest in multiplicity rather than oneness, and the exploration of possibilities rather than certainty. The light of the lighthouse moves around - it is not a steady, direct illumination on one spot.
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