First, for everyone who subscribes to this blog, thank you! Also, I apologize for a blank blog post that came through today. It was the result of my working to find a way to feature on the front page this wonderful photo taken by a good friend:
Photo Courtesy of Caroline Mandel
One of the things I love about Dabrowski’s ideas of overexcitabilities and living with intensity is that they help me to see the people around me in new, wonderful ways. For example, while I have always appreciated Caroline’s creativity and generous spirit, through a Dabrowskian lens I also see and appreciate her intensities—especially her imaginational and sensual intensities.
Photo Courtesy of Caroline Mandel
I have also been inspired by her continual and steady reaching toward greater personal growth, what Dabrowski called “self-education.” Dabrowski differentiated between the kind of dissatisfaction with oneself that comes from a comparison of oneself with the external environment, which he called “a rather general and primitive phenomenon,” and a more fruitful dissatisfaction or feeling of inferiority that comes from comparing who or where we are now with whom or where we would like to be, “a process of intensive moral and cultural development.”
Photo Courtesy of Caroline Mandel
Far too often I have neglected to thank people in my life who have, without their even being aware of it, made a difference in how I see the world and myself. Caroline, this is my thank you.
- What intensities do you see in the people around you?
- Who has inspired or motivated you to be better than you are now?
- When will you tell them so?
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