The Depths of the Soul: Psycho-Analytical StudiesStekel, Wilhelm
Science
The Depths of the Soul: Psycho-Analytical Studies
Stekel, Wilhelm
Psychoanalysis
Peace! peace! No, we do not know! Or rather, we do not wish to know.
Naturally, we always have a few superficial motives at our disposal
when it suits us to mask our unconscious secrets from ourselves and
from the world. Why do we travel? Psychologists have given many
reasons, but they do not go beyond such superficial motives as “the
desire for a change,” “a craving for excitement,” “curiosity,”
“fatigue, the need for a rest,” “flight from the home,” etc. Some go
further and attribute the desire to travel to the elementary pleasure
of being in motion. For these psychologists the little child’s first
step is its first journey, the last step of the weary aged their last
journey. Others again veritably classify journeys and distinguish
between trips undertaken for health reasons, business trips, scientific
trips, etc.
Vain beginning! In reality one trip is like another. If we would
understand the elementary feelings associated with a trip we must go
back to our youth. In youth we still have a sense of the wonderful;
in youth the horizon of our fantasies is aglow with wondrous visions.
But of course the world about us is solemn and wearisome, full of
duties and obligations. But ah, the wide world without! There dangerous
adventures smile alluringly; there unrestrained freedom beckons; there
deeds may be achieved that may make kings of us. In our thoughts we
build a small skiff that will take us out of the narrow channel of
our homes into the vast sea; we battle on the prairie with the brave
and crafty Indians; we seek out the sun-burned gold-fields in the new
world; we put a hurried girdle round about the earth, and--when at top
speed--we would even attempt a flight to the moon.
Nothing that makes an impression on the human mind is ever lost. Our
youth with its fantasies and childish desires exerts an important
influence on us all our life. Henceforth all our excursions are
journeys into the realm of youth. All, all are alike. Life hems us
in with innumerable obstacles, bonds, and walls. The older we grow
the greater becomes the weight that loads us down. In the depths of
the soul the tintinnabulation of youth is ringing and speaking to
us of life and freedom, and keeps on ringing alluringly till weary
man surrenders and takes a trip. The tinkling music of the soul works
strongest on the mind of youth. He, fortunate he, knows not the
difference between the music of his heart and the hum of the world
without. He knows not yet that the world is everywhere the same, the
people everywhere the same, and the mountains, the lakes, the seas,
with but slight variations, the same. His longings carry him out, far
out, and he seeks their fulfilment.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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