PREFACE Did I plan to write this story of my life? Not really, for several reasons: I did not think I had much to say about myself; if I had, I thought it might not be interesting; or, even if it was, I was certain nobody would be interested in reading it. People are only interested in reading the life stories of great men and women. They think ordinary people have nothing special to offer. One can learn nothing from them. All they say is very trivial, unimportant, just like the idle chat one hears aboard a bus, a train, in waiting rooms, restaurants, etc. I, myself, have read many biographies, but only of great people from Antiquity to modern times, from the East and the West, to mention but two: Chuang Tzu (between 399 and 295 BC) and Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962). However, over the past ten years, I have read dozens of case histories of ordinary people like myself in several psychology books. The texts are of different lengths, going from a few paragraphs to several pages. I learned many interesting things from these little people that I have not learned from the great men, as the Arab saying goes,
One finds in the river one doesn’t in the sea.
I felt closer in many aspects to, and sympathetic with them. I used to complain not to anyone else, but to myself, of loneliness. As I started to get more and more in contact with such suffering people, and there were so many of them, one day I said to myself, That is right,
I am alone. But I am not the only person Who feels alone. Nearly everyone does nowadays All over the world And throughout History. Therefore, I am not alone. I feel in union and communion With all those solitary people.
In 1999, right after my retirement, I went through a very serious crisis due to burnout, as I had worked for twenty-two and a half years at a stretch seven days a week throughout the year, for my work was my hobby, and my hobby was my work. I had to undergo therapy in Los Angeles, California. When I filled out the application, I was asked by my therapist to supply him not quite with an autobiography, but an account of mainly my childhood and adolescence. It was not to be published in a book, but just for his information to put in my le. I immediately did as I was asked. It was indeed painful reliving all those childhood traumas. However, in the end, I felt relieved. I did not know exactly why and how until I read, by chance, in Emotional Alchemy: how the Mind can Heal the Heart, by Tara Bennett-Goleman, that just getting these feelings out had surprisingly bene cial effects ( New York: Harmony Books, 2001, p. 186). The author referred to a book entitled, Opening Up: the Healing Power of Expressing Emotions, by James W. Pennebaker ( New York: Guilford Press, 1990). Then I came across another book called, Writing as a Way of Healing: how Telling our Stories Transforms our Lives, by Louise DeSalvo (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000).
|