The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere, good and order, analogy, health and benefit, - the love of truth, tendency to be in the right, no fighter for victory, no cockerel.
The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere, good and order, analogy, health and benefit, - the love of truth, tendency to be in the right, no fighter for victory, no cockerel.
There is an old German saying “When the cock (cockerel) crows on the dung heap the weather will change . . . or stay the same.” There is no need to fight for victory, to proclaim our great place and knowledge, our Truth. Those who do so are like the cock, and equally accurate. What is needed is a “disposition to find good.” A disposition that is applied to every situation: a proclivity for approaching the world in a certain way. The proclivity to find good; to attempt it when we can; and when we cannot, or when we fail, to revisit the situation in our minds and redo the interaction, redo the judgment, so that we see that it is always possible to turn toward the positive. This is the sign of mental health: to allow the possibility that the situation can be seen again in a new and purer light. Without this possibility there will always be the tendency for self-hate. All our wounds have a bit of this self-hate in them. They are linked to times or events in which we have felt, or been made to feel, inadequate. The antidote to these wounds is to accept them with an open heart.
This page is the commentary on Page 56