Hysteria in times of hypocrisy

I have an image in my mind, and if I could properly draw or was a painter, I would make a beautiful picture of it, but I will have to put it into words, as I am mostly a writer.

On one side of the picture, there is a person who has a heart. He looks into a mirror and in the mirror is his image, but this one has no heart. He does have a knife however, and that he puts right in the heart of the real person, stretching his arm straight out of the mirror.

It is the image of man and his ego, his mirror image.

Man has a heart, but the ego, which is an illusion, does not. It does however have the capacity to kill our dreams and our belief.

And for most people, the ego is their strength.

I think of the times of Sigmund Freud as very dark times. The world was full of hypocrites, a bit like the present day still is the case in fact. People who rely on their ego, on hiding their emotions, and the life of their heart. This is what is known as keeping up appearances.

Keeping up appearances seems like a rational thing to do, and it has been one of the parts of psychoanalytic vocabulary to refer to the heart, that which is killed by the ego, as our irrational part.

Women in those days were often irrational. They were hysteric. They got crazy from the hypocrisy all around. The need to keep up appearances was too much for them, and they suffered from their hearts, their emotions.

So Freud found that talking through the things they had been through, holding nothing back and hiding nothing, just talking spontaneously about whatever came to mind, softened the pressure they felt, and relieved them of what were called hysterical symptoms.

He did notice however, that his patients never seemed to become truly free, like forever free. There was always something inside which repressed their emotions once again, and the analysis seemed to be interminable.

It is quite understandable, since the ego is a human companion, that there is an agent with the function of keeping things hidden.

But the point that is more important to me, is that we have to make use of this agent, in a world where speaking your heart and living your emotions is called being emotional. You cannot be wild, you cannot live freely. You should always keep up the appearances, you have to be a hypocrite.

But there are people who speak of emotional intelligence. They say the heart is wise and healing. It can help us succeed, they say, it can bring us happiness and fulfillment.

I do not know.

I know the heart is wise, and it gives us pleasure, jokes and fun, but is there a place for the heart in this world?

Or are you just called childish, mad, hysterical, and planted a knife in your chest.

People in the days of Freud called the problems many women had keeping their hearts covered and dead hysteria, and they said they suffered from a uterus that was moving about in their abdomens.

These days, we can just say their hearts are too strong for this world, their souls are too powerful. They cannot keep them down, so they benefit from therapy.

It is a pity really that we in the west need to pay for a place where we can speak our hearts. In some circles, everyone has a therapist, a safe place to vent their emotions and to feel what it is like to just be themselves openly and honestly. A place where they can relax.

It is a pity that with all the people around, people can still not find anyone who will hear them out and listen to their emotions. No one they can turn to with their problems, no one to pay attention to their heart.

People feel like they constantly need to be someone else. They need to be successful, pretty and healthy, they need to always smile and be strong, they always need to be things. So much is demanded from them, and we call this sanity. We call this staying rational. A healthy mind.

However, the heart is alive, and it can be very strongly so. And it needs a place in this world too.

I sometimes feel strange, speaking and thinking about these things. For in earlier days, in other places perhaps, there was a time and a place to speak your heart in front of the whole community. People cared about your feelings, they valued your insight and emotions. They respected what was in your heart. People talked.

But nowadays, here in the civilized world, when we say people talk we mean something else. We don’t mean that people speak about their feelings, no, they talk badly and accusingly of someone who is living from their heart. It is the opposite from what it has to be. Talking is not talking, talking is blaming someone who did talk authentically. Blaming someone who has shown their emotions.

Is it not a disgrace, she has feelings. We cannot have feelings, we have to stay strong, keep up appearances and stay rational.

For the sake of progress.

So when for instance people these days vent their concern for the environment, their love for animals and even human survival, politicians stay rational. They keep up the appearances, and they stab the ones doing the real talking in the heart. They are stuck on progress. They will not be in their bodies. They are keeping the illusions alive. That is their job.

Of course, to what good is an illusion, if it is only killing you? If it is killing us, and the entire planet? You think keeping up appearances is forever a good idea?

I think we need hysteria, we need the inner life, we need to live on the inside.

The mirror image does not live, it does not know how to. And it is jealous I think, of real life. Real life gives it pain. It cannot stand it and it only likes illusions like itself. So it kills it. There, now we are both dead, both you the heart and me the illusion.

One day, man will have to choose between the progress of illusions and the life of his body. He will have to care for his feelings, and will need the courage to speak them and follow this intelligence which is emotional, divine and absolute.

I believe the heart is intelligent too, it is not just being rational that will save the day, it is not the keeping of appearance which is so beneficial. It is finding our strength within and living our true emotions, that will get us there. It is honesty. It is openness, but certainly in a world full of successful hypocrites, one must be mad to show his heart.

People will talk.

Better hide.

Well I hope all the hiding gets us somewhere. Perhaps on another planet, when we have stabbed and murdered every beating heart around. And on Mars perhaps, we can go keeping up appearances all over once again.

Or we can see how the tribe used to function. Sitting in a circle, talking for real, listening to each other’s concerns. Being there for one another.

You think we could?

Or would that feel like therapy already?

And are we ready to heal one another?