Happier as a fool E-Book

Thomas Hofmann

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 81

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Modern man is often intent on taking himself incredibly seriously, and even more so on appearing as such to others. However, those who dare to renounce this self-importance will be prepared to listen to their conscience and live in truth. This not only makes people more self-confident and independent, but also happier and more content. Thomas Hofmann shows various ways of overcoming one's own selfishness in order to allow an almost indestructible strength to emerge through humility.

Leseprobe

Quote

"God has chosen what is lowly and despised in the world: that which is nothing, to destroy that which is something, so that no man may boast before God."

1 Cor. 1, 28-29

The world we live in today

If you look at the world we live in today with its associated current affairs, everything seems to boil down to the fact that we should always strive to be respected by everyone and present as perfect an image of ourselves as possible. Even in the final grades of school, people are taught to conceal their mistakes in job applications and job references must not contain any implicitly negative judgments. When it comes to choosing a partner, it can also be considered modern to no longer start something with the person you love, but to prefer the one who seems more sensible - in other words, better and more substantial. After all, the person who can impress the most has the say, not least among friends.

So it's no wonder that people today are obsessed with making a good impression, hiding their weaknesses as much as possible so as not to be seen as a fool or to arouse the suspicion that they are a bit worse than the others. After all, you want to have a good job, a great wife and be seen as somebody by the rest of the world, you want to be somebody. This also raises the question of who you want to be somebody in front of. For most people, it seems to be enough to be respected by superiors, the attractive sex and friends, to be considered a respected person, so to speak, in order to reap the corresponding benefits. For the somewhat more profound person, this may not be enough and they also want to be seen as something in their own eyes. They want to be able to look at themselves in the mirror in the morning and tell themselves every day what a cool sock or great pike they are. This in turn raises the serious question of whether this person is really deeply convinced of how great they are or whether they don't tend to pretend to be something in order to ultimately see themselves as better than they really think of themselves. The people who seem to me to have the most substance are those who want to be considered great before God. Of course, there is also the danger of falling into a pathological religiosity in which you want to be holier than the Pope. Nevertheless, God can be seen as the objectivity par excellence and, in terms of one's own judgment, probably comes closest to the conscience, which is the innermost core of every person's self. In principle, I think that every person has two fundamentally different types of charisma. Charisma, which I would like to call relative charisma, determines a person's attractiveness. Among other things, it depends on how good and strong a person is able to feel and therefore has an immediate effect on the spontaneous appearance of other people. The other, but more important charisma is what I call absolute charisma. It usually makes itself felt in our intuition as to whether a certain person is good or bad, allows us to intuitively perceive how nice a person is and ultimately also determines how much they remain in our thoughts. This is because it is nothing other than the love that a person has accumulated in their life. Ultimately, what good is it if everyone loves us but we ourselves (even if secretly) hate ourselves? Or as Jesus Christ once said: "What does a man gain if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?" 1

1 Mark 8:36

Alfred Adler and the pursuit of power

If we follow the approaches of the great psychologist and Freud student Alfred Adler 2 , humans are predisposed to always strive for two things: Community and power.

Somewhere, every human being seems to want both of these things, and I don't think this thesis can be completely denied. As Aristotle 3 says, man is a zoon politikon, a being that strives for community, so to speak. As a rule, everyone wants and has colleagues, acquaintances, friends, perhaps even a girlfriend or a spouse. Theological views make this clear by claiming that human beings are created out of love and destined to love. And indeed, this indescribable being also arises from the sexual union of man and woman, which, although not always, can certainly be seen as an act of love. The cruel experiments of Emperor Frederick II 4 . ultimately showed that a person without any affection does not even appear to be capable of living and is ultimately even condemned to physical death. Here we can also consider the approaches of St. Hildegard of Bingen, who always emphasized the connection between body, mind and soul, which already suggests the extent to which a spiritual impoverishment can also affect the body. Ultimately, people can only find themselves through their neighbor. Anyone who thinks they can build up their self-esteem on their own will lose it just as quickly.

This striving for community, which is strongly anchored in the soul, is now countered by the equally strong striving for power - not always, but very often in some cases. It is probably in the human being that he wants to realize himself, to "be someone", to prove to himself or to others how substantial he is. They try to do this in a variety of ways. There are many ways to do this. Some try to do it through sport, others through education and science, while others get involved in politics. Naturally, this leads to competition with others, comparing oneself to how one stands in comparison. Of course, there are some who are better than most, but only some of them can stand it and don't feel offended if someone is even better, which will always happen anyway. But this striving for power can also take on pathological traits, namely when you no longer tolerate anyone better. However, as it is impossible to always be the best and most worthwhile, such people quickly become embittered by pathologically trying to place themselves above others and thus become incapable of love. Often such power games do not even necessarily manifest themselves in official competitions or positions, but take place in personal encounters. The very fact that two people can never be exactly equal in terms of intellect, charisma, morals and personality often leads to unspoken inner conflicts. There is a fight about which of the two is the cooler, more intelligent, in short the one with more personality, and therefore stands above the other. This kind of behavior is often due to the extent to which the potential best friend may be the person with whom you get on the least. It is precisely this striving for power that ultimately destroys one's own personality, as this is often at the expense of one's own conscience, on which the strength of one's personality and self-esteem is radically dependent. The intellect seems to go radically downhill along with the personality, and I suspect that such behavior, or at least rebellious behavior, is also behind the development of dementia, among other things. It is the old biblical battle of Satan, who rebels against God because he cannot bear to have someone even higher above him. This battle takes place constantly and almost everywhere. Among colleagues at work, among friends, often even within our own family. In particular, I suspect that the most common reason for divorces is that the hierarchy within the relationship changes, and now the person who was initially spiritually superior cannot bear to suddenly have to accept the otherwise so manageable spouse as the spiritually superior one. If you consider the fact that closed-mindedness and rebellion always lead to mental and spiritual downfall, but mutual acceptance and love always lead to ascent, it becomes clear why spiritually superior people who cannot bear not being the best ruin themselves, while spiritually inferior people who open up in their humility eventually develop so much love that they are among the best. In this way, Jesus' words are fulfilled: "The first will be last, and the last will be first." 5

It seems that deep down, everyone knows exactly what they have done and what they have not done, or what kind of person they have been in their life so far, which almost forces them through their own conscience to love or hate themselves as a result. The best way to unite the pursuit of power with the simultaneous pursuit of love is probably to become aware of the extent to which one can grow in stronger personalities. If you open yourself up to love and friendship with them, you will ultimately benefit yourself by gaining in intellect and morals and thus also growing in your own personality. So let us always look for people who are better than ourselves, because they are special, worthy of honor and respect, we can learn from them, and they are more worthy of being loved than others. In a way, a religious component flares up here, to orient ourselves towards that which is above us. After all, the search for ever greater personalities and teachers ultimately finds its most sublime form in God, as he is the highest above everything and everyone. Rudolf Otto once described this relationship as faszinosum et tremendum 6