Without Realizing That The Past Is Constantly

People Who, As Children, Were Intellectually Far Beyond Their Parents And Therefore Admired By Them, But Who Also Therefore Had To Solve Their Own Problems Alone. These People, Who Give Us A Feeling Of Their Intellectual Strength And Will Power, Also Seem To Demand That We, Too, Ought To Fight Off Any Feeling Of Weakness With Intellectual Means. In Their Presence One Feels One Cannot Be Recognized As A Person With Problems Just As They And Their Problems Were Unrecognized By Their Parents, For Whom He Always Had To Be Strong.

It Was Not The Beautiful Or Pleasant Feelings That Gave Me New Insight, But The Ones Against Which I Fought Most Strongly: Feelings That Made Me Experience Myself As Shabby, Petty, Mean, Helpless, Humiliated, Demanding, Resentful Or Confused, And Above All, Sad And Lonely. It Was Precisely Through These Experiences, Which I Had Shunned For So Long, That I Became Certain That I Now Understood Something About My Life, Stemming From The Core Of My Being, Something That I Could Not Have Learned From Any Book.

Those Children Who Are Beaten Will In Turn Give Beatings, Those Who Are Intimidated Will Be Intimidating, Those Who Are Humiliated Will Impose Humiliation, And Those Whose Souls Are Murdered Will Murder.

Discipline Is ... Life-inhibiting, Is At The Very Least Curtailment Of Vital Activity Insofar As The Latter Cannot Develop As It Wishes But Is Confined Within Specific Limits And Subjected To Specific Rules.

The Commandment To Refrain From Placing Blame On Our Parents, Deeply Imprinted In Us By Our Upbringing, Skillfully Performs The Function Of Hiding Essential Truths From Us.