Everything natural and profound is simple

InformationLiberation
Oct. 15, 2008

Wisdom from the writings of Wilhelm Reich

"It is precisely this "simplicity" in human intercourse that is so incomprehensible to the armored organism. Everything natural and profound is simple. The simple, grand lines of emotional expression are known to characterize the great painter, musician, poet, novelist and scientist. But the simple is alien to the armored organism. Its impulses are so complicated in their form of expression, the manner of their utterance is so muddled and contradictory that it has no organ for the simple and unequivocal emotional expression. It even lacks a sense of simplicity. Its love is mixed with hatred and anxiety. The unarmored organism loves unequivocally in love situations, hates unequivocally where hatred is legitimate, and fears unequivocally where fear is rational. The armored organism hates where it should love, loves where it should hate, and is frightened where it should love or hate. Complexity is the specific life expression of the armored person He is trapped, as it were, in the multiple contradictions of his existence. Since he approaches all experiences with his complex character structure, his experiences become equally complicated. He is amazed at the accomplishments in the area of special talent barred to him. "Genius" become a kind of abnormal monster, because he cannot understand the great simplicity in the life expression of "genius." In the consistent stripping away of the layers of character, one discovers that complexity epitomizes the defensive mechanism in its purest form. The armored person is complicated because he has a mortal terror of everything simple, straightforward and direct. I say: mortal terror. This is no literary exaggeration. The word accurately describes the process: the simple, straightforward, direct expression inescapably leads periodically to orgastic plasma convulsions.

The armored person cannot express himself with immediacy because his natural impulses are distorted, fragmented, inhibited, and transformed in the tangled net of his character structure. The armored person perceives himself and the world as complicated because he has no immediate contact, no straightforward relationship to the world around him. The secondary result is that over the years this world becomes actually complicated. Since these complications make an ordered existence impossible, artificial rules in "human intercourse" emerge: rigid mores, customs, rules of etiquette, diplomatic maneuvers."

- Wilhelm Reich, "Ether, God and Devil"

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