Today, I'm posting an extract from Hermann Hesse's " Autobiographical Writings ", which aptly describes The Human Condition ....something that affects men in general......but bridge players in particular.
" What is great or small, important or unimportant ? The psychiatrists call a man unbalanced if he reacts sensitively and violently to small upsets, small irritations, small injuries to his dignity, when quite possibly the same individual will bear up bravely under sufferings and shocks that most men find it very hard to take. A man who is insensitive to constant humiliations, who puts up with the most wretched music, the most miserable architecture, the most polluted air without complaint, but who pounds the table and cries bloody murder when he loses so much as a trifle at cards, is regarded as healthy and normal. In bridge clubs I have often seen men of good reputation, generally regarded as perfectly normal and honorable, curse and fume so fanatically, so crudely, so bestially - especially when they felt the need of blaming a fellow player for their losses - that I very much wanted to seek out the nearest psychiatrist and have these unfortunates committed. "
Such an interesting observation....such a terrible tragedy.....such a shocking truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment