{"id":151150,"date":"2012-11-30T09:46:25","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T07:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/paul-watzlawick-on-human-maturity\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T19:50:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T17:50:03","slug":"paul-watzlawick-on-human-maturity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/espirited.com\/en\/paul-watzlawick-on-human-maturity\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Watzlawick on the essence of human maturity"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“The ability to live with relative realities, with questions that have no answer, with the knowledge that you know nothing and with the paradoxical unconsciousnesses of existence\u2014this is precisely the essence of human maturity and the resulting tolerance toward others.” \u2014 Paul Watzlawick<\/b><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I very much like this thought by Paul Watzlawick from his book M\u00fcnchhausen’s Pigtail or Psychotherapy and “Reality”<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It reminds me of another psychotherapist whose ideas have had a great influence on me\u2014C.G. Jung<\/b>, who at the end of his life wrote: “the older I became, the less I understood or penetrated myself.”<\/i> He added that “when Lao Tzu says: \u2018All are clear, I alone am cloudy,\u2019 that is the same thing I feel in my advanced age”<\/i> (see the post “The Late Years of a Mystic<\/a>“).<\/p>\n

There are moments in our lives when we need clarity of mind to exit the enchanted circle in which we have long found ourselves. But there are also moments when exactly the opposite is appropriate\u2014to leave the cloudless sky of our unquestioned conviction in the things we know.<\/p>\n

Life is a mystery, and we open ourselves to it only when we become “cloudy.”<\/b><\/p>\n

Kameliya<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“The ability to live with relative realities, with questions that have no answer, with the knowledge that you know nothing and with the paradoxical unconsciousnesses of existence\u2014this is precisely the essence of human maturity and the resulting tolerance toward others.” \u2014 Paul Watzlawick I very much like this thought by Paul Watzlawick from his book […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":153481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[648],"tags":[661,673,718,645],"class_list":["post-151150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emotional-intelligence","tag-mental-health","tag-various-psychotherapies","tag-systemic-psychotherapy","tag-thought-of-the-day"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t