From: ibshambat@gmail.com   
      
   In a song called "Ships," the Soviet Union's greatest songwriter Vladimir   
   Vysotsky stated, "I have no trust in fate, in myself even less faith." This   
   statement poses a profound challenge to much contemporary thought in   
   psychology.   
      
   According to contemporary psychology, self-faith (or self-esteem) is a   
   prerequisite for a successful existence. According to this thought, Vysotsky   
   should have been a complete loser. And yet he was one of the most successful   
   singers and songwriters in    
   all of history. How can this be?   
      
   Well it turns out that there is a very obvious reason why this can be.   
   Self-faith and self-esteem are far from the only powers out there. Vystosky   
   has been described by many people as being "the soul of Russia." What does   
   this mean?   
      
   What this means in real-world terms is that he felt what the people of Russia   
   were feeling and giving these feelings expression. People love those who   
   articulate what they themselves feel, especially the feelings that they   
   themselves either don't know    
   how to, or are not allowed to, express. People love an empath, especially a   
   vocal empath. So that even someone like Eminem, who expresses the ugliest of   
   feelings, gets a huge following by tapping into what people are feeling and   
   expressing it for them.   
      
   With Vysotsky, the feelings that he was expressing ranged across the board of   
   Russian people. He had songs about people fighting in Second World War; about   
   prisoners; about drunks; about punks; even about mental patients. And because   
   of the vast    
   emotional effort that he had put into feeling and then expressing what others   
   were feeling, his own feelings were so enmeshed with those of others that,   
   even when he was only expressing himself - as he did in "Ships" - his feelings   
   still spoke to those    
   of his audience.   
      
   In the West, the artists are taught to express their own feelings. This   
   advice, I have found, is counterproductive. It gets the artistic types accused   
   of self-absorption even as it fails to develop their ability to speak to the   
   rest of the world. The    
   vast success of Vysotsky, and the lack of interest that many people in the   
   West have for the arts, show just how counter-productive this stance has been.   
      
   But there is something even more profound in this matter. Faith is by   
   definition in things that are outside of what it is that believes. When one is   
   in touch with something that is more profound than one's self - as was   
   Vysotsky with the feelings of    
   Russian people - then one does not need to have faith in oneself; indeed one   
   does not need to have faith period. One is already in touch with a vast and   
   powerful presence that extends far beyond oneself. And that is a source of far   
   greater wisdom and far    
   greater power than is self-belief.   
      
   Instead of teaching people to look within, it is far more effective to teach   
   them to look outside of themselves - at other people, at nature, at other   
   cultures than their own. The success of Vysotsky far exceeds that of any   
   self-esteeming yuppie, and    
   there is a very good reason for that. He was in touch with something much   
   deeper than his immediate self, and he put words to it. And it is for this   
   reason that his songs are still being listened to all over Russia over 30   
   years after his death.   
      
   Ilya Shambat    
   https://sites.google.com/site/ilyashambatthought   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)