What? The ultimate goal of science is to create the most pleasure possible to man, and the least possible pain? But what if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who wants the greatest possible amount of the one must also have the greatest possible amount of the other, that he who wants to experience the "heavenly high jubilation," must also be ready to be "sorrowful unto death"?

— The Joyful Science

.

Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. Most do not fully see this truth. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy.

— The Road Less Traveled, by M. Scott Peck

Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.

— Carl Jung

“And what is the use of a book, thought Alice, "without pictures or conversations?”

**
“Narrative medicine” is a branch of medicine that deals with narrative competence. Narrative competence is defined by Rita Charon as, “the ability to acknowledge, absorb, interpret, and act on the stories and plights of others”. Though primarily defined to improve the doctor-patient relationship, a “good story” or a narration is also a powerful and effective way of learning medicine.

It is well known, that “stories” and “art” help a person remember better compared to plain text. The famous idiom:

A picture is worth a thousand words

has stood the test of time. We have modified this adage to say:

A story is worth a thousand pages of a text

The “naïve realism” of any healthy person who has not been an inmate of a lunatic asylum or a pupil of the idealist philosophers consists in the view that things, the environment, the world, exist independently of our sensation, of our consciousness, of our self and of man in general.

Our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the external world, and it is obvious that an image cannot exist without the thing imaged, and that the latter exists independently of that which images it. Materialism deliberately makes the “naïve” belief of mankind the foundation of its theory of knowledge.

— Materialism and Empirio-criticism, by Vladimir Lenin

Perceptual (especially visual) illusions are often used to prove the fallibility of our senses and how unreliable they are in our search for the truth. But the very fact that we address them as "illusions" indicates our ability to recognize that there's something more truthful beyond this illusion; in other words, since we're able to perceive both the illusory aspect of these visual illusions and then, after some effort, we can also see the so-called "reality" of it, this tells us that the so-called "illusion" is not merely a veil or a distraction. Rather, it's a fundamental trait and an aspect of the very thing being perceived; a different face, another point of view of the thing.

The most succinct counter-argument to all idealistic philosophy:

أَتَيْتُ بِمَنْطِقِ الْعَرَبِ الْأَصِيلِ
وَكَانَ بِقَدْرِ مَا عَايَنْتُ قِيلِي

فَعَارَضَهُ كَلَامٌ كَانَ مِنْهُ
بِمَنْزِلَةِ النِّسَاءِ مِنَ الْبُعُولِ

وَهَذَا الدُّرُّ مَأْمُونُ التَّشَظِّي
وَأَنْتَ السَّيْفُ مَأْمُونُ الْفُلُولِ

وَلَيْسَ يَصِحُّ فِي الْأَفْهَامِ شَيْءٌ
إِذَا احْتَاجَ النَّهَارُ إِلَى دَلِيلِ

— أبو الطيب المتنبي

قصة هذه الأبيات:

قال أبو الطيب وقد حضر مجلس سيف الدولة وبين يديه أتْرُجٌّ وطَلْعٌ وهو يمتحن الفرسان، فقال ابن حبيش: لا تتوهم، هذا للشرب، فقال أبو الطيب:
شَدِيدُ الْبُعْدِ مِنْ شُرْبِ الشَّمُولِ
تُرُنْجُ الْهِنْدِ أَوْ طَلْعُ النَّخِيلِ

وَلَكِنْ كُلُّ شَيْءٍ فِيهِ طِيبٌ
لَدَيْكَ مِنَ الدَّقِيقِ إِلَى الْجَلِيلِ

وَمَيْدَانُ الْفَصَاحَةِ وَالْقَوَافِي
وَمُمْتَحَنُ الْفَوَارِسِ وَالْخُيُولِ

فأنكر عليه بعض الحاضرين قوله، فقال:
أَتَيْتُ بِمَنْطِقِ الْعَرَبِ الْأَصِيلِ
وَكَانَ بِقَدْرِ مَا عَايَنْتُ قِيلِي

فَعَارَضَهُ كَلَامٌ كَانَ مِنْهُ
بِمَنْزِلَةِ النِّسَاءِ مِنَ الْبُعُولِ

وَهَذَا الدُّرُّ مَأْمُونُ التَّشَظِّي
وَأَنْتَ السَّيْفُ مَأْمُونُ الْفُلُولِ

وَلَيْسَ يَصِحُّ فِي الْأَفْهَامِ شَيْءٌ
إِذَا احْتَاجَ النَّهَارُ إِلَى دَلِيلِ

يكلك فد يوم راح المتنبي لمجلس سيف الدولة وشاف عنده أَترُج وطَلع النخيل، وثنينهن جانن مزة ياكلوها وية الشرب، بس مع ذلك، ما راد يسيء الظن بسيف الدولة. فأثناء ما هو كاعد يمه، واحد من الحاضرين كله: لا تتوهم، ترة هاي علمود الشرب... هنا أبو الطيب رد عليهم بهاي الأبيات بس همين ما سكتوا، ف رد عليهم بالأبيات اللي مطلعها "أتيتُ بمَنطِقِ العربِ الأصيلِ..."

الشَّمول: إسمٌ للخمر.
تُرُنج، أو الأترُج: نوع من الحمضيات (يسمونه بالعامية كبّاد، طرنج).
قِيلي: قَولي.