Is anyone out there familiar with the story about Pygmalion? The mythology, actually...
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_%28mythology%29
Pygmalion is a legendary figure of Cyprus. Though Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton,[1] he is most familiar from Ovid's Metamorphoses, X, in which Pygmalion is a sculptor who falls in love with a statue he has made.
In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides prostituting themselves, he is 'not interested in women', but his statue is so realistic that he falls in love with it. He offers the statue presents and eventually prays to Venus (Aphrodite). She takes pity on him and brings the statue to life. They marry and have two daughters, Paphos and Metharme.[2]
Ovid's mention of Paphos suggests that he was drawing on the same sources as the brief account of Pygmalion and Galatea in Bibliotheke, a Hellenic mythography of the second-century CE that was formerly attributed to Apollodorus. Pygmalion is the Greek version of the Phoenician royal name Pumayyaton, and Galatea figures in the founding legend of Paphos in Cyprus.
One of the most famous renditions of this - is - My Fair Lady - remember Henry Higgins?
Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(play)
But what I wanted to share today was more of a question than a statement... about the ability we have to ruin things for ourselves... and to set ourselves up for failure and to perpetuate the cycle...
Sometime ago I had read a short story by John Updike - it, also titled Pygmalion - you can read it here as it was originally posted...in 1981...
Link:http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/81jul/updike.htm
I believe that we get so comfortable in our surroundings and habits that even if we appear to outwardly - actively - work to change, there is something subconscious that works on another agenda...
Like sometimes we find ourselves forced out of a loving relationship - and if we look back - we see things we had done that sabotaged it on some level...and ask ourselves why?
Or in our work environment...
Or with our family and friends...
I believe that this process of tools is an excellent way to work on all levels - we have audio, visual, and if we choose tactile ways that we can get this information into our 'beings' - things are repeated over and over again - drilled down and in...
but I wondered if you guys had asked those questions (I'm sure you have - I do...)
It makes me wonder why I can go along so well and then crash so hard - and why prior to this program I would quit - and why I insist on not failing the Tools for Life...what's different about this over some of the other things that we've all attempted...?
comments
Wow!
Hi Monk-very interesting and enlightening info on pygmalion! I had a general idea but nothing specific that I could explain to anyone else. I can relate to the concept of not being aware of our own contributions to whatever happens to us--good or bad. We are encouraged to 'never look back'--just go forward, but it is in the 'looking back' that I have been able to learn from the experience--and try not to repeat the same thing over again. Not an easy task though. Pat
good questions
and very thoughtful. I've wondered about Tools myself. Think he has some subliminal messages in those audio things he puts together??? It's funny cos I don't usually stick with things either...
Thanks for posting - interesting read.
Yep. Monk, you're right.
Coach Steele has something special going here. Much of Tools is the same as other self-help programs, but he's organized it in a different way and he's added a couple of unique twists.
Hey, who knew I'd be at almost Day 60 by now? How 'bout that.
Thanks for your insights (and the lesson on The Classics).