Author: diana Stone

OK, little electro-chemical impulses form the stuff of our thoughts and so presumably our very consciousness is a bunch of electrical patterns, so my thoughts and my feelings are the software running on the squishy bits inside my skull. So could my consciousness exist outside my body? If it could would it be able to reside somewhere else.

Could it ever end up matrix style in a machine? If what I know as me, that which gazes out through the windows of my eyes is not the body but the body is just the house my mind lives in then could mind travel on its own to other places? Would I have anyway of knowing that what I perceive as real is the same reality as others experience?

When I shuffle off the mortal coil is all that information lost as the electrochemical stuff powers down. Who knows. There is no beer in the fridge either. With this amazing human mind perhaps I could imagine a beer then imagine drinking it which would certainly be more economical though less satisfying than fizzy liquid from a cold place. I am trying that experiment as I type and so far its not working other than I am getting rather thirsty. Yet an imagined beer ought to taste as good as an actual one surely?

In places in the universe where time runs at a different rate would our little electrical patterns live for ever, perhaps orbiting a rotating black hole?

The “Gestalt prayer” is a 56-word statement by psychotherapist Fritz Perls that is taken as a classic expression of Gestalt therapy as way of life model of which Dr. Perls was a founder.

The key idea of the statement is the focus on living in response to one’s own needs, without projecting onto or taking introjects from others. It also expresses the idea that it is by fulfilling their own needs that people can help others do the same and create space for genuine contact; that is, when they “find each other, it’s beautiful”.

Text of “prayer”

I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.
If not, it can’t be helped.
(Fritz Perls, 1969)

Impact and legacy

The prayer is well known in gestalt and psychotherapy circles, where it is generally taken as a summarising statement of the philosophy of personal independence central to gestalt therapy. This philosophy still attracts critics, generally arguing that interpersonal relationships require real, hard work to maintain. Supporters counter that an attitude of independence does not refute this, but rather encourages people to realise that relationships need not be founded on obligation or expectation. The prayer remains popular in general culture, although the last line is sometimes omitted. In academic discussion, it sometimes acts as a starting point for debate around issues of autonomy and interdependence.