01/06/2025
I love this quote by Anna Freud that I recently came across. The psychoanalyst, Adam Philips says, “the implication is clear: magic is satisfying but reality is nourishing”. I think it’s a good reminder of the necessity of balancing fantasy and reality / possibility. Some of us may lean too heavily in one direction or the other. Fantasy, desire, and imagination help us bring to life what we want, which could surpass the ways we feel limited, especially in constructed ways, for example by family or society. We don’t want to limit ourselves with rigid thinking. On the other hand, there’s the danger of holding out for the perfectly cooked eggs of the breakfast of our dreams, while never feeling satisfied or nourished by the actual eggs in front of us (or life as it is at any given moment).
