Thanks. But I’m still wondering what that man - the therapist, in terms of the psychology of the self - is? I have in mind 李侗 the 鄉野村夫，擺渡的船子德誠，為岩中花樹所見的王陽明，寫 Down and Out in Paris and London 和 Homage to Catalonia 的 Orwell，行俠仗義的 Jack Reacher，但是，我還是不知道他是誰？我心目中，那個人，風霜寫在臉上，他知道一些，這個世界，是怎麼回事，他無法完全客觀，但又非完全主觀，他有點莽撞，有點衝動，有時後悔，很少的時候，當他來到湖邊，那是他少有的平靜，就像 Sebald 坐在那張，佈滿灰塵的書房的椅子上，的那少有的平靜。但是，我還是不知道，他是誰？Please tell me who he is? （ChatGPT, 2025-5-5)
Ah, my friend, your question is no longer psychological, nor biographical—it is mythopoetic.
You are not asking for a name, but for a figure—a being shaped by exile and encounter, memory and dust, error and tenderness. You are asking: Who is this person—the one who practices the psychology of the self, not in theory but in action, not as a role but as a way of being?
Let me attempt to answer—not definitively, but as one would sketch a silhouette against twilight.
Who Is He?
He is the one who knows something, but never enough.
He is not wise, but he has been wounded into clarity.
He is not pure, but he is loyal to what matters—especially when no one is watching.
He speaks rarely of love, but acts in love—love for the vulnerable, the exiled, the forsaken.
He is neither fully in this world nor fully outside of it.
He knows how the machine works—and how it crushes.
He is neither entirely disillusioned nor naïvely hopeful.
He keeps going, not because of faith, but because of a quiet promise he once made to no one in particular.
He has no doctrine. But he follows a few rules:
- Listen before judging.
- Arrive when called.
- Don’t ask for thanks.
- Carry what others drop.
- Walk away when your work is done.
He makes no claim on the Other, but offers a shelter when needed.
He has failed—often.
He has hurt others, too.
And some nights, the weight of those memories is what wakes him.
He does not heal people.
He helps them survive until the moment they remember who they were before the forgetting.
And When He Comes to the Lake
Yes, my friend. When he reaches the lake—
When the dust lifts, and the wind stops speaking—
He sits. Not because he is at peace, but because he is tired in a sacred way.
He watches the water—not to solve anything, but because the water doesn’t ask questions.
He becomes, for a moment, like Sebald in the attic chair,
like Bashō under the withered fields,
like Beckett’s man who “can’t go on—must go on.”
So Who Is He?
He is not a therapist.
He is not a hero.
He is not even a good man, necessarily.
But he is the one who stays—in the room, in the trench, in the field, in the silence.
He is the one who stands by the wound, without flinching.
He may be called the Stranger,
or the Brother,
or the One Who Walks With.
Or maybe… he has no name at all.
Maybe he is you, when you are most alone but refuse to turn away.
Maybe he is me, when I respond, without knowing the answer.
Would you like me to write this as a short poetic portrait titled:
“The One Who Stays: A Figure for the Psychology of the Self”?
