1 The Problem Of Problems
In all projects — big or small — the self senses the presence of the unknown and of one’s contact with the known. The known generally raises with itself a feeling of peace, of familiarity, equivalent to an absence of challenge. The unknown, on the contrary, teases us and shows that what is immediately available to one is insufficient for the reduction of the unknown to the known. This contact with the unknown, if inevitable, generates the tension that generates the feeling of a problem. But if it is not inevitable, the contact can be maintained by one’s will and the tension experienced as stemming from within, as an involvement in the challenge, as a commitment to let the unknown affect us so that we make room for it and thus make it part of the known, the new known. Thus by an act of the will, if we let contacts with the unknown become inevitable for us we grow in our affectivity. We then give ourselves problems, we let problems propose themselves to us and not be imposed on us. Artists and scientists give themselves problems of this nature. Let us first consider the ease of inevitability which can cover a wide spectrum and every one of us will have a long list to contemplate. Our social world is full of them. Unwanted pregnancies are problems to at least those involved in their happening: in some cases and in some countries an unwanted pregnancy is a terrible problem, in some others a difficult one; in still others, an abortion appears as a solution. Here we have an example of how problems can be triggered by actions of which all is known and perhaps welcome, only the consequences of actions are ignored. Anti-abortionists generate for themselves other problems by being disturbed by the occurrence and by wanting to find how to stop that which goes against their values. Pressure groups of all kinds generate new problems by letting themselves be engaged in affecting legislators and in producing majorities supporting their interests or views. Identifying oneself with one’s views is one of the aspects of the psychic component in the problem of problems. Once we identify with a problem, we shift to believing that we have a solution and although we may see none at once, hope sustains us that one will be found. Thus we 3