[xmca] Vygotsky's personal perezhivanie on his trip to London

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

The conversation on perezhivanie as "vital" experience and its relation to
habits [Dewey] may gain some "insight" from locating this movement in
actuality at the moment of in*forming.  In that spirit, I'm going to offer a
section of Vygotsky's journal that he wrote on his journey to London via
Berlin in 1925. The quote comes from the latest journal of "Intergrative
Psychological and Behaviorial Sciences"

"In Berlin I was thinking of you {Gokha} all the time. I am convinced that
enormous ordeals lie ahead for us {Russia-Europe} - will you be happy and
joyous? My darling. My light. In a foreign country, in the fresh air (an
airplane) at sea - you feel a strange aloofness of everything. A
reconsideration of your whole life, a revision of the soul. Suddenly you
look at your whole life from aside, as in the minute of death. How
excruciating! My words in this unforgettable journey - I myself set the
rules of the game. The unforgettable Berlin is like a sign of my courage. I
became more courageous (again the passport - Oldenzaal - memorize!!!) only
after this bleak , excruciating, and wonderful day in Berlin. In my destiny,
this is the sign of future enormous ordeals. Am I afraid? Of course, I am
afraid. Of course I'm afraid, I feel terror, but keep it in check. I still
have my strength and power. Let be.  Gokha.  I am with you."

I "read" this passage as an example of "active experience" [perezhivanie].
It is "qualified movement" and in this movement there is movement of the
"soul" [psyche].  I read this movement "interpsychologically"

Larry
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