Our inner dialogue is frequently composed of old tape loops that we run again and again... The normal personality marshals sufficient defense mechani… - Sam Keen

Neurotic identity crises come when our defense mechanisms have been too successful and we're encapsulated in the fortress we have constructed with nothing to refresh us in our solitary confinement. So we play the old movies with their stale fears and their unrealistic hopes until we become bored enough to risk disarmament and engagement.

To sustain love, a man and a woman must continually be marrying and divorcing, moving with, against, away from, and beyond each other, saying 'yes' and 'no'.

Because we human beings are verbal and communal animals, we cannot remain wonder-struck and dumb. We need to say something. We are a species given to storytelling and philosophizing to explain our world. Ergo, it is pure folly to suppose we can avoid speaking about the ultimate context and meaning of our existence. We cannot simply be content with the private experience of elementary emotions and the great encompassing mystery. Our feelings demand expression. How are we to understand this perennial need to speak to G-d and about G-d even when what we say involves contradictions, paradoxes, and sacred nonsense? To communicate is to come back into the community. The hero must return from the inner journey to the common life of dialogue and engagement. PRAYERS TO AN ABSENT G-D ON PRAYER You ask me how to pray to someone who is not.

The outlaw uses the knife to separate the persona from the self. The outlaw uses the warrior’s sword to cut through his own character armor to destroy the defense mechanisms that have kept him imprisoned within the citadel of personality and role.