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A Life of One's Own
How often do we ask ourselves, ‘What will make me happy? What do I really want from life?’ In A Life of One’s Own Marion Milner explores these questions and embarks on a seven year personal journey to discover what it is that makes her happy. On its first publication, W. H. Auden found the book ‘as exciting as a detective story’ and, as Milner searches out clues, the reader quickly becomes involved in the chase. Using her own personal diaries, kept over many years, she analyses moments of everyday life and discovers ways of being, of looking, of moving, that bring surprising joy – ways which can be embraced by anyone. With a new introduction by Rachel Bowlby this classic remains a great adventure in thinking and living and will be essential reading for all those interested in reflecting on the nature of their own happiness – whether readers from a literary, an artistic, a historical, an educational or a psychoanalytic/psychotherapeutic background.
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1934
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 118 reviews
April 9, 2010
I've had this book on my "To Read" shelf for several years...ever since it was referred to in "Simple Abundance". I'm so glad I didn't get to it until now because I was fully receptive to the message and suggestions...it came at a time when it would really resonate with me. As I read it, two things amazed me...first, I swear I am a reincarnation of the author! It was a bit eerie to come across someone - a woman who was in her 20's in the 1930's - who thinks EXACTLY like me and has the EXACT struggles. Second, this book perfectly parallels Don Miguel Ruiz's "The Four Agreements", which I just read and am working hard to live by. "The Four Agreements" lets you know what you need to do, "A Life of One's Own" tells you how. Because it was the perfect "manual" for me and is helping me make some significant changes, it ranks as one of my all-time favorite books. It was, however, a tad difficult to read at times...but, every time I came to an "Ah Ha" moment, it made it all worth it!
March 21, 2012
This book will not appeal to everyone, but for those interested in psychology or in personal journaling, it's possible this is going to be a satisfying read. It may appeal more to women than to men. For me it fits in with many other books I've read recently, from the writings of Jung and Jungians to Leonard Shlain's The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, and my most recent reading about the journaling process. I came across mention of this book in both Tristine Rainer's and Kathleen Adams' books on journaling.
Marion Milner, writing in 1934 under the name Joanna Field, had decided as a young woman of 26 to explore what would make her happy. She began keeping a record of what she remembered as making her happy each day. The nature of her journals changed quite a bit over the following seven years, as she explored various thought processes, ways of writing (including automatic writing or free writing), ways of perceiving reality, and the nature of thought and psychology. She matured during the intervening time, apparently (from her perspective and mine) as a result of this journaling adventure. She wrote her journals and this book from the standpoint of an ordinary individual rather than a student of psychology, even though at the time she was transitioning into a lifetime of working as a psychoanalyst. She wanted to explore a way of developing as a person that would be available to anyone, without the need to consult a psychologist or study psychology.
I found the result of her journey fascinating and somewhat enlightening, but then as mentioned above, it fits my interests well.
Marion Milner, writing in 1934 under the name Joanna Field, had decided as a young woman of 26 to explore what would make her happy. She began keeping a record of what she remembered as making her happy each day. The nature of her journals changed quite a bit over the following seven years, as she explored various thought processes, ways of writing (including automatic writing or free writing), ways of perceiving reality, and the nature of thought and psychology. She matured during the intervening time, apparently (from her perspective and mine) as a result of this journaling adventure. She wrote her journals and this book from the standpoint of an ordinary individual rather than a student of psychology, even though at the time she was transitioning into a lifetime of working as a psychoanalyst. She wanted to explore a way of developing as a person that would be available to anyone, without the need to consult a psychologist or study psychology.
I found the result of her journey fascinating and somewhat enlightening, but then as mentioned above, it fits my interests well.
November 5, 2017
This is one of the most remarkable and impressive books I have ever read. The author, recognizing in 1926 at the age of 26 that she was not happy despite living the life she wanted to live - fulfilling work, friends and leisure - and set out to discover how she could be happy by keeping a diary for seven years of events and times during which she had been happiest. At the age of 34 she wrote this book, the result of her experiment, efforts and unexpected revelations. She went on to move from industrial psychology to become a psychoanalyst and to write other books throughout her 98 year life. A Life of One's Own is extraordinary, as was its author.
March 15, 2015
çok şey öğreten bir kitap. arada durup "hiçbir şey istemiyorum" demenin huzurunu öğrendim mesela. ..
December 3, 2012
I loved this book. "Joanna Field" (Marion Milner) does a great job of revealing her insights on her path to personal discovery in incredible (yet somehow not yawn-inducing) detail.
One of the most fascinating things that I pulled from reading "A Life of One's Own" was that her conclusions about certain mindsets and behaviors seem to draw upon eastern ways of thinking...a LOT. Since I've been reading a lot about Buddhism and psychology lately this was especially apparent. It's a little unbelievable how often this happens, especially since eastern ideals really didn't have much influence in the western world in the twenties...just one more piece of evidence linking psychology with eastern belief systems. It was kind of awesome.
It's such a treat to be let into the mind of someone who sounds like such a vibrant and interesting person. I found myself Googling the author to see what she looked like, find out her background and gather any and all info that I could about her. The conclusions Milner draws while exploring her own psyche so mirrored my own experience with personal growth and exploration that sometimes it was almost hard to believe. (This might not be the case for you, but I've spoken to a friend who said the same thing and I'd imagine that others out there have had similar experiences!) What's more is that she fleshes out these ideas so well...it gives the reader all of these extra points to think on and theories to test.
I know this all sounds incredibly vague, but trust me - it's worth reading. If you've ever embarked on a journey of personal growth, experienced psychotherapy, or considered one or both of these things I think you'll really enjoy this book.
One of the most fascinating things that I pulled from reading "A Life of One's Own" was that her conclusions about certain mindsets and behaviors seem to draw upon eastern ways of thinking...a LOT. Since I've been reading a lot about Buddhism and psychology lately this was especially apparent. It's a little unbelievable how often this happens, especially since eastern ideals really didn't have much influence in the western world in the twenties...just one more piece of evidence linking psychology with eastern belief systems. It was kind of awesome.
It's such a treat to be let into the mind of someone who sounds like such a vibrant and interesting person. I found myself Googling the author to see what she looked like, find out her background and gather any and all info that I could about her. The conclusions Milner draws while exploring her own psyche so mirrored my own experience with personal growth and exploration that sometimes it was almost hard to believe. (This might not be the case for you, but I've spoken to a friend who said the same thing and I'd imagine that others out there have had similar experiences!) What's more is that she fleshes out these ideas so well...it gives the reader all of these extra points to think on and theories to test.
I know this all sounds incredibly vague, but trust me - it's worth reading. If you've ever embarked on a journey of personal growth, experienced psychotherapy, or considered one or both of these things I think you'll really enjoy this book.
December 6, 2019
kendine ait bir hayat, yedi yıl boyunca yaptığı "deneyler" doğrultusunda hayattaki mutluluk anlarını arttırmaya çalışan marion milner'ın oldukça kişisel notlarını içeren bir kitap. bana da yol gösterebileceğini düşünerek okumaya başlasam ve başlarda yazdıklarını yoğun bir şekilde hissetsem de bir yerden sonra kendim için değil de onun için okudum, başarıp başaramadığını görebilmek için ki kendisinin de belirttiği gibi yazar, okuyucuya nihai bir çözüm sunma amacı taşımadan kendi tecrübelerinden yararlanarak edindiği sonuçları aktarıyor bize.
"şeylerin kanunlarına dair bilgi değil deneyim sahibi olmak istiyorum; onları sadece gözlemlemek değil onlara maruz kalmak istiyorum. karşılaştığımız şeylere istinaden idrak etmek istiyorum -varlıklarının gereklilikleri neler, onları oldukları şey yapan değişmez kanun ne, fizikleri, kimyaları, gerçeklikleri nedir, hissetmek istiyorum. bir şeyin önemini hissetmedikçe bilmenin manası yok. belki bu sevgidir; varlığın onun bir parçası olur, kendini ona verirsin."
"şeylerin kanunlarına dair bilgi değil deneyim sahibi olmak istiyorum; onları sadece gözlemlemek değil onlara maruz kalmak istiyorum. karşılaştığımız şeylere istinaden idrak etmek istiyorum -varlıklarının gereklilikleri neler, onları oldukları şey yapan değişmez kanun ne, fizikleri, kimyaları, gerçeklikleri nedir, hissetmek istiyorum. bir şeyin önemini hissetmedikçe bilmenin manası yok. belki bu sevgidir; varlığın onun bir parçası olur, kendini ona verirsin."
November 1, 2012
Quite simply one of the most thought=provoking, erudite and uplifting books I have ever read.
February 17, 2019
Milner's A Life of One's Own is an anachronistic anomaly of a book. It surprises me that all the reviews here are gleaming as if we are in... 1905? 1936? 1986? 2100? What year does this book belong to, that would crown it with such loving attention by its cult of lost souls?
Trolling aside (I did have a momentary picture of Lars von Trier's "famous house" for a second, and it brought shivers down my spine – so now in order to distinguish myself from it, I have some serious reviewing to do), the book is anachronistic because Milner consciously rejects the psychoanalytical theory, although she has a psychology degree as a 20 something in the 1930's. This is still the hot time to be within the field, but instead Milner half-rejects theory and stubbornly re-invents her own terminology (basically around the same ideas) such as "butterfly ideas", "narrow focus on life", "wide focus of attention" and expects from the reader as well as from the critiques (as revealed in the afterword she wrote in 1986) to respect her endeavor which amounts to a fumbling in the dark where little progress is ever made.
Milner has a stance against progress befitting the concerns of the modernist era of her writing, yet all of the text reads as nothing but some kind of an inward journey of meaning. A progress towards internal meaning... It's a self-help book foreshadowing the genre's explosion as commodities, towards the end of the 21st century. An unfortunate resemblance, since A Life of One's Own is a call out to others for writing personal diaries en masse, by replicating the effort of Milner more happiness and (by rejecting teachings/science and societal ideals) individualism can be achieved. I get the individualism part, but the stinky happiness (at least Milner's version of it) is just distasteful business that even Milner herself comes to reject it towards the end of the book, though without any kind of valid apologies because she has now spent the entire book running away from the boogeyman psychoanalysis only to come back to it at the end to claim that happiness is only half of the story, the other half being woe...
It is an anomaly of a book because it takes strict caution against being read as autobiography despite the diary material and further reflection on it by its author, creating pages upon pages of inaccessible and utterly boring ramblings of narcissism. One cannot help but think, that if Milner was a 25 year old today she'd attempt to do this on Instagram, by shooting selfies in her private collection and then blasting your feed on every goddamn Thursday with pointless personal archaeological images, because she has a faint idea that she should find happiness by herself, and then discovered that she should include other people (god forbid if she'll ever say Other), and somewhere else she would discover something called "the gaze" but of course she would call it something else, something more illustrative of her character... Anyhow, I had promised no more trolling so...
A direct reference to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own it can and should be read as feminist writing and the passages that offer Milner's views upon gender and sexualization subjects are the most rewarding ones, not only because then she is more open to referring to contemporary theory but also her thoughts on such matter is just brilliantly unique because they were offered at that specific time of their writing! If only Milner had offered less of her fake naivete in an attempt to command greatness (which I think she already possessed but deliberately hiding resulted in this out of context work) than I think we would have something unique, in a positive sense of the word. But as is now, it's a unique missed opportunity, an anachronistic anomaly of a book, if such a thing may exist.
Last but not least, of course I am considering if my response to Milner's A Life of One's Own is the result of an unconscious masculine toxicity, a clearly historical misogynistic/demonizing reading of the "fairer sex" when it shows a will to depart from the gaze/grasp of the patriarchy. But I am thinking it with terminology already at my disposal, and far from making me blind towards the problem, or towards myself, it brings me within a cultural environment where help is readily offered if I am willing to spend the necessary effort to glean it, which I am. So contemporary thinking directs me towards hot topics of today, to the me too movement, and towards the now canonical texts of gender theory as well as psychoanalytical theory. Or I could just skip all of that, and for 7 years write in my diary (without cheating by reading academic theory or soaking up on important contemporary developments) and try to find a de-sexualized higher/better personal reality which I would only then reinterpret and half-check if it is in line with the contemporary theory and advise everyone to follow in my footsteps and be my acolyte... But I don't, because that would be Yet Another Life of My Own (do we even have another one of these?). Of course the fundamental question concerning my unconscious and misogyny still remains there, even more important now that I have (hopefully) cleared up some of the trivialities around it (by introducing some already tested contemporary cultural toxicity around it), but I'm not so naive as to claim I can answer it by myself alone with the above methods, because that would make this an anachronistic normality of reviewing (and rating) books on Goodreads in the year 2019. People love Milner, I love being the outsider, we are all settled.
Trolling aside (I did have a momentary picture of Lars von Trier's "famous house" for a second, and it brought shivers down my spine – so now in order to distinguish myself from it, I have some serious reviewing to do), the book is anachronistic because Milner consciously rejects the psychoanalytical theory, although she has a psychology degree as a 20 something in the 1930's. This is still the hot time to be within the field, but instead Milner half-rejects theory and stubbornly re-invents her own terminology (basically around the same ideas) such as "butterfly ideas", "narrow focus on life", "wide focus of attention" and expects from the reader as well as from the critiques (as revealed in the afterword she wrote in 1986) to respect her endeavor which amounts to a fumbling in the dark where little progress is ever made.
Milner has a stance against progress befitting the concerns of the modernist era of her writing, yet all of the text reads as nothing but some kind of an inward journey of meaning. A progress towards internal meaning... It's a self-help book foreshadowing the genre's explosion as commodities, towards the end of the 21st century. An unfortunate resemblance, since A Life of One's Own is a call out to others for writing personal diaries en masse, by replicating the effort of Milner more happiness and (by rejecting teachings/science and societal ideals) individualism can be achieved. I get the individualism part, but the stinky happiness (at least Milner's version of it) is just distasteful business that even Milner herself comes to reject it towards the end of the book, though without any kind of valid apologies because she has now spent the entire book running away from the boogeyman psychoanalysis only to come back to it at the end to claim that happiness is only half of the story, the other half being woe...
It is an anomaly of a book because it takes strict caution against being read as autobiography despite the diary material and further reflection on it by its author, creating pages upon pages of inaccessible and utterly boring ramblings of narcissism. One cannot help but think, that if Milner was a 25 year old today she'd attempt to do this on Instagram, by shooting selfies in her private collection and then blasting your feed on every goddamn Thursday with pointless personal archaeological images, because she has a faint idea that she should find happiness by herself, and then discovered that she should include other people (god forbid if she'll ever say Other), and somewhere else she would discover something called "the gaze" but of course she would call it something else, something more illustrative of her character... Anyhow, I had promised no more trolling so...
A direct reference to Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own it can and should be read as feminist writing and the passages that offer Milner's views upon gender and sexualization subjects are the most rewarding ones, not only because then she is more open to referring to contemporary theory but also her thoughts on such matter is just brilliantly unique because they were offered at that specific time of their writing! If only Milner had offered less of her fake naivete in an attempt to command greatness (which I think she already possessed but deliberately hiding resulted in this out of context work) than I think we would have something unique, in a positive sense of the word. But as is now, it's a unique missed opportunity, an anachronistic anomaly of a book, if such a thing may exist.
Last but not least, of course I am considering if my response to Milner's A Life of One's Own is the result of an unconscious masculine toxicity, a clearly historical misogynistic/demonizing reading of the "fairer sex" when it shows a will to depart from the gaze/grasp of the patriarchy. But I am thinking it with terminology already at my disposal, and far from making me blind towards the problem, or towards myself, it brings me within a cultural environment where help is readily offered if I am willing to spend the necessary effort to glean it, which I am. So contemporary thinking directs me towards hot topics of today, to the me too movement, and towards the now canonical texts of gender theory as well as psychoanalytical theory. Or I could just skip all of that, and for 7 years write in my diary (without cheating by reading academic theory or soaking up on important contemporary developments) and try to find a de-sexualized higher/better personal reality which I would only then reinterpret and half-check if it is in line with the contemporary theory and advise everyone to follow in my footsteps and be my acolyte... But I don't, because that would be Yet Another Life of My Own (do we even have another one of these?). Of course the fundamental question concerning my unconscious and misogyny still remains there, even more important now that I have (hopefully) cleared up some of the trivialities around it (by introducing some already tested contemporary cultural toxicity around it), but I'm not so naive as to claim I can answer it by myself alone with the above methods, because that would make this an anachronistic normality of reviewing (and rating) books on Goodreads in the year 2019. People love Milner, I love being the outsider, we are all settled.
March 29, 2021
Konuyu ele alış biçimini sevdim, öznel olduğu için ilgili başlıklar için her okurun kendi cümleleri vardır. Deneysel olarak ufuk açıcı bir okuma olduğunu bazı bölümleri göz gezdirip kendimce notlar almamın kafi olduğunu söyleyebilirim.
January 8, 2023
not sure if i can fairly evaluate this text because milner writes from such a starkly different time/positionality than what i myself inhabit, and also because i finished the book in a foul, agitated mood, which isn't how it's meant to be read... the basic premise can be reductively diluted to being about opening all the receptors of your mind & body to external experiences to best-live them, but i found milner's techniques to achieve this 'wide awareness' more interesting—i think many of them (letting go of mapped-out paths of thought, following trails of thought wherever they lead, relaxing the body to relax the mind, refusing to want specifics) could be contemporarily applicable if we weren't so much more stimulated than milner was. whenever i 'let go' of my thoughts, they naturally turn to playing music or reciting lines from tv shows i've seen, or speaking 'aloud' text messages i've exchanged, or unhelpful & unhealthy imagination/fantasy.
i'm reading this in advance of a book to be published by my former professor & an industry colleague about psychoanalysis, creativity, & neoliberal self-optimization, and though the book (i think) will talk more about milner's conception of the 'private sea,' which she only delineates metaphorically in ALOOO, i found myself unsure about the connections between milner's emptying of the self & creative fecundity.
either way it was a peaceful, interesting book to read, though the epilogue surprised me with its now-antiquated perceptions of 'bisexuality' (androgyny). someone smarter than me can parse that instead though
i'm reading this in advance of a book to be published by my former professor & an industry colleague about psychoanalysis, creativity, & neoliberal self-optimization, and though the book (i think) will talk more about milner's conception of the 'private sea,' which she only delineates metaphorically in ALOOO, i found myself unsure about the connections between milner's emptying of the self & creative fecundity.
either way it was a peaceful, interesting book to read, though the epilogue surprised me with its now-antiquated perceptions of 'bisexuality' (androgyny). someone smarter than me can parse that instead though
August 9, 2019
Oldukça sağlam bir kitap. Yol gösterme, kılavuzluk etme ya da nasıl mutlu olunacağına dair didaktik bir sav ortaya koyma amacı taşımayan bir nevi iç dökme kitabı olmuş ki girişte yazar bunu kendisi de dile getiriyor zaten. Kendimle, zihnimle ve duygularımla olan mücadelelerimi bana ayna gibi yansıtan bir kitap oldu. Dili sade ama sorgulamaları ağır bir kitap. Hele de kendi zihninin labirentlerine aşina olanlar için kesinlikle zihni yoracak nitelikte. Fazla tanıdık ve herşeyin dinomo taşı gibi birbirine bağlanabildiğini fark edince çok şaşırıyor insan.
Belki hayat değil insanın kendisi ve zihin yapısıdır karmaşık olan!!!
Belki hayat değil insanın kendisi ve zihin yapısıdır karmaşık olan!!!
September 5, 2012
Outstanding! An engaging record of self-discovery through the author's exploration of her own thought processes, begins by asking questions about what would make her happy. Notion of "blind thinking," efforts to pay attention and train one's thoughts, extension of understanding to appreciation and personal relationships. Body awareness through breathing exercises and relaxation informs the journey. Appropriately Auden described it as a "detective story." One I didn't want to end.
July 19, 2012
Really interesting. If you are wondering about life or about yourself, this is certainly a pleasant and interesting exploration. It's personal and idiosyncratic but easy to read and thought provoking.
September 15, 2011
Got 60 pages into it and it was terribly dull. It wasn't as interesting as I'd hoped it would be.
August 9, 2016
I started and never finished this book several times but I still always think about it.
August 30, 2025
i think i was expecting to get more out of this book than i actually got - i had been looking forward to reading it for so long that i think i hyped it up too much. i related a lot to how milner describes herself and her life before she undertook her experiment to find out what makes her truly happy, but the details of the experiment itself didn’t do much for me. i think this was due to both the writing style, which i found to be dense at times, and the amount of time it took me to read the book (over a month). i’m really curious about this author and her work, so i want to check out more of it eventually i think? i did just put a library hold on in defence of leisure by akshi singh to get a more modern perspective of milner’s philosophies, so maybe that will help me appreciate this book more.
January 21, 2022
I think I have found one of my favorite books. As I have read in the review section already, I'm also amazed how a person born in the 1900's has almost the same problems & musings as me. I felt her so much. I'm really into journaling & expressing my thoughts especially worries which seem so big yet small when expressed.
Although I also resonate with others that the book is a bit flowery and some chapters are a bit messy. But I guess that's how journaling works. I felt like I was watching her grow through her journals.
If you'll summarize this book, it's all about mindfulness. You'll think it's that easy, but it's not. I hope I can have yoga with her.
Although I also resonate with others that the book is a bit flowery and some chapters are a bit messy. But I guess that's how journaling works. I felt like I was watching her grow through her journals.
If you'll summarize this book, it's all about mindfulness. You'll think it's that easy, but it's not. I hope I can have yoga with her.
Read
March 25, 2025Another case of reading a very interesting LRB piece and then turning to the book/s in question. I don’t know how much I’ll end up taking away from this; I found many of its revelations pretty self-evident (viz. ‘it’s in the little things’) but I can acknowledge that this must have been pretty pioneering. Milner is easy company too. Glad she figured it all out for herself.
July 20, 2023
I really can’t put a star rating on this book. I never skim but I skimmed through the last 30 pages. Maybe it was because it was written in 1920 but it was painstakingly boring. I was really hoping to enjoy it since it’s a nonfiction and I’ve been reading more of them but I couldn’t.
April 8, 2021
1900 yılında Londra'da doğmuş olan yazar, kendi ruhunu, hayata bakışını ve anlam arayışını mercek altına alırken ne kadar fazla ortak yönümüz olduğunu keşfettim. Mesleği olan psikanalistliğin bakış açısından sıyrılıp sıradan insanların da deneyebileceği türlü yollar bulmayı denediği sürece şahit oluyoruz kitapta. Dışarıdan her şey güzel görünse de kendi hayatından pek memnun omadığı bir zaman diliminde, kendini analiz etmek adına günlük tutmaya, nelerin onu mutlu ettiğini not etmeye başlamış ve içsel yolculuğu bu minvalde devam etmiş. Yer yer mistik doğu felsefesini ziyaret ettiği, kimi zaman ise çizimlerden beslendiği ama günün sonunda sorularına yanıt ararken doğru tekniği bulmaktan asla vazçgeçmeyişi takdire değer.
Mindfulness kavramına ilgi duymama rağmen bu kitabın bu anlayış ile ilintisi olabileceğini bilmeden okumaya başlamıştım, okudukça fark ettim ki 1900'lerde yazılan bu kitap "anda kalma" ile ilgili bana en açık bilgileri sunan kitap oldu. Bunu nasıl yapabileceğimi bana en güzel tarif eden kaynak oldu, şans eseri.
Psikoloji ile ilgili okuma serimde, Kaybolan Bağlar, Sıçrayış, Ukde ve Seninle Başlamadı kitaplarından sonra bu kitap da beni besleyen ve kendimle ilgili kaygılarımın neden sonuç ilişkisini aydınlattığımda kavuştuğum rahatlığa imkân tanıdı. Zihnimden gelip geçen düşünceleri sorularımla karşılamaya, onları kabullenmeye ve altlarında yatan korkuları tespit etmeme neden oldu.
Kendiyle hesaplaşma cesaretine sahip olan herkese tavsiye ederim.
"İnsan neşe ve acı için yapılmış;
Bunu doğru düzgün öğrendik mi
Güvenle yol alırız dünyada."
Mindfulness kavramına ilgi duymama rağmen bu kitabın bu anlayış ile ilintisi olabileceğini bilmeden okumaya başlamıştım, okudukça fark ettim ki 1900'lerde yazılan bu kitap "anda kalma" ile ilgili bana en açık bilgileri sunan kitap oldu. Bunu nasıl yapabileceğimi bana en güzel tarif eden kaynak oldu, şans eseri.
Psikoloji ile ilgili okuma serimde, Kaybolan Bağlar, Sıçrayış, Ukde ve Seninle Başlamadı kitaplarından sonra bu kitap da beni besleyen ve kendimle ilgili kaygılarımın neden sonuç ilişkisini aydınlattığımda kavuştuğum rahatlığa imkân tanıdı. Zihnimden gelip geçen düşünceleri sorularımla karşılamaya, onları kabullenmeye ve altlarında yatan korkuları tespit etmeme neden oldu.
Kendiyle hesaplaşma cesaretine sahip olan herkese tavsiye ederim.
"İnsan neşe ve acı için yapılmış;
Bunu doğru düzgün öğrendik mi
Güvenle yol alırız dünyada."
January 3, 2024
bu kitap hayatınızı değiştirecek.
ama bunu ilgi çekici bir ilk cümle olsun diye söylemiyorum. gerçekten kendiniz ve yaşadığınız hayat hakkında sorularınız varsa, gerçekten bir şeyler keşfetmeye açıksanız ve buna zaman ayırmayı, bu yolda zaman zaman yıpranmayı göze alıyorsanız - bu kitapta yazılanları dört gözle okuyabilir, sadece okumak yerine özümsemeye ve hayata geçirmeye çalışabilirsiniz ve işte o zaman gerçekten hayatınız değişir. çünkü bu kitap, mutluluğu ararken kendi üzerinde ufak bir deney yapmaya başlayan bir kadını anlatıyor.
milner o dönem herkes psikanaliz terimleri içinde boğulurken henüz psikoloji alanına dahil olmayan biri olarak hayatını karşısına alıp incelemeye ve bu yolda "kör düşünce" adını verdiği bilinçaltıyla da tanışmaya başlar. elbette bu keşifleri yapmak ve insanın zihninde bir gözlemci olarak var olması kolay iş değildir, öyle ki bu kitapta bahsedilen deneylerin tamamı kendisinin yaklaşık yedi yılını alır. ama bu süreçte hayattan daha çok keyif alabileceğini, derinlere gömdüğü korkularını, bazı davranışlarının altında yatan motivasyonları tanır ve görür.
dili gayet yalın ve anlaşılır, ancak üzerine düşündükçe o dilin katmanlarını bir soğanı soyar gibi soyup, daha da derinlere inebilirsiniz. bütün içtenliğimle, kendisine psikoloji literatürüne ve insanlığa bu katkısı için teşekkür ediyorum
ama bunu ilgi çekici bir ilk cümle olsun diye söylemiyorum. gerçekten kendiniz ve yaşadığınız hayat hakkında sorularınız varsa, gerçekten bir şeyler keşfetmeye açıksanız ve buna zaman ayırmayı, bu yolda zaman zaman yıpranmayı göze alıyorsanız - bu kitapta yazılanları dört gözle okuyabilir, sadece okumak yerine özümsemeye ve hayata geçirmeye çalışabilirsiniz ve işte o zaman gerçekten hayatınız değişir. çünkü bu kitap, mutluluğu ararken kendi üzerinde ufak bir deney yapmaya başlayan bir kadını anlatıyor.
milner o dönem herkes psikanaliz terimleri içinde boğulurken henüz psikoloji alanına dahil olmayan biri olarak hayatını karşısına alıp incelemeye ve bu yolda "kör düşünce" adını verdiği bilinçaltıyla da tanışmaya başlar. elbette bu keşifleri yapmak ve insanın zihninde bir gözlemci olarak var olması kolay iş değildir, öyle ki bu kitapta bahsedilen deneylerin tamamı kendisinin yaklaşık yedi yılını alır. ama bu süreçte hayattan daha çok keyif alabileceğini, derinlere gömdüğü korkularını, bazı davranışlarının altında yatan motivasyonları tanır ve görür.
dili gayet yalın ve anlaşılır, ancak üzerine düşündükçe o dilin katmanlarını bir soğanı soyar gibi soyup, daha da derinlere inebilirsiniz. bütün içtenliğimle, kendisine psikoloji literatürüne ve insanlığa bu katkısı için teşekkür ediyorum
June 1, 2020
müthişti.
sosu süsü yok. marion milner içinden geçenleri (içinden geçtiklerini) olduğu gibi anlatmış. batı bilimi ve doğu mistisizminin süzülmüş halini kendi deneyi üzerinden ve hiç didaktik olmadan aktarmış.
tarif ettiği yollarda kendi arayışlarımı o kadar buldum ki kitabı yaşadım, yaşadıklarımı hatırladım. yazarın çaktırmadan mizahi dilini de çok sevdim.
en içime sinen kitaplar listesinde ilk 5'e girer.
"bilginin boşluklarında meydana gelen şeyler."
sosu süsü yok. marion milner içinden geçenleri (içinden geçtiklerini) olduğu gibi anlatmış. batı bilimi ve doğu mistisizminin süzülmüş halini kendi deneyi üzerinden ve hiç didaktik olmadan aktarmış.
tarif ettiği yollarda kendi arayışlarımı o kadar buldum ki kitabı yaşadım, yaşadıklarımı hatırladım. yazarın çaktırmadan mizahi dilini de çok sevdim.
en içime sinen kitaplar listesinde ilk 5'e girer.
"bilginin boşluklarında meydana gelen şeyler."
August 15, 2020
This book took me over a year and a half to finish. It was fascinating how she analyzes her own thinking and journals on society's influence on what she should be thinking or how she should be behaving. Over the course of 18 months, I would have to put it aside as her journey to find her own happiness was almost exhausting. If you are looking for a light read, it is not this book. However, if you are looking for away to psychoanalyze your life, then by all means pick this one.
July 5, 2015
Psikanalizin dogus yillarinda yazilan bu kitap bence cok degerli. Freud etkisi fazla ama yine de yol gosterici ve guzel.
January 3, 2024
For a long time I really wanted to read this book, and now, having finished it, I'm a bit surprised & sad I didn't find it more interesting ...
Read
August 29, 2024Güzel bir kendini bilme egzersizi. Okuduğuma çok memnun kaldım. Zaten aşağı yukarı her gün günlük yazıyorum, artık iyice abartıp sabah öğle akşam yazacağım, kendimi en çok ben bileceğim!
September 23, 2018
"I had been continually exhorted to define my purpose in life, but I was now beginning to doubt whether life might not be too complex a thing to be kept within the bounds of a single formulated purpose, whether it would not burst its way out, or if the purpose were too strong, perhaps grow distorted like an oak whose trunk has been encircled with an iron band. I began to guess that my self’s need was for an equilibrium, for sun, but not too much, for rain, but not always… So I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know. I wrote: “It will mean walking in a fog for a bit, but it’s the only way which is not a presumption, forcing the self into a theory."
"Although I could not have told about it at the time, I can now remember the feeling of being cut off from other people, separate, shut away from whatever might be real in living. I was so dependent on other people’s opinion of me that I lived in a constant dread of offending, and if it occurred to me that something I had done was not approved of I was full of uneasiness until I had put it right. I always seemed to be looking for something, always a little distracted because there was something more important to be attended to just ahead of the moment."
"I had felt my life to be of a dull dead-level mediocrity, with the sense of real and vital things going on round the corner, out in the streets, in other people’s lives. For I had taken the surface ripples for all there was, when actually happenings of vital importance to me had been going on, not somewhere away from me, but just underneath the calm surface of my own mind. Though some of these discoveries were not entirely pleasant, bringing with them echoes of terror and despair, at least they gave me a sense of being alive."
"Although I could not have told about it at the time, I can now remember the feeling of being cut off from other people, separate, shut away from whatever might be real in living. I was so dependent on other people’s opinion of me that I lived in a constant dread of offending, and if it occurred to me that something I had done was not approved of I was full of uneasiness until I had put it right. I always seemed to be looking for something, always a little distracted because there was something more important to be attended to just ahead of the moment."
"I had felt my life to be of a dull dead-level mediocrity, with the sense of real and vital things going on round the corner, out in the streets, in other people’s lives. For I had taken the surface ripples for all there was, when actually happenings of vital importance to me had been going on, not somewhere away from me, but just underneath the calm surface of my own mind. Though some of these discoveries were not entirely pleasant, bringing with them echoes of terror and despair, at least they gave me a sense of being alive."
Read
August 27, 2024rly good...... its really soothing to read something that mirrors your own quality of mind, or that traces a particular evolution of consciousness that you yourself have experienced and articulated. milner's writing isn't lyric or beautiful, it just felt very easy and generative and relevant, like it models a way to integrate the dyadic modes of awareness she calls masculine and feminine and allow them to inform each other. i've been thinking about psychic integration vis a vis the psychoanalytic proposition of universal bisexuality lately, in part bc i'm writing a fiction where this movement seems to be the crux of the narrative. also been thinking about buddhism, about contemplative practice and religious/philosophical orientations towards desire and attention, about psychoanalysis and the limits of jung,freud,klein,winnicott etc -- the limits of any theory -- taken individually. i've been thinking about how all of these things relate to psychosis and my own experiences of psychosis, and about how they relate, at the end of the day, to the practical, the material, the questions of how to communicate, how to live. it occurred to me repeatedly while reading this that i want to recommend it to a teenager who loved the bell jar. anyway i really believe in self-help as an aim of all philosophy including psychoanalysis, and also maybe everything, kind of. experience, process, integrate and be changed, etc....
March 7, 2024
"İnsan, neşe ve acı için yapılmış;
Bunu doğru düzgün öğrendik mi,
Güvenle yol alırız dünyada."
Üzerine muhtemelen bir ömür boyu düşüneceğim, hayatımın farklı evrelerinde geri dönüp tekrar tekrar bakacağım bir kitap. Mutluluk nedir? Ona nasıl ulaşabiliriz? Peşinden koştuğumuz şeyler, bizi gerçekten mutlu ediyor mu? Kendimize nasıl yaklaşabiliriz, dikkatimizi nasıl kontrol edebiliriz? Neyi kontrol edebiliriz? Kaçtıklarımız ve huzursuzluklarımız bize ne anlatır?
İnsan olma deneyimi üzerine incelikle ve derinlemesine kafa yorarak, hissedilerek; çıplaklığının ve karmaşıklığının farkında olunarak yazılmış, büyüleyici.
Bunu doğru düzgün öğrendik mi,
Güvenle yol alırız dünyada."
Üzerine muhtemelen bir ömür boyu düşüneceğim, hayatımın farklı evrelerinde geri dönüp tekrar tekrar bakacağım bir kitap. Mutluluk nedir? Ona nasıl ulaşabiliriz? Peşinden koştuğumuz şeyler, bizi gerçekten mutlu ediyor mu? Kendimize nasıl yaklaşabiliriz, dikkatimizi nasıl kontrol edebiliriz? Neyi kontrol edebiliriz? Kaçtıklarımız ve huzursuzluklarımız bize ne anlatır?
İnsan olma deneyimi üzerine incelikle ve derinlemesine kafa yorarak, hissedilerek; çıplaklığının ve karmaşıklığının farkında olunarak yazılmış, büyüleyici.
January 2, 2018
A Life Of One's Own is one woman's examination and recording of her own thoughts, daydreams and inclinations over several years and how observing these things pointed her to who she really is and what makes her happy.
WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Anyone with interested in how human minds work and our popular opinions influence us would be interested in the author's findings.
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
I love the tone of unashamedness in this one. The frankness and scientific approach of the author towards her own private daydreams is something to be admired. Most importantly, what her findings reveal about my own inner world is something that would stay with me for a while. This is a book worth reading.
MEMORABLE PASSAGE
"I now began to understand why it was no good arguing against obsessive fears or worries, for the source of them was beyond the reach both of reason and common sense. They flourished in the No-man's land of mind where a thing could be both itself and something else at the same time, and the only way to deal with them was to stop all attempts to be reasonable and to give the thoughts free rein. In dealing with other people this meant just listening while they talked out whatever was in their minds, in dealing with myself it usually meant letting my thoughts write themselves."
.......
A Life Of One's Own by Joanna Field (Marion Milner) is available to buy from on all major online bookstores.
WHO WOULD ENJOY READING IT?
Anyone with interested in how human minds work and our popular opinions influence us would be interested in the author's findings.
WHAT I LOVE ABOUT IT
I love the tone of unashamedness in this one. The frankness and scientific approach of the author towards her own private daydreams is something to be admired. Most importantly, what her findings reveal about my own inner world is something that would stay with me for a while. This is a book worth reading.
MEMORABLE PASSAGE
"I now began to understand why it was no good arguing against obsessive fears or worries, for the source of them was beyond the reach both of reason and common sense. They flourished in the No-man's land of mind where a thing could be both itself and something else at the same time, and the only way to deal with them was to stop all attempts to be reasonable and to give the thoughts free rein. In dealing with other people this meant just listening while they talked out whatever was in their minds, in dealing with myself it usually meant letting my thoughts write themselves."
.......
A Life Of One's Own by Joanna Field (Marion Milner) is available to buy from on all major online bookstores.
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