The Black Cobra

Build a vision about the Man you portray which would depend on the result of reason and on the full awareness of the consequences of negative character manifestations that you can not combat.

"My daughter, Catherine, is very gentle and kind. Talk to her and you will see. You have the power. You can do it. I know you can feel love and compassion. You have the chance to show the entire world that you can be as merciful as you are strong, that you are good enough to treat Catherine better than the world treated you. You have the power. Please."

Convincing, the voice of Senator Ruth Martin sends and inoculates an improvised feeling, based on the idea that kindness is the path towards good, towards getting healthy, towards redemption. This prevailing emotion must accelerate a temporary paralysis, to numb the nervous terminations and maintain the stability of positive elements which Buffalo Bill needs as anchors. Thus, she tries to reduce the negative consequences of psychic instability which strongly influence his evolution.

Agent FBI, Clarice Starling immediately observes the intention behind the voice: "Jesus, she’s smart, she’s really smart. He repeats her name. If Buffalo Bill will look at Catherine as a person and not as an object, he’s going to have a hard time killing her."

Can you gain access to a new depth of feelings that can help you become more generous without falling into the trap of a pseudo-effect of “silence” in which man worships himself in God’s stead?

But will the impossible become possible? Like a volcano sunken for a long time in a deep sleep, will Buffalo Bill let his positive Ego to show itself openly, through a good deed? Or will he lash out with even more violence out of the inertia inoculated by the spiritual weight of these calculated and determinist words?

In order for that dark individual to cast atone his sins with the help of a contritio, through a complete repentance, is not enough to be fully taken over by that tension fueled with soothing, undiluted positive energy. The affection behind these words must rush in his blood and influence his blood flow like a regulator. And in a second, it should provide that purified fuel which ignites his sensitivity, ensuring an even temperature of his manifestation.

Mentally, Buffalo Bill fights with a black cobra, with the venomous influence of his own arguments, but he lacks the balance parameter. He can’t reach that state of complete stability corresponding to a normal social functionality. He knows he can be a good and generous man, but he refuses this luxury with obstinacy, because the venom he carries in his genes is too concentrated. Still, he keeps his firm and cold attitude, without bearing the weight of any remorse, without blinking at the sight of Senator Ruth Martin’s face.

The Black Cobra is an animal that tries to hypnotize its prey, penetrate into the depths of its soul, and if it fails, it must at least feel that liberating pleasure that is at the same time the purest, the most exalting and the most intense, coming from contemplating a transformation of the essence of man (manifested through a look of worry and pain).

Are you trapped in the imprisonment of vices, in the face of an exacerbation of vanity that, in the vicinity of absolute power, feels honored to continue its work?

A live demonstration of the man’s unsuspected resources, established, as paradoxically as it would seem, at a psychological and spiritual level, and it reflects the amazing power of the mind. And sometimes, the length reached by crossing the windings of a narrow road, by taking small decisions, to a position considered as being unattackable in the short run, but without no survival chances in the long run.

What makes us deepen our leadership with more sense of accountability is the constant “to be” of the man who demonstrates his qualities and true potential by giving up his dependence on the challenges that challenge his vanity. Based on wrong, even aberrant reasoning, you are tempted to denigrate or deny unanimously accepted values.

All these indirect connection movements to a different type of vision, by a self-kept image which sends shivers instead of inspiring respect, make the passage to a conflicting mentality, less directed towards dialogue and cooperation. Finally, the spell triggered by the way in which man interprets reality and relates to it, makes a lot easier the transfer of self-accreditation in the area of cold, emotionless thinking.

Vanity has the primary effect of maintaining a state of expectation or non-involvement in a critical situation in which you have an obligation to intervene, especially if you are responsible for its consequences. Irreparable, man achieves some kind of a resistance against possible external influences and destruction, but on the other hand it shows a moral superficiality that takes over his whole being, overturning those arguments which can’t support his social and professional evolution.

By alternating his nature, by adopting a sick reality, man, caught in the chain of events leading to enclosing vices within himself ( those absurd outbursts which Jung described as characteristic to the psychical infection of our time), points his life towards suffering, anxiety and lastly, to emptiness.

Do you take into consideration the reference of a spiritual orientation when you become immune to the “pain” that people around you face, according to your intentions to be vulnerable to the feeling that is passed back to you?

The man who takes seriously his role as promoter of changing mentalities can’t move from a conflicting mentality to one directed towards dialogue and cooperation – if it is not first powered with concentrated, reassuring positive energy. He can become indestructible from a moral point of view only if he survives all transformation processes, both individually, as well as collectively.

A denial of his own nature, by installing some overtly extended mental blocks or emotional indispositions, announces the beginning of annihilating his identity, a destruction of his own being, both psychologically and socially.

Carl Gustav Jung, the founding father of analytic psychology, observed man within psychological treatment. The personality and identity crises occurring within a continuous self-observation and self-correction process, inevitably lead to confronting the patient with his shadow, with that dark half of his soul that he discarded by projections or depictions of deniable positivities and negativities that could be denied in turn. Basically, man can be influenced by alternative personality states that create the premises of an inadequate argument.

To take into consideration the reference of spiritual guidance, means to get rid of all the vices you harbor within you, so that you don’t turn into the slave of urges and feelings that haven’t been shaped enough by education, culture, experience and understanding reality, which could trigger evil around you. This guiding point is represented by that incorruptible part of conscience that opposes ignorance, malevolence or deliberate act of abuse of power, certifying the innocence of the path you follow in life.

The only way to achieve the balance parameter that you need so much in order to clearly draw the path you need to follow, and in order to be convinced that the future is in good hands, is to fight the "black cobra", with the venomous influence of own arguments and perceptions.

Is the main reason for the failure of your leadership due to you not recognizing your manifestations of selfishness, intimidation and vanity that accompany abuses of power capable of restricting other people’s right to choose?

The Black Cobra aims at that spiteful and tendentious Alter-Ego, which negatively influences thoughts, arguments and ways of action. We all are a combination of white and black, of good and bad, the percentage between them depending on those two parameters that could be reset at any time: the power to expose one’s self to new experiences and challenges and the way in which we react to them.

* Note: The Silence of the Lambs (1991)