You Have No Right Over Me

Learn to stay grounded in reality, without letting yourself be led by images that seek to justify the impossible.

- Thats right, said Olympia. I no longer want to be too humble subject to your eccentricities. If you had for me not love, that I would not allow, but affection you know that songs are my life then you would no longer try to forbid me not to sing, but to breathe. Under the pretext that you are jealous of my voice, you intervene between me and my dream, you withdraw from me the sublime joy of moving the hearts of Parisians, of making my soul palpitate in the souls of people. Since you have your own extravagances, you should understand others as well. As for me, my extravagance is the joy of conveying to full halls the thrill that disturbs my soul, everything I feel, everything that overwhelms me. I dont see why I would sacrifice my whim for yours. You have no right over me. Im free. I will sing wherever I want. The theater is the pedestal, it is the fiery tripod from where the priestess pronounces her oracles in front of the crowds and pours on them the divine grace that devours her.

After a short pause, Olympia continues:

You reminded me of our covenant, continued Olympia, brightening as she spoke. Come on now, will you tell me you want back the fifty thousand francs you lent me? While I had made of you a friend, you wanted to become my master ! Here I break free and break the covenant. I will refund your money and withdraw my friendship. The money? If you thought you were restraining me with this chain, you were wrong. I never needed them, except to give them away. As for me, I know no other luxury and wealth than art, and I would never feel more at ease than in a little room, in an attic, where I would sing like a bird. Thank God ! I can pay off my debts and not owe you anything.

Is your image of yourself shaped by the subjective experience of someone who, although part of the change, is not equally accountable for your choices?

A wince curled Lord Drummonds lips, like Othellos when Iago informed him that Desdemona loved Cassio. Lord Drummond had seen from the firm and sober tone in which he had spoken that he had made a resolution which nothing could thwart, except, perhaps, art, without which he could not live.

- So, he said, is the fact that I love you a crime? You, an artist, do you blame me for the emotion I feel in front of art? The idea that I fell in love with a voice, as you would fall in love with a woman, and that I have for my soul expressed in divine songs the same jealousy that others have for a body? Yes, its true, Im jealous of your song. But not only because of me, but also because of you. You are right, I have angry outbursts when I see you hurling these sounds into which you put all your soul at the common people. The public admires you crudely, but will not understand the value. He is not always in the mood to listen to you. Your voice, which opens the vaults of heaven for me, leaves others in the earthly world. Ah ! Why do you promise heaven of inimitable melodies to all these crippled and brutish people? Why do you lower the firmament to the level of the street pavement? What you call a show, I call profanation !

The less you claim authority over others, the less you are obliged to explain the motives behind your own actions.

Our thoughts and ideas, being often material, if they interfere in revealing the forms of manifestation of deep feelings, as the story above attests, then the result is a disastrous one. Inside a dark abyss of mans mind, even if there is a drop of the beauty of the soul, man will never find the strength to break free from the darkness. He will remain just like darkness: an unshakable place, a symbol of evil, mystery or fear.

Dreaming about seeing someone in the dark isnt so normal anymore, is it? And mans hope to change is a psychological necessity, in the modest attempt to foresee a bright, dignified future, continuing some illustrious names. Sometimes, we dont understand that we start to be loved only after we learn to decisively say no to those inner causes that limit the effects of an assumed act of forgiveness.

Does relinquishing authority over another person automatically free you from the obligation of answering to the decision-making authority?

Is it possible to rationally understand this, leaving aside that experience of we are together, regardless of the occasion? Logic says no, but the soul says yes. It remains to formulate a rational understanding of the mutual influence between two people, that is, between the material and mental aspects, understood as aspects of a single right: the right to not be judged. But, above all, we must also take into account the right not to accuse ourselves when our deeds forcefully drain others. And when our bad deeds are a cause of stumbling for those in the world and in this way, we remove God from us, how is it?

Delving even deeper into the source of peoples thoughts to reveal a common logic, we will discover that at least one of them does not give up and finds the strength to become a fighter at peace with himself, with the help of a heartful man who becomes his near. Without linking the meaning of each thought to any external thing, we will see that always one of them is causally influenced by the subjective conscious experience of the other. Therefore, the conclusion is the following, as well observed by Bishop Nicolae Velimirovici:

We become a mans enemies when we know his bad qualities, but he does not know the good ones. And we become a mans friends when we take into account his good qualities, but at the same time, we see the bad ones as well.

The status of friend or enemy does not depend on the other persons character, but on the relation between the qualities you choose to ignore and those you choose to notice.

You Have No Right Over Me ! This exclaims a person who knows himself to be influenced by someone who claims to be a collaborator, but in reality, clearly wants their defeat. The American essayist William G. Jordan was right when he said:

Each of us is given a wonderful power, that of good and evil, that is, the silent, unconscious, unseen influence that his life has: the simple irradiance of what a man really is, and not what he pretends to be.

* Note: Dumas, Alexandre - The hand of providence, Editura Vestala, 1993, Bucure?ti.