整合对绝望 EGO INTEGRITY V. DESPAIR
Only in him who in some way has taken care of things and peopleand has adapted himself to the triumphs and disappointmentsadherent to being, the originator of others or the generator ofproducts and ideas - only in him may grad,lally ripen the fruit" of these seven stages. I know no better word for it than egointegrity. Lacking a clear definition, I shall point to a fewconstituents of this state of mind. It is the ego's accrued assuranceof its proclivity for order and meaning. It is a postnarcissisticlove uf the human ego - not of the self - as anexperience which conveys some world order and spiritual sense,. no matter how dearly paid for. It is the acceptance of one's oneand only life cycle as something that had to be and that, bynecessity, permitted of no substitutions: it thus means a new, adifferent love of one's parents. It is a comradeship with theordering ways of distant times and different pursuits, as expressedin the simple products and sayings of such times andpursuits. Although aware of the relativity of all the various lifestyles which have given meaning to human striving, the possessorofintegrity is ready to defend the dignity of his own style againstall physical and economic threats. For he knows that an individuallife is the accidental coincidence of but one life cycle withbut one segment of history; and that for him all human integritystands or falls with the one style of integrity of which he partakes. The style of integrity developed by his culture or civilizationthus becomes the 'patrimony of his soul', the seal of hismoral paternity of himself (' ... pero el honor Es patrimonto delalma': Calderon). In such final consolidation, death loses itssting.