From the author: How can you easily learn a lot of new and interesting things about yourself without the help of a psychologist? Why not do this while touring the zoo? :) I took a week off from work and took myself a short vacation. “Slow down”, stop, look around, turn to yourself. Nature, hobbies, small trips. One of them is a zoo. Three hours of fresh air, wooden houses and sculptures, well-groomed enclosures and smiling people nearby, looking at the animals and little animals. Who is more interesting to watch is another question! :) I involuntarily began to pay attention to the comments that were heard on this side of the cages and enclosures. And be surprised at how different they can be, even though people seem to be talking about the same animal! For example, near a polar bear swimming monotonously (his route is unchanged, and the bear repeats it over and over again): - Poor thing, how disgusting it is for him to swim in the same circle... - Look, look, he’s showing us a number like a performer in a circus... - I wonder why he was separated from the rest of the bears? He’s lonely... - To avoid physical inactivity, you need to move all the time. Well done bear! And so on for each cell. One attributes sad thoughts and sadness to the orangutan, while the second at the same time sees him relaxed and resting. The boy says that the monkey wants to fight and starts hitting the glass, the girl holds out her palm to the glass and says: “What a kind monkey you are, let’s get acquainted!” That's how we live! We see those themes, needs, those motives and figures that are in us, that are significant for ourselves. It's like looking in a mirror. We project those parts of ourselves and qualities that we don’t see and don’t recognize in ourselves (look how lazy she is... oh, how clumsy this one is... and the squirrel is cunning, doesn’t eat cheap nuts... and the deer looks so pitiful, sad glance, etc.). But seeing what is happening in reality is not so easy. In life, you have to pay for such “attribution” and merging - the discrepancy between expectations and what actually exists, the failure to fulfill your own desires (since you go to the wrong place due to the distortion of the real picture), and sometimes the loss of yourself and, in fact, the loss of another person (I don’t see him, I see myself, and he is just a mirror). I think you can learn a lot of interesting things about yourself if you hear what we say about others, what desires, motives, needs, thoughts, qualities we attribute to them! This is a kind of test that will reveal repressed, unconscious information about me, my beloved: what do I want, but do not allow myself to do? What interests me, but for some reason I don’t follow this interest? what truth about myself do I not know and don’t really want to know? But on the other hand, this same merging and projection sometimes gives a feeling of comfort, peace... It’s as if you find yourself in childhood (I’m talking about a good, kind, low-traumatic childhood), where you love and understand... Where everything is predictable, where you are not alone... Maybe for this journey to a “good” childhood, many people love to go to the zoo! And I saw in all the animals their natural ability to follow their body and needs , do everything “here and now” and with complete dedication. And if you relax, then also “to the fullest.” Well, this is most likely about me myself)))...