I don't know much about the Russians or their Proverbs. However, I do know a great deal about what is represented here and the cost of believing this and living such a standard. It all comes down to whether or not a person wants to live in some false sense of comfort (kissed with a lie) or have a real life experience.
My fear is that way too many people are satisfied with a lie and paralyzed by fear of truth. No one is everything to everyone and even the most enlightened person will have legitimate criticisms from time to time. I am guessing that virtually all humans find criticism, even constructive criticism, unpleasant. The questions then is why can some accept the inevitable unpleasant feedback and take it in stride, taking what is useful for personal improvement. And why are there others who would rather cut off every limb than hear that someone didn't care for a choice that they made or the way that they behaved.
The answer to that is likely way more in depth than the lay person can go. However, I believe that a few key components are self-esteem, parental leadership, stability of relationships and personal beliefs. If someone has low self-esteem they will not have the ability to withstand criticism in any form and will fight against hearing feedback. Perhaps a person would fight this as if it were a battle for life and in some ways it may be just that important. I believe that parents play a key role in teaching children to take feedback and make something useful out of it, but it must also be accompanied by assurance that love is not founded in perfection. This leads into stability of relationships. If a person has stable relationships and can be assured that it is possible to have areas of growth and still be perfectly loved then criticism is simply feedback for growth. Many of the questions to be asked center around whether or not a person wants to grow and finds value in feedback.
Certainly without these elements strongly in place a person would much rather be kissed with a lie, because the illusion is that it is more comfortable. Is it though? Isn't it uncomfortable to know you are living in a hallow lie that is dependent on perfection, because we all know that eventually the gig will be up and someone will find out we are not perfect.
Criticism is hard to take. Even the most enlightened person still has that second where it feels like someone punched you in the stomach (I imagine, I'm not that enlightened). It's true, the relationships that surround a child give them models to learn from. I think (since they spend so much time there) that school plays a vital part in teaching good vs bad criticism and how to learn from it. Do you think that's still happening? I'm not so sure. Very thoughtful. thanks!
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