Recently a young man (well not that young really, late thirties) came to see me for some coaching. He was fairly distressed; he felt a certain lack of direction, an absence of meaning in his life perhaps. Looking back on his life he saw a litany of failures, missed opportunities, could-have-been’s, should-have-been’s, mistakes, wrong turns, unfortunate turn of events and a few regrets thrown in for good measure.

The young man was familiar with some pop-psychology and understood the importance of taking responsibility for his own life.

He certainly didn’t wish to blame his problems on others. He didn’t, for example, wish to blame his castrating mother or his overbearing father. He definitely didn’t wish to blame his older sister who had taken so little interest in him as a child. He knew better than to blame his wife who reminded him so much of his mother (frigid bitch that she was).

He believed that his own shortcomings had played their role in bringing him to his present miserable condition. He had been born intellectually gifted, tall and good looking, but socially inept, physically clumsy and challenged on many subtle levels.

Such are the vicissitudes of fate.

Despite himself he wondered how things might have been, had he a loving mother and supportive father. Had he been given some direction and nurturing as he grew up? Perhaps had he met a different kind of woman, who knows how things may have turned out?

What had really scared this young man though, was he had suffered a minor angina (cardiac episode) and become all too acutely aware of his own frail mortality. As he correctly pointed out, he really wasn’t that young anymore. And so much of what had buoyed him as a young adult seemed perilously fragile or now totally absent from his life.

He could say, well there was a time. But alas that time was no longer.

As he sat there staring intently at me clearly seeking an answer, some sage advice, some creative new way of viewing his life so that the meaningless became meaningful, so that wasted years and missed opportunities became the wisdom and patience of a man who knew he hadn’t yet been called up to the plate, but that his turn to bat was upon him, that what had appeared wasteful in one light, now turned out strategic and wise in another.

In other words I had the sense he would have liked me to say.

I am so pleased you have come to see me. For I want to tell you the best that life has to offer lies ahead of you. The world has not yet seen the best you have to offer. You are a beautiful spirit and your kindness, love, inner joy, peace and equanimity are a boon to all who meet you. Shine my beautiful brother, shine. Life has a plan for you young man fear not. Your patience and long suffering are to receive bountiful reward. The fruit hangs before you, you have only to reach out and pluck it.

And part of me wished to say just such a thing. I concede that this was motivated in part by a purely pragmatic reason, this was, I imagine, the best way to ensure a continuation of our commercial arrangement. What was he paying me for after all, if not to tell him that it would all be okay?

It wasn’t the only reason though for my ambivalence. For I could see my own life mirrored all too clearly in his narrative. Did I too not seek a continuation of my own narcissistic fantasies after all?

However, moved to call it as I saw it, this is what I wanted to say.

Yes,I suspect the best is behind you. Not that it was ever that good. It is true your mother sounds like a bitch and your wife too. However both of them pale my friend in the face of the true bitch which is life itself. Your youth is lost never to return and it sounds as if you wasted it for the most part.

Nevertheless be that as it may let us consider what lies before you. Well definitely aging, loss of function and in time decrepitude and disease if only the disease of ageing. Your popularity with the opposite sex can only decline rapidly from here. Your earlier charm, charisma and youthful appeal are now but memories and shadows.

Finally then you will die. Will it all have meant something you ask? Will your pure spirit be carried by winged angels to the promised paradise?

Frankly I doubt it.

Even if we were to subscribe to such fairytales what would you have done, have accomplished to deserve such elevated treatment? Paradise for one such as you would seem a sin against all that is holy, it simply doesn’t make sense.

No far more likely is that your body will simply rot away. Dust to dust as they say. And your life will have meant little in the greater scheme of things.

A vague sense of empathy stayed my tongue- at least for that session, and I mumbled something about yes I could see how he was in a bit of a spot and let’s see what we could do about navigating a way forward….

As for my own existential angst…

Well I live with it every day. What else am I to do?

Turn to religion.

Anesthetise myself with woman, alcohol or narcotics.

Revel in past glories (modest as they were in my case), or fantasise about future possibilities.

Whilst none of those particular vices are my vice of choice, like most of us I have my ways of escaping the sheer hell of sober existence. The brutality and inevitability of my ego’s sheer and certain annihilation, first by life and then by death loom large in my mind’s eye.

I think that is how it goes for most of us upon reaching mid-life. We are faced with a choice of either the continued illusion of narcissistic existence, supported by vain self glorification which can only end in defeat, escapism in one form or another, a premature death, or coming to terms with the ego’s defeat and figuring out what, if anything, lies beyond its devastation.

I would guess this applies to even the most successful amongst us, money, success, fame and achievement whilst valuable in their own right do not prolong the egoistical existence indefinitely. Old age and death come for us all it’s as simple as that.

I think that the ego is like a matchstick, admittedly a very durable and robust matchstick, but a matchstick none the less. It is a matchstick which burns for a time in the face of the void and keeps the darkness at bay, and it is also a beam which holds the weight of the void above its head until one day that weight it simply too much and the matchstick snaps.

So the question I suppose is what lies beyond the matchsticks existence- if anything?

Beyond the ego

First of all notwithstanding what I have said I don’t think the ego can (or should) be truly removed from the equation of life. As long as we are alive the ego will be along for the ride. There is a significant school of thought, specifically Indian mysticism, who would dispute this. The yogis and Indian holy men claim that the ego needs to be transcended and in the process obliterated in order for self realisation to take place.

Enlightenment is the ultimate defeat of the ego.

However I suggest that there are good reasons to question whether anyone who has not actually become self enlightened, i.e. attained satori, can truly understand this doctrine. Also being a student of Western Mysticism the only path to redemption, that I can speak of, is the one that retains the ego. Christianity is the religion of the ego.

The “good news” of Christianity is the survival of the ego into eternity.

We can get some clue then from the Christian myth as to what is meant by the ego beyond its original narcissistic state, if we consider the life of Christ as an example of this idea. It is only at the time of his crucifixion, once death and total defeat of the man Jesus of Nazareth are certain that he becomes the Christ being. Christ emerges once all narcissistic pretentions are over. Nevertheless Christ does not become synonymous with God the father; he remains an independent and distinct being.

The truth that is pointed to in the Christian myth is the idea that there resides in each of us a second bigger personality. This personality lies latent during the narcissistic phase of our existence. It can only emerge with the defeat of the ego. With the emergence of this second personality a new ego is formed, one that can carry out the vocation you were born to.

That is the idea anyway. I think there are some difficulties in taking this too literally or formulisticly. Specifically, many people seem to be born into their vocation and discover it at a young age; in fact one might argue that the greatest achievers almost uniformly fit this profile. Secondly the vast majority of people appear never to reach this elevated state of the second personality and the actualisation of their vocation.

How can we make sense of this?

Of Matchsticks and Messiahs

Let’s turn once again to the Christian myth.

Consider Jesus of Nazareth prior to his crucifixion.  He was clearly a man who had discovered his vocation, holy man, healer, religious and political maverick, all seem like candidates for that vocation. We could even call him a Messiah.  However only at the point that he was crucified and rose again can we legitimately say that he became the Christ (i.e. the Messiah) and a God.

So in the annihilation of his personal ego and through the birth of his divine ego he goes from being a man of God to a God man.

Where does this leave the rest of us? Do we need to be crucified in order to find our vocation and fulfil our destiny? Well let’s hope not . That seems far too much like the Christian embrace of suffering which legitimises illegitimate suffering. For my part I certainly don’t aspire to martyrdom!

That being said, the recognition of the limitations of our narcissistic aspirations, and the destruction of the personal ego that comes along with this, is not exactly a barrel of laughs. This brings us to the second category of objection- why do so few people realise their vocation?

Many are called but few answer.

If we step out of the myth of the second personality for a moment we can identify numerous social, economic and psychological reasons why many (most?) don’t realise their full potential. Nevertheless in the spirit of this idea, I would say that the pain that accompanies the birth of the second personality is too much for many to bear. And their anesthetising this pain, through the many ways of doing this, frequently results in a still birth.

So finally then what is the answer to this dilemma?

I don’t know so am not going to pretend to know. However what I can say with a reasonable degree of certainty is that your ego like mine, at least in its narcissistic formulation, is doomed.

The rest, as they say, is up to you.

In western culture the ego has had a bad rap. Most people think that an ego is something negative. That it should be suppressed. You have an over inflated ego, or you are egocentric or egotistical.

And Eastern religions say you should abandon it altogether, it just causes problems.

But what is the ego? Is it something good or bad?

Should you give up on it or hold on to it?

In both analytical psychology (Jungian) and psychoanalysis (Freudian), the Ego plays an important part in the development of a healthy psyche. Without the Ego, there is no central point, or driver of the psyche.

Freud’s Ego:

In Freud’s model of the psyche, there are 3 main psychic “apparatus”, namely the Id, the Ego and the Superego.

The Id is instinctive and will pursue all the things you want and want to do, whilst the Superego is your conscience and its goal is everything that you should be doing.

Somewhere in the middle of these two drives is the Ego, who needs to find the balance between what you want to do and what you should be doing.

A very good analogy to the Freudian concept of Ego is found in the Lord of the Rings saga, where Samwell (Frodo’s best friend) performs the function of the Ego in his role. He is the quiet, strong one, not heroic, but realistic. He plods along, being practical and supportive and unwavering in his commitment to the goal.

Ultimately Freud’s’ Ego acts according to the Reality principle. It is the Ego which determines whether your fantasies, dreams and desires are realistic and if you are able to achieve them. The Ego will then assume the role of setting goals and working towards achieving them.
I am sure we all know some people who live in a fantasy world and they do not seem to adhere to the reality principle. Psychoanalysts attempt to bring these people back to reality by strengthening their Ego’s and pointing out to them the irrationality of their fantasies.

Jung’s Ego:

In Jung’s model of the psyche, the Ego takes on a slightly different role.

Jung’s Ego is the hero. The goal of Jungian psychology in terms of the Ego’s development is to strengthen the Ego through introspection and integration of the Shadow. And the journey to individuation is mythologically speaking all the trials and tribulations that the hero attempts and by fulfilling these tasks, the hero overcomes his own fears and weaknesses.

Looking at the same example of the Lord of the Rings, the Jungian Ego is Frodo, who has to find the courage within himself to overcome his fears and desires to ultimately destroy the ring. The hero’s journey is fraught with obstacles and danger, designed to distract him from achieving his goal. He has find within himsef the courage to embrace the hero within or to become the hero depending on your perspective.

If a patient enters analysis, the Analyst will strengthen the Ego through integrating their Shadow (well….hopefully ). Through this process, projected Shadow content is made conscious and integrated into the Ego. The Ego then becomes progressively stronger and its ability to make choices and act upon them becomes greater.

The Hero’s Journey:

The process of individuation is a process of becoming ourselves.

It is giving birth to who we are.

Frodo is the archetypal “good guy”. He has no evil in him, or desires which cannot be met. He is content living amongst the hobbits. His journey starts here.

But then, something new is introduced to him, a ring of power.
The ring is a symbol of ultimate power, and to regain autonomy, Frodo has to destroy the ring which threatens to overpower him and control him. This metaphor describes how the unconscious complexes can take a hold of us and turn us into slaves to fulfill their own desires, not our own. Gollum is his shadow, that which he would become if he gave in to the power of the ring. He really struggles with this, seeing Gollum as his Shadow. Sam is not fooled, he can see the shadow clearly, but Frodo tries to find the good in Gollum. It is only when he accepts the darkness in Gollum as real and unwavering that he is able to let go of the ring.

It is the process of exploring unconscious beliefs that tie us to a lifestyle and persona with which we have identified, but which we are not. All the monsters in the hero’s journey are the unconscious complexes which reside in our psyche’s and they have their own agenda’s. The light or fire that is used to dispel them are the tools of consciousness –illumination, reflection and assimilation.

The hero’s journey involves looking your own dragon in the eye and overcoming it. As the mountaineer Sir Edmund Hillary said, It is not the mountain you conquer, it is yourself.”

The Jungian Goal:

So, you can see that from a Western psychological perspective, the Ego performs a very important role.

If the psyche is a vehicle, the Ego is the driver. Or another example, you can either be on the outside of the spinning wheel, going up and down and spinning out of control, or you can be the central axis of the wheel, being conscious of what is going on around you, but centered and in control. Individuation allows for the development of a bigger personality, becoming who you are in totality, a true individual who contributes their unique essence to the universe.

Of course I am making it sound quite easy and in truth it is not. You will frequently find yourself spinning out of control, and sometimes you can reflect on it for years without a satisfactory outcome.

But it is the hero’s journey, fraught with danger, disappointment and monsters.

Until next time.
Anja

If you enjoyed this blog, you can read some more on a similar topic:
The Birth of Self

Who are you Really?

I heard from one of my lecturers at Wits recently about a book called Better never to have been: the harm of coming into existence, written by a local lad, Professor David Benatar, HOD of the philosophy department at the University of Cape Town. As the title suggests Benatar proposes that it is far better never to be born; that one is irreparably harmed by coming into existence.

The two arguments that Benatar offers for this view are:

1.By bringing someone into existence, one harms her by causing all the bad aspects of her life. By bringing someone into existence, one does not benefit her at all by causing the good aspects of her life.
2.Taking into account both the good and the bad aspects of a person’s life, most lives are overall very bad and not worth having.

(Source: Elizabeth Harman, (2009), Nous, 43:4)

Whilst this may not be an entirely new idea, echoing thinkers like Schopenhauer, Camus and even Kafka, one has to applaud Benatar for a clean and unambiguous articulation of the dilemma we all face.

Being alive is bloody difficult.

Furthermore it is frustrating, painful, messy, frequently humiliating, lonely, very irritating and in anyone who bothers to contemplate it for any length of time it leads to a profound existential angst.

Why am I alive? What is the purpose of my existence? What is the point of being born if I am destined to die? In the very short and frequently painful duration of my existence what exactly is it I am meant to accomplish? 

Or something to that effect anyhow.

Naturally there is always the illusion of hope one can cling to, the idiocy of optimism, the ignorance of pragmatism or even the ostrich with its head in the sand approach. Recently in fact, this was suggested to me by a fellow student in my Anthroposophy study group, and I’m sure you have been on the receiving end of similar well meant advice if like me you are given to wondering about the meaning of life.

Something along the lines of “well I don’t know it just seems silly to me, what the point in asking these questions, I for my part am far more pragmatic…”

And one must concede that there is merit in this criticism. But for those of us that are afflicted with a mind that thinks and a souls that seeks, it is a constitutive condition of our lives. That there may not be any answers, well that sure doesn’t remove the questions…

Anyhow with this in mind, I met my friend and confidante Ryan Parker for a drink and a bite to eat at Vovo Telo in Pankhurst last week. (Great pasta there by the way! We must be grateful for these small pleasures).  So it was our conversation soon turned to this well worn, but no less stimulating for that, topic.

What is the purpose of our lives?

And during the course of our discussion, fuelled by the Deli pasta and Stephen Weis (unfiltered) beer we were able to narrow this broad question down to a slightly more pointed one. It is this question I want to share with you, and the profound difficulty in coming to terms with it. And yet it is a dilemma which if our lives are to have any meaning at all we absolutely must answer.

Simply stated it is this:

Is my destiny in my own hands?

It will be easier if I state the problems with both positions which illustrate then the difficulty in answering this question.

Some would say it is. There was a movie once you may have seen it The Secret, the power of attraction, think positive thoughts, visualise… all the usual bullshit, you know we’ve heard it all a thousand times. The bottom line is you can manifest the (or at least your) future.

I, like any sane person with any critical faculty at all, question the wisdom of this. Did you for example manifest your birth? Some would suggest you did- if so do you have any recollection of this?

* Do you choose to get older?
* Do you choose to fall ill?
* Do you believe that you can choose not to die? Or when you will die?

Think about the most important things that have happened in your life, meeting the person you love most in the world, the one you hate most, your most profound religious experience, your most meaningful encounter with beauty, your most terrible encounter with life…

Did you really choose the time, place, and manner of these?

I think not.

Now of course the ever resourceful die hard New Ager may suggest well you did but maybe not you as you are now, your spirit, or your unconscious or something along those lines. However there is a real problem with this line of defence for the you-control-your-own-destiny position. We can allow that possibly you, in the more expansive sense of the idea, manifest your own destiny.

What does that mean?

Well possibly not everything you manifest is directed by your conscious intention, what about your unconscious psyche? Now when we use the term unconscious in this broad sense you can substitute your higher self, your as yet unborn spirit i.e. selecting a particular incarnation, even God in a liberal interpretation of the concept.

I think there is value in this line of thought. I would hardly have dedicated such a substantial portion of my own life to the study of depth psychology if I did not. However as I say I think this line of thinking faces a serious problem, commits a logical flaw if you will. Specifically this:

In the ultimate sense of the word something is only yours if it is conscious.

When we strip the “I’ of all extraneous accruements, what we are left with is pure consciousness. And if you take the time to ponder on this you will find that when you say I, it is this conscious island in the centre of the cosmos that you are referring to.  This is well known in both eastern and western mysticism.

So in conclusion then I hope the problem with the I-manifest-my-own-destiny approach is clear. Simply whilst it sounds very noble and like the thing to do, it is also clearly an illusion. It is an illusion which life very soon dispels. It is at best a facile tool of the narcissistic persona, propped up but ultimately empty.

Let’s now consider the opposite position.

Is my life and fate is subject to a destiny outside of my direct control.

Once again it matters not what you mean specifically by ‘destiny’ here; at least not for the purposes of this discussion. Destiny could be something totally random, it could be a prescribed life path, it could be directed by your unconscious psyche, by God i.e. simply something greater than you and unknown directly to you.

Now I could be mistaken but I strongly suspect this is our default belief. How could it not be? God knows that the experience of life and what it brings to us seems to eclipse the ambit of our ego and the egos most heartfelt desires.

To put it bluntly life seems bigger than you or I.

I think all (but most certainly those in the Judeo Christian tradition) religions embrace this position. The best and most beautiful expression from this comes from Islam.

Insha’Allah (Arabic)
Deo volente (Latin)
If (and only if) it is God’s will (English).

Although I was born a Maronite Catholic, my father hails from the Lebanon where French and Arabic are the national languages and the majority of the Lebanese community is Muslim. So it was that as I grew up I would often hear this phrase. My father’s name was Saleem.

“How are you Saleem?”
“Insha’Allah” (meaning: I am alive thanks God, and also I am as well as God allows).

“Saleem how’s the family?”
“Insha’Allah” (meaning: God is good and so it is the family is well because such is His will)

“Saleem so will you buy that house/ win that race/ succeed at that project?”
“Insha’Allah” (I will if it is the will of God, i.e. it is my will, but it cannot come into being unless it is not only my will, but the will of God).

[May Allah keep and bless you Saleem.]

Now I don’t wish to deny a certain prejudice for the beauty and humility of this position. I am reminded of my favourite verse from the Rubaiyat.

Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d
Of the Two Worlds so wisely they are thrust
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.

Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door where in I went.

Nevertheless, one does not need to be a rocket scientist to see that there is a major problem with this type of fatalism. It is quite simply its own reward. If I do not resolve to take action and to carve out my own future and the future of generations that will follow me then who else will? God perhaps, the unconscious, my higher self…?

Call me a cynic but I doubt it.

God I think helps those who help themselves. Or as Gary Player once said, “The more I practice the luckier I get.”

The very possibility of freedom, of which I am a passionate proponent, demands that I am able to act freely and in so doing alter the course of my destiny.

So in a nutshell this is the dilemma. If I fail to act as though I am able to shape my destiny a fatal passivity sets in from which little of constructive value can emerge. Yet is almost certain that a great portion of my destiny, I would say the greater portion, lies outside of my conscious choice.

I need to aspire to freedom when the truth is an un-chosen fate awaits me.

Or to paraphrase Camus, I need to rebel against the absurdity of my existence.

The experience machine

An illustration may help to amplify this idea. There is a thought experiment that comes from a philosopher called Robert Nozick. It is called the experience machine, now anyone who has seen The Matrix will immediately understand the concept here; the experience machine embeds my mind in a virtual reality.

Briefly it goes like this: I go into the experience machine offices where I fill out a questionnaire. The form is a questionnaire that asks exactly what type of experiences I wish to have whilst plugged into the experience machine. Naturally once I am plugged in I will, for the purpose of making the experience as real as possible, have no recollection of the fact that this is virtual and not absolutely real.

Now the question that Nozick poses is as follows: is it any different to have the pure (and virtual) experience in the experience machine from having that experience in the ‘real world’? To use the example Brian Penrose did (Wits 2012), consider writing a novel. Do you think there is something inherently more valuable in actually writing a novel in the real world as opposed to merely having the experience of writing a novel in the experience machine (and of course of the public and critical acclaim that you could have in the experience machine )?

(Source: Anarchy, State and Utopia, Nozick, 1974)

The purpose of this thought experiment is that intuitively most people believe that there is in fact something missing, some dimension absent, in the experience machine which makes it a poor cousin of the real world.

As it happens I don’t agree and neither did Ryan. We both believed that the experience in the machine would be every bit as valuable as one in the real world which if you think about it is simply a 10 000 year old experience machine.

What do you think? Would you plug in as a substitute for the ‘real thing’?

Even if you wouldn’t, and no doubt many people reading this would not, I want you for the sake of argument to allow that the experience machine’s reality could be as good and real(?) as the real thing.

Here is the problem though as Ryan so vividly expressed it.

What about our blood, he asked? Is there not something in our blood which dictates our destiny, what it is we are meant to do, as opposed to what it is we want to do?

Now we are back to square one. As you no doubt realise, the blood of course is just another metaphor for this hidden force that seems to dictate so much of our lives. As Anja is always fond of pointing out, it is so often necessity rather than desire which leads us to individuate.

If you doubt this and genuinely locate yourself in the I manifest my own future camp, seriously think about this idea.

Do you really feel competent and qualified to choose the rest of your life? Virtual or otherwise, but to genuinely get a sense of the question it works better inside Nozick’s experience machine.

And of course no one will know the answer to this except you so you can be 100% honest, there is no one looking over your shoulder for whom you need to put on a brave face.

I’m betting that you’ll say no.

If you do say no though, it begs the question, why the hell not? What kind of man or woman are you that is too afraid to step up to the plate and create your own future? Do you wish to remain infantile forever, for surely that is what it is, a form of remaining a child? Admittedly a child of the cosmos, but a child none the less.

Just how long are you planning to remain in the nursery?

Now don’t get me wrong because I am not patronising you here, this question is absolutely real for me and I genuinely do not know the answer. Anyway it’s something to think about.

A Jungian perspective

Jung provides a possible way of approaching this paradox. Consider what it is about being able to choose the rest of your life that is inherently distasteful, that leaves you feeling as though you just may be cheating yourself out of the most important thing that life has to offer.

It is, I suggest, the loss of mystery. What makes life a beautiful (even in the face of the suffering which comes along with it as Benatar reminds us) is not-knowing, rather than knowing. If we are still alive in spirit as well as body, we retain the childhood wonder at the possible, not the probable.

What could happen?
Where will this road lead?

It is the possibility of a greater dream than we can ever imagine that makes life meaningful, worth living.

Nevertheless our desires and intentions are not unimportant to be dismissed as insignificant. They should at least act as a rudder as we make our journey across the stormy ocean. This is for Jung the relationship between the ego (the conscious self) and the self (the totality of the psyche conscious and unconscious).

Analogous to the parent and child; it is an ignorant parent that does not listen to the desires of the child regardless of how infantile and misguided they may seem.

But just how can we do this, express our desires and manifest our intentions without closing down this bigger dream, without losing sight of the greater possibility?

Well, as Jung would have it, through the symbolic attitude. An orientation to our desires and the objects of our consciousness which treats them symbolically rather than as signs. I have certain intentions, but as long as I treat them as symbols I do not irreparably harm the unknown god that is possibility.

As always with love,

Stephen.

Have you ever met one of those couples, where the one is just perfect and fantastic and their partner is a walking disaster? One is incompetent, inappropriate, a total bitch or bastard, etc. Yet their partner is charismatic, socially skilled, an all round good person. And you think to yourself what on earth is he doing with her (or vice versa).

Whilst I was doing research on Persona, I came across a story told by Jung which illustrates this very well.

[…] one might easily call him a saint. I stalked round him for three whole days, but never a mortal failing did I find in him. My feeling of inferiority grew ominous, and I was beginning to think seriously of how I might better myself. Then, on the fourth day, his wife came to consult me […} that any man who becomes one with his persona can cheerfully let all disturbances manifest themselves through his wife without her noticing it, though she pays for her self-sacrifice with a bad neurosis.”

Personal Experience

When I was a child, my best friend’s father was a minister of the local church. He had an incredibly well developed persona.

His whole family paid the price for that.

To his congregation, he was the pillar of strength and morality. He guided and counseled and inspired. But at home, he was mean and dismissive towards his wife, and the children copied his behaviour towards her. He was also abusive and would beat the children with a cane, until they were well into their teens. This is a typical example of what I am referring to here. To a large extent his wife swallowed his shadow. She was demure, soft spoken and seemed to have no say whatsoever in what was going on in the home. She seemed to accept her fate of being the doormat and suffered in silence.

When Persona goes wrong

Although the persona is an essential part of getting along in society, it causes huge problems when the individual identifies with their persona. What I mean is that you get the doctor who is only that – a doctor. Whether he is with his patients, friends or church, he is a doctor. There is no private life or individual behind the mask. The individual becomes one sided and shallow. This often happens to women, who become the mother and the wife and that is all they are. The young girl they were once, the individual, has disappeared.

So how does this work? And why does this happen?

John exposed

Let’s say we have an attorney named John. John’s persona is incredibly well developed. He is articulate, charismatic, intelligent, rational and ambitious. This is his persona and he believes himself to be just that. However, John has many unconscious shadow qualities, qualities which he has repressed because they do not fit into his persona. These unconscious repressed qualities will be projected outwards, because John does not take ownership of them. So he finds himself surrounded by incompetence, arrogance, narcissism, short tempers, maybe even violence.

Now put John in a family unit with a wife and two children. Any one of them will start displaying those qualities which he has rejected from himself. You can imagine that one of his children has inherited his personality, so they will most definitely display these qualities, but John won’t recognize that. Instead he will label the child and the child will live up to the label. Because as long as John does not face his shadow, he will project it out and it will be picked up via counter transference by someone in his family.

Jung mentions that there are many side effects to a spectacularly well adapted persona. The most common is that the individual has a disastrous home life. He is irritable and short tempered. Imagine John coming home after a long day at the office and being confronted by his shadow. He will not be able to contain his dissatisfaction and/or rage.

Eventually it will catch up with him. When confronted by a crises, John will fall apart. In times of crises the ego takes control and manage the crises. The persona is not the same as the ego. It is a shallow husk. The individual cannot fall back on the persona, it has no substance, no core and is not connected to their inner world. If you had to think of strong individuals that you know and how they handle crises, you may just realize that what you perceived as a strong ego, is in fact just a well developed persona.

In Jung’s psychic model, the persona is the bridge to the outer world, but the bridge to the inner world is the anima/animus. When the anima/animus is not functioning properly,the individual has no connection with their inner life. Dreams, imaginations, reverence, creativity – these qualities are not accessible to them.

These individuals often experience a fragmentation of the personality when they get to their midlife. At this stage there is a need to connect with their soul, but their connection to the inner life is non-existent and this causes the fragmentation, often accompanied by depression and low energy.
So then John may take on a young lover or buy a Porche, because he is holding on to an image of himself that he has always had and now he has to take drastic measures to affirm his being. But what he should be doing, is going inward, find himself, reconnect with his soul and live a full life with meaning.

Consider your own situation.

• Are you married to an absolute bitch or bastard? Or is your partner totally incompetent in some way?
• Are you the bitch/bastard or incompetent fool whose presence merely highlights the virtues of your partner?
• Is there a black sheep in your family that carries the collective sin of the family? Are you that black sheep?
• How closely do you identify with your public persona? Do you recognize that it is a mask you wear rather than who you are?

For more information on Jungian concepts, please read the following blogs:
Transference
Counter transference
Anima/Animus

Until next time.
Anja

Jung identified the persona as the bridge between the ego and the external world; in just the same way as the anima forms the bridge to the inner world. The persona is simply your public personality, the face you show the world. The better developed your persona is the better you will get on in the world.

This is a generalisation and suffers the limitations of all generalisations. Naturally some people get on pretty well with a very poorly developed persona, but these are the exceptions not the rule and then almost undoubtedly their progress in the world would have been enhanced had they a better, more cultivated, persona.

Bottom line, the persona is an invaluable tool in public life and social interaction. It plays an important role even in private life, your interaction with intimate friends and family as well, but here the line between ego and persona becomes more blurred.

The persona is:

• The face you show the world. The world and the people in it are not generally psychic they do not get to know “who you really are” through some process of psychic osmosis. People that interact with you know you through your public personality, from their perspective that is exactly who you are.
• Who you are in the world.
• What you stand for, the values you represent to the world.
• It is your public brand.

You use it to:

• Tell others who you are, what you are and what you stand for.
• Tell others who they are dealing with.
• Speak your message from the inner world, including your most sincere heartfelt inner being.
• Communicate with others.
• Establish relationships publically, professionally and privately.
• Actualise who you are in society.

It is then not an unimportant aspect of you as a total person. And as effective as the results can be when the persona is well developed they can be even more disastrous when the persona is poorly, inappropriate, unconscious, not well articulated, ambiguous, wishy washy or simply nonexistent.

The Modern Approach

One of the most common failures in the educational system is the failure to effectively communicate the significance of this essential social tool. More so now I suspect than in yesteryear. Naturally this is a culturally specific observation but definitely in the western world the focus on persona has decreased in the last century. The modern idea is be yourself, behave naturally, don’t be inhibited, express yourself etc. And perhaps this is most evident in the sexual arena where conformity to a specific type (heterosexual) is less important than it was for successful social adaptation.

However society functions by virtue of the social interconnections established via these personas. To the extent that you identify yourself to me and I am able to establish a protocol in your behaviour and know who you are and what you stand for social interaction is facilitated. It is all very well to say “be yourself” but it is somewhat less clear how you should communicate that self to the world. From a Jungian, and classical cultural, perspective this tool is the persona.
You see it is all very well to say be yourself if only being yourself were not the most difficult of all things. For to be yourself presupposes that you know who “yourself” is. Secondly “be yourself”, contrary to what the popular media may suggest, does not in fact mean you should publicly indulge every whim. Rather it has some value if you are able to establish an aspect of your being or being in the world generally that you represent through yourself. And in being a beacon of this value you are in fact being yourself, because this is the value you have adopted as being closest to yourself.

Let me use an analogy to explain this idea.

Consider what it means to be a coffee shop. A coffee shop performs a non negotiable function of serving coffee. Beyond that there is an expectation that a coffee shop conforms to certain well established parameters: offers seating for its customers, sells certain snacks to accompany the purchase of a coffee, has a variety of different coffee like options, has a certain ambiance, its pricing falls within a certain range and so on. Now whilst not every coffee shop has to conform to all of these it is customary that most will conform to a good number of them and through this we know them as coffee shops.
Which brings us to the next important point: a coffee shop must necessary if it is to survive tell the world that is a coffee shop. It must have the persona of a coffee shop.

How exactly does it do this?

Well possibly the easiest and most effective way is to be part of a chain. A store that is part of a big franchise such as Starbucks, or The Seattle Coffee Company, or in South Africa maybe Mugg & Bean Coffee Company. Here the moment we see the sign we are able to connect it with a well established coffee company brand. You or I am able to enter with a sense of comfort and familiarity despite never having been to this particular store before- the brand tells us what we can expect.

Now a coffee shop that is not part of a big franchise has a slightly tougher job telling us what it is and what it stands for. Still it usually has recourse to certain tell tale signals that communicate its essence to us: the big noisy and aromatic coffee machine, a general coffee aroma in the shop, a fairly standard layout and seating arrangement, some images on the walls possibly showing a Parisian comer coffee scene etc.
And it too through these unspoken signals communicates clearly, if somewhat less clearly than the franchise store, what it stands for and what it offers- what we can expect in other words when we step into it.

In both cases it is clear the shop has to act (look, feel, behave, present, smell) like a coffee shop in order to both function and be identified as a coffee shop.

The persona acts, or should act, in the same fashion.

It needs to fall within a recognised category, as a shop falls into the category coffee shop, such as male or female, sexual orientation, character type, cultural context (these are usually pretty spontaneous and occur without conscious intervention), but then some that are equally important but less obvious are:

• Profession
• Value system
• Social sub-group.

An Effective Persona

So let us consider the broad category of being an entertainer. What type of entertainer: musician, actor, comedian, dancer, exactly is our next question? But provided the person falls into any one of these identifiable sub categories we are satisfied that we know who they are- we can identify and classify them.
In that context to return to our coffee shop franchise analogy a good comparison may be being a ballet dancer with a recognised company, or a Hollywood (or Bollywood) actor. Being in other words not only an entertainer, but an entertainer in a clear and recognised category (e.g. dancer) and furthermore being a member of the Bolshoi Ballet Company.

Okay so that’s when the persona is very clearly articulated. What about when it is not?

So, for example, what about if the person is an entertainer but is not sure whether they are an actor or a singer, not sure if they want to be on stage or in cinema etc. Well as we all know that probably describes the majority of aspiring entertainers who have developed multiple skills in order to have the versatility demanded by the entertainment industry. And in due course their career paths if all goes well will identify them increasingly with one of those skill sets or personas.

Still as you can see it is somewhat more challenging for a casting director or agent to place them.
But okay that as we know is still workable. What about though when there is a further blurring between whether this person is a professional entertainer or someone who is going to teach dance, acting, singing…
Hmm maybe a little more vague now, but still okay, could work, lots of people fall into that broader category accepting what work comes their way.
What about if the person is a medical student but also an aspiring actor, a singer who longs to run a fortune 500 company, a dentist who wants nothing more than to be a dancer…

Now, whilst the world is filled with just such people and to some degree or other we all have these dilemmas to contend with, it does make the message of who you are that the world receives confusing. And to the degree that it is confused know one quite knows whether to treat you as a medical student or an actor including the people that most matter the ones that are going to employ you for example; or the ones who are going ask you join their dance company.

A Caveat

The complexity of life being what it is today I must concede that fewer and fewer people fall into a simple classifiable category professionally or personally. Life has simply become too multi dimensional for very narrow classifications. However that does not detract from the importance of communicating clearly to the world who you are and what your brand is. To the extent that you are able to articulate your brand very clearly and communicate to the world at large your journey in the world will be facilitated. Your inner ambiguity that is expressed in your persona confuses others as much as it confuses you.

So Who Are You Really?

I think most of us are inclined today to indentify ourselves with our inner world or at the very least with our private selves. The persona is seen as a necessary evil, a mask that needs must I don for the world out there. And it is this negativity towards the persona as being somehow less than 100% authentic that casts it in a poor light. Jung himself did not hold the persona in very high regard and to some degree his persona seemed less than ideal. However I think that is only a superficial view and in fact his persona was highly developed and a significant part of the Jungian legacy.

I have started so suspect over the last few years that the persona is at least as important as your relationship with the inner world.

It is the persona that is the true carrier of your essential being into the world.

It is the persona that the world comes to know you by, not your inner life, unless like Jung it becomes a part of your persona i.e. think of Jung’s Red Book and how that adds to the mystique of who Jung was.

Whether or not you agree with me I hope I have been able to communicate the importance of the persona in the psychic economy.

I leave you with this exercise in considering your own persona:

• Classify your persona in the same way we did with the dancer example.
• What message does your persona send to the world?
• Do you think your persona is functioning optimally?
• Is there any way to increase the clarity of your persona?

And then just for fun:

• If your persona was a coffee shop/restaurant what would it be?
• If it were a movie what would it be?
• If it were a song what would it be?

Until we speak again,

Stephen.

Helena Bassil-Morozow PhD, is a cultural studies theorist and film scholar. This post is a copy of her talk given at the Confederation for Analytical Psychology Conference – A Dangerous Method which was presented on Saturday 11th February 2012.

It does not come as a surprise that the body horror director David Cronenberg chose psychoanalysis as the subject of his latest work. Psychoanalysis must appeal to Cronenberg because it allows him to go back to the roots of violence, sexual deviations and other human demons he has explored in his career to date. Moreover, the subject takes him to the beginning of the twentieth century, when these demons were being seriously analysed for the first time in history. The director is keen to have a closer look at the people who ‘registered’ the ‘death of God’ because they recognised the tragic pervasiveness of evil in humankind. And Cronenberg is particularly keen to pick on Jung because Jung is still clinging to his ‘defences’ – myth, religion and spirituality – all of which the director dismisses. The protagonist of A Dangerous Method is still hoping to ‘revive’ God.

A Dangerous Method is a very typical Cronebergian film in the sense that it explores the director’s pet themes: fragmentation, contamination, institutionalisation of the body and mind, and existential disorientation and confusion. Jung is turned into yet another fragile Cronenberg protagonist who loses the fight with the unconscious (often metaphorically presented in his films as a wound) and ends up being infected by its contents.

The result is rather perplexing. Jung would have had difficulty recognising himself in this rather Freudian interpretation of the origins of psychoanalysis. In a recent interview with Film Quarterly Cronenberg said:

I suppose one of the reasons that I would prefer Freud to Jung is that I think that Freud insisted on the reality of the human body at a time when the body was covered up by many stiff layers of clothing. Freud was saying: no, all of these orifices and fluids and things are of actual significance and importance to the human psyche whether we like it or not. Whereas Jung wanted to sort of flee the body and become a spiritual leader which I think is what happened. He became more like a religious leader than a physician, in my opinion.
(Ratner, 2012: XX)

Being the protagonist in a Cronenberg film usually means being subjected to all kinds of torture and weird transformations, and in no way can Jung the protagonist escape the same destiny. Completely disregarding this ‘religious’ aspect of Jung’s psychology, Cronenberg brings him back to the question of the body; he drags him, kicking and screaming, back to Freud; he rubs his nose in sex, the instincts, fluids, physicality; he makes him witness and accept the dark, uncontrollable, unpredictable side of human sexuality. Sabina Spielrein and Otto Gross become his accomplices in this elaborate torture of the spiritual man who dares to think that sex is not everything and that there is life outside the narrow cage of the body. ‘Sexuality is an area in which we are not fully evolved – the director says in the book of interviews Cronenberg on Cronenberg – culturally, physically or in any other way’ (Rodley, 1996: 65).

The first phase of the trial he invents for Jung consists of taking away Jung’s spirituality and leaving him face to face with the monsters that are human instincts. Religion, Cronenberg implies, is a toy for the deluded; a shield against existential emptiness; a fragile bridge across the void. It is something cowards use in order to avoid the difficulty and responsibility of individual decisions. It is all too easy to attain personal wholeness with myth; to heal the broken psyche of modern man with the promise of God in whatever form; to water the wasteland of modernity with fables. Cronenberg remains sceptical of such methods. His aesthetics calls for a broken psyche – disjointed, cut into pieces, mutilated, torn, tortured, and murdered in a snuff film. The images of disintegration he mercilessly creates throughout his career – the repugnant bodily transformations in The Fly (1986), the gynaecological nightmare of Dead Ringers (1988), the sexual perversions of Crash (1996), the mindless, highly contagious violence in Videodrome (1983) – all go back to the waste land of the western soul. Instead of healing the Cartesian schism, he widens it with his surgical instruments and shows its ugly contents. Like the vagina on Max Renn’s stomach in Videodrome, the schism is eternal, outside of human control, and does not heal. In fact, Keira Knightley’s bodily contortions and hysterical faces belong to the same tradition.

Modern man – Cronenberg implies – is not ‘in search of a soul’. There is no such as thing as a soul in the first place. In the world characterised by existentialist freedom, the tortured free will is exhausted by making constant moral choices in the absence of a higher authority; a bigger organising superstructure. In this the director follows his hero, the trail-blazer, the supreme master of disintegration – William Burroughs, and especially his controversial novel The Naked Lunch. He is also a big fan of the playwright whose talent of rendering the existential emptiness in a dialogue was breathtaking – Samuel Beckett.

The darker aspect of this position is expressed in the film by Otto Gross when se says that the psychotherapist’s job is to make the patient ‘capable of freedom’ (and, in his case, total freedom is so destabilising that it merges with madness). The more positive angle on the issue is taken by Sabina Spielrein who announces to Jung half way through the film that she wants to be a doctor because she aspires to give people their freedom (release them from the prison of their problems – and from the rigid framework of their bodies).

The director says in an interview published in Cronenberg on Cronenberg:

The phrase ‘biological horror’ – often attached to my work – really refers to the fact that my films are very body-conscious. They’re very conscious of physical existence as a living organism, rather than other horror films or science-fiction films which are very technologically oriented, or concerned with the supernatural, and in that sense are very disembodied.
I’ve never been religious in the sense that I felt there was a God, that there was an external structure, universal and cosmic, that was imposed on human beings. I always really did feel – at first not consciously and then quite consciously – that we have created our own universe. Therefore, what is wrong with it also comes from us. That isn’t to say that we make all the rules, just that my worldview is human-centered as opposed to being centered outside humanity. I think this naturally leads you to the feeling that, if you’re dealing with horror, it must also be human-centered. It comes from within man.
(Rodley, 1996: 58)

Cronenberg also wants to show the limitations offered by the body: ‘I am attached to the notion that I am free and that my will determines my own life’ (1996: 144). His latest film confirms his idea that human beings ‘carry the seeds of their own destruction with them, always, and that they can erupt at any time. Because there is no defence against it; there is no escape from it’ (1996: 58). This is reflected by the self-disgust from which Keira Knightley’s character suffers in the film: ‘I am violent, filthy and corrupt. I must never get out of here [the Burghölzli hospital)’.

The next phase of the torture process involves the question of social class. A traditional middle class man who had a perfect childhood, Cronenberg is keen to challenge and dismiss what he sees as the sterility of the middle-class lifestyle. He becomes the trickster, undressing the body and showing all the unsightly scars to his shocked, decent audience. He dissects, he uncovers, he crosses all possible boundaries of good taste and moral behaviour. He says that in films like Shivers (about sexually transmitted parasites that cause uncontrollable sexual desire in the host), he identifies with the devious little creature infecting nice middle class people, and throwing them into the world of completely new, ugly and nasty, experiences, thereby forcing them to change their view about everything (Rodley, 1996: 82). In fact, the director often uses the metaphor of ‘infection’ – diseases, parasites – to show the artificiality of middle class civilizednes and its habit of shoving all the unpleasant and uncomfortable aspects of the body under the carpet. All the while, flesh breaks free, flesh cannot be controlled by ‘systems’, including the code of medical conduct.

Naturally, Cronenberg identifies Jung as a typical bourgeois man trapped in a typical, asexual bourgeois marriage. The director completes his torture by infecting Jung with the demons of sado-masochism, sexual anarchism and madness courtesy of highly contagious transmitters such as Sabina and Otto Gross. Like a cruel scientific experimenter out of his own horror films, he strips Jung of his defences and watches him try and find the way out of the maze of existential emptiness and seemingly unsolvable moral dilemmas. So, how does the nice and clean middle class man Jung bear the torture invented for him by Cronenberg?

Given the deplorable circumstances, Jung fares relatively well. He is listless but heroic, a sort of Harry Potter of psychoanalysis, struggling with the monsters crawling out of the depths of his and his patients’ unconscious. Normally, these dangerous contents are to be released in framed and controlled circumstances such as association tests, and contained within stringent professional boundaries to minimize transference and counter-transference. But eventually the demons he extracts from the depths, and dissects, stage a Frankensteinesque revolt and run away. The dangerous method of the title is kind of sci-fi portal through which they escape. Cronenberg believes in the independence of the flesh: ‘I don’t think that the flesh is necessarily treacherous, evil, bad. It is cantankerous, and it is independent. The idea of independence is the key. […] I notice that my characters talk about the flesh undergoing revolution at times’ (Rodley, 1996: 80)

The only way to survive in the monstrous, godless, unpredictable, vast sea full of monsters of the deep is to build a boat. The fragile sea vessel is the key metaphor for defining Jung’s character early in the film. Emma, who is afraid that her husband is losing interest in her because of all the pregnancies, gives Carl a pretty sailing boat. The film also abounds in images of lakes and oceans; Romantic trips with Sabina across Zürichsee shot from a bird’s eye angle, and various journeys by water including the famous grand trip to the United States. Jung, Cronenberg is trying to say, is like a vessel individuating against his passive will, being swayed by forces bigger than himself, small yet resilient, and bravely peering into the unfathomable depths. Jung believes in his ability to cross the River Styx in a small boat and come back intact.

The leaked contents, like the depths of the magnificent Zürichsee, are dangerous. Jung the hero, in his brave opening of the unconscious dam, gets inevitably contaminated. Or, as Cronenberg’s hero William Burroughs says in Naked Lunch, monsters have the habit of existing with ‘ominous snarls and mutterings’. Jung loses control. He has sex with a client. He is persuaded by the client to engage in certain sexual practices during which Keira Knigthley’s character, wearing white lace dresses, is sonorously spanked in recreation of her father’s brutal habits. Finally, Cronenberg’s protagonist reaches the verge of his human endurance and altogether starts losing his mind. The film ends with Jung being fragile and mentally unwell, placidly sitting on the bank of Lake Zurich (which metaphorically stands for Styx in the film), and looking into the distance. The scene renders the sense of disorientation and confusion in the face of an apparently meaningless and absurd world. While it echoes the real events, Cronenberg would not be interested in making a ‘sequel’ about the protagonist’s emergence out of the crisis. The director sees the unconscious as a wound that should remain open because his best monsters come out of it.

Bibliography:
Ratner, Megan (2012) ‘Interview with David Cronenberg’, Film Quarterly 66, 1: pages to be confirmed (it’s a forthcoming issue).
Rodley, Chris (1996) Cronenberg on Cronenberg, London: Faber and Faber.

Helena Bassil-Morozow PhD’s principal research interest is the dynamic between individual personality and socio-cultural systems in industrialised and post-industrial societies. She is an honorary research fellow of the Research Institute for Media Art and Design, University of Bedfordshire.Helena’s books include Tim Burton: the Monster and the Crowd (Routledge, 2010) and The Trickster in Contemporary Film (Routledge, 2011). Tim Burton discusses the themes of creativity, identity, nonconformity and individualism, which permeate all Burton’s films, in terms of postmodern alienation and plurality of the subject. TheTrickster in Contemporary Film examines the role of the trickster figure in cinematic narratives against the cultural imperatives of modernity and postmodernity, and argues that cinematic tricksters invariably reflect cultural shifts and upheavals.

These books are available on our Online-Store, follow this link http://inpursuitofmeaning.com/online-store and select the catagory “Post Jungian Books”.

If you are really wealthy, don’t read this blog.

I was reading an article that James Hillman wrote “A contribution to soul and money”. He says lots of interesting things in it, but what struck me as most interesting is the idea that money = psyche.

Money is an Archetype which is translated into psychic energy. This psychic energy is limited, so it can only be used by the ego for either external (conscious) development, i.e. manifesting money or internal (unconscious) development of the soul. In our society, money is not the property of the spiritual man. If you have money, you will be spiritually lacking. If you are spiritual, you will lack in money.

The conscious position

When our daughter was small, Stephen and I had a business that went bust. During one December there was no food, only peanut butter sandwiches and no presents under the tree.

Luckily, we recovered and now we are doing ok .

Of course, I would love to have more! I would love the freedom of not having to budget going to the dentist.

Sometimes I buy the Powerball lotto ticket and get carried away with dreams of what I could get with all that money. I would upgrade my house, upgrade my car, upgrade my wardrobe, etc. Basically, I would become a better version of myself at the moment.

So what is the problem? Why am I not in that situation of real wealth already?

Simply this, my projection onto wealth is not positive, it is negative.

The unconscious position

My conscious position may be very positive, but unconsciously lies the truth of what I suspect I will become. And for the purposes of this example, you have to imagine the most amount of money you could have. Have you ever heard that expression “f#k you money”? That is when you have so much money that you own the bank manager and he will do ANYTHING to make you happy. And I mean anything. You have so much money that you can buy people’s loyalty, their trust, change the very nature of reality and believe your own bullshit.

Would you still be you?

Good question, I think not.

So who is the doppelganger waiting in the shadows, ready to take control and usurp me when I have that much money and power?

It took quite a bit of digging and honesty to uncover her. I could not come up with anything, until I started thinking about images that made an impression on me during my life. I could not find any images of wealthy icons, so I widened my search and found 2 Images of power and success.

The Elfin queen Galadriel’s shadow, when she is tempted by the ring. I will never forget that scene where the ring’s power transforms her into an unstoppable powermad demon. All shall love me and despair!

The other image I have is of Madonna, in her early twenties, performing “Holiday” for American Bandstand in 1984. Afterwards, the host asked her what her dreams were and she replied “I want to rule the world”.

And after doing some more soul searching, I have realised 2 things about myself, I am a complete powerjunkie!

I want power, I want to yield it as a sword – Off with their heads! I am the mad queen who wants to be worshipped above all else. I want autocracy – total and complete. Yes, that is all in me.

On top of that, there is the slight problem with money which is this. Once I have all that stuff, what is my excuse going to be then for not being exceptional? What obstacle can I blame then? And how am I going to become exceptional and make a mark in this world? I am quite talented, but not that talented.

So this is the rub. With lots of money, comes a powerful unconscious complex which I will not be able to control. It will possess me and find expression. I can’t allow that. I don’t want to be that. I want to be good and nice and spiritual. I want to be a muse.

I also am not exceptional in any way. And with mediocrity comes a valid reason for being ordinary. No pressure.

Do you think I will ever be really wealthy?

And if you can relate to the above, keep reading.

An alternative to wanting money?

You certainly don’t need to pursue money. It does not need to be about the money at all. It can be about passion, expression of yourself, meaning etc. This way you pursue happiness in a sense.

So your work/career becomes about doing what you love to do. Whether you make money or not is then not an issue at all. And if your passion does make money, be sure that you don’t get distracted by the money, because if you change your focus, you may jeopardise your relationship with your passion. The focus must always be on the love of what you are doing.

I, for one, think this would be a very meaningful way to live your life. Not only will you contribute to society with your passion for what you do, but it will be untainted by ulterior motives and will be an inspiration for all who know you.

I also think that there is no greater gift you can give your children than this example of personal passion and fulfilment. For sure, anyone who follows this path will be sure to have a life of meaning.

And if you can’t live without it?

But what do you do if you REALLY want money/power/success?

You will have to realise that you can’t be the person you are now AND have money. You will have to change. Whatever you are projecting onto the money is what you will have to become. Are you willing to do that?

Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I am certainly not saying that wealthy powerful people are not nice. I am saying that to ME they are not nice. So for me to become wealthy and powerful, I will have to adopt a less than nice persona. But that is just me. There are a lot of wealthy people who are nice and maybe I can work on this neurosis until I can be nice and be super wealthy. And that is the third option. But for the moment, this is where I am at.

So there you have it, not simple but interesting. I think that finding out what you project onto money is a good start into some real internal work.

May your pockets be heavy and your heart light

Anja

When you love someone what is it that you love?

Let me tell you why I ask.

I think that often when we relate to other people we objectify them. This is most noticeable on virtual social networks such as facebook. The term facebook friend long ago started meaning something different from a friend in the real world.

A friend on facebook means something like – a member of my virtual community. And much like those that follow you on Twitter a facebook friend is a commodity rather than a friend.

Naturally the lines do cross and you may have some real friends on facebook and even meet some new ones.

But for the most part a facebook friend is simply a member of your community and has a commodity value.

Having lots of facebook friends adds status and extends the reach of your communications, in much the same way for instance that a radio station of newspaper is valued according to their audience size.  Now I realise this is not news to anyone who has participated in any online community for any length of time. I use this example though to illustrate the commoditisation of people generally in our lives.

Although it is more blatant on the web than in the real world I think the same kind of commoditisation occurs. Actually I raised this point about objectifying the other in a conference (on the effects of the technology on society) I attended in London about two years ago, and the response was one of incredulity at my naiveté. In fact a respondent said as much, “but don’t you think we do that all the time anyway”, i.e. objectify other people.

So I must start this post by conceding that this, objectification of the other, whilst being something that I am only really thinking about now is quite possibly old hat to you. Nevertheless I proceed with my thoughts, if somewhat tentatively.

What is it exactly that I love about you?

Well generally speaking, possibly not always, but often enough to make it true, when I say I love you what I mean is you have a value to me. Your presence in my life enriches me. Now one may say that if I recognise your innate humanity and subjectivity it is precisely this that would enrich me. Yes okay that may well be so, but that is not what I mean, and I would wager that I am far from unique in this regard.

What I mean is rather something along these lines:

As a friend or student you are part of my fan base. The more fans I have the more popular I am; being popular makes me a ‘big man’ someone respected and of value.

In evaluating you as a friend I consider what your value proposition is:

• Are you intelligent?
• Wealthy?
• Good looking?
• Influential- can you further my cause in any way?
• Are you entertaining, although this is a little further down the scale.
• Just how much do you care for me? This is very important because I am deeply interested in what you are willing to do for me.

Anyway you get the idea. I consider your value proposition. I objectify you, and, in as much as I do this, I commoditise you. Now from this you may, justly, form the idea that I am not the nicest of people and have a mercenary attitude towards other people. I think that is a fair and fairly accurate assessment.

Nevertheless you may be inclined to mitigate your judgement by virtue of the fact that I am a man of my time. Whilst there is lots of fuzzy, huggy and woolly talk about empathy and caring for others, the truth is that the value of the individual is in decline globally. So although I may be a little worse than most and not as bad as some, I’m probably pretty much middle of the road (I don’t know of course, but it seems that way to me).

You might be inclined to forgive me to the extent that I am a family man and you would imagine that this objectification of the other does not extend to my immediate family.

Well you might think that, but I am actually not so sure. Sure I love my wife and children but honestly who wouldn’t? At the risk of arrogance I would have to say they are an exceptional group of people, intelligent, original and easy on the eye. But you see that right there is the issue – do I love them because of their gifts, or because they are my family, or is there something beyond that?

In as much as I love them because they are gifted or even in as much as they are related to me I would have to conclude that I have commoditised them as well. Their presence improves the quality of my life in many varied ways. And this makes them easy to love.

The question I have to ask is this. Am I, beyond their value proposition, able to recognise the intrinsic value of their subjectivity? That is to say: am I able to recognise and value that, like me, they too have an inner life, a soul and are people, not simply commodities?

Hello how do you do?

Last Wednesday evening, in an Anthroposophical study group I participate in, the discussion turned to the convention of following a greeting in South Africa with –how are you? So the South African convention is to say: Hello, how are you? And the standard response is: I am fine thanks and you?

Now the question is, is this a sincere enquiry? And naturally one must conclude no it is not, it is simply a greeting convention. Jane (Abrahams), who facilitates the group, made the point that in England the proper greeting is actually: Hello how do you do? And this is meant strictly as a rhetorical question.

In both cases one may assume that this form of greeting began with the intention of a sincere enquiry. Not being an anthropologist I can only hazard a guess; but I am inclined to think not. I would say it is, and was, simply meant as a polite greeting, and in no way should it be taken as a genuine question.

Slavoj Žižek suggests these conventions are designed for the very reason of keeping the (obscene) other at a safe distance. And in as much as one witnesses their use I think his analysis is correct. Not only is it not a genuine enquiry, but beyond that it is an implicit communication that I do not wish to know how you are. Now perversely in my case when I ask how you are it is with genuine interest in the answer. And I have noticed over the years how frequently this surprises the person I am asking it of; in my defence, I attribute this social clumsiness to an improvised education.

The point here is that the other is held (or meant to be held) at arm’s length. It is in fact impolite to make a genuine personal enquiry. This reflects the idea that society encourages us to see and relate to the other as an actor in society. To understand and engage with the other as a role player and in as much as we heed this implicit social instruction we necessarily objectify the one we are relating to.

The Unfortunate case of the beggar

I don’t know about you but, for my part, I have to say I hate do-gooders. I don’t want to bore you with my long list of prejudices against them so I’ll limit myself to only the most salient issues. For one, in my own case I barely have enough energy to do good to myself never mind anyone else. My father (may he rest in peace) was always fond of saying charity begins at home, and I have pretty much taken that to heart. Oh and beyond that, I find the do-gooders generally vacuous, insincere and irritating. Still no doubt these are my own prejudices and the world would be a poorer place but for these aspiring Florence Nightingales.

Anja, who for the most part is as intolerant as I am, happened to befriend a group of do-gooders, through no fault of her own, but simply out of desperation for some contact with the extended community (honestly one would think my company would more than enough, but there you have it ).

Anyway in a discussion about how one should behave towards beggars, a national plague in South Africa, the suggestion was made that ‘one should at the very least make eye contact, and thereby acknowledge them and their existence.’ This instead of the usual trick we use of manoeuvring the car back and forward, checking cellphone messages, adjusting the radio etc. all in order naturally not to see and acknowledge their presence and their plight (one may equally here say blight).

Now on the face of it this sounds very humane does it not? In a sense an act in service of acknowledging the beggars humanity is the very thing this post is about. However I am less than convinced and I must concede that I have influenced by Žižek in this regard.

Does my act of looking at you begging at the side of the road, making eye contact and then still ignoring your plea for alms somehow mitigate the insult (if this is what it is) against your humanity. Does my having the courage to look you in the eye and then drive on, without in any way substantively aiding you, rather than my usual overt display of guilt in so obviously ignoring you, in some sense raise your value in the estimation of my gaze?

Well personally I think not.

Existence vs. Essence

Possibly this is the fundamental question. Can we decide that at the very least in the case of human beings, as opposed to plants and dogs for instance, their very existence has an intrinsic value? And going further may it also possibly be true to think that the value of their existence, and by extension their subjectivity, in and of itself, eclipses their value as objectified role players in our lives?

Or alternatively must we decide in favour of essentialism and identify people with their objective characteristics: gender, age, race, professional and social status etc.

Is it a genuinely meaningful proposition to consider the human spirit in each individual we encounter as transcending their personalities in the broadest sense of the word- or not?

To be completely honest with you, even though it runs contrary to my intention in this post, I am struck by the naiveté of my own question. For if we genuinely remove all objective and objectifying characteristics form the subject what could possibly remain?

Is there something genuinely transcendent left behind worth caring about?

Well I’ll leave it to you to decide…

A final thought

Consider your own relationships with those you care for.

• What is it that you really care about in others?
• Do you objectify those you relate to?
• Do you have a value scale that you move people in your life up or down? And if so what is this based on?
• Perhaps most significantly is there anyone in your life you do not objectify, that you could describe your love for this person in a genuinely transcendent sense? And if so how does this differ from your other relationships?

Until we speak again.

God bless you,

Stephen.

A little boy was having difficulty lifting a heavy stone. His father came along just then. Noting the boy’s failure, he asked, “Are you using all your strength?”

“Yes, I am,” the little boy said impatiently.

“No, you are not,” the father answered. “I am right here just waiting, and you haven’t asked me to help you.”

Beautiful, isn’t it? And that is the inspiration for my blog today.

This idea that we are not alone. That help is all around us and all we need to do is ask.

The Early Days

I moved to Johannesburg from Cape Town when I was 19. It was incredibly tough going. I knew no-one. My best friend at the time was involved in a relationship and the young man felt threatened by me. Consequently I found myself alone and with no place to stay. I was far too proud to ask my parents to help me and would not appear afraid and lost in front of my so-called friend.

And this trend stayed with me for years, too proud to ask for help and if I had to, hating to do it because that meant owing the benefactor something.

The real problem

A large part of my problem when is that I never asked anyone for help. Instead I felt that no one cared enough to reach out to me in my hour of need.

In my mind, I would think that people could see that I was in distress, but they weren’t interested. In retrospect, I realize how childish this attitude was. I assumed that others could see my distress.  But of course people don’t see it and furthermore we are conditioned not to show it either.

My main problem was that I distrusted the world and those around me. My perspective in life was that I could only depend on myself. I had been let down and disappointed so many times.

What changed for me

This started changing slowly over the years.

First I had to realize that all human beings have the same experiences of disappointment and disillusionment. (those personal growth courses are great for this )

Then, I slowly started realizing that my attitude affects how I experience my world. I became aware of my reactions to situations and the underlying belief systems that drove the reactions. I noticed that I usually assumed a “poor me” attitude; I often felt victimized. I felt that I was always reacting to things that happened to me. I felt totally disempowered.

Then I found a system that worked for me.

Jung’s mapping of the psyche gave me the tools with which to interpret what was going on for me. And this allowed me to change.

Often, in order to change, the only thing that you need to do is to understand what is going on. When you can identify and express how something is making you feel, it somehow allows you to change. This is the process of becoming conscious. This is why counseling is so effective. Without expressing your feelings and how it affects you, change is challenging.

So using these tools I managed to start expressing what was going on for me. I reflected on my behavior and reactions. I took responsibility for my experience and tried not to blame others for how I felt.

This empowered me. I realized that I could affect the world in the way I reacted. This allowed a shift in me towards a positive approach to my world.

This was not an overnight process or a weekend workshop though. It took years and was hard work (and still is).

When is it appropriate to ask for help?

I was listening to 702 with Doctor Schomer. It was about this issue of asking for help. One lady sms’d to say that she is a single mother of a toddler and she is totally exhausted. There is no one to help her. Dr. Schomer suggested that she ask for help from friends, or family. Even 2 hours to relax and lie in the bath to recoup her energies would be sufficient. She obviously does not feel comfortable to ask people to help take care of the toddler for a few hours. I would say that her problem is that she does not feel entitled to ask for help.

Another woman phoned in to say that she did just that, asked her friends to help her, but now she had no more friends. They all stopped talking to her. To this Dr. Shomer suggested reciprocity. If someone does something for you, then you should offer to do something for them.

So to me that indicates that I am not the only one battling with this concept of asking for help. It is not that easy. We all have issues and complexes which affect how we relate to the world and interpret what is going on through a totally subjective lens. I am quite sure that the first lady does have people around her who would be more than willing to help if asked, but she can’t see that. And the second lady did not realize that she was overdoing it and driving her support base away.

I suppose accepting help, asking for help and offering assistance is like anything else. It takes practice to get it right.

Still working on it.

So now I find myself still hesitant to ask for help, because even now, I have an issue with being incapable or “weak”, and often lack a sense of entitlement.

I want to come across as competent and capable.

But the truth is that we are social beings and asking for help, needing others and reaching out to help another; that is what being human is about. This allows for meaningful connection. To be needed and be able to help and to allow yourself to be vulnerable and accept your friends hand in time of need, connects you to them and your own humanity in a profound way.

But at the root of it.

I put a quote up on the Facebook page a while ago.

Einstein said that the most important decision that one has to make is whether the world is friendly or hostile. Someone commented on this and said “Really?”.

But look at it from this perspective. If you believe that the universe is friendly, you will not hesitate to ask for help, or offer to help. Whatever the universe sends you, whether it be information, assistance, knowledge, kindness, etc. will be accepted by you and you will be grateful.

On the other hand, were the world a hostile place, you will block any attempt of kindness or care. You will resent, hate, distrust and suffer for it.

So perhaps Einstein had a point.

So ask yourself these questions:

• Is the world hostile or friendly?
• Do I think that people are essentially good or essentially bad?
• Am I essentially good or essentially bad?

Until next time

Anja

If you enjoyed this article, you may enjoy reading Where do you draw the line between accommodating others and being abused.

One of the most profoundly interesting ideas in depth psychology is the second personality. In this post I will explore this idea of Jung’s, and consider its implications and  practical application.

In as much as we refer to the ‘second personality’ we must credit Jung with coining this phrase and articulating the idea. However, first, to better understand the dualistic nature of our inner life it will be helpful to consider Freud’s idea of the id and the superego.
 
 OUR FIRST SUSPECTS: THE ID AND THE SUPEREGO

This is perhaps the simplest, most enduring and definitely one of Freud’s signature ideas. Freud described the psyche as being a contest for dominance between the instinctive, impulsive, infantile self, governed principally by the pleasure principle, which he called the id. Opposing the id is the superego. The superego is the voice of collective morality, of civilisation, of the law – judicial, moral, cultural, societal and divine.

The superego tells you what you should do whilst the id tells you want you want to do.

It can also be understood as the struggle that takes place in the ego, between the pleasure principle and the reality principle.

For Freud this was the means by which dreams and fantasies, including cultural products of fantasy such as myths and art can be understood. These were expressions of the pleasure principle. Society and reality, by its very nature, has a repressive effect on the id and pleasure principle. Initially this repression is handled by the child’s parents and educators.

We all remember this well no doubt from our own childhood. You can’t do this, you mustn’t do that, this is bad for you, that is forbidden…and so on. Even though most (all?) of these wants were the expression of our most sincere desires at the time. Later on we internalise this parental voice and it becomes the voice of our conscience or the superego.

Our entire adult lives become an intense struggle between these two opposing voices or personalities. It is the cause of much neurosis and the reason one ends up of the psychoanalysts couch. And yet it is essential to mental health and normal function; without desire there is no motivation to live, without a conscience we would be psychopaths.

SOME EARLIER EVIDENCE

Now this idea did not originate with Freud by any means. He merely (and I use the word here very loosely, for this was in fact a monumental achievement) put it in psychological terms. The idea of good and evil impulses battling for the soul of man has been around as long as the history of religion. This is a universal, archetypal, pattern that is found in all religious myths from the earliest to the most contemporary. This is often portrayed in popular culture as the competing angel and devil, each perched on an alternate shoulder, of the poor soul who must make a difficult choice.

THE UNLIKELY STORY OF ALIEN INTERVENTION (you can skip this part if you’re reading this in a rush)

The more you think about this dichotomy the more profoundly strange it seems. Of all the life forms on the planet only we as human beings face this dilemma. An animal follows its instinct and no one would think to fault it for doing so, not to do so would be ‘unnatural’. Even in the case where man intervenes and trains an animal, such as a circus animal or a working animal, to follow certain rules, at best it is being trained to delay the immediate gratification of its instinctive drive or that drive is being harnessed through the training. One does not imagine for instance that the animal does the right thing for the sake of its ‘being the right thing to do’.

Now I suppose there is an argument that says our conscience or superego works in much the same way, a form of delayed gratification. And if one considers many of the religious myths which grant everlasting life, paradise or some other reward to the devout it supports that hypothesis.

However I think that to suggest that the sole reason for morality in a human being is simplistic. Whilst the capacity for pure morality or altruism may be more developed in some than others, it is a distinct and recognisable quality of being human. We, as a species, have the ability to transcend the id (the instinctive drives) and to do something because we believe it is the right thing to do, serves a greater purpose, is for the greater good etc.

If we consider this fact along with many other features that are unique in us compared with other life forms on the planet it is quite mysterious. How on earth (or in heaven) did this come about? If we are to believe Darwin and the theory of evolution, we share a common ancestor with monkeys, and long before that were some form of (totally unconscious) amoebic single cell organism. And yet today we are capable of creations such as Beethoven’s ninth symphony and Van Gogh’s Starry Night, sending a manned spaceship to the moon, building the pyramids, the Taj Mahal and St. Peters Basilica and splitting an atom to create a doomsday weapon.

Yet when one seriously considers what a monkey or even a dolphin is capable of, animal lovers notwithstanding, you have to conclude it’s quite far down the evolutionary ladder from us isn’t it. In a certain sense at least. Admittedly an animal has a beauty, divinity and innocence that we have lost. But the question is how the hell did we get from there to here? Through evolution? Well call me an ignorant, naive fool but that must have been some seriously fancy evolution .
Anyway it’s the best, most plausible theory we have and so the search continues for the missing link (s)…

One of the more outlandish theories, suggested by certain New Age authors, is the idea of an alien race that landed on earth at a much earlier time in history and intervened in the natural order; creating man from whatever came before man. Now whilst I don’t suggest you should take this idea literally, it is a pretty good metaphor for how radical the gap between man and his evolutionary ancestors is.

The point I want to highlight here is once again we see the existence of the duality of soul, between ourselves inasmuch as we are animals and part of the natural order and so governed by instinctive and organic life and our capacity for language, art, self reflection, consciousness, abstract thought, science, technology and the search for meaning and the existential dilemma that has come along with this.

FINALLY OUR PRIMARY SUSPECT: HERR DOCTOR JUNG’S SECOND PERSONALITY

Jung writes about a second, bigger, personality that he became aware of as youth in his biography Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

What I am here unfolding [about the second personality, the internal other]…was something I was not then conscious of in any particular way, though I sensed it with an overpowering premonition and intensity of feeling. At such times I knew I was worthy of myself, that I was my true self. As soon as I was alone, I could pass over into this state. I therefore sought the peace and solitude of this “Other,” personality No. 2 (ibid, p. 62).

Jung goes on to speak at length about this second personality in Memories, Dreams, Reflections and how the awareness of this internal other, so different from his conscious ego personality, affected him and constituted a kind of guiding light. I think it would not be incorrect to say that his idea of individuation is also informed by this inner experience.

Something along the lines that the individuated self is the realisation in consciousness and in one’s life of the presence of this second latent personality. So this is a radical break with Freud and earlier ideas about the tension of opposites between the id and the superego. For Jung one might better frame it as the possibility of psychological transmutation. That the conscious personality has a greater counterpart in the unconscious and this constitutes the idea of Jung’s second personality.

HOW REALISTIC AND PRACTICAL IS THIS IDEA?

Let us start by conceding that, like so much of Jung, it is a very romantic idea. I know for many prominent Jungians and post Jungians this idea has lost its appeal and is definitely not the goal of analysis. However I would speculate that the impulse for individuation still continues to motivate the majority of Jungian analysts in their work with their clients (or patients, I’m never sure ).

It is a very dangerous idea.

The possibility that you are not who you think you are and have a ‘destiny’ is the kind of idea that can, and sometimes does, destroy lives. As we all know, only too well, it may sound very blasé to be average or normal, but actually that takes a hell of lot of work. And it doesn’t take much to deconstruct that edifice.
Juxtaposed against this consider not only the really big personalities throughout history, but everyone whose contribution to the world exceeds their personal interests must, in some sense or another, be accessing this 2nd personality.

The first personality, the conscious ego identity, is the smaller, personal self. Whereas the second personality, at least in Jung’s framing, has the possibility for original, creative and transpersonal (exceeding the personal domain) contribution.

If you think of any person who is in an official role, from a governmental clerk, a doctor, a mercenary, an actor to a politician, it is inasmuch as this person fulfils their official (non personal) role that they become a big personality. When I say ‘fulfils their role’ I mean brings their genius to bear on this role.
If we think of Moses, Albert Einstein, Alexander the Great or Jesus Christ it is not the subtle nuances of their personal and private self we celebrate but their genius in their role they chose to play.

Like so much in psychology and life we should not confuse ourselves by taking this idea too literally. This metaphor is not meant to suggest that two totally separate and autonomous selves reside in your breast. Rather it is a very useful metaphor to illustrate different capacities we carry with ourselves, one of which, in this case, is frequently latent and holds great potential.

So with the Suspect In Hand it is off to the Judiciary

With that I’ll leave you to ponder the following:
• Have you accessed your second personality?
• If yes, are you giving it the context, support and attention it needs to fully actualise?
• If not do you have any inkling of what it may be?
• Assuming you do (and you probably do if you really honest with yourself ) what prevents you from accessing it?
• Following on for the last question, what would need to change in your life in order for you to access it?

If you found this post interesting you may want to look at these:
The Genius-Demon of Women: and the Challenge of Staying Sane after 35
The Birth of Self

Until we speak again,
Stephen.