Episode 087 - Forever Jung

As with many people, in my line of work, one thing often leads to another, and often in some very unexpected ways. As you may recall, I have mentioned in a few earlier episodes that over the years, I have been involved in the writing of several stories for the purpose of possibly developing them into novels or films, and at one point in my life, I became very involved in studying story structure.

          This was around the time of the release of the first Star Wars movie and during my research I became intrigued when I learned that George Lucas, the writer, producer, and director of the film, had been significantly influenced by someone named Joseph Campbell and that the basic story structure of Star Wars was largely developed from of what Cambell had termed, “The Myth of the Hero.”

          This was from his book, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” that was published in 1949 and as I started studying it, I was amazed to find that what happens to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars follows the exact outline of Campell’s story structure to the tee.

          As I continued my research, it turned out that Campell’s understanding of the hero was just one part of his work, which also included a general grasp of the power of myth in the human psyche. And, additionally, a large influence on him had been psychologist Carl Jung.

          Of course, like most people who have gone through the standard western educational system, I had heard of Jung. but to be honest with you, the only thing I think I knew about him was that there were some differences in the way his last name could be pronounced. I called him Carl Young, but some of the finer students of linguistics pronounced his last name Yooong. I doubt he would care. I don’t want to sound too shallow, but that’s really about all I knew about the guy.

Now suddenly I had an interest in him. It began with his influence on Campbell and the way his views pertained to crafting stories. But the deeper I got, the more fascinating his overall viewpoint became to me.

By way of a very brief overview, Jung was a Swiss psychologist born in 1875 who became one of the major figures in modern psychology. But he was a little different from Freud and many of the other authorities of his time. He was slightly more esoteric. He founded analytical psychology, which emphasizes the exploration of the unconscious and deeper elements of the psyche.

          He also introduced the concept of archetypes, which are universal, innate symbols and themes which remarkably appear in myths, dreams, and fantasies across all human cultures, throughout all eras of civilization.  He considered them to be part of the collective unconscious, representing fundamental human experiences and emotions that we all have in common, like a shared reservoir of memories and ideas that all human beings inherit.

          And to take it one step further, he also delved into a process that he called individuation, which perceives life as a journey of self-discovery. It is a transformative process, and Campbell used it as a foundation of his myth of the hero. The protagonist, which also represents each one of us, undergoes trials and hardships, comes face-to-face with the unknown, and ultimately triumphs, returning to the world with newfound wisdom, giving boons to his fellowman. This is a basic storyline that has deeply affected human beings since the beginning of recorded history.

I could see that thanks to George Lucas’s consultations with Joseph Campbell, Luke Skywalker’s journey in the ultra-modern Sci-Fi epic Star Wars, exactly mirrored the psychological and spiritual transformation that Jung had associated with individuation.

I was starting to get pretty blown out and although my initial interest in Jung’s observations began with just my interest in the elements of good story construction, his understandings began to take on greater relevancy to me as they pertained to my interest in some of the deeper meanings in life and how they relate to personal growth.

          Which leads me to the basic theme of this episode. Because, as interesting as this may have hopefully been so far, what I really want to do is pass along four of my favorite quotes from Jung that I have found to be particularly transformative, and I have found that their meanings to me have deepened considerably over the decades.

          The first one is, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

In this regard, Jung observed that individuals tend to project their own unconscious qualities onto others. In other words, the aspects that we find irritating, offensive, or challenging in other people may be reflections of our own unresolved issues or unacknowledged traits.

For me, this one required a little upgrade in the old humility department because about the easiest thing in the world to do is to dislike something about somebody else. Take it from me, if you’re tuned into that sort of thing, you see it all day long. So and so is narcissistically self-centered. This one has an obnoxious mean streak. Or, that one is a power-hungry egomaniac. And on and on, ad nauseum.

And it gets a little unsettling if you take Jung’s point of view, that maybe the reason I see all these terrible traits in others is because I carry them all in me. Maybe if I didn’t have them, I wouldn’t even notice them. Like hearing strangers speaking in a foreign language that I didn’t understand, I wouldn’t pay it any attention at all.

And if I recognize these irritating traits within myself, maybe I can find out what is causing them, and more importantly, maybe even transform them into something better, which would be great for both for me and for those around me. I find that anytime you think like that, you don’t feel like such a big shot.  

The second great quote from Jung is, “Your vision can clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside awakes.”

This was in line with another realization I was dealing with as I started to become aware of some of the sayings of Buddha. Once, someone asked him what he was. Was he some kind of divine being, like a god, or an angel or a master of something like that? And he replied, “I am awake. To be awake is everything.”

Now a library worth of books has been written about this idea of being awake in life, rather than being asleep. But Jung’s quote was pretty confronting to me. How much did I look into my own heart? To tell the truth, I didn’t even know what that meant, and no matter what I think I may have learned in the last half century, I probably still don’t.

And when it comes to looking outside versus looking inside, I wouldn’t say that all my attention was completely focused on the outside. Probably no more than 98% of it. And again, I’ve been practicing personal growth for over fifty years, and I think there’s a decent possibility that I may have picked up a percent or even two over the that time. Which, according to Jung, means that I’m still basically dreaming my life away.

So, it seems like we all have in front of us the idea of making life a journey of self-discovery, gaining clarity through self-reflection, transcending illusions, and awakening through internal inquiry. For me, although it may sound like a tall order, what else should I be doing with this fleeting existence?

The third quote that I want to mention is a short, pithy quip that I still really enjoy. “One ought not go to cadavers to study life.”

Of course, you can look at this idea in a lot of ways, but here is an idea to consider. Perhaps observe the difference between what is alive and what is not. We have life within us. We are alive. But many of the antiquated concepts from unenlightened cultures that went before us are dead and the people that came up with them are long since dead. Flowers and insects are alive. And one thing about life – it always functions only in present time. The past is a memory and the future is only an idea. Life is always now and all of creation is throbbing with life.

Maybe what he is saying is that by bonding ourselves to life, rather than to death we will produce a major change in both our outlook as well as our behavior. I’m reminded of a passage in the book, “Little Big Man,” by Thomas Berger, which was the source of the movie of the same name.

Old Lodge Skins, the wise Cheyenne chief was reflecting on the difference between the Native Americans and the White Man. He said something like, to the Cheyenne, everything is alive. Not only the people, the animals and all the plants, but the dirt, the mountains, the sky and the sea, the earth and all of creation is alive. To the Cheyenne, everything is alive. But to the White Man, everything is dead. He even sees his brothers and sisters as just the walking dead. There’s a lot to unpack in that comment.

Finally, the last quote by Jung that really got to me was, ““The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown. We don’t so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.”

This was the first time I had ever heard things put quite in this way. I know for me, I seem to spend the majority of my life solving problems. One thing, after the next, after the next. And I never thought about the idea of outgrowing them, that I could become bigger than the problems.

The idea of outgrowing something reminded me of the first time I ever learned about outgrowing anything. I must have been about five years old and I had a pair of red cowboy boots that I absolutely adored. I wore them every day through the winter and when spring came, my mother put them on in the back of my closet.

I completely forgot about them until late fall, about six months later. She was getting me dressed to go to a birthday party and I saw my old boots. I was overwhelmed with excitement at the idea of wearing them again. When I told my mother I wanted to get them out she said, “Oh no. They won’t fit you anymore.”

What she said didn’t make any sense to me. These were my favorite shoes. After begging her about a hundred times, she finally put them on me with a big shoe horn. They felt pretty tight, but I decided to wear them anyway.

When I walked out the front door, to my shock, I couldn’t even make it to the car. They were so tight that I couldn’t stand them and had to get them off as soon as possible. And the idea of ever wanting to wear again went right out the window. Permanently.

Jung would say that it is the same with the greatest and most important problems in our lives. The only solution to them is to outgrow them. Maybe as our consciousness expands and grows, from our enlarged perspective, we see them with a different set of eyes. And we approach them with a different set of tools. And maybe from there, not only are the big problems taken care of, the little ones fall in line as well. Who know? It seems like we each have to find out for ourselves.

Anyway, I hope that the quotes from Dr. Jung have stimulated some ideas in your awareness. As with a lot of insights from the world of personal growth, if you give them a little time and attention, they have the potential to bear some wonderfully tasty and truly nutritious fruit. But let’s leave it at that for this episode.

As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let’s get together in the next one.