Winter Waxing Cold Moon
“The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.” – Carl Jung
Jung has been central to my later life and this quote shows one reason. He recognized the indescribable complexity of the lived experience and never tried to simplify it. We live into problems, rather than roll over them or change them. If we’re lucky, we make the problems part of our lives, otherwise they eat away at our lives.
Life from 17 to about 37 was difficult for me. Sometimes in the extreme. When Mom died, though I couldn’t see at the time, my world fell apart. It didn’t have to, but I let it. I internalized my grief, took up drinking and smoking and completely screwed the pooch when it came to making use of a pretty good academic career. I ended up in the ministry, a place I should probably have never been and it took me 20 years to extricate myself from that. Along the way I got married twice, to women for whom I was a bad fit and who were a bad fit for me. I drank myself into alcoholism, got cleaned up, but didn’t get better until I realized my second marriage was a bad one.
In that process I found John Desteian, a Jungian analyst. He guided me on a journey of self-exploration and honest self-reexamination. Much of what I learned about myself was painful, some of it exhilarating. In the end, I left the ministry, started writing, found Kate and got myself headed off in a direction that fit who I was then and am now.
Jung’s metaphysics may be wrong, who knows? The collective unconscious has no falsifiable reality. The Self, as Jung understands it, stretches into neo-platonic realms. Could be wrong. His naming of complexes and archetypes likewise have no tangible referents. Doesn’t matter.
What does matter is this. The blend of thought that Jung put forward encourages me to take mySelf seriously, yet to do so lightly. It acknowledges the essentially messy and chaotic nature of both inner and outer life, yet makes clear that the only through it is eyes open, heart open, with forgiveness for yourself and others as humans struggling together. That worked for me, works for me, and will see me through to the end of my life.
Thanks, Carl Jung. I needed what you offered.
