Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Cold Moon<\/p>\n
“The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.” – Carl Jung<\/p>\n
Jung has been central to my later life and this quote shows one reason.\u00a0 He recognized the indescribable complexity of the lived experience and never tried to simplify it.\u00a0 We live into problems, rather than roll over them or change them.\u00a0 If we’re lucky, we make the problems part of our lives, otherwise they eat away at our lives.<\/p>\n
Life from 17 to about 37 was difficult for me.\u00a0 Sometimes in the extreme.\u00a0 When Mom died, though I couldn’t see at the time, my world fell apart.\u00a0 It didn’t have to, but I let it.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I ended up in the ministry, a place I should probably have never been and it took me 20 years\u00a0 to extricate myself from that.\u00a0 Along the way I got married twice, to women for whom I was a bad fit and who were a bad fit for me.\u00a0 I drank myself into alcoholism, got cleaned up, but didn’t get better until I realized my second marriage was a bad one.<\/p>\n
In that process I found John Desteian, a Jungian analyst.\u00a0 He guided me on a journey of self-exploration and honest self-reexamination.\u00a0 Much of what I learned about myself was painful, some of it exhilarating.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Jung’s metaphysics may be wrong, who knows?\u00a0 The collective unconscious has no falsifiable reality.\u00a0 The Self, as Jung understands it, stretches into neo-platonic realms.\u00a0 Could be wrong.\u00a0 His naming of complexes and archetypes likewise have no tangible referents. Doesn’t matter.<\/p>\n
What does matter is this.\u00a0 The blend of thought that Jung put forward encourages me to take mySelf seriously, yet to do so lightly.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 That worked for me, works for me, and will see me through to the end of my life.<\/p>\n
Thanks, Carl Jung.\u00a0 I needed what you offered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Winter\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 He recognized the indescribable complexity of the lived experience and never tried to simplify … Continue reading Jung<\/span>