61\u00a0 bar steep rise 29.76\u00a0 4mph W dew-point 53\u00a0 Beltane, sunny and cool<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First Quarter of the Flower Moon<\/p>\n
Decided to cancel the Gettysburg leg of my trip.\u00a0 Need to be at home.\u00a0 Another time.\u00a0 Gettysburg is not going anywhere.<\/p>\n
A bit more about radical individualism.\u00a0 Last night I proposed, as I wrote\u00a0here yesterday, that civilization, especially through work and love, constrain the unfettered, natural–wild part of us.\u00a0 There was good criticism of that position, i.e. part of the natural state of humanity is life in family, in relationship.\u00a0 Another position asserted that deconstructing (I’m not sure about this use of the term, but it is what was used.) ourselves so that wildness could break out denies the process of integration of the mature person. (individuation, perhaps?)\u00a0 Wildness, in this view, must somehow come together with all of\u00a0psyche’s zoo or, better, pantheon (my terms) to define a full person.<\/p>\n
It is true that the very nature of what it means to be human gains its definition in a social context.\u00a0 In that sense, yes, to be human is to be in a family, a clan, a community.\u00a0 It is also true that the integration model of maturity requires a delicate balancing and harmonizing of disparate impulses, desires and drives into a well-functioning individual.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even so.\u00a0 A first reaction over against both of these arguments is this:\u00a0 we all die alone.\u00a0 This is the existentialist’s key and, to my eye, keen observation.\u00a0 It can be pushed back through life itself.\u00a0 We are all born alone, that is we are the only one to emerge from the womb as that distinct individual.\u00a0 Even triplets are born into different bodies, at a slightly different time, and have unique life experiences.\u00a0 In life we inhabit our body and no other.\u00a0 We may, more or less, empathetically walk in another person’s shoes, but we can never get in there while their foot is in the shoe.\u00a0 You are unique and, whether you wish it to\u00a0be the case or not, can have it no other way.<\/p>\n
Second, the Jungian model of individuation, which I embrace, calls us to live into our Self, to become, that is, whom we already are.\u00a0 This may involve harmonization and balancing, but it may also include embracing aspects of our Self heretofore submerged or repressed.\u00a0 The journey is not to maturity in this view, rather it is toward the clearest and most distinct realization of our uniqueness.<\/p>\n
As a note I read moments ago by James Hillman said, the individuation process prepares us to die.\u00a0 Last night I did not mention my final thought on wildness.\u00a0 The last wild act of our life is death.\u00a0 It is that moment most natural, most terrifying, most awesome, least understood and never tamed.\u00a0 Death is, for each of us, our wildest moment.\u00a0 Individuation ensures that we come to that last natural divide, that last wild place, as who we are, shorn of cultural convention and psychological repression.\u00a0 That we come dressed only in the clothes which our psyche had for us to wear from the very beginning.\u00a0 That we come to the most wild moment in our life, in other words, as the natural, wild Self into which we were born.<\/p>\n
This journey, this ancient trail, is the ancient trail.\u00a0 It is one we walk alone from birth until death.\u00a0 It is this realization that makes me a radical individualist, proud and\u00a0happy to live in community, yes, but as a person free and unfettered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
61\u00a0 bar steep rise 29.76\u00a0 4mph W dew-point 53\u00a0 Beltane, sunny and cool \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First Quarter of the Flower Moon Decided to cancel the Gettysburg leg of my trip.\u00a0 Need to be at home.\u00a0 Another time.\u00a0 Gettysburg is not going anywhere. A bit more about radical individualism.\u00a0 Last night I proposed, as I wrote\u00a0here yesterday, … Continue reading Gotta Take That Wild Last Ride<\/span>