Topic: If we could understand this verse from Jung
jaish's photo
Wed 12/22/21 02:04 AM
Hello Poets,

This seems one of those open ended verses that mean different things to different people. I don't recall where I found it / copied it from.




"Unless we prefer to be made fools of by our illusions,
we shall,
by carefully analysing every fascination,
extract from it a portion of our own personality like a quintessence,
and slowly come to recognize that we meet ourselves
time and again in a thousand disguises
on the path of life."

~Carl Jung


I think I got the first two lines right by asking 'Fascinations for what?'

Driven by needs of Wealth, Love, ..
Differencing between us in Quality / Quantity
We conjure a projection of ourselves

Or, a projection of our Love
Which has it's own life
And talks to us;
Our fascination?

--xx

Anyone who finds this interpretation reasonable, is welcome to demystify rest of the verse for .., including my benefit.


jaish's photo
Wed 12/22/21 07:54 AM
Edited by jaish on Wed 12/22/21 08:07 AM
The third line ...

by carefully analysing every fascination,


[3] extract from it a portion of our own personality like a quintessence ..,



What's this ownership on personality?
When it's a steadily changing thing, raising ..,
then eroding..
then ending.

Then there's Shakespeare
who takes 'personality' to a crest
then flings it outwards, beyond the living
(there's always a Shakespeare)


In The Tempest, Ariel sings to Ferdinand, who is stumbling about the island mourning a father who has died in a shipwreck:


Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.


Not being English,
And not being seamen like the English,
Couldn't follow Shakespeare!
(bluurrrp!) excuse me.

Luckily, a painting by Dulac of mermaids viewing Ferdinand's Father's bones ...



(eNNY THE eNGLISH who paint verse)

And this clears up - the bones embraced by the sea
'suffering a sea change'

coral perhaps?
==

It may appear that we have diverged from
' quintessence of personality '

But isn't a son's hopeless search for a shipwrecked father a search for his memories, maybe even gleams of a past life, like a wave that emerges from the shoulder of another wave

And so a ' quintessence of personality '
may mean - gleams drawn from the dead,
or dead past,
harbored,
deep within some cave
in our mindset.

Rushing forth,
either in an unguarded moment
or,
commanding refreshing strength
as we lay in fatigued,
near despair.

So one may say that
Personality's made of quintessence stuff

And if I'm wrong,
how wrong.



cleve's photo
Wed 12/22/21 01:35 PM

Hello Poets,

This seems one of those open ended verses that mean different things to different people. I don't recall where I found it / copied it from.




"Unless we prefer to be made fools of by our illusions,
we shall,
by carefully analysing every fascination,
extract from it a portion of our own personality like a quintessence,
and slowly come to recognize that we meet ourselves
time and again in a thousand disguises
on the path of life."

~Carl Jung


I think I got the first two lines right by asking 'Fascinations for what?'

Driven by needs of Wealth, Love, ..
Differencing between us in Quality / Quantity
We conjure a projection of ourselves

Or, a projection of our Love
Which has it's own life
And talks to us;
Our fascination?

--xx

Anyone who finds this interpretation reasonable, is welcome to demystify rest of the verse for .., including my benefit.





THE QUEST IS TO FINISH THE EMOTIONAL WORK FROM

CHILDHOOD....

WHAT BLURS OUR MINDS IS THE ''FOCUS ON THE SURFACE

NOISE CREATED BY OUR BEHAVIOR''.....

IN OTHER WORDS ITS UNRESOLVED ISSUES WE BRING TO

OUR RELATIONSHIPS FROM PAST THAT WE ARE

RECYCLING........EVERYONE HAS FAVORITE FEELINGS

AND BELIEFS THAT CAUSE THE SURFACE NOISE.....FEW

WILL GIVE IT UP ...... AS FRITZ PEARLS SAID, WHEN

ONE BELIEFS OR EMOTIONS ARE GIVEN UP YOU HAVE WHAT

HE CALLED THE ''FERTILE VOID '' OTHER EMOTIONS AND

BELIEFS MUST FILL THE VOID.....WE DO A LOT OF

''PROJECTION'' IN OUR GAMES TO RECYCLE OUR

FAVORITE FEELINGS AND VALIDATE OLD BELIEFS.....IT

IS TOTALLY OUT OF OUR CONSCIOUS AWARENESS......

THAT'S WHY INTROSPECTION IS SO IMPORTANT.....

jaish's photo
Wed 12/22/21 03:53 PM



THE QUEST IS TO FINISH THE EMOTIONAL WORK FROM

CHILDHOOD....


WHAT BLURS OUR MINDS IS THE ''FOCUS ON THE SURFACE NOISE CREATED BY OUR BEHAVIOR''.....


IN OTHER WORDS ITS UNRESOLVED ISSUES WE BRING TO

OUR RELATIONSHIPS FROM PAST THAT WE ARE

RECYCLING........EVERYONE HAS FAVORITE FEELINGS

AND BELIEFS THAT CAUSE THE SURFACE NOISE.....FEW

WILL GIVE IT UP ......



AS FRITZ PEARLS SAID, WHEN ONE BELIEFS OR

EMOTIONS ARE GIVEN UP YOU HAVE WHAT

HE CALLED THE ''FERTILE VOID '' OTHER EMOTIONS AND

BELIEFS MUST FILL THE VOID.....



WE DO A LOT OF ''PROJECTION'' IN OUR GAMES TO

RECYCLE OUR FAVORITE FEELINGS AND VALIDATE OLD BELIEFS.....


IT IS TOTALLY OUT OF OUR CONSCIOUS AWARENESS...


THAT'S WHY INTROSPECTION IS SO IMPORTANT.....



Deep & very helpful! :thumbsup:

cleve's photo
Wed 12/22/21 07:08 PM




THE QUEST IS TO FINISH THE EMOTIONAL WORK FROM

CHILDHOOD....


WHAT BLURS OUR MINDS IS THE ''FOCUS ON THE SURFACE NOISE CREATED BY OUR BEHAVIOR''.....


IN OTHER WORDS ITS UNRESOLVED ISSUES WE BRING TO

OUR RELATIONSHIPS FROM PAST THAT WE ARE

RECYCLING........EVERYONE HAS FAVORITE FEELINGS

AND BELIEFS THAT CAUSE THE SURFACE NOISE.....FEW

WILL GIVE IT UP ......



AS FRITZ PEARLS SAID, WHEN ONE BELIEFS OR

EMOTIONS ARE GIVEN UP YOU HAVE WHAT

HE CALLED THE ''FERTILE VOID '' OTHER EMOTIONS AND

BELIEFS MUST FILL THE VOID.....



WE DO A LOT OF ''PROJECTION'' IN OUR GAMES TO

RECYCLE OUR FAVORITE FEELINGS AND VALIDATE OLD BELIEFS.....


IT IS TOTALLY OUT OF OUR CONSCIOUS AWARENESS...


THAT'S WHY INTROSPECTION IS SO IMPORTANT.....



Deep & very helpful! :thumbsup:




READ ''GAMES PEOPLE PLAY'' BY ERIC BERNE AND I'M

O.K.- YOUR O.K. BY THOMAS A. HARRIS ....THESE

BOOKS WILL CLEAR UP A LOT FOR YOU......


jaish's photo
Wed 12/22/21 10:13 PM
Edited by jaish on Wed 12/22/21 10:21 PM
Thanks again.

Berne's TA used to be a rage in the mid Seventies among Management Gurus here.., (my college years). It's an offshoot from Behavioral Psychology -
so strong in US and now I wonder why it did not percolate down our society here, in the East.

It's probably the economy, population density. We live in silos, like factory workers - where transactions are concealed work orders; 'do it, or else' and in such living, community consciousness drops. Outside of silos, life is like constantly negotiating fares with 'auto drivers' - and love, outside of budget - once out of college.


Jung's work on the other hand, centers around human Consciousness - also overlapping Eastern Philosophies which talk about 'peeling away layers of consciousness'.

Your essay is a happy mix from both (although the all caps - makes it like reading against the light); and practical.

drinker

If we constrain to final 3 lines of Jung's verse:


and slowly come to recognize that we meet ourselves

time and again in a thousand disguises
on the path of life."


In these senior years, I do see & agree life as 'recycled memories and emotions' disguised - as different players (companies / employers) over time; and the human condition (nice reminder); is in a state of 'fertile void' - .

The hopelessness of it all - restated humorously, in the final 3 lines.


Thanks for the help.

SparklingCrystal 💖💎's photo
Thu 12/23/21 02:43 AM
What Cleve said.
It's like an invitation to go deep, to go inward and to become more aware of why what you see in the outside is basically a reflection of what is living on your inside.

I do not understand why you drag Shakespeare in this or a painting?
Jung was a psychologist.
To me this is an invite to become more aware (of what the subconscious is doing and how this manifests in the external world).

jaish's photo
Thu 12/23/21 05:12 AM

What Cleve said.
It's like an invitation to go deep, to go inward and to become more aware of why what you see in the outside is basically a reflection of what is living on your inside.

I do not understand why you drag Shakespeare in this or a painting?

Jung was a psychologist.
To me this is an invite to become more aware (of what the subconscious is doing and how this manifests in the external world).


:thumbsup:

This potpourri, was originally to draw reflections from poets here. I'm glad Cleve joined in and now you have shared and grown this. TY