The other day I went to a local library book sale where a lot of old or un-needed books were for sale. They were priced at next to nothing, and setup in two big tents and a large storage room with shelves. Exactly the kind of thing I love. It was not quite a madhouse but it wasn't far from it. People shuffling past, bumping sometimes, squeezing through other people, trying to get the best view of the books that were offered. I managed to get a bunch of science fiction novels I have wanted to read but never did, Hebert's - Dune series (of course I found every volume but the first one). I also found a couple of Joseph Campbell books and a Carlos Castaneda that I did not have. Two of my all-time favorite authors and providers of fascinating knowledge. It's like finding literary gold nuggets for almost free. Flipping through a book by Campbell I found the following sentence:
This is from page 68 of Myths to Live By, (Joseph Campbell, 1972) and I really was drawn to this page because it involves two of my favorite thinkers of all time; Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung. The things I have been drawn to in life that truly interest me as far as shaping my world view have been amongst many others, these two men. It is like this, my own personal instinctual sense of reality, really resonated with the things that they wrote and taught. I mean yes, they have shaped my world-view, but I would not of even been interested in them in the first place had I not had my own sense of the world that corresponded with the things I was reading.
I went to a Catholic church for 18 years and none of it resonated nearly as much as things I read from them, for example. (Jung and Campbell). You can sit me in church all you want (as a child), but it doesn't mean that it sparks that thing inside of me that resonates with what I call the natural flow of life. Life is set to certain natural laws and patterns and correlates with all other living things. The more one lives in understanding of these patterns the more life will 'make sense' (at least it does for me). Before I get off track I want to also quote the part of the next passage where Campbell quotes Carl Jung:
This resonates with me because I feel like this is something I have been struggling with my whole life. (If you have not read Joseph Campbell I highly suggest going and buying the book). On one hand - finding those things that 'make sense of life', (like reading Jung and Campbell for me as described above). On another hand - the ability to not only, first of all, be aware of your own spectrum of emotions and reactions, and intentions, but to employ them socially at your will with relative ease. And to have a different set for different roles (a different mask like Campbell says). I mean it has taken me my entire life to get to the point where I can even understand the concepts laid out in this discussion (awareness of my emotions, personality, and intentions, awareness of my fears and desires, and the ability to mold those things into various 'masks' well).
To me Jung's and Campbell's definition of individuated is in the sense of developing and understanding the inner self. Jung uses the word destiny, but I take it to mean not in a fateful sense, but that there is a map of unrealized potential that is unique and different for everyone. How you choose to fulfill that potential is completely up to your own decisions and free will in life. It's like a flower seed. Inside that seed is a genetic map of the perfect potential of that plant that no other seed quite has. Factors like soil, shade or sun, water level etc. play a role as to the fate of the plant.
Becoming individuated could also be equated to Campbell's famous term - 'following your bliss'. Studying and perpetuating the things that get you the most excited, that reverberate the most inside you and compel you. It is the thing that affects any creative person or knowledge seeker I think, that feeling that says 'I like this' or 'this is exciting' that feeling in your chest of excitement and energy. Finding that and running with it is key to becoming individuated.
"To become-in Jung's terms-individuated, to live as a released individual, one has to know how and when to put on and to put off the masks of one's various life roles." (Joseph Campbell)
This is from page 68 of Myths to Live By, (Joseph Campbell, 1972) and I really was drawn to this page because it involves two of my favorite thinkers of all time; Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung. The things I have been drawn to in life that truly interest me as far as shaping my world view have been amongst many others, these two men. It is like this, my own personal instinctual sense of reality, really resonated with the things that they wrote and taught. I mean yes, they have shaped my world-view, but I would not of even been interested in them in the first place had I not had my own sense of the world that corresponded with the things I was reading.
I went to a Catholic church for 18 years and none of it resonated nearly as much as things I read from them, for example. (Jung and Campbell). You can sit me in church all you want (as a child), but it doesn't mean that it sparks that thing inside of me that resonates with what I call the natural flow of life. Life is set to certain natural laws and patterns and correlates with all other living things. The more one lives in understanding of these patterns the more life will 'make sense' (at least it does for me). Before I get off track I want to also quote the part of the next passage where Campbell quotes Carl Jung:
"In the last analysis, every life is the realization of a whole, that is, of a self, for which reason this realization can be called individualization. All life is bound to individual carriers who realize it, and it is simply inconceivable without them. But every carrier is charged with an individual destiny and destination, and the realization of this alone makes sense of life." (Carl Jung)
This resonates with me because I feel like this is something I have been struggling with my whole life. (If you have not read Joseph Campbell I highly suggest going and buying the book). On one hand - finding those things that 'make sense of life', (like reading Jung and Campbell for me as described above). On another hand - the ability to not only, first of all, be aware of your own spectrum of emotions and reactions, and intentions, but to employ them socially at your will with relative ease. And to have a different set for different roles (a different mask like Campbell says). I mean it has taken me my entire life to get to the point where I can even understand the concepts laid out in this discussion (awareness of my emotions, personality, and intentions, awareness of my fears and desires, and the ability to mold those things into various 'masks' well).
To me Jung's and Campbell's definition of individuated is in the sense of developing and understanding the inner self. Jung uses the word destiny, but I take it to mean not in a fateful sense, but that there is a map of unrealized potential that is unique and different for everyone. How you choose to fulfill that potential is completely up to your own decisions and free will in life. It's like a flower seed. Inside that seed is a genetic map of the perfect potential of that plant that no other seed quite has. Factors like soil, shade or sun, water level etc. play a role as to the fate of the plant.
Becoming individuated could also be equated to Campbell's famous term - 'following your bliss'. Studying and perpetuating the things that get you the most excited, that reverberate the most inside you and compel you. It is the thing that affects any creative person or knowledge seeker I think, that feeling that says 'I like this' or 'this is exciting' that feeling in your chest of excitement and energy. Finding that and running with it is key to becoming individuated.
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