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2013.06.4(화) 인녕이 생일
남산 LI VINO ROSSO 이탈리안 레스토랑
~랑 한테 선물받은 베이지식 원피스를 곱게 입고 온 오늘의 주인공 인녕.
그녀의 생일을 위해. 언니는 노래를 준비하고 나는 편지를 썼다.
이승철의 <이런 사람 또 없습니다.> 가사가 너무 좋아서 언니는 그 곡을 불렀고 나는...6월에 태어난 인녕이를 축하하는 마음과 우리셋의 만남에 늘 지휘자의 역할을 해주어서 고맙다는 내용을 담아 읽었다.
감동받는 친구..
즐거운 대화.
함께 해서 행복한 시간
......멋지고 기억에 오래오래 남을 생파였다.
남산 LI VINO ROSSO 이탈리안 레스토랑
~랑 한테 선물받은 베이지식 원피스를 곱게 입고 온 오늘의 주인공 인녕.
그녀의 생일을 위해. 언니는 노래를 준비하고 나는 편지를 썼다.
이승철의 <이런 사람 또 없습니다.> 가사가 너무 좋아서 언니는 그 곡을 불렀고 나는...6월에 태어난 인녕이를 축하하는 마음과 우리셋의 만남에 늘 지휘자의 역할을 해주어서 고맙다는 내용을 담아 읽었다.
감동받는 친구..
즐거운 대화.
함께 해서 행복한 시간
......멋지고 기억에 오래오래 남을 생파였다.
Thus, Cupid dashes still with sagging diaper, bow and arrow. Arrows hurt, yet wounds quicken consciousness. To love the Other is to feel that wound, to care about what happens to and for that person. So many of our words, such as compassion, empathy, sympathy, come from passio and pathos, Latin and Greek words for "suffering". thus, to open to the Other is also a willingness to open ourselves to the experience of suffering. Who is not willing to so suffer, as Goethe suggested, is only a troubled guest on the earth. To be really here, on this earth, is to experience its gravitas.
To use relationship as an escape from one's personal journey is to pervert relationship and to sabotage one's own calling. To care for the other as Other is to open to pain as well as joy. Both emotions can be transformative. Though we may not hold or reify either, both may engender largeness of soul.
When relationship is not driven by need, but by caring for the other as Other, then we are really free to experience him or her. When we let go of our projections, relinquish the "going home" project, we are free to love. When we are free to love, we are present to the mystery embodied by the Other. Without such mystery we are prisoners of childhood, trapped in the trivial. Blake said he could glimpse the eternal in a grain of sand; so we lesser mortals may glimpse the eternal in and through our Beloved. This Other, paradoxically, is a sacred vehicle toward ourselves, not because we use the Other to serve our own narcissistic ends, but because he or she serves our deepest end by remaining Wholly Other.
Love and the work of soul are inextricably entwined. The Other is not here to take care of our soul, but rather to enlarge our experience of it. Such a gift is most precious to the one enlarged. Ego conciousness understandably seeks knowledge and the relief of suffering. When we live the symbolic life through relationship, we find some knowledge, a little understanding, much suffering and a deeper capacity to love. In reality, this deeper capacity to love is a greater capacity to serve mystery. It is the movement to agape.
To use relationship as an escape from one's personal journey is to pervert relationship and to sabotage one's own calling. To care for the other as Other is to open to pain as well as joy. Both emotions can be transformative. Though we may not hold or reify either, both may engender largeness of soul.
When relationship is not driven by need, but by caring for the other as Other, then we are really free to experience him or her. When we let go of our projections, relinquish the "going home" project, we are free to love. When we are free to love, we are present to the mystery embodied by the Other. Without such mystery we are prisoners of childhood, trapped in the trivial. Blake said he could glimpse the eternal in a grain of sand; so we lesser mortals may glimpse the eternal in and through our Beloved. This Other, paradoxically, is a sacred vehicle toward ourselves, not because we use the Other to serve our own narcissistic ends, but because he or she serves our deepest end by remaining Wholly Other.
Love and the work of soul are inextricably entwined. The Other is not here to take care of our soul, but rather to enlarge our experience of it. Such a gift is most precious to the one enlarged. Ego conciousness understandably seeks knowledge and the relief of suffering. When we live the symbolic life through relationship, we find some knowledge, a little understanding, much suffering and a deeper capacity to love. In reality, this deeper capacity to love is a greater capacity to serve mystery. It is the movement to agape.
The Eden Project:
In Search of the Magical Other
- A Jungian Perspective on Relationship
by James Hollis
Author of
The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife (1993)
Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men (1994)
Tracking the Gods: The Place of Myth in Modern Life (1995)
Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places (1996)
The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other (1998)
The Archetypal Imagination (2000)
Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path (2000)
On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions (2003)
Mythologems: Incarnations of the Invisible World (2004)
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life (2005)
Why Good People Do Bad Things (2007)
What Matters Most (2009)
In Search of the Magical Other
- A Jungian Perspective on Relationship
by James Hollis
Author of
The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning in Midlife (1993)
Under Saturn's Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men (1994)
Tracking the Gods: The Place of Myth in Modern Life (1995)
Swamplands of the Soul: New Life in Dismal Places (1996)
The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other (1998)
The Archetypal Imagination (2000)
Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path (2000)
On This Journey We Call Our Life: Living the Questions (2003)
Mythologems: Incarnations of the Invisible World (2004)
Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life (2005)
Why Good People Do Bad Things (2007)
What Matters Most (2009)
For each sojourner the journey requires many deaths through departure, many losses of Other, many enlargements through suffering. As Goethe observed:
And so long as you haven't experienced
This: to die and so to grow,
You are only a troubled guest
On the dark earth.
Our task is wholeness, an impossibility given our fragile, finite natures. We will attain only a portion of that largeness of soul, that attainment of being, which nature seeks through us. If we were to attain that wholeness, would the two complete spheres need each other? We need not worry about transcending need, for we shall never be so strong, so evolved. Nor is it weakness or failure to need something of the Other. But when we recall that relationship which is dominated by need is also burdened by it, that we may infantilize ourselves, parentify the Other, and fail to love them as Other, then we realize that neediness must be confronted, and replaced, by consciousness. Thus Rilke worried, "How am I to withhold my soul/ that it not impinge on yours?" We need not worry that we shall evolve so much as to become wholly self-sufficient, but if we did, even then the otherness of the Other would facilitate growth and the enhancement of consciousness.
Our bodies, and minds and souls commune through conversation, sexuality and work. We share because friendship is a good thing on a long road, but we can also bear the weight of our own journey because our soul's desire is that important to us. The disinterested love of the Other energizes; it brings a restoration of wonder, girds us for the journey and affords us glimpse of the eternal.
And so long as you haven't experienced
This: to die and so to grow,
You are only a troubled guest
On the dark earth.
Our task is wholeness, an impossibility given our fragile, finite natures. We will attain only a portion of that largeness of soul, that attainment of being, which nature seeks through us. If we were to attain that wholeness, would the two complete spheres need each other? We need not worry about transcending need, for we shall never be so strong, so evolved. Nor is it weakness or failure to need something of the Other. But when we recall that relationship which is dominated by need is also burdened by it, that we may infantilize ourselves, parentify the Other, and fail to love them as Other, then we realize that neediness must be confronted, and replaced, by consciousness. Thus Rilke worried, "How am I to withhold my soul/ that it not impinge on yours?" We need not worry that we shall evolve so much as to become wholly self-sufficient, but if we did, even then the otherness of the Other would facilitate growth and the enhancement of consciousness.
Our bodies, and minds and souls commune through conversation, sexuality and work. We share because friendship is a good thing on a long road, but we can also bear the weight of our own journey because our soul's desire is that important to us. The disinterested love of the Other energizes; it brings a restoration of wonder, girds us for the journey and affords us glimpse of the eternal.
Love, Relationship and Soul
We need, then, to be clear about what relationship offers. On the one hand, the erosion and withdrawal of projections obliges us to recognize our parts unknown or disowned. On the other hand, the otherness of the Other obliges the inner dialectic which can stimulate, and is necessary for, the growth of both parties. ("I am more than me with you, because of you.")
Yet there is another element here which relationship also offers. The other as Other may prove to be a window on eternity, a bridge to cosmic immensity. Such are the gist of the words addressed to his Beloved by Friedrich von Hardenburg, the late-eighteenth-century poet who in time became Novalis, known especially as the seeker of the "blue flower" of eternity:
You are the thesis, tranquil, pale, finite, self-contained. I am the antithesis, uneasy, contradictory, passionate, reaching out beyond myself. Now we must question whether the synthesis will be harmony between us or whether it will lead to a new impossibility which we have never dreamed of.
In mythological language, the wonder of the Other brings intimations of the gods as we stand in the presence of mystery. God is the common word we use for that mystery, and we sense the presence of God in the encounter with the Other who embodies those sacred energies of the cosmos.
The experience of the Other as a Thou, articulated by Martin Buber for one, is the ultimate challenge of relationship. Through the grunt work of making conscious our projections, through the dialectical growth that accompanies the encounter with the Other, and from the glimpse of the Thou of the cosmos, we are enlarged by relationship without having to use it regressively.
At all moments, in any relationship, the tension of opposites is present. Where there is communion, there is separateness as well. One of the best formulations of this relational paradox was expressed by the Czech poet Rainer Maria Rilke: "I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other." We are always solitary, even in a crowd, even in relationship. We can bring no greater gift to any relationship than ourselves, as we are, singular in solitude. Similarly, there is no greater gift we may receive from the Other. A precious sharing, then, though not a substitute for our individuation.
This understanding of relationship requires never-ending vigilance. It is so easy to regress, to impose our agenda on the Other. We will do that anyway, willy-nilly, unconsciously, without meaning to, and can only hope later to recognize what we have done. Therein lies the ethical task of relationship. We say to ourselves, "The projection I cast upon the Other, this hidden agenda, needs to be withdrawn. It can be replaced by something richer." Through the enlargement which comes from the bridges of conversation, sexuality, the pooling of aspirations and "mutually-separate" journeys, one experiences the always evolving mystery of soul.
Soul may be defined here as that energy which wants something of us, which impels us to live up to who we potentially are. Its origin and aim are mysterious, but it manifests intuitively, instinctually, in moments of insight. Relationship is sacred as an arena for the enlargement of soul. Our quest for wholeness is archetypal in character, that is, programmed at the deepest level to find meaning in chaotic experience.
The seductive lure of romantic love, which so dominates Western culture, hooks us due to the profound confusion of a projection with what it is aiming toward. We fall in love with Love, and lose the growth which soul demands. As Dante suggested, the worst inferno is to be surfeited with what we seek. Like any addict, we long to die in the Other, to be subsumed, until we who would capture and hold the object of our desire are held captive instead.
We are travelers, all and separately. We are thrown by fate into adjacent seats on a flight to the coast. In our solitude we may enhance the journey of the Other, who may likewise enhance ours. We embarked separately, we disembark separately, and we head for our appointed ends separately. We profit greatly from each other without using each other. Our projections upon the Other are inevitable; not bad, really, for they enrich the journey, but if we hold on to them they become diversions from our individual task.
We need, then, to be clear about what relationship offers. On the one hand, the erosion and withdrawal of projections obliges us to recognize our parts unknown or disowned. On the other hand, the otherness of the Other obliges the inner dialectic which can stimulate, and is necessary for, the growth of both parties. ("I am more than me with you, because of you.")
Yet there is another element here which relationship also offers. The other as Other may prove to be a window on eternity, a bridge to cosmic immensity. Such are the gist of the words addressed to his Beloved by Friedrich von Hardenburg, the late-eighteenth-century poet who in time became Novalis, known especially as the seeker of the "blue flower" of eternity:
You are the thesis, tranquil, pale, finite, self-contained. I am the antithesis, uneasy, contradictory, passionate, reaching out beyond myself. Now we must question whether the synthesis will be harmony between us or whether it will lead to a new impossibility which we have never dreamed of.
In mythological language, the wonder of the Other brings intimations of the gods as we stand in the presence of mystery. God is the common word we use for that mystery, and we sense the presence of God in the encounter with the Other who embodies those sacred energies of the cosmos.
The experience of the Other as a Thou, articulated by Martin Buber for one, is the ultimate challenge of relationship. Through the grunt work of making conscious our projections, through the dialectical growth that accompanies the encounter with the Other, and from the glimpse of the Thou of the cosmos, we are enlarged by relationship without having to use it regressively.
At all moments, in any relationship, the tension of opposites is present. Where there is communion, there is separateness as well. One of the best formulations of this relational paradox was expressed by the Czech poet Rainer Maria Rilke: "I hold this to be the highest task of a bond between two people: that each should stand guard over the solitude of the other." We are always solitary, even in a crowd, even in relationship. We can bring no greater gift to any relationship than ourselves, as we are, singular in solitude. Similarly, there is no greater gift we may receive from the Other. A precious sharing, then, though not a substitute for our individuation.
This understanding of relationship requires never-ending vigilance. It is so easy to regress, to impose our agenda on the Other. We will do that anyway, willy-nilly, unconsciously, without meaning to, and can only hope later to recognize what we have done. Therein lies the ethical task of relationship. We say to ourselves, "The projection I cast upon the Other, this hidden agenda, needs to be withdrawn. It can be replaced by something richer." Through the enlargement which comes from the bridges of conversation, sexuality, the pooling of aspirations and "mutually-separate" journeys, one experiences the always evolving mystery of soul.
Soul may be defined here as that energy which wants something of us, which impels us to live up to who we potentially are. Its origin and aim are mysterious, but it manifests intuitively, instinctually, in moments of insight. Relationship is sacred as an arena for the enlargement of soul. Our quest for wholeness is archetypal in character, that is, programmed at the deepest level to find meaning in chaotic experience.
The seductive lure of romantic love, which so dominates Western culture, hooks us due to the profound confusion of a projection with what it is aiming toward. We fall in love with Love, and lose the growth which soul demands. As Dante suggested, the worst inferno is to be surfeited with what we seek. Like any addict, we long to die in the Other, to be subsumed, until we who would capture and hold the object of our desire are held captive instead.
We are travelers, all and separately. We are thrown by fate into adjacent seats on a flight to the coast. In our solitude we may enhance the journey of the Other, who may likewise enhance ours. We embarked separately, we disembark separately, and we head for our appointed ends separately. We profit greatly from each other without using each other. Our projections upon the Other are inevitable; not bad, really, for they enrich the journey, but if we hold on to them they become diversions from our individual task.
The going home project is deeply programmed in us from our traumatic onsets. But, as we see all around us, it remains the chief saboteur of intimate relationship. Thus, we are all caught between the deeply programmed desire to fuse with the Other and the inner imperative to separate, to individuate. This tension of opposites will always be present. Holding that tension, bringing it to consciousness, is the moral task of both parties in any close relationship, a task that requires conscious effort and heroic will.
When one has let go of that great hidden agenda that drives humanity and its varied histories, then one can begin to encounter the immensity of one's own soul. If we are courageous enough to say, "Not this person, nor any other, can ultimately give me what I want; only I can," then we are free to celebrate a relationship for what it can give. The paradox lies in the fact that the Other can be a means through which one is enabled to glimpse the immensity of one's own soul and live a portion of one's individuation.
Without the otherness of the Other, we would have nothing to counter the inflated certainties and one-sidedness of ego consciousness. While this sort of conversation with oneself must eventually occur, few would undertake it without being painfully confronted with the otherness of the Other. That is the chief contribution of relationship to the process of individuation. The dialogue between self and Other is a psychodynamic from which growth comes. I am more than me because you oblige me to rise up and out of my limited consciousness to recognize you as Other, and vice versa. This is the primary way in which we can help one another to grow beyond the tension of opposites.
The encounter between two people generates the possibility of what Jung calls "the reconciling third," or transcendent function. We are more than two ones who, in fusing to become One, remain only two; we are two ones who have also become a third. As Jung wrote,
In nature the resolution of opposites is always an energic process: she acts symbolically in the truest sense of the word, doing something that expresses both sides, just as a waterfall visibly mediates between above and below.
This mediating third is how relationship truly serves us, and brings us to what Jung called the symbolic life. We live the symbolic life as a direct consequence of the quality of our dialogue with the world and with the cosmos. My dialogue with you is my dialogue with the cosmos, for you carry and incarnate those same energies. You oblige me to consider, to reflect, to grow, to enlarge my sense of the possible, and thereby expand my embodiment of what the Self requires. We are asked from birth to death to become as fully as possible that which we are capable of becoming. Living in a dialectic with you, I am then living the symbolic life, which is to say, a life in depth.
When one has let go of that great hidden agenda that drives humanity and its varied histories, then one can begin to encounter the immensity of one's own soul. If we are courageous enough to say, "Not this person, nor any other, can ultimately give me what I want; only I can," then we are free to celebrate a relationship for what it can give. The paradox lies in the fact that the Other can be a means through which one is enabled to glimpse the immensity of one's own soul and live a portion of one's individuation.
Without the otherness of the Other, we would have nothing to counter the inflated certainties and one-sidedness of ego consciousness. While this sort of conversation with oneself must eventually occur, few would undertake it without being painfully confronted with the otherness of the Other. That is the chief contribution of relationship to the process of individuation. The dialogue between self and Other is a psychodynamic from which growth comes. I am more than me because you oblige me to rise up and out of my limited consciousness to recognize you as Other, and vice versa. This is the primary way in which we can help one another to grow beyond the tension of opposites.
The encounter between two people generates the possibility of what Jung calls "the reconciling third," or transcendent function. We are more than two ones who, in fusing to become One, remain only two; we are two ones who have also become a third. As Jung wrote,
In nature the resolution of opposites is always an energic process: she acts symbolically in the truest sense of the word, doing something that expresses both sides, just as a waterfall visibly mediates between above and below.
This mediating third is how relationship truly serves us, and brings us to what Jung called the symbolic life. We live the symbolic life as a direct consequence of the quality of our dialogue with the world and with the cosmos. My dialogue with you is my dialogue with the cosmos, for you carry and incarnate those same energies. You oblige me to consider, to reflect, to grow, to enlarge my sense of the possible, and thereby expand my embodiment of what the Self requires. We are asked from birth to death to become as fully as possible that which we are capable of becoming. Living in a dialectic with you, I am then living the symbolic life, which is to say, a life in depth.
Apart from the pain of such discrepancies, we may detect projections in the same three ways in which we detect complexes.
Firstly, there are predictable situations in which complexes, or projections, are likely to be activated. Most generally, the entire sphere of intimacy is one such charged field in which projections are being exchanged at all times. This fact may seem depressing - it is in any case humbling - for one does not really know the Other, ever, and what we do not know we are prone to fill with our own projected material. Even those who have lived together for decades barely know each other, psychologically speaking, though they may be greatly habituated to each other.
Secondly, we may experience projection in a physical way. A churning stomach, a quickening heart, sweaty palms and so on are somatic states that can alert us to the likelihood of projection.
Thirdly, in projection the quantity of energy discharged is always disproportionate to the situation. Since the field of intimate relationship carries the burden of the "going home" project, so the largeness of energy we feel in such a relationship is evidence of the largeness of the agenda projected. This is not to say that relationships are not profoundly important, but rather that we may make them too important. Again, this is why one is bereft at the loss of the Other, sometimes suicidal, for the fantasy of recovering the lost Primal Other has crumbled. We are meant to grieve loss, of course, but too often the overvaluation of the Other is achieved only through the devaluation of oneself.
Jung reminds us of the ubiquity of projection: "The general psychological reason for projection is always an activated unconscious that seeks expression."
Having suffered the discrepancy, the loss of the Other as projected, we are left with the humbling task of becoming conscious. What we do not know can and does hurt us, and others too. Ultimately this constitutes a moral imperative.
What reamains in the relationship diagram is most critical of all: the vertical axes, the relationship of each party to his or her own unconscious. The quality and character of all relationships stem from this axis, yet it is the one most ignored. Again, we cannot know that of which we are unconscious, but we must never forget that the unconscious is active and projecting.
Since the content of every projection is some aspect of ourselves, what we are "seeing" in the Other is something of ourselves. It may seem ludicrous, but in this sense, what we fall in love with is some aspect of ourselves as reflected back to us from the Other.
If one could stay in that permanent state of romantic excitation I suppose one would so choose, but it is not possible. (I recall someone asking the Buddhist Alan Watts why one would not remain in satori, and he replied, "Because you bloody well can't.") Psychic enery cannot be fixed; its hermetic character is forever moving, dying, disappearing, reappering in a new place, which is why the Greeks considered Eros also the youngest of the gods. Of course joy in the Other, trust, deep caring and commitment may abide. We have a word for this continuing feeling; it is love. It is not as intoxicating or illusory as romance, but it has the potential to last.
Ultimately, the health and hope of any intimate relationship will depend on each party's willingness to assume responsibility for that vertical axis, the relationship to one's own unconscious material. Sounds logical, even easy, yet nothing is more difficult. The chief burden on any relationship derives both from our unwillingness to assume responsibility and from the immensity of the project.
It takes great courage to ask this fundamental question: "What am I asking of this Other that I ought to be doing for myself?" If, for example, I am asking the Other to be mindful of my self-esteem, I have a project waiting unaddressed. If I am expecting the Other to be the good parent and take care of me, then I have not grown up. If I am expecting the Other to spare me the rigor and terror of living my own journey, then I have abdicated from the chief task and most worthy reason for my incarnation on this earth.
Of every projection we must ask, "What does this say about me?" And what we are asking of the Other, we are obliged then to ask of ourselves. Since projections are unconscious in their origin, the need for such work usually arises only due to the suffering that follows the erosion of the projection. Yet it is through taking on the heroic task of lifting our projections off of the Other that we may best serve their interest, that is, love them. As Mahatma Gandhi once remarked, " A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave." Projection, fusion, "going home," is easy; loving another's otherness is heroic. If we really love the Other as Other, we have heroically taken on the responsibility for our own individuaition, our own journey. This heroism may properly be called love. St. Augustine put it this way: "Love is wanting the other to be."
This view of love expresses an oxymoronic truth, that true love is "disinterested." It not only allows Other to be but supports their being as Other. The Swiss theologian Karl Barth defined God as "Wholly Other." Well, The Beloved too is Wholly Other. Such a respect for the Other seems obvious in theory, but in reality it must always contend with our fragile, frightened nature.
Firstly, there are predictable situations in which complexes, or projections, are likely to be activated. Most generally, the entire sphere of intimacy is one such charged field in which projections are being exchanged at all times. This fact may seem depressing - it is in any case humbling - for one does not really know the Other, ever, and what we do not know we are prone to fill with our own projected material. Even those who have lived together for decades barely know each other, psychologically speaking, though they may be greatly habituated to each other.
Secondly, we may experience projection in a physical way. A churning stomach, a quickening heart, sweaty palms and so on are somatic states that can alert us to the likelihood of projection.
Thirdly, in projection the quantity of energy discharged is always disproportionate to the situation. Since the field of intimate relationship carries the burden of the "going home" project, so the largeness of energy we feel in such a relationship is evidence of the largeness of the agenda projected. This is not to say that relationships are not profoundly important, but rather that we may make them too important. Again, this is why one is bereft at the loss of the Other, sometimes suicidal, for the fantasy of recovering the lost Primal Other has crumbled. We are meant to grieve loss, of course, but too often the overvaluation of the Other is achieved only through the devaluation of oneself.
Jung reminds us of the ubiquity of projection: "The general psychological reason for projection is always an activated unconscious that seeks expression."
Having suffered the discrepancy, the loss of the Other as projected, we are left with the humbling task of becoming conscious. What we do not know can and does hurt us, and others too. Ultimately this constitutes a moral imperative.
What reamains in the relationship diagram is most critical of all: the vertical axes, the relationship of each party to his or her own unconscious. The quality and character of all relationships stem from this axis, yet it is the one most ignored. Again, we cannot know that of which we are unconscious, but we must never forget that the unconscious is active and projecting.
Since the content of every projection is some aspect of ourselves, what we are "seeing" in the Other is something of ourselves. It may seem ludicrous, but in this sense, what we fall in love with is some aspect of ourselves as reflected back to us from the Other.
If one could stay in that permanent state of romantic excitation I suppose one would so choose, but it is not possible. (I recall someone asking the Buddhist Alan Watts why one would not remain in satori, and he replied, "Because you bloody well can't.") Psychic enery cannot be fixed; its hermetic character is forever moving, dying, disappearing, reappering in a new place, which is why the Greeks considered Eros also the youngest of the gods. Of course joy in the Other, trust, deep caring and commitment may abide. We have a word for this continuing feeling; it is love. It is not as intoxicating or illusory as romance, but it has the potential to last.
Ultimately, the health and hope of any intimate relationship will depend on each party's willingness to assume responsibility for that vertical axis, the relationship to one's own unconscious material. Sounds logical, even easy, yet nothing is more difficult. The chief burden on any relationship derives both from our unwillingness to assume responsibility and from the immensity of the project.
It takes great courage to ask this fundamental question: "What am I asking of this Other that I ought to be doing for myself?" If, for example, I am asking the Other to be mindful of my self-esteem, I have a project waiting unaddressed. If I am expecting the Other to be the good parent and take care of me, then I have not grown up. If I am expecting the Other to spare me the rigor and terror of living my own journey, then I have abdicated from the chief task and most worthy reason for my incarnation on this earth.
Of every projection we must ask, "What does this say about me?" And what we are asking of the Other, we are obliged then to ask of ourselves. Since projections are unconscious in their origin, the need for such work usually arises only due to the suffering that follows the erosion of the projection. Yet it is through taking on the heroic task of lifting our projections off of the Other that we may best serve their interest, that is, love them. As Mahatma Gandhi once remarked, " A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave." Projection, fusion, "going home," is easy; loving another's otherness is heroic. If we really love the Other as Other, we have heroically taken on the responsibility for our own individuaition, our own journey. This heroism may properly be called love. St. Augustine put it this way: "Love is wanting the other to be."
This view of love expresses an oxymoronic truth, that true love is "disinterested." It not only allows Other to be but supports their being as Other. The Swiss theologian Karl Barth defined God as "Wholly Other." Well, The Beloved too is Wholly Other. Such a respect for the Other seems obvious in theory, but in reality it must always contend with our fragile, frightened nature.
Pretty powerful stuff-and all projection. What is real here is Dante's experience; what is not real is that Beatrice herself is the source of the energy that fuels his creativity and leads him to become the mythopoeic voice of his age. And it is ever thus: the one who inspires us, the Beloved, has been in us all along.Indeed, this is one of the wonderful things about projection: it spurs the release of energies that might otherwise lie dormant. This, I know, is as true of you and me as of any Dante, any artist, any entrepreneur, any auto mechanic, any waitress - anyone.
In formal analysis, one brings to each session not only the desire for consciousness, but also a carpetbag of psychological history that is dynamic, intentional and autonomous. The analyst is not free of history either, but by virtue of a long-term analysis has a good idea of what complexes might be activated by the setting and the material the analysand brings. It is not that analysis renders one fully conscious of such psychic reflexes, but rather it better enables one to recognize their presence when they do emerge.
When we remember the central law of projection, that what is unconscious will be either repressed or projected, it is clear that a tremendous amount of traffic transpires in any given instant of relationship. We can even observe a difference between big projections and small projections. The latter have to do with relating to the Other in programmed, habitual ways, which comes from the whole history of relationships. And the former, "big" projections, have to do with the transference of the "going home" project onto the Other. - the fantasy that through him or her I will be healed, nurtured, protected and spared the awful rigors of growing up.
It is inevitable that projections occur, that transference and countertransference occur, that we have a large project in mind for the Other, for we are never courageous or conscious enough to pull it all back. We remain human in our deep longing for that suprahuman Other. The only question is to what degree we realize this.
In formal analysis, one brings to each session not only the desire for consciousness, but also a carpetbag of psychological history that is dynamic, intentional and autonomous. The analyst is not free of history either, but by virtue of a long-term analysis has a good idea of what complexes might be activated by the setting and the material the analysand brings. It is not that analysis renders one fully conscious of such psychic reflexes, but rather it better enables one to recognize their presence when they do emerge.
When we remember the central law of projection, that what is unconscious will be either repressed or projected, it is clear that a tremendous amount of traffic transpires in any given instant of relationship. We can even observe a difference between big projections and small projections. The latter have to do with relating to the Other in programmed, habitual ways, which comes from the whole history of relationships. And the former, "big" projections, have to do with the transference of the "going home" project onto the Other. - the fantasy that through him or her I will be healed, nurtured, protected and spared the awful rigors of growing up.
It is inevitable that projections occur, that transference and countertransference occur, that we have a large project in mind for the Other, for we are never courageous or conscious enough to pull it all back. We remain human in our deep longing for that suprahuman Other. The only question is to what degree we realize this.
Projection, as a psychological phenomenon, is ubiquitous and inevitable.
All projection occurs unconsciously, of course, for the moment one observes, "I have made a projection," one is already in the process of taking it back. More commonly, we only begin to reclaim our purchase on consciousness when the Other fails to catch, hold, reflect our projection. If there is a central law of the psyche, it is that what is unconscious will be projected. This is why Jung observed that "when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate." But since the psyche consists of a multitude of split-off shards of energy, complexes and archetypal forms (to which Jung granted near-mythological status with names like anima, animus, shadow), virtually all of which are unconscious, there is always ample opportunity for projection. As I can never know the unconscious, by definition or practice, so I can never know what energies may be acting autonomously and casting a veil of Maya, or illusion, over the world as I know it.
Kant cautioned two centuries ago that one can never know the Ding-an-Sich, the "thing-in-itself," that is, never know the essential character of external reality, but only the subjective, phenomenological workings of one's own psychic experience. In tautological terms, we may only experience our experience! In his insistence on the radical subjectivity of human experience, Kant ended metaphysics, the search for absolute reality, but thereby made necessary psychology, the tracking of interior process.
"All relationships, all relationships, begin in projection."
All projection occurs unconsciously, of course, for the moment one observes, "I have made a projection," one is already in the process of taking it back. More commonly, we only begin to reclaim our purchase on consciousness when the Other fails to catch, hold, reflect our projection. If there is a central law of the psyche, it is that what is unconscious will be projected. This is why Jung observed that "when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate." But since the psyche consists of a multitude of split-off shards of energy, complexes and archetypal forms (to which Jung granted near-mythological status with names like anima, animus, shadow), virtually all of which are unconscious, there is always ample opportunity for projection. As I can never know the unconscious, by definition or practice, so I can never know what energies may be acting autonomously and casting a veil of Maya, or illusion, over the world as I know it.
Kant cautioned two centuries ago that one can never know the Ding-an-Sich, the "thing-in-itself," that is, never know the essential character of external reality, but only the subjective, phenomenological workings of one's own psychic experience. In tautological terms, we may only experience our experience! In his insistence on the radical subjectivity of human experience, Kant ended metaphysics, the search for absolute reality, but thereby made necessary psychology, the tracking of interior process.
"All relationships, all relationships, begin in projection."