Amateur Jungian Self-Analysis.

The Ego:

 

I’ve been reading the journals of Kurt Cobain. Noting the pitfalls and imperfections of a hero of mine enable me to emote and to relate with him positively, rather than in the manner of hero worship.

 

Whilst acknowledging the possibility that I have a perfectionist complex, I hold that most of my conflicts are not between perfection and imperfection, but between Imitation and Innovation. Order is a recent talent for me, and I feel a deep recrimination for those attitudes which would mire my growth by casting me back into the depressing sloppiness of adolescence. Being evolved enables me to see variables that others do not, emanating from behind the veil which obscures the Forms.

 

I am not a neurotic. I am an Artist and a brother. As Rex had affirmed, I am operating based upon something apart from the Western dualism of Perfection and Imperfection altogether. I feel no indebtedness to the Christian conscience that had spawned this attitude.

 

The Shadow:

 

I take this back. It is merely a pompous defensive mechanism to find security when I get cold feet and am afraid to cross the field of mines my elders and betters have planted.

 

The Self:

 

Perhaps, while getting in touch with my imperfect side, I should strive for perfectionism where it is artistically called-for.

 

Verdict:

 

I will not fake Imperfection in order that I may Belong to Society! My path of Shadow-integration is mine own!

 

Dm.A.A.

Introversion, Spiritual success, and Holden Caulfield.

Many people treat introversion as though it were a symptom of self-absorption. It is not. There is a common saying pervasive of all mystical religions that if one thinks that one understands God, one doesn’t. Yet one can have a good hunch. Some extraverts dabbling in religion may tend to develop a very social attitude towards what “spiritual” behaviour is, and that comes with a dogmatic disdain for “non-spiritual” or “egocentric” behaviour. Introverts may do this as well, but usually for different reasons. Spirituality, however, is concerned with wholeness, and in many historical instances, it was a form of counterculture. The mind that is thoroughly socialized tends not to think spiritually but practically; its entire view of the Universe is based upon external success and context. If it turns inward and begins to study itself, the whole Universe falls apart at one point, and what had been believed to have been objective has been proven to have been subjective. The outside was actually the inside, only the illusion was convincing because all of one’s peers had the same programming – to put it radically, they were all equally hypnotized. This realization, when it occurs in the “spiritual” person, is what mystics across many cultures, whether they be Christian theologians or Hindu yogis, describe as a leave-taking from God to God: What had been thought to be spiritual was only a part of the entire thing, and what had been condemned as egocentric is now recognized as the other half.

 

Speaking from personal experience, it appears impossible to draw a definite line between social behaviour and narcissistic behaviour. Narcissists treat other people as an extension of themselves, often presuming that all people see things in a manner akin to them. To be social is to do that, and it is often determined by one’s existing social disposition; in other words, you will tend to see life, socially, through a lens shared by people of your own economic class, ethnic background, and occupational interests. This form of conditioning, whilst comforting, is not very effective towards establishing connections with all of Humanity, much less the Entire Universe. Hence it is said that extraverts tend to excel socially whilst introverts tend to excel spiritually.

 

A good example of a social misfit motivated by spiritual values is Holden Caulfield from J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. The prepositional clause “by spiritual values” may be disputed, but there is no doubt that Holden is a misfit and an introvert. At one point, he asks a taxi driver an innocent question, “Where do the ducks go when the lake freezes over?” (This is paraphrased here.) The driver is frustrated by the seeming pointlessness of the question, but this is nothing compared to how affronted Holden feels when no satisfactory answer arrives. Some may argue that he is entitled to an answer, and his sense of entitlement is narcissistic and typical of an infantile egoic activity. One must, however, consider the writer’s background and the various layers of meaning in the novel. In the first place, the question may be concrete, not symbolic: Neither the author nor the protagonist means anything by the question outside of its literal meaning. Maybe there is a symbolic meaning as well, and maybe the ducks are symbolic of Holden wondering where he will go now that he has been kicked out of school, but it is unlikely that J.D. Salinger, who has expressed in other works, sometimes through the voices of other characters and sometimes the author’s tone, which we can only guess at, a passionate disdain for psychiatrists, would offer such an explanation for Holden’s “motives” for the question. Maybe, indeed, some symbolism is intended, but the genius of Salinger would be in that the literal meaning equally stands.

 

From the perspective of Zen Buddhism, a major influence upon Salinger’s work, the question may be almost akin to a koan. A koan is a simple question that cannot be understood intellectually (e.g. “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”). It is meant to bring about in the individual who ponders it a mystical realization wherein the world is seen in an ineffable way that cannot be rationalized. Salinger uses the aforementioned koan as the epigraph to Nine Stories.

 

Holden’s question has no meaning outside of itself. He is not interested in establishing a conversation with the taxi driver, not because he is disinterested in the man, but because he does not want his conversation to follow the pattern of a “phony” conversation. He feels an admiration for the man and a sense of wonder at the man’s very existence, which is something that the taxi driver probably has little knowledge of. Yet it is this sense of wonder, typical of so many introverts, that dooms Holden. He is uninterested in socializing with the taxi driver, for it would only mire him and the driver both in a fairly uninspiring account of their personal memories of the day. He is much more interested in where the ducks go, a question which, whilst not serving any practical social purpose, be it the advancement of oneself in the fulfillment of a social skill or the affirmation of one’s worldview in agreement with another, is the kind of question that can be asked just as comfortably of an African child as of a seasoned American male. It is, whilst appearing marginal and almost insultingly irrelevant to the taxi driver, a simple, direct question that the more tender will discern as crushingly innocent and pure.

 

Speaking logically, one can presume that Holden expects to gain nothing by it except knowledge about the world around him; it is an example of disinterested learning. Who is entitled, therefore? Is Holden entitled for posing a question that can be asked of all of humanity(, given that the human spirit is incarnate in anyone living in this area of New York)? or is it the taxi driver, who wants only to talk about things pertaining to his way of life and his own social role in his particular society? Yes, only those who have lived in this part of New York would presumably know the answer, and yet it is unnerving to Holden that he cannot find one person who does know it.

 

Holden mentions, early on in the novel, that people “never notice anything”. Given the style that Salinger employs in all of his published writing, this may be construed as the author’s personal voice: One that is incredibly perceptive of detail. The Zen Buddhists make a point to notice their surroundings and to marvel in little things. Holden, whilst having this potentiality spiritually, lives in a society wherein he is faced with the shocking prospect that not one person he encounters has the time to answer this basic question. It is entirely counterintuitive that they would not, and the novel seems more or less, if one is to discern a single central theme from it, to deal with his horrifying realization that people do not in fact care about the things that he cares about. But does that make him narcissistic? No. It makes him spiritually aware. He wants to know where the ducks go, and he wants to pass this knowledge down to all children, but there is no room for him in this society. In a story from Nine Stories, “Teddy”, Salinger illustrates a young spiritual genius who claims that he had been an Indian holy man in a prior life, but that he was reincarnated in America as bad karma for falling in love with a girl. He makes the statement that America is the worst place to advance spiritually. Since most of Salinger’s characters are based upon his own reflections upon his own personality, this may in fact be the author’s point of view.

dm.A.A.

Dear Andrew.

Dear Andrew,

 

            I love you, and I must preface this by expressing* my deeply (*to the best of my ability) held Gratitude for my two best friends and their nurturing role and camaraderie in my life. Besides that, the both of you enliven me with enthusiasm for this exciting Social world. But this letter is about what you do not know about me. It will help you to understand my idealism, why my point of view is God to me, and how I refuse to consider it a figment of my mere inventiveness.

            I can cast my mind back to late childhood, and then there was a profound Solidarity that I felt, inclusive of my life and all others, as though one common entity that was not quite dream but not yet real ran like a river flowing as much through my own mind as through the pores in my skin. I felt a connectivity with the world, but parts of this world – Other People – encroached upon me with socialization. I began to entertain thoughts that would threaten to obscure this continuity between myself and my environment. While accepting these abstractions like a good sport, I always kept a reservation in my mind as to their importance.

            There are moments when you terrify me, as though you drove a Caterpillar truck straight into a house with an infant in it. I am almost afraid that you will dispose of this letter, which I fear it would be sacrilege to make copies of.

            When I hear Elliott’s music, I can tolerate this socialized world. In every tortured crack of his voice there is an incontrovertible plea for help and forgiveness, and it is precisely this – the fact that I can forgive him, and the fact that I feel moved to help him (if only to spread his vision, one akin to the clawing angst and clarity of perception that impels me to write this) – allows me to help and forgive myself. Let me just say now that, regardless of the inevitable and Beautiful space between us, by virtue of which many of my words may be lost to you, it is this human-heartedness and forgiveness that seems inexhaustible between you, me and Kresten, and so never let our inevitable disagreements come in the way of that.

            Elliott is not the only musician I empathise with, and he is not a projection of my own needs; my zeal for rendering his vision as I perceive it comes from the fact that I feel myself to be one of few who can hear it. I would it were not so, but maybe you can see why, whatever we may do with his work, the one thing I cannot permit myself to do is to marginalize him as entertainment.

            I was once putting away items at Joann’s on a regular night, only shortly after having returned from visiting Berkeley, with a brief stop in Los Angeles, wherein I met a homeless, amiable army veteran who was addicted to wine and presumably heroin. He told me that I could make a good psychologist, but that I was naive. His statement unsettled me.

            As I was putting go-backs away at Joann’s, I felt attacked, as though being crushed by a cinder pile of guilt. I could not explain why, but I felt overwhelmingly like I had done something terrible – unpardonable. Meanwhile, on the other side of the wall behind me, my co-worker, Merissa (no connection to Marissa) was listening to music on her telephone, via speaker.

            It wasn’t until I exited the aisle and came near her that I could discern the lyrics. The music I had already identified as the theme from ‘Love Story’, played on piano. The lyrics were rap lyrics. Very hard core. The artist told a story wherein a woman was gang-raped and then killed. She happened to have been the mother of one of her assailants, who promptly leapt to his death from a building upon removing the bag from her head and surmising the situation.

            The speaker had been present, as one of the assailants. He claimed that it was a true story. Throughout his entire telling of it, there seemed almost a tone of resignation in his voice, almost as though this were inevitable because of his lot in life. Notice that the people who joined him in perpetrating this act were his peers.

            I would take an attitude of humility to things like that, but sometimes it seems that the worst crime is to be so afraid of being wrong that one does not take a firm, convicted position.

            Another instance concerns the song ‘Oblivion’ by Grimes. I noted, without doubt in mind, the incontrovertible fact that the male characters in the music video were oblivious to the singer’s condition with blaring lucidity and off-putting eeriness. Upon voicing this obvious fact to Kresten, he affirmed my understanding, qualifying it with a bit of information: The song dealt with a traumatizing instance wherein Grimes was attacked at night.

            A few nights later, (or perhaps the one immediately following) I had a vivid flashback of Grimes’ face, imprinted in my mind like a fossilized fern in stone. I came closest that night to what I presume Night Terrors to be. Maybe it was just the fact that Kresten and I both knew what the song was about that the terror passed fairly easily.

            Incidentally, I learned later that, with the exception of the cinematography, which was done by a (presumably young) man with a Slavic name, the video was made by women. The reason that I presume all people involved to have been young is that it was a soaring work of art and youth that could never have been and should never be done by someone who has passed the threshold into middle age.

            Finally, I must mention Kresten’s convictions about Tool. Please note that I did not hesitate – in fact, there was no moment in which my absorbed attention in his lecture on this matter was interrupted by skepticism – to believe his interpretation that ‘Third Eye’ was about the experience he described as divine presence. I took his words not to be interpretation but Information, and neither would I dream that it were mutually exclusive with my own.

            The three of us have so much to bring to this band. For me, music is an exploration of the Soul. I hope that, in addition to entertaining your colleagues, you will entertain that.

 

Dmitry.

Dear Andrew.

 

Misconception.

How many people ever really meet one another in conversation? There was a time when I glided over this water and was daily in rapturous, humbling wonder at the specks of flickering light on the surface and their magical, searing luminescent arcs and crystalline rays.

 

Now I drift beneath the surface, and daily I am in shock at fathoming the depths of human stupidity.

 

Who would have surmised that people so disparate and unique, each the center of his or her own Universe, the solitary inhabitant of his or her own planet, could conceive that, in fact, he or she inhabits the same planet as all others? By virtue of a few shared words in language – God, Science, Normality – these people feel that they bridge the vast, nebulous gaps between them and are spared the sanctity and inevitability of loneliness.

 

I must be going mad. I am starting to see the average man in his own image.

dm.A.A.

If you do not attend your dream, how can you be interested in Truth?

If you do not attend your dream, how can you be interested in Truth?

It may very well be that all we perceive as the ‘objective world’ is merely the projection of our conscious minds. How, then, do you hope to arrive at truth? By science? All facts are representations of phenomena made by our minds.

 

The dream, rather than being some awkward younger brother to the conscious mind, the both of whom follow in the footsteps of ‘objectivity’, may be that which informs the conscious mind as to the deeper world beyond our grasp.

dm.A.A.

An open mind.

an Open mind is the sign of an intelligent person. But a discerning mind is not the mark of a close-minded person; rather, it is that of one who is open-minded but who has developed an immunity to a certain style of thought.

dm.A.A.