“For Kierkegaard, resolution and transformation come ultimately when despair in all stages is overcome through a leap of faith. In this leap one accepts at the same time one’s weakness and one’s strength, the intermixture of the finite and infinite realms in being human, and the realization that human beings must move between the opposites rather than identifying with an absolute.”
“What is really required to relate to one’s mystery is to discriminate objectively what one’s own potentialities and limitations really are and to actualize their synthesis. “
I am kind of embarrassed to say what book this is from because the title is just so...but whatever, it's called The Wounded Woman by Linda Schierse Leonard and it's all about female issues from a Jungian perspective. I don't really know all that much about Jung, having been indoctrinated in Freud and all. While I'm still pretty much a Freudian, Jungians use some good metaphors and have super fun online personality tests (I'm an INFP, the Architect). Anyway, that passage is pretty good, eh? Not only does it offer a snappy review of some stuff I forgot from Intro to Philosophy six years ago -- shit, how'd that happen? all that time just going by like that -- but I believe it. I've been trying to figure out a whole mess of things for a long time and have sought a variety of outside sources for help/advice/direction/etc. You could say it's more of a crisis of philosophy rather than a defect of anxiety. And sure, a lot of things out there are horrible, but there's a way to make it better and not live in thrall to the things you hate. While nothing will ever all fit neatly in a little philosophical handbasket, I think ol' Soren was right.
"You're getting old like you've lived."
That's a probably inaccurate quote from Jan Wolkers, poorly translated from the original Dutch and thus likely skewering the original meaning, so I suppose you could attribute it to me. Jan Wolkers was a really cool guy and I found out about him by chance after seeing one of his book covers and wondering what it said and what it was all about. The title in English is Spun Sugar. I can't find a copy of the book but someday I will (maybe even this week) and I'll struggle through reading it and tell you what it's all about.
Anyway, something to think about, "you're getting old like you've lived". It has a nice, bizarre sort of feel to it with the odd syntax of someone whose first language isn't English. I think there's truth to it. How do you live? We've gotta think about that from time to time, as sentient beings, with vastly more options than eating bugs and evading predators, though we do that as well sometimes. There's more to it than eat-fight-fuck-die (though reality television viewing may lead one to believe otherwise). But we've still got lizard brains, instinct. What's your instinct? What drives you, from the murky depths of your subconscious? What conflicts do you struggle with? What sucks about your life and how much of that is you not knowing any better and you knowing better but letting it suck? What do you want? It's hard to get what you want when you don't know what that is. It's hard to know what you want when you're too scared. But if you live scared and worried about things you can't control and allow yourself to be willfully blinded to the options, you'll get old that way pretty fast. Of course, it's hardly easy to come to that conclusion, and much more difficult to believe it.
