I liked what Jung had to say about trying to define and describe Love:
“If he [who tries to define love] possesses a grain of wisdom, he will lay down his arms and name the unknown by the more unknown, 'ignotum per ignotius' – by the name of God.”
For Jung, according to my interpretation, God was a label for the unknown. So within this context, knowing that which I do not know and can not describe, I ask you – which of following scenarios would you prefer:
1. You meet a handsome traveller and bungee madly and ecstatically into the pit of love with him, enjoy the thrill, feel more alive than ever before in your life, suddenly understand your purpose in life and how the world is supposed to be and then watch as he cuts the cord that ties you together and leaves you to dangle over sharp rocks covered in poison envy. All of a sudden your legs feel like they are made of jelly and it seems someone just removed your stomach and replaced it with a bucket of ravenous tape worms swimming in acid.
2. You meet a handsome traveller, knock down just enough of the walls to your garden of eden so that he can smell and see the roses blooming but can't touch them. For a while you feel safe, comfortable, satisfied and sleepy – as if you just ate two servings of mums lamb roast with baked potatoes, pumpkin, carrots and turnip with peas and gravy soaked up with fresh bread rolls covered in butter (and no garlic Mary!). Then he leaves and your sad in a way similar to when you eat too much and regret not trying that new dessert that didn't smell quite right but everyone told you to have a piece of because it was aaaaamazing, even though they all got belly-aches after.
3. You meet a handsome traveller, smile and indulge your imagination in thoughts of “I wonder how long he is here for” and “Did he just return my smile, no he couldn't of and if he did he is probably a man whore.” Then he leaves and you get hit by a a grandma on a mobility scooter who drives faster than you in a car and you die peacefully from internal bleeding, massively high on the huge amount of morphine the doctor gave you because he was sick of your whinging. You die wondering “Did he really smile at me”. But hey, at least you didn't feel any pain.
Label them as you will, I feel I'm definitely a Number 1. And no, its not because I'm a CA.
3 comments:
aah too much words. too sentimental :p
don't think, just do. whatever happens think about it after it happens, if it happens. that way you'll experience and feel much much more. be richer.
and why must it be a handsome traveler? why cant it be a giant river monster? with its mystical grandeur and profoundness, charming shiny magnetic scales, alluring dark eyes and huge sharp razor blade teeth. being amazed and have the fear he'd devour you in a split seconds. i'd fall in love with that. and in the end he just swim down the river and disappear. or you could just chase him down the river, either die drowning or be eaten.
Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to abandon exact science, put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world. There in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with a real knowledge of the human soul. -- Carl Jung
Wow, thanks both mdf and L for leaving such thought provoking comments... I agree with both of you completely and hope one day I'm brave enough and strong enough to be able to fall in love with a horrible ugly river monster.
In regards to the Carl Jung quote... I'm gob-smacked at how close what i'm doing is to what Carl Jung suggests in order to understand the human psyche! I never read that before, I swear on my horribly frail memory.
Yet another reason to read more on Jung - he told me what to do an estimated 50 years ago and i do it without even realising he told me that I should be doing it!
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