Degringolade (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
degringolade) wrote2019-07-09 05:53 am
degringolade) wrote2019-07-09 05:53 am
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Omnis festinatio ex parte diaboli est
I am actually back to being a touch ahead on writing. I just posted Monday's and are now doing the setup for Tuesday. This is the way that it should be, but rarely manages to come to pass.
Going to take a break for a week from going out. I do want to see a movie soon, but must negotiate the borrowing/going with a child so that I can watch Disney children's movies without being creepy. Aladdin looks good and the new Lion King looks interesting.
Today's Screed
If our impressions are too distinct, we are held to the hour and minute of the present and have no way of knowing how our ancestral psyches listen to and understand the present – in other words, how our unconscious is responding to it. Thus we remain ignorant of whether our ancestral components find elementary gratification in our lives, or whether they are repelled. Inner peace and contentment depend in large measure upon whether or not the historical family, which is inherent in the individual, can be harmonised with the ephemeral conditions of the present.
If our impressions are too distinct, we are held to the hour and minute of the present and have no way of knowing how our ancestral psyches listen to and understand the present – in other words, how our unconscious is responding to it. Thus we remain ignorant of whether our ancestral components find elementary gratification in our lives, or whether they are repelled. Inner peace and contentment depend in large measure upon whether or not the historical family, which is inherent in the individual, can be harmonised with the ephemeral conditions of the present.
Carl Jung: Memories, Dreams and Reflections
I am coming to the conclusion that the society in which I live is quite mad. Now, some folks will take offense at this simple statement, but work with me here.
I have a feeling that this will be coming off as the far-too-standard gum-sucking fretting so popular as folks get older. I suppose that I am as guilty of this as many. But I am actually trying to think this though and refine away the geezer-bitching and get down to the idea that I wish to convey.
I tend to feel that societies are organic things. Like Toynbee, I feel that a society has leaders and followers and it is the success of the society as a whole that is the touchstone of what is valid. In other words, the collective unconsciousness a la Jung is the driving force of the overall happiness of the society. The happiness of the individual is of secondary importance.
And by the simple fact that the last sentence in the previous paragraph will be taken by most as the blackest of heresies is in itself proof of the failure and madness of the society.
Our madness is an old one. In a sense, our singleminded pursuit of individual happiness for the self has turned us into the lotus eaters with which Odysseus had so many problems. In pursuit of individual happiness and self, we have left behind a cultural desire (granted it wasn't that strong) to work toward the good of the many. Now it it just a myth of individual choices and individual happiness making for the greater happiness of the society.
Nope, when you drill down on it, we have become a society where narcissism is celebrated and rewarded, and if that isn't a recipe for madness, I don't know what is.