6yZk0xyfGsI.srt

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I've been struggling with an idea 
recently that I was thinking maybe you'd

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be able to help me out with.
Basically in a recent interview you 

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talked about how myth is meant to 
reconcile inherent contradictions in 

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reality.
Right?

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But I'm sort of stuck between two 
mythological or,

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um,
psychoanalytic ideas that I think are 

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both really important,
but they seem to have a inherent 

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contradiction within them that I've been
trying to figure out.

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So on one hand you have this idea that 
there's times in your life where you 

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have to identify things in yourself that
are insufficient or there's a problem 

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somehow that you have to kind of have a 
controlled burn or like a phoenix like 

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transformation where you discard part of
yourself that doesn't fit or it's not 

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working.
But then on the other hand,

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you have talked about this,
this union idea where as you become 

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really,
when you get older,

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you mature by reincorporating.

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Things about yourself that you lost when
you were younger or that you know you're

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trying to integrate your shadow or 
you're trying to find parts of your 

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personality that,
that maybe you've been rejecting and try

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and figure out how to bring them into,
into the folder and the whole.

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So he's got this quote that I really 
like,

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which is I'd rather be holding good.
Right,

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right.
So,

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so on one hand you may identify 
something as a problem and you want to 

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get rid of it or burn it off.
But then on the other hand it seems like

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the,
the path to being stronger is to figure 

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out how to put everything together.

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So there's the,
there's the,

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one of the things you wrote about in his
works on Alchemy was an explanation of 

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the prime l chemical dictum,
which was solvay Coagula,

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which meant dissolve and integrate.
Right?

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So,
so imagine this,

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imagine that.
Imagine you had a fairly hostile father 

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who was not very well controlled and his
aggression,

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decent person.
Other than that.

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But let's say that.
And so your reaction is,

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I'm never going to be aggressive.
And so you've built a like a moral 

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structure that's part of your 
personality and there's possibility 

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floating around.
Outside of that,

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did you.
You've denied an ethical,

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you've denied any ethical.
What would you say?

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You've stripped the idea of aggression 
of any ethical utility whatsoever.

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Okay,
so what happens?

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This burns off and then that comes back 
up.

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Now you still have to integrate it.
So it's associated in some sense with 

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niches,
ideas,

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morality as cowardice.

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Because one of the niches,
most trenchant critiques of traditional 

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morality,
let's say,

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is that most of what passes for morality
isn't reality.

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It's just cowardice.
It's not that I'm a good person and I 

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don't hurt you.
It's that I'm afraid to hurt you and 

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because I don't want to admit that I'm 
afraid to hurt you.

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Then I say I'm moral because then I can 
mask my essential fear and cowardice in 

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a guise of morality.
And that happens far more often than you

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would think because harmless and moral 
are by no means the same thing.

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So some of what you're burning off you 
can sit,

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and this is where freud was such a 
genius,

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I think is because he concentrated on 
aggression and sexuality,

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which are perhaps the two most difficult
parts of a personality to integrate so 

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that,
um,

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the,
the hyper simplified morality stops you 

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from tapping into deeper recesses of 
your psyche.

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And it's partly because they are primal 
forces.

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It's not surprising that you don't want 
to have anything to do with them,

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that you stay away from situations where
they might make themselves manifest.

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But the problem is by denying the worst 
in yourself in that manner of 

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suppressing it,
you preclude the possibility of the best

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because no one can be a good person 
without integrating their capacity for 

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aggression.
Because without that capacity for 

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aggression,
you cannot say no because no means if 

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you really say it,
no means there isn't anything that you 

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can do to me that will make me change my
mind or,

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or conversely,
it means I will play for higher stakes 

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than you will.
And unless you've got your aggression 

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integrated,
there isn't a chance you can say that.

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And if you did,
no one would take you seriously because 

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they'd know it was just a show.

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So one of the most useful things that 
you did,

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I think was to work on this idea of the 
integration of the shadow because he was

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really interested in the idea of evil,
right?

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Especially working with trying to parcel
out what happened in Nazi Germany during

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the Second World War.
What do you do with the part of you 

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that's aggressive and potentially 
malevolent?

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He just crush it.
That's the super ego response in some 

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sense.
Do you just put it behind you,

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so to speak?
Is that a possibility or do you admit to

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its existence and bring it into the 
game?

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And that's C for.
For Freud,

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in some sense,
morality was super ego clamping down on 

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the bed and there were fundamentally 
opposed.

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Both human piaget had a different idea 
and I think they were right.

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It's like,
no,

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no,
you invite the bad guys out to play,

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and so you're an aggressive hockey 
player,

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but it's disciplined aggression that 
makes you,

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gives you access to the whole sorts of 
energy you wouldn't otherwise have.

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And then with regards to sexuality,
it's like,

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well untrammeled promiscuity doesn't 
constitute a virtue,

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but neither does unavoidable virginity.
Right.

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In fact,
I think that's worse because it also 

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masks itself with virtue.
It's like,

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well you should be able to.
You should be able to do things that you

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wouldn't do.
That's a,

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that's like the definition of a 
genuinely moral person.

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They could do it,
but they don't.

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That's not cowardice.
And so that's,

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you burn off the things that get in the 
way of that integration.

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So

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when you say dissolve and integrating,
yeah,

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it'd be a good way to sort of bring the 
two ideas together that the burning off 

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and the difficult processes necessary 
because the elements of yourself are 

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structured together in a rigid way that 
is not working properly.

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Yeah.
That's what happens to Japan in the 

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belly of the whale.
He's so caught in his presuppositions 

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that he can't escape.
Right.

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And so Pinocchio represents the new 
forest.

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So it's very interesting.
So when You Watch Pinocchio,

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tried to rescue him.
The first thing Joe Petta does is 

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Confuse Pinocchio with a fish because he
wants something to eat.

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But Pinocchio is better than something 
to eat because he could rescue him so he

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doesn't need to eat.
And then Pinocchio wants to make a fire 

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engine pedo objects because he's going 
to burn up all the furniture.

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So like we don't need the damn furniture
if we're getting out of the whale,

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you know,
and so,

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so Japan and he's old.
So that,

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that's,
that's the,

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that's the rigid structure.
That's the old gear that has to die off 

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before the new year can be born.
It's a forest fire that allows for new 

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growth and that's how those things are 
put together and to see.

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And it's useful to know too because if 
you burn something off,

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you might think,
well there's nothing left.

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It's like,
that's not true.

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If it's dead wood,
then you have room for new growth and 

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you want to be doing that on a fairly 
regular basis.

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That's the,
that's,

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that's the snake that sheds its skin and
transforms itself.

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Right?
That's,

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that's the death and resurrection from a
psychological perspective,

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it's exactly the same idea.
Now we don't know the upper limit to 

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that,
right?

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Because we don't know what a person 
would be like if they let everything 

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that they could let go,
let go and only let in what was 

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seemingly,
let's say,

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but you can see that.
It's funny.

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We don't know that to some degree you 
can see people very far.

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You can see people start to do that 
without.

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That's not an rare experience and people
improve very rapidly.

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It can improve their lives very rapidly.
A lot of it's low hanging fruit,

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like if you just stopped doing really 
stupid things that you know are stupid,

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your life improves a lot so and it,
it frees you up.

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It also means there's a,
there's an element there that's also 

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associated with pride because people 
tend to take pride in who they are and 

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that's a bad idea because that stops you
from becoming who you could be because 

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if you're proud of who you are,
you won't let that go when it's 

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necessary.
You won't step away from it,

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you know,
and then you end up being your own 

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parody.
Something like that.

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That's also a very bad idea.
You want to be continually stepping away

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from your previous self,
and so,

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and I guess part of that too is that you
have to decide,

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you know,
are you,

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are you order or chaos or you the 
process that mediates between them and 

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if you're the process that mediates 
between them,

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you,
you are the thing transforms and that's 

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the right attitude for human being 
because that's what we are.

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We're the thing that voluntarily 
confronts chaos and transformed.

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That's what we are.
And so for better or worse,

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you know,
that's our deepest biological essence 

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you might say.
And so you can let things go if you know

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that there's more growth to come.

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Yep.