“I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me
and what can be the use of him is more than I can see.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
One of the most intriguing aspects of Carl Jung’s psychology is his concept of “The Shadow.” According to Jung, we all have a shadow resulting from over identification with our ego or social mask while neglecting other less favorable aspects of our personalities. http://ieric2010.hubpages.com/hub/Carl-Jung-and-the-Shadow-An-Introduction
This pesky shadow is huge in spite of the fact that we can go through life completely unaware of the prominent role it plays in our lives. Because most of us excessively focus on the ego, the deeper, neglected aspects of our personality continually sabotage our conscious intentions. Having no place else to go, it projects itself onto other people. The results of this projection can result in a variety of ways, often diametrically opposed, but usually appearing as a strong emotional reaction to anyone or anything, both positive or negative.
The immediate hatred of a politician speaking on TV is our shadow hard at work as much as falling head over heels in love with some innocent bozo buying a latto at Starbucks. Both evoke strong emotions, both need serious attention. We need to ask ourselves why is this person so disturbing to me, driving me? Until we withdraw these projections and integrate them into our own persona, we will continue to stumble into harmful relationships and situations without a clue why it has happened.
This is a complicated subject requiring more time and space than I have available. I began with Robert Louis Stevenson, I’ll end with Charles Bukowski’s poem The Genius in the Crowd. It is long, not an easy poem to read, but I think Jung would have liked it.:
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THE GENIUS IN THE CROWD
there is enough treachery, hatred violence absurdity in the average
human being to supply any given army on any given day
and the best at murder are those who preach against it
and the best at hate are those who preach love
and the best at war finally are those who preach peace
those who preach god, need god
those who preach peace do not have peace
those who preach peace do not have love
beware the preachers
beware the knowers
beware those who are always reading books
beware those who either detest poverty
or are proud of it
beware those quick to praise
for they need praise in return
beware those who are quick to censor
they are afraid of what they do not know
beware those who seek constant crowds for
they are nothing alone
beware the average man the average woman
beware their love, their love is average
seeks average
but there is genius in their hatred
there is enough genius in their hatred to kill you
to kill anybody
not wanting solitude
not understanding solitude
they will attempt to destroy anything
that differs from their own
not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world
not being able to love fully
they will believe your love incomplete
and then they will hate you
and their hatred will be perfect
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