unconscious – What’s here now?

Previously I posted here about my soft spot for Glen Campbell’s Wichita Lineman. On further reflection it occurred to me that one of the reasons it resonates so strongly with me as an adult (having first fallen for it as a young child) is it embodies a romance of the (American) open road.

In my youth I was lucky enough to fulfil my adolescent dream of driving across North America (east to west) and travel back (west to east) via Greyhound.

Looking back on those memories I can barely detect the boundaries delineating the reality of it from the dream of it. Such is the unreliability of the mind when it comes to certainty about anything. Perhaps it is in this liminal zone, prone to suggestion, that our unconscious emerges unbidden presenting us with desires and aversions of which we were previously unaware or had forgotten.

Wasn’t it Jung (of course) who once said:

What you resist persists.

If we do not accept the existence of archetypes, reading ancient myths and fairy tales can be very helpful because these stories came spontaneously from people who had not studied psychology. The stories came straight out of their unconscious and, therefore, show us how the unconscious works unimpeded by conscious intervention.

— Carl Jung Depth Psychology

We no more consciously know what we’re going to say or do next than we beat our heart, digest our food or grow our hair.

This ‘me’ that is aware ain’t doing shit but catching up on action already set it play.

Our unconscious is us, what we are, yet we know nothing about it directly.

The ego thinks it knows what you want. The unconscious knows what you need.

Our ego erroneously takes credit for its alleged thoughts and actions when instead the appropriate behaviour is to take responsibility for our unconscious.