Through a Jungian Lens

All is not what it seems

This is a reflected image of one of my grandsons who was busy trying out his in-line skates at a skate-boarder’s park in Jamestown, North Dakota.  I rotated the image 180 degrees so that I would have him appear upright for the purposes of this photo.  The details of the photo aside, the image itself has a story to tell.

As I see it, this is a view of the journey in the first half of life.  A youth is propelled forward into engagement with little thought of who, when, where, why.  The impulse is instinctual.  Most of the choices just happen for thinking will come at a different time when consciousness is more developed.

And then I think of myself, now in my sixties and wonder if there is still a lot of my journey that is lived unconsciously as though I was underwater.  One would think that after sixty years one would have become conscious enough to have a sense of control.  But the truth is I am not much different that my grandson when it comes to the extent of the unconscious dimensions that still remain in comparison to the small fragments of consciousness that I have managed to stumble upon during my own rush through life.

Today I have been married for forty years and I wonder at the stranger that I am to myself let alone the stranger to whom I am married.  How can anyone truly know another person in depth when the self remains a mystery for the most part.  I imagine that each of us dies with the question “Who am I?” still being asked.  Perhaps once beyond the filters of human existence we will finally get an answer.  Today, a friend died and I remember him hoping that he has finally found the answer in the light that lies on the other side of life.

And to my wife – I love you always, I love you all ways, I love you forever.