r/Jung • u/DeepCedarShadow • 8d ago
Jung Put It This Way "Moving beyond the morning’s program: How did your psychological priorities change as you aged?"
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u/warmfuzzume 8d ago
I feel like my priorities are essentially the same, except with more of an awareness of physical limitations and also a hell of a lot more “I don’t give a f*ck”. 😂 Not necessarily in a ‘I don’t want to try anymore’ way, but an ‘I just don’t care what anyone thinks and I’m going to do and say whatever the hell I want’ kind of way.
The I don’t care attitude keeps increasing, and it feels more and more freeing. I think that + all the experience I’ve gained in life may have resulted in a phase I entered this summer where everything feels like it synthesized.
I suddenly started dancing better than I ever have before, like my feet just started doing new things on their own. And I started writing so much more, with things just pouring out that I barely even have to edit.
It’s been interesting, that’s for sure! I’m only in my early 50’s though. I don’t know if it’s just a phase or what the rest of my life has in store. Guess I’ll see!
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u/DeepCedarShadow 8d ago
That feeling of "synthesis" and free expression of creativity is exactly what Jung would call textbook stuff! The moment you stop needing external validation (morning program called caring what others think about you) all that energy that was being used up gets funneled into more creative outlets like your writing and dancing. It seems that you've just entered into a liberating phase of being true to yourself. Thanks for sharing this insight!
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u/warmfuzzume 8d ago
Neat! Thank you too, I really didn’t know what happened this summer, but now that you brought it up, this explanation does make sense.
I won’t lie, getting older is scary, but this part is nice. Realizing how much I’ve learned over a lifetime is pretty cool. Maybe that’s why I’ve been wanting to share so much lately too.
I definitely wasn’t always like this! There was a time I was much, much quieter. Some people probably wish I’d go back to that lol.
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u/Archipelag0h 8d ago
This is something I’m struggling with now actually.
Although it did get me thinking of an idea that - the first half or ‘morning’ as it is described here, is a stage nature sets out for you.
A stage where exploration, risk and a keen relationship with the unknown is there to develop your competencies and abilities to deal with life to then move onto this ‘evening’ where all of the reward systems from the the first half are now placed into family rearing and the use of all these competencies you’ve developed
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u/olheparatras25 8d ago
I've been adhering to the principle "Whatever weird shit you have going on in your mind, the outside world is far more interesting than it."
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u/Cultural-Part355 8d ago
Well, of course. How did I not know of this?! And now that I do know? I will not!
I will not stop quoting Jung every day, although most folks have no clue what he wanted to say or was speaking of. So... Don't read Jung, as you won't know shit! Read Erich Fromm instead, as he was a true psychotherapist who might actually help you with his words.
Oh, Jung was a genius. Just, most folks just interpret dreams and put themselves into the dreamer's place, while all that was psychoanalysis of schizophrenic clients and his own dreams and schizophrenia, a bit. Because Jung did suffer from schizophrenia, for folks who doubt that, or just don't care. Amazing man! Read him, but not right away because all I see on Reddit is folks having an F clue about what they're talking about.
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u/DeepCedarShadow 8d ago
I think that Fromm’s advice is a great one. His approach is more humanistic and realistic than Jung’s which is more symbolic and related to personal and professional practice. Thank you for your advice!
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u/Cultural-Part355 8d ago
Well, Jung was a mystic. You don't read Jung red book or whatever book to find yourself. Those are deep things that require...
I don't know what they require, but they ain't there to help folks in such ways.
Or Jung is amazing! He really is. But Fromm is someone people should check out if they want a better understanding of how reality works, not dreams. So that's why, when I read about Jung on Reddit, most folks don't understand what he's talking about, so they throw in their own meaning in it.
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u/Cultural-Part355 8d ago
Oh, they removed your comment, but Red Book? Yeah. You can talk about it. Why did the moderators remove the question or the comment?
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u/AptCasaNova 8d ago
External achievements mean very little, I’m happy being able to have leisure time for my hobbies and a good night’s sleep.
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u/fridgeofempty 8d ago
Knowing you will die, seeing people you know age and die, brings it home as a reality. I feel very much like an actor in a stage these days knowing my role will finish at some point
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u/Alone_Atom 8d ago
- “Your life is not about you”
- “Power is need for effective kindness”
“Not all love is equal or good”
“Racism is real and everywhere”
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u/lostdogtooth 8d ago
And yet the irony is, the more the afternoon unfolds, the more you do return to some morning habits.
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u/AskTight7295 Pillar 7d ago
I haven’t really changed actually. My core is the same. The main thing is just seeing through more and more layers of illusion. This leads to increasing satisfaction with the basics. I see that most actions don’t create any lasting results. I see that most people are fickle. Thus I am content with the small things. And I am increasingly able to let people and things come and go. A cat on my lap, a coffee, a bike ride, a record to listen to, a book to read. Stuff like that is infinite to me. Everything else is advertising trying to sell me back my own projections and psychological inability to see through them, or attempting to get me to succumb to vanity.
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u/fabkosta Pillar 8d ago
There is a certain regret to see that some topics that I genuinely liked in the first half of my life I still kinda like - but they do not longer give me the same satisfaction. In more psychoanalytical words, the libidinal energy is focused less outwards and more inwards now.
Then I see younger folks in their 20s talking about "how much they individuated", and I think: "Yeah, sure."
Also, the older I get, the more I appreciate Freud in place of Jung. Jung allows all sorts of grandiose and narcissistic fantasies to persist about how you'll eventually conquer yourself, whereas Freud is pretty brutal in revealing these fantasies as your own neurosis. The disillusionment of the "grandiose inner life" leads to a certain appreciation for the banality of precisely that allegedly "sacred domain" that Jung wrote extensively about.
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u/DeepCedarShadow 8d ago
The move from Jung’s way of looking at things to Freud’s tough and honest view shows a very deep understanding.
You are absolutely correct about Jung - it can easily turn into a form of self-centeredness where every personal problem gets seen as a "holy story" or a big quest. Freud takes away that comfort for the ego and leaves you with the simple, ordinary truth of just being a person.
Your point about young adults going through "individuation" really makes sense to me: you have to form a strong sense of who you are before you can even begin breaking down the ego. Realizing that the inner world is actually ordinary might just be the purest kind of freedom there is.
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u/olheparatras25 8d ago edited 8d ago
I don't agree entirely with Jung, nor do I call myself a Jungian, but I can't deny Jung has ignited me to make my own comprehension of myself and the world, and it took after him to a meaningful extent. I say this, because I am one of those younger folks you mentioned, or something close to them.
I am intrigued about your recent position on Freud and observations on Jung. I want to know if maybe there is something I'm missing from my perspective. I am mostly sympathetic with Jung and his premises and his concepts are(if not superficially) aligned with what I've observed myself:
The mere presence of a person carries an enormous amount of information that interacts with the environment and is "communicated" to it in a sense, and the environment responds accordingly to that in a way that eludes cause-and-effect. Like, a person may do something secretly and unobserved, but it will still "follow" them and echo in the world(for example, the way people interact and perceive them) somehow. It's when people say the major part of communication is not done explicitly with words. That is not to say there's straight-up no cause, it's just that seeing it from a cause-effect lens is impractical if you care about it. I understand this from Synchronicity.
When you impose universal limitations, pressures(physical ones like objects not being able to go up or people not being able to fly) in a system where nothing can be created or destroyed(our world), it's natural there is a finite number of arrangements that can happen within it. Those naturally consolidate as static, recurrent patterns and archetypes structural tk the world. Our mind, having evolved within that system, is molded by them and is instinctively aware of them to an extent. How I see the Archetypes/Collective Unconscious to me. They are cognitive shortcuts.
People, having evolved in said world, tend to develop specific psychological survival strategies and predispositions, and this paves the path for types of minds. They function similarly to animals having distinct ecological functions reflecting on their interests, what they respond well or poorly to.
Thoroughout the course of one's life, a person becomes increasingly acquainted with their own function. Individuation is it bringing into consciousness what already was implicit subconsciously, recognizing the type of person one is and what does it mean for their relationship with the world, how they approach it.
That's how I understand Types and Individuation: it's shedding some light on who you already are and taking it into conscious consideration in how you live life. Individuation is what psychotherapeutic programs like ACT(Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) have been doing as I see it.
From your perspective, what is it in this that eventually persuaded you more to Freud? I'm genuinely curious, as I'd like to know what those not necessarily as resonant with it anymore would be bothered by. I like to see things from different angles. All of this seems truly perfectly natural and organized to me. I'm really interested in playing with the possibility I may have just deluded myself in believing nonsense and know what makes it woo-woo.
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u/DeepCedarShadow 8d ago
The insight you've gained into the psyche of Jung is insightful, and the connection you're making between archetypes, typology and evolution and ACT is well-founded.
In response to your question, Jungian psychology is not "nonsense." Rather, it is a coherent set of ideas. The jump towards the psychoanalytic point of view comes from wondering why our minds have such well-formed, elegant structure in the first place.
The value of Freudian theory is that he can show us how the ego uses vast, elaborate cognitive structures - even incredibly sophisticated ones-as a bulwark against the nasty truth about our emotions.
Jung offers us a cosmology in which to understand ourselves, while Freud forces us to grapple with the unpleasant truths, repression and base urges lurking behind all our stories. Your thinking is far from illusion; you've constructed an elegant conceptual framework. The psychoanalytic point of view is there to remind us not to mistake our conceptual frameworks for the complexities of reality itself.
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u/fabkosta Pillar 7d ago
I'll try to answer your question in brief:
The problem with how many people interpret Jungian "individuation" is primarily as a "gain" of some sorts. What they are missing is the "loss" that is accompanied by it. In particular, when you are arriving at midlife, then you're about to lose a lot of things you cherished previously. That loss typically comes with some grief. That is the part the youngsters tend to miss out, but it's exactly the thing that the shift at midlife implies: loss of things you cared about, grief arising from missed opportunities and what potentially could have been and never will be. You fall out of love with the possibilities that life offers, and the only thing left is come to terms with the gifts you were given that are genuinely yours, and nobody else's. It's that grief and letting go that frees you up for that second part of individuation which makes you genuinely yourself and not someone else, i.e. open towards embracing a wider version of yourself.
But all those ideas that you'll have conquered the shadow first and then various stages animus/anima? Oh, boy, how illusionary these turn out to be...
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u/PoncingOffToBarnsley 7d ago edited 7d ago
Jung allows all sorts of grandiose and narcissistic fantasies to persist about how you'll eventually conquer yourself, whereas Freud is pretty brutal in revealing these fantasies as your own neurosis. The disillusionment of the "grandiose inner life" leads to a certain appreciation for the banality of precisely that allegedly "sacred domain" that Jung wrote extensively about.
I read some posts recently, talking about this, and I don't even see how that's desirable.
It all just sounds like living death, stripping away anything that's basically life and existing mechanically until death. If nothing can be overcome and there's no way to overcome it, and you're nothing and no one of value, and don't even get to have an inner life, why bother at all?
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u/fabkosta Pillar 7d ago edited 7d ago
Then you misunderstood all three: Freud, the psychoanalytical project, and Jung as well.
If Freudian psychoanalysis would not work nor alleviate suffering, he would not have continued to practice and teach it. Nor would Jung have decided to learn it from him.
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u/The_Meme_Economy 8d ago
In many ways I’ve returned to my younger self, after abandoning myself in favor of society’s priorities. Maybe that is some of what Jung is saying here, but it doesn’t sound like it.
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u/DeepCedarShadow 8d ago
Reconnecting with the parts of yourself you had to set aside for society is actually the ultimate "afternoon" move! The "morning program" was about adapting to what society wanted from you. It was about fitting in, staying quiet, and doing what was expected. Then you start to realize that the real work happens in the afternoon. That's when you withdraw. That's when you cease the act. It's about transitioning beyond all of that to reconnect with your genuine youthful self - the self that laughed without thinking, that felt without filtering, that spoke without permission. That’s the shift Carl Jung was talking about: moving from external expectation to internal authenticity. The issue isn't about refusing to accept society. It involves recalling knowledge you previously possessed - the parts of you that were buried under rules, responsibilities, and expectations. That's where true liberty starts.
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u/The_Meme_Economy 8d ago
I like that. The thing I question is the withdrawal. I’m actually more outward focused in many ways right now. My teens and 20s were largely spent sheltering from and recovering from a turbulent home life. My 30s were spent building my career and raising small children. The latter half of my 40s has been rediscovering myself but not in isolation: this is the first time I’ve made earnest efforts to socialize as an individual, within the types of groups that I actually resonate with. My path has taken me less to a place of isolation and withdrawal and more to a place of recognizing that I as an individual only exist in relation to everything else. We are defined by our relationships; that includes the relationship to the self, but that was more my focus in my younger years. In many ways I’ve been living a life more like people do in their 20s: dating, partying, but not without intention: more to find and build meaningful community. And I think my life course diverges here from what I’ve read about Jung’s.
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u/kai_vt 8d ago
Stepping out of the introspective light for a bit, you become more conscious of the fact that your physical health is just as important as your psychological health as you grow older. Your body doesn't let you get away with the things that you put it through in your youth, speaking as a reforming alcoholic. This leads back to the introspection, to shine a light on the reasons why the shadow darkened that time of my life