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These protean maps, the archetypes, of the human condition, formed along with, and instinctually part of, the structure of our beings, are our essentiality. If we disattend them, they will constantly attend to us, emerge as modern gods, in whose hands we are wet clay.
In present circumstances, the archetype can flood up and drown the ego, "madness of the left," overpowered by contents. Or, the deep material might dissociate from the surface, which may run as smoothly, automatically, and mechanically as a machine, and break within, the "madness of the right." The doctor could find himself disconnected from Healer, part of a bureaucratic labyrinth, or the artist from Sorcerer, with no sense of purpose, a manufacturer of souvenirs. |  |
And so culture, when properly functioning, is left with the integrative task of rebinding being and role. When culture withers before a technology that it cannot integrate within itself, its participants are exposed to grave risks of psychic disintegration, like the life at the floor of a rain forest stripped of its protective canopy.
Life in its capacity to reduce us to shards offers no convenient, buyable solution, although it does provide a rich array of synthetic answers. One can emigrate to the inside, simultaneously renouncing the world while participating in it, one can go to pieces, one can go to sleep, or one can walk the stony path into the domain of Pluto and work with the archetypical material on its own terms. |
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© 1995 Morgan Garwood all rights reserved |
