The past decade dealt me heavy blows

The past decade dealt me heavy blows

Letters Volume II

To Eugen Bohler

Dear Dr. Bohler, Bollingen, 1 January 1960

My first letter in this New Year, which opens a new decade, shall be to you, dear friend.

It brings you my very cordial wishes not only for the corning year but also for this dawning decade 1960-70, in whose lap the black and white cards of our uncertain fate await us.

The past decade dealt me heavy blows-the death of dear friends and the even more painful loss of my wife, the end of my scientific activity and the burdens of old age, but also all sorts of honours and above all your friendship, which I value the more highly because it appears that men cannot stand me in the long run.

Since I do not deem myself god-almighty enough to have made them other than they are, I must put it down entirely to my own account and lengthen my shadow accordingly.

Your understanding and your interest have done much to restore my self-confidence, severely shaken by my incessant struggle with difficult contemporaries.

It is indeed no trifling thing to be granted the happy proof that somehow one is “possible” and has achieved something whose meaning someone else, apart from myself, is able to see.

Being well-known not to say “famous” means little when one realizes that those who mouth my name have fundamentally no idea of what it’s all about.

The gratification of knowing that one is essentially posthumous is short-lived.

That is why your friendship is all the dearer to me in my grey old age, since it gives me living proof that I have not dropped out of the human setting into the shadowy realm of historical curiosities.

Please accept this letter as a poor expression of my gratitude for the many kindnesses you have done me.

Although the years hasten away more swiftly than ever, I still hope the New Year may bring a little more light and warmth.

Yours ever,

C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 529-530

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