If we wish to stay on the heights we have reached, we must struggle all the time to consolidate our consciousness and its attitude.
But we soon discover that this praiseworthy and apparently unavoidable battle with the years leads to stagnation and desiccation of soul.
Our convictions become platitudes ground out on a barrel-organ, our ideals become starchy habits, enthusiasm stiffens into automatic gestures.
The source of the water of life seeps away. We ourselves may not notice it, but everybody else does, and that is even more painful.
If we should risk a little introspection, coupled perhaps with an energetic attempt to be honest for once with ourselves, we may get a dim idea of all the wants, longings, and fears that have accumulated down there-a repulsive and sinister sight.
The mind shies away, but life wants to flow down into the depths. Fate itself seems to preserve us from this, for each of us has a tendency to become an immovable pillar of the past. ~Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation (1952). CW 5: P. 553