Carl Jung: We make our own epoch.
When we look at human history, we see only what happens on the surface, and even this is distorted in the faded mirror of tradition.
But what has really been happening eludes the inquiring eye of the historian, for the true historical event lies deeply buried, experienced by all and observed by none.
It is the most private and most subjective of psychic experiences.
Wars, dynasties, social upheavals, conquests, and religions are but the superficial symptoms of a secret psychic attitude unknown even to the individual himself, and transmitted by no historian; perhaps the founders of religions give us the most information in this regard.
The great events of world history are, at bottom, profoundly unimportant. In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of the individual.
This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations first take place, and the whole future, the whole history of the world, ultimately spring as a gigantic summation from these hidden sources in individuals.
In our most private and most subjective lives we are not only the passive witnesses of our age, and its sufferers, but also its makers.
We make our own epoch. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Para 315
