Carl Jung: Do you know why you cannot abandon apishness?
If you give up your self, you live it in others; thereby you become selfish to others, and thus you deceive others.
Everyone thus believes that such a life is possible.
It is, however, only apish imitation.
Through giving in to your apish appetite, you infect others, because the ape stimulates the apish.
So you turn yourself and others into apes.
Through reciprocal imitation you live according to the average expectation.
The image of the hero was set up for all in every age through the appetite for imitation..
Therefore the hero was murdered, since we have all been aping him.
Do you know why you cannot abandon apishness?
For fear of loneliness and defeat.
To live oneself means: to be one’s own task.
Never say that it is a pleasure to live oneself. It will be no joy but a long suffering, since you must become your own creator.
If you want to create yourself, then you do not begin with the best and the highest, but with the worst and the deepest.
Therefore say that you are reluctant to live yourself
The flowing together of the stream of life is not joy but pain, since it is power against power, guilt, and shatters the sanctified. ~Carl Jung, The Red Book, Pages 249-250
