Carl Jung on Old Age.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Letters of C. G. Jung: Volume 2, 1951-1961
Old age is only half as funny as one is inclined to think.
It is at all events the gradual breaking down of the foolishness identifies as ourselves. bodily machine, with which foolishness identifies as ourselves.
It is indeed a major effort– the magnum opus in fact– to escape in time from the narrowness of its embrace and to liberate our mind to the vision of the immensity of the world, of which we form an infinitesimal part.
In spite of the enormity of our scientific cognition we are yet hardly at the bottom of the ladder, but we are at least so far that we are able to recognize the smallness of our knowledge.
The older I grow the more impressed I am by the frailty and uncertainty of our understanding, and all the more I take recourse to the simplicity of immediate experience so as not to lose contact with the essentials, namely the dominants which rule human existence throughout the millenniums. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 2, Page 580.
Carl Jung on Middle Age
The nearer we approach to the middle of life, and the better we have succeeded in entrenching ourselves in our personal attitudes and social positions, the more it appears as if we had discovered the right course and the right ideals and principles of behaviour.
For this reason we suppose them to be eternally valid, and make a virtue of unchangeably clinging to them.
We overlook the essential fact that the social goal is attained only at the cost of a diminution of personality.
Many – far too many – aspects of life which should also have been experienced lie in the lumber-room among dusty memories; but sometimes, too, they are glowing coals under grey ashes. ~Carl Jung; The Stages of Life; CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. P. 771
Carl Jung on the Debacle of Old Age.
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Facebook Group
Letters of C. G. Jung: Volume 2, 1951-1961
To Aniela Jaffe
Dear Aniela, Bollingen, 16 September 1953
Forgive me for answering your last letter only now.
I was swamped with proof-reading and correspondence.
On top of that the English proofs of “Synchronicity” with a lot of questions about terminology.
I have at least 3 hours of writing to do 4 days a week.
That is the maximum I can accomplish without having to pay for the excess with disturbed sleep and heart symptoms.
I have about 5 MSS to read here and besides that a lot of little jobs to do in and about the house.
Everything goes slow, and I have to spare myself as my heartbeat is still arrhythmical.
In general I’m getting better, as I can sleep properly again.
Luckily the weather in the last weeks has been wonderfully kind to me.
Nothing doing with the mountains.
It’s all too complicated.
I can walk only for an hour at most and you get nowhere with that.
I see to my horror that I talk only of myself.
Please excuse this senile egoism.
The 79th year is 80 – 1, and that is a terminus a quo which you can’t help taking seriously.
The provisionalness of life is indescribable.
Everything you do, whether watching a cloud or cooking soup, is done on the edge of eternity and is followed by the suffix of infinity.
It is meaningful and futile at once.
And so is oneself, a wondrously living centre and at the same time an instant already sped.
One is and is not.
This frame of mind encompasses me and hems me in.
Only with an effort can I look beyond into a semi-self-subsistent world I can barely reach, or which leaves me behind.
Everything is right, for I lack the power to alter it.
This is the debacle of old age: “Je sais bien qu’a la fin vous me mettrez a bas.”
Cordially,
C.G. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 125-128.
