Are there rules here? Is this spam? It’s genuine and from my heart and I’m 30 and poor and Ravi
In honest love for knowledge, are there rules to this community? I like to write, and I love knowledge. I’ve read all of Asimov’s timeline, all of Frank Herbert’s Dune series, and I’ve recently gotten into the Red Book by Carl Jung.
I write a lot, and a lot of it is, to passionately reference Jung, from the part of me that resonates with the following passage from Jung’s Red Book:
“I resisted recognizing that the everyday belongs to the image of the Godhead. I fled this thought. I hid myself behind the highest and coldest stars.” - uhh page 31 of the book I have, printed in 2009… isbn 978-0-393-08908-0.
I never learned how to cite properly. Sorry.
Anyways, I write from a feeling, from a place among “the highest and coldest stars,” I know I can never reach.
I worry someone will make this a copy pasta. Please, for the sake of my soul, help me understand where I can blast my words and hear an answer from another person. Someone willing to dissect my gibberish. Im seeing a therapist, I trusted that he could heal me, and he gave me the idea that we’re all made up of very complicated “parts” that are made up of ‘atomic’ parts that can be directed a lot easier than anything understood to be the mystery that our souls/minds/selves really are.
Please, TLDR: Can I write from the heart here and hope for an answer?
Or will I be banned? If so, all I ask is for a link to a place I can truly communicate about topics vague and generalistic. I don’t think my therapist will be able to understand. I’ve told him too much, and I don’t trust his capacity for breadth of soul, though I see how painfully insane I can be, here and now.
Sorry. Again, TLDR: please don’t hurt me :c
I’m already pathetic, but I refuse to let go of hope.
Help? I’m in no danger, but I need some kind of connection, any kind of response to love the source of. I love you for reading this if you read all, and if you didn’t… read Jung instead. He’s got more behind his words, though… in this day and age, hope to be heard is hard to have. That’s why I’m here, spouting gibberish!
I'm currently working on my masters in clinical mental health counseling and the concept of parts very deeply resonated with me. I couldn't believe it was never really discussed in my undergrad education.
Dr. Richard Schwartz conceptualized Internal Family Systems (IFS) and there are a lot of great videos and podcasts of Dr. Schwartz discussing IFS and parts. Despite it's name, IFS is very much relevant to an individual, not merely a family systems approach.
Breaking from viewing the Self from a mono-mind perspective to a parts approach just makes so much sense. A way it was explained to me was thinking of dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities) but not to a pathological extreme.
We all have different parts of our Self, and they will surface at different times (e.g., protector part surfacing when someone threatens us), and that accounts for rapid behavior shifts that we all have at times/have witnessed.
As for your writing, it can absolutely be both therapeutic and serve as a means to deeply reflect and develop our ideas and personal philosophies. I enjoy writing too for those very reasons, and I enjoyed creating a blog for that express purpose. This masters program occupies my free time to the degree that I can't really focus on it at the moment, but I'm sure I'll feel like passionately exploring and developing topics there again in the future.
Well, I kinda get your angle. I have been like this in the past.
You can DM me about anything if you like.
Just one thing: I don't read any books (neither Jung nor anyone else) so don't just say "read Jung" at me. You have to give me the actual idea at hand, or I won't look into it. Also, please don't send long walls of text; Try to distill what you want to say into 1-5 sentences (though less is generally better).
I just want to add that we all are deeply, inherently flawed people, and life presents an endless pursuit and opportunity for personal growth. We never stop growing as a person until our final developmental stage; death.
One thing that gives me hope in challenging times (including currently/this last year of my life...) was something an undergrad psychology professor drilled into me:
You cannot have personal growth without hardship; without struggle.
I've repeated this to myself practically as a mantra in trying to rebuild my life after covid nearly destroyed it last year.
We can't grow as a person without struggling, and we end up stronger and more resilient on the other side.
Even when challenging our own beliefs and trying to maintain a reflective equilibrium, we must persevere through the unpleasant internal physiological tension from cognitive dissonance.
Personal growth isn't just difficult, but it develops from difficulty.
OP shouldn't view themselves as pathetic; they should view themselves as growing as a person. We all have plenty of room to grow and improve.
Since this is a philosophy community, let me recommend The Discourses of Epictetus. You may find some wisdom here that applies to your current situation. An overview can be found in The Enchiridion.