The Creative Evolving Individual

The Creative, Evolving Individual

Apparently, in order to be a creative, evolving individual (an individuating personality) one will always be more or less possessed and complexed — which is to say that there will always be something not under the control of the ego in the personality.  (To which I hear myself muttering under my breath, “Thank God!” and “Why should we think otherwise?”)  But if one’s ego is going to be more or less at the beck and call of the god-within, one had better be ready to be crucified, because we know what happens to those “chosen” by God.  Myths and the witness of Biblical scripture give us a very clear picture of just what happens to those chosen for more conscious development.

It helps if one knows what is happening to one, and that the complex/possession (and psychic suffering it causes) is not something for which you are entirely responsible.  Western consciousness has the notion that you are responsible for everything which happens to you — good or bad, inwardly or outwardly.  This notion is enshrined in the dogma of “rugged individualism” with which we are enthralled as part of our cultural history.  We seem to be totally and quite irrationally committed to this dogma, but if you think about it honestly and go at it from your own experience, you will realize that this dogma is really absurdly egotistical, because it places the individual and the ego at the center of the universe.  Rationally we know that we are not at the center of the universe, but we are nevertheless irrationally benighted and totally hoodwinked by our own doctrine of “I am the master of my own ship/soul.”  It is part of our “Weltanschauung” — our collective bias which we never seem to question.

 In the creation of a work of art, there is always the danger of hubris when a "creative something" seizes one by the nape of the neck!  There is a natural "high" whenever one is tapped into the creative push of the unconscious.  We are seized by a power beyond our ego to contain the creative thrust.  We are "enthused".  The word "enthused" comes from the Greek word "en-theos", to be "en-godded".  Normal activity and human relationships can be sidelined.  We become inflated — "possessed", as it were, by powers beyond our control ("god-within").  The creative has us, we most certainly do not have it!

This is the danger into which the ego will almost certainly fall when it comes under the influence of a powerful influx of creative energy.  Obviously, there is an enormous hubris and audacity in the notion that one can create a full-length ballet — with or without funding, as I did.  I nearly starved for three years, living on handouts from friends and relatives, during those years of creation.  Without the archetypal energy supporting the effort, the enormous amount of work would have not been possible.  Those first three years, I typically worked from four o’clock in the morning until 1:00 a.m. the following day, making costumes, props, building sets, designing and reworking choreography, casting dancers, formulating coherent rehearsal schedules, building computer databases to keep track of costumes, props, sets, and people, and flow-charts to keep track of costume changes, prop management and two (and sometimes, three) different casts for the production.  Such work would not have been possible without the archetypal energy that was behind it.

But it is a condition of total possession:  one is completely complexed, utterly in the grip of an autonomous factor that will not be denied.  One might try to “Just say, ‘No!’” to the whole thing, might try to dam up the creative influx that is coming into the personality, but it burns you up and keeps you awake at night.  You might just as well face it and try to deal with it consciously, because “it” (the archetype that seeks expression) “wants” to be manifested, and it WILL be manifested, one way or another.  That overwhelming energy will find an outlet, either positively and consciously (if you “obey the call” and submit to having your life taken over for a time in order to produce something of value) or negatively and unconsciously (if you try to ignore its existence and deny its life), in which case you will fall into the poisonous aspect of unused creativity, which turns dark and vengeful when driven underground. 

Conscious suffering or unconscious and destructive helplessness — those are your two choices.  Either way, you will be burned up, so you might as well be burned up for something that you tried to do as for something you never tried to do.  There are no other choices.

Wilor B., October 5, 2011

The "Presence Behind the Mirror"

“You Don’t Own Me! …” (Leslie Gore, 1963)

I had a nanosecond psychic startle experience the other day.  Obviously, it was a case of some sort of weird, transient psychic dissociation, but the experience highlighted for me the truth that not everything in the psyche is of one’s own making.

I’d just finished watching the news and drinking my morning cup of coffee.  I got up during the TV ad to go brush my teeth.  The background music to the commercial was a familiar hit from the 1960s, and I began to sing along with Lesley Gore as I made my way to the bathroom.  As I looked in the mirror, the words to the song came out of my mouth, but I had the distinct, albeit fleeting impression that looking back at me from behind the mirror was this other “presence”— an autonomous factor that presented itself as an actual personality — delivering what was clearly a pointed message to my observing ego:  “You don’t own me!  I’m not just one of your many toys!”  It shocked me and definitely made a strong impression on me, so much so that it “weirds me out” even now as I write about the event.

This experience drove home the point that, far from being the master of my own soul, there are psychic elements and factors that are not of or created by the ego.  Far from being of the ego, by the ego, and for the ego, there are factors within the psyche that “have a point of view” and are not to be trifled with by the presumptuous, inconsiderate, disrespectful and overly-confident ego that thinks it is in control of everything.

Wilor B., 10/5/11