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FAME: Why Do We Create Icons Then Destroy Them? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Hello listeners. This week you've just got me and Deb
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: because Joseph is not feeling well. I think he has
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the flu. So he's fine, but he's just taking the
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: day off. We told him to stay in bed. So
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: hopefully Deb and I are going to do a good
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: enough job today. We wanted to talk about fame. I mean,
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: I've been really interested in this subject. It, I think,
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: deserves a psychological take on it. Obviously, fame has always
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: been with us. As long as there's been culture, there
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: have been, you know, celebrities. What can we learn about
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: the nature of the psyche through looking at fame and
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: the dynamics around fame? So we're gonna, we're gonna take
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: a crack at it.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: And, you know, in a way, The antidote to fame,
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: which has to do with the outer world, is your
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: inner world. And you know where I'm going, which is
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: toward dream school. There is no better way to get
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: in touch with what is going on in your inner
• 1:48
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• 1:52
  Speaker 3: a little better your dreams. We dream every single night, so...
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: There it is available, a way to access your inner world.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: So if you're listening to our podcast and like what
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: we do, and you know we analyze a dream every week,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: hop on over to our website, thisyonginlife.com, and take a look.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Just take a look at Dream School.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: So as I said in the introduction, you know, fame
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: has always been with us. There were famous people in
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: the ancient world. There were kings and heroes and military
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: commanders and poets and playwrights that were famous. And of course,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: you know, there have been famous people throughout history. These days,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: I think social media has kind of even brought a
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: new level to this in some way because Now you
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: can pursue fame sort of on the basis of just
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: being famous. There's that phenomenon of people who are famous
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: for being famous. And so how do we understand this?
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: What do we think about this psychologically?
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  Speaker 3: It's a really interesting phenomenon, and I can't help but
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: contrast ancient days and the fame that military commanders and
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: playwrights and philosophers achieved. for what they did in the world.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: With today's obsession with celebrity and that what we value
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: are sports stars, and of course they are doing things
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: in the world, whatever sport it is that they're terrifically
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: good at, entertainers, and of course those are people with
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: tremendous talents. But it's a very different place where we
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: put value. from military commanders, philosophers, political leaders, and kings.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Something has really shifted.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously there are still famous political leaders. Political
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: leaders tend to be famous. I think that entertainers are
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  Speaker 2: a special breed and that in some way they're kind
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: of like our shamans. So I think a really talented
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: entertainer I'm not ready to kind of put that on
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: a different level. I think someone who's brilliant at writing
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: songs or performing or a brilliant actor, you know, deserves
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: our admiration. And perhaps what's shifted is we are less
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: likely to admire military heroes, and maybe that's not a
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: bad thing. So I don't know. I mean, but what
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: is true is that we seem to have a need
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  Speaker 2: for to venerate people.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going back to a little bit of a difference
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: of opinion that we may have about this, which is
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: it seems to me that today's celebrity world, and it's
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: not that I would devalue people with a talent for
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  Speaker 3: performing or sports, but it's younger people, people who are glamorous,
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  Speaker 3: people who are beautiful, people, there's a lot of novelty,
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  Speaker 3: a tremendous obsession, it seems to me, with image of
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  Speaker 3: how you look and how you present yourself, that there's
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: a huge emphasis on presentation, performance, exterior stuff, you know,
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: versus military commanders, philosophers, poets, and certainly singers. But that
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  Speaker 3: we want the appearance now and we don't see too
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  Speaker 3: many people up there who are, you know, sort of
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  Speaker 3: old and gray. Being beautiful seems to really matter.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, what might be different because I'm just
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: off of rereading the story of Eros and Psyche. And
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of course, how that story gets going is that Psyche
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: is so beautiful.
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  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 2: People start to worship her. as if she were the
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  Speaker 2: goddess Aphrodite herself. And that gets Psyche into some trouble.
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  Speaker 2: She doesn't ask for it. She doesn't bring it on herself.
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  Speaker 2: She just is that beautiful. And so people venerate her.
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  Speaker 2: So I think we've always been entranced with beauty. The
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: difference may be that these days, we can transmit images
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  Speaker 2: so much more easily. I mean, I'm thinking about you know,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: when King Henry VIII wanted to know what his bride-to-be
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  Speaker 2: might look like, he had to send Hans Holbein to
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: paint a portrait and then carry the portrait home on
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: a ship. And now we can transmit photographs, you know,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: sort of instantaneously. So that has certainly changed things. And
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  Speaker 2: I think you're right, Deb. It's kind of shifted it
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  Speaker 2: in the direction of really being focused on the visual image.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: And that has really prioritized beauty and youth and glamour.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: That is certainly true.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: So there is something there about beauty and its age old.
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  Speaker 3: In a way, we're seduced by it. We're seduced by
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: tremendous talent for people that can perform, people that can sing.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: And the story of Psyche and Eros is, I mean,
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  Speaker 3: that was what she was famous for. She was simply
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: so beautiful that there is something in us that responds
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: to that kind of thing.
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  Speaker 2: Well, again, I think there's a way we want to
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: venerate someone. We want to admire someone who has almost
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: superhuman beauty or superhuman talent. And when you see someone
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: do something and they're so good at it, whether or
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: not it's a sports figure or someone who's playing music
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: or they're such a virtuoso or they're so creative, something
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  Speaker 2: lights up in us and we want to love that person.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: We want to shower them with admiration. There's something human
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  Speaker 2: about that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, that makes me think about Jung, who wrote
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: about the mana personality. The person who is larger than life,
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: the person, today we would say, who has charisma. Back
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: in the days of heroes, those were mana personalities. Theseus
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: could go to Crete and Ariadne fell in love with
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: him as soon as she saw him. And he knew
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: that he was the one who could slay the Minotaur.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: Of that there is something where we project what can
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: a human being be? Can we be more than our
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: ordinary limited selves? And we see that in heroes and
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: in people with special talent. And we tend to venerate
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: them as heroes or even sort of God-like beings. And
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking of some of the concerts where people just
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: pay incredible amounts of money to go. And this will
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: really date me, but I remember Elvis Presley. And some
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: of the adults in my life were simply, they were
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: kind of appalled. I mean, they weren't horrified, but they
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: just thought it was absurd and ridiculous. All the teenagers
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: yelling and howling and screaming over him. But it does
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: illustrate Jung's idea of the mana personality. It's more than
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: just an ordinary person. Yeah. He, they, people, heroes, performers
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: do have more than we do. And I think they
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: elevate the possibility, what it can mean to be special,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: to be human, to have more, and that we project
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: that onto performers.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I, I think there's a couple, there's
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: a couple of things here. First of all, you know,
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: following up on what you're saying, I think one of
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: the positive roles that this can play, this kind of
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: adulation is, oh my gosh, that's so amazing. I'd love
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: to do that myself, you know, and, and I, I
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: love the stories that you occasionally hear about, um, some
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: actor or musician who always really looked up maybe to
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: some other performer. And then there they are. And they're
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: actually now they're starring in the same movie or they're, they're,
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  Speaker 2: they're the opening band for the person they used to
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  Speaker 2: admire so much. You know, those stories always tickle me
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  Speaker 2: because it's like the younger person saw in that older person,
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  Speaker 2: maybe that more famous person, there's a possibility of something
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  Speaker 2: I could be. I'm catching a glimpse perhaps of my
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: own destiny, and I'm inspired by that person's creativity, by
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: that person's expertise, and that's going to propel me to
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: kind of become my best self. But I think there's
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  Speaker 2: also something else here, which is when we see fame,
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  Speaker 2: it has a kind of larger-than-life quality to it.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely. Absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: And it is our attempt at being something like godlike.
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  Speaker 2: It is our attempt to touch immortality. You know who
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  Speaker 2: was very bold and honest about this, actually, was the
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  Speaker 2: Renaissance Italian poet Petrarch. Petrarch fancied himself like the poets
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  Speaker 2: of the ancient world, and it was very important to
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  Speaker 2: him to be to be depicted wearing a crown of
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  Speaker 2: laurels and to reach, I mean, being famous was a
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  Speaker 2: way of kind of becoming immortal. It was the closest thing.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, it probably still is the closest thing to
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  Speaker 2: kind of becoming a god. You know, you're sort of
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  Speaker 2: achieving an apotheosis when your name is a household word
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  Speaker 2: and your memory will outlive you and maybe your works
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  Speaker 2: will outlive you. And so I think we're in this
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  Speaker 2: realm of God-likeness. Another way to think of that is inflation.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And it does and it can take over. And
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  Speaker 3: I think we know from stories of certain performers of
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: the identification with the image that's on the screen. You know,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going back to the adulation and the inspiration that
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  Speaker 3: people who are mega talented and they're larger than life
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  Speaker 3: afford us. And I wonder if it gives us a
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  Speaker 3: glimpse of what individuation can look like. That's lovely. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: You know that it can be really great that we
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: can be more. than our ordinary selves. And we catch
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: some of that when we are inspired by someone.
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  Speaker 2: And then there's always the fear that they're going to
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: disappoint you and show that they're mere mortals. So I'm thinking,
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  Speaker 2: you know, some people that I really admire, I think
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: they're incredibly talented. I And I can just imagine how
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  Speaker 2: disappointed I would be if I woke up and read
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: a headline that the person was found doing something really
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: debased or something. I think you're exactly right, Deb. I
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: really like that, that we see the potential, what we
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: could be. And it's so complicated because we desperately want that.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: We want to be able to model ourselves after someone
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: who's more individuated, who's more actualized. And that's why it
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: can be so crushing when our heroes reveal themselves to
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: have feet of clay.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: It's crushing and we take a certain satisfaction in it,
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: don't we? Oftentimes when our idols are brought low.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting because, I mean, I think I
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: was reflecting on this recently by watching what happened with
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: Russell Brand. So for years... you know, people were happy
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: to heap projections on this, you know, person who is arguably,
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: you know, very talented. The crowds were happy to heap
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: admiration and projections. We haven't talked about projection yet, but
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: that's a huge part of it. You know, you're going
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: to kind of, you're going to carry this for me.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: You're going to carry my sense of being more actualized
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: or talented or being kind of touched by the gods,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: as I think very talented people, it does feel that
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: way sometimes. The mob is just as happy to turn
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: on you and rend you limb to limb. And this
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: is also very archetypal. I mean, it reminds me of
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: the play The Bacchae, I think it's Euripides.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: I think so too.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully I got that right. Where Dionysus kind of
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: bespells the women to participate in these rites out in
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: the woods. And they're mad with kind of Dionysian energy.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: And they rend Pentheus limb to limb, including his own mother,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Because she doesn't know what she's doing. And in some sense,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: I think there is a kind of mob psychology that's
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: involved with fame. I mean, Deb, you referenced it with
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: talking about Elvis. I mean, some of it is this
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: kind of contagion effect where whole groups of people are
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: en masse projecting something onto an individual. But that because
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: it's a mass of people, a mob, You know, Jung
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: was very distressful of mob psychology. Just a slightly different
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: breeze can blow and people can go in the other
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: direction and there's kind of no thought about, well, wait
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: a minute, what are we doing here?
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: There's a real two-sidedness to that. And in the story
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: of Dionysus, Pentheus, and his women followers, the Maenads, you know,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: of course, Dionysus, brought wine to the world. And, you know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: where are the limits of that?
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Where is that kind of holiday drinking festival in the
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: woods kind of culturally contained and where does it get
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: out of control? And we see that it gets out
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: of control a lot at certain concert halls and other
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: kinds of things where mob psychology takes over. And that
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: we can be inspired and adulate some kind of a figure.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: And then when that figure is brought low, you know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: and you use the example of Russell Brand, that there
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: is a certain kind of schadenfreude or envy that is
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: like there's a certain satisfaction in it, like the people
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: at the Dionysian Festival who could tear the king apart.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: And so I think we have to be a little careful,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: a little, maybe even a little skeptical about what is
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: it that we're worshiping? And what is it that we're
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: projecting that you just brought that in? What do we
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: project onto some of our stars?
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let's talk about projection. Before we do, I
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: want to say one more thing. Maybe the truth is that,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: you know, When one is famous, one steps into a
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: current that one cannot control. These stories of someone kind
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: of being laid low, stepping in it, disappointing people, having
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: the crowd turn on them. I mean, that is an
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: age-old story.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: So what we're talking about here is that this is
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: the stuff of the gods.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: And when humans appropriate it to themselves... We need to
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: be careful of have we stepped outside our limited human
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: identity and all the limitations of being human. And that
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: there is something about fame where if you have a
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: whole concert hall or stadium rocking rock, with you and
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: there is one performer up on the stage, that is
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: of the gods. That is more than one human can
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: really arrogate to him or herself. And you step into
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: that stream and you don't control it.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: You don't control it, right? And it controls you, actually.
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: And I want to talk about that more in a minute.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: But just to talk for a second about projection. So
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: one of the things that happens when we're a performer, say,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: is that to the extent that we have captivated the audience,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: they are projecting something on us. that is, again, a
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: very tricky process because often what's getting projected on a
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: beloved performer is a kind of self energy. So the self,
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: you know, Jung said about it, we might as well
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: call it the God within. And when we fall in
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: love with a performer or some other public figure, a politician,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: whoever it is, we're projecting part of the self onto
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: that person. And that is some heady stuff. I mean,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: this can happen in the analytic dyad. Often it does.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: It's actually part of the curative factor that the analysand
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: can project the self onto the analyst. And we all know,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: those of us that do this work, how perilous that is.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Because you know when you're having that projected on you
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: and it is really heady stuff and it's difficult not
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: to identify with it. You know, you've got someone who
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: really admires you, who's sort of looking at you and
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: you know that they think you're just brilliant and you
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: can fix anything. And it's a temptation to identify with that.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: And if you do, you're going to slip and fall.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: But of course, you know, we know in our work
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: that we have to be able to hold that very
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: gently and tenderly until the patient's ready to take back
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: the projections. So if it operates in such a powerful
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: way when it's just one-on-one, what is it like when
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: it's literally millions of people projecting stuff onto you? And
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: I think that this explains in part why a lot
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: of young people who get famous, say, as children or adolescents,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: they have a terribly hard time. Many of them kind
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: of don't find their way through. They get lost in addiction.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: they aren't able to sustain things. I mean, there's a
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: story after story after story of young famous people who
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: really kind of get into trouble. And I think it's
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: because you have to have such a sturdy ego to
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: maintain your stance without getting just kind of bowled over
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: by these projections. And I think I think that the
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: projections of others, you know, it is kind of an
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: energetic thing. I mean, I worked with a woman once
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: and I did ask her permission to discuss this and
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: she was happy to give me permission. So I just
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: want you to know I'm not revealing this information without
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: having discussed this explicitly with her. But She was a
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: very talented performer. And she would, you know, she was
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: on her way in a career as a performer. And
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: it was making her sick. And she stepped away from it, which,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: you know, I really, I have some sense of what
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: it kind of took for her to do that. Because
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: She has this kind of God-given talent that just not
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: many people have. I mean, this is a talent that
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: you're just either born with it or you're not. And
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: she has it in spades. But for her, the act
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: of being on stage and being the recipient of all
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: of that psychic energy in the form of projection... was
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: just making it very difficult for her to stay in
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: touch with herself. She was having all kinds of symptoms.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: It was just leading her down a very difficult path.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: And so she made the, I think, very wise decision
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: to step away from it. And now she does the
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: thing that she can do so well in ways that
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: bring her pleasure and But don't expose her to this
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: incredibly kind of intoxicating experience of having this all projected
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: on you.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: It takes me to what Jung says over and over again,
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: which is psychic energy is real. It is contagious. It's powerful.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And it's a huge burden. And I'm thinking about performers
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: that have suffered with their performance. celebrity status. It's just
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: really difficult because then they start to identify, I think,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: that that figure up on the screen or up on
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: the stage is who I am. The larger than life,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: I don't have to play by the usual rules. You
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: do need a very sturdy ego and a sense of self,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: and that's a hard one for anyone. But I'm thinking
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: of Here's my little list of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Michael Jackson, Judy Garland, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, John Belushi,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: River Phoenix. And there's a statistic that celebrities have a
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: suicide rate that's almost four times larger than Robin Williams. Yeah.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: There's a cost. to taking on these godlike attributes and
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: your point about natural talent is so well taken that
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: you know the truth of the matter is that they
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: there are god-given gifts absolutely and so people can do
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: more in some way they are more yeah sometimes there
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: are wisdom figures i mean that might be the the
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: projection that certain wisdom figures or analysts get that we've
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: seen more deeply into things and can somehow bestow that
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: or impart that versus helping you find it in you
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: for yourself. But we do hope to get it, to
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: receive it from those who somehow have the magic it.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: And now we're in the realm of kind of the guru, right?
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: These people who get these things projected on them, and
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: then sometimes these people really kind of revel in that
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: and take it on. And then, of course, there's these
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: abuses of that. You know, first of all, I just
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: want to say, Deb, I love what you said, that
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: psychic energy is real. And I do think that when
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: we're famous, I mean, I'm judging this from this woman
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: that I worked with, it's, you know, The experience of
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: having the audience in front of you sort of applauding you,
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: that is, there's a real burden that we carry from that.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: It's real. Psychic energy is real. So just to pick
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: up on this just a little bit more, this notion
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: about kind of identifying with what the audience wants us
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: to be, losing touch with who we are, I'm thinking
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: of Judy Garland. Apparently, this might be an apocryphal story,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: I can't remember now where I heard it, but apparently
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: there's this late in her career, there's this performance that
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: she did, and I think she was probably intoxicated during
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: the performance, and she's begging the audience to applaud. She
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: just can't survive without the applause. She just didn't know
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: who she was anymore. Versus our friend Jung, who I think,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: you know, toward the end of his life, he had
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: amassed a certain amount of fame and notoriety. But he
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: was very clear he wasn't interested in kind of speaking
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: to the general public because he didn't think they would understand. So,
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: you know, he gave lectures to small groups of people.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: He had the psychology club in Zurich. But he didn't
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: do a lot of very public stuff. You know, he
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: did that BBC interview. He didn't do a lot of
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: public appearances. He didn't write for the general public. And
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: then the guy who did the BBC interview, I can't
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: remember his name right now, but he approached Jung and said,
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: you know, what about doing a book for the general public?
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: And Jung said, no, no, no, no. Thank you. I'm
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: not interested. They're not going to understand, so I'm not
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: going to do it. So he was famous in spite
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: of the fact that he had never recorded it. Fill
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: me in if I'm getting this wrong, but he had
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: Not really done many high profile things. I mean, I'm
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: thinking like maybe what the Clark lectures early in his career.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: Those are all so long ago. They're in person. So,
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: you know, you can touch some number of people, but not.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: at the level of magnification that we have today.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: Most of what we have are his writings for these,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: you know, fairly kind of obscure journals, or he was
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: going to give a talk at, you know, Erinos or,
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: you know, the psychology club, um, or write the forward
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: to some book or, you know, he wrote lots of letters,
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: but he, he wasn't out there courting the public. Then
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: he had a dream. So this guy from BBC asked him,
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: would you do a book for the public? And Jung said, no.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: And then Jung had a dream that he was, uh,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: and I'm doing this from memory, so I might be
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: getting some of the details wrong, but he was at,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: there was a tree and it was bearing fruit. And
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: he was standing before a crowd of thousands and he
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: was taking the tree from the fruit and making it
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: and giving it to people. And so he called the
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: guy back. He said, yeah, I'll do the book. The
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: idea to speak to a wider audience was influenced not
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: by a desire for fame, but by a deep awareness
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: that he might have something to offer people.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: I think it's the difference of being in service to ideas,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: to work, to a craft, to art, that you are
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: in service to that rather than I am that. Once,
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: like your story about Judy Garland is deeply poignant that
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: she needed the applause. She needed needed the reassurance. She
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: needed the approval of whatever all that was for her
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: of receiving the crowd's endorsement and validation. And it's momentary.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: Even if you get a standing ovation that lasts for
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: 10 minutes, it's momentary. And Jung was in service to
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: ideas and work. his own creative daimon always leading him
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: through life. So some partnership between ego and something greater.
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: And he went to some real pains to disabuse people
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: who projected wise man guru status onto him. And I think,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: I'm going back to Judy Garland, that there are and
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: where the danger is, is that rather than achieving your
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: own sense of self and offering your work or your talent,
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: that then you really need the fame, the applause, the validation,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: the lifestyle, whatever it is, to augment a sense of
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: self that is essentially not sufficiently sturdy, stable, and whole.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: And I think we see this today on all the
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: social media stuff of people who want to, quote, go viral, unquote,
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: that other people seeing them and validating them contributes to
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: a sense of self.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: And I want to go there in a minute, but
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: just staying with this idea that you just raised about
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: the daimon. Hillman talks about this beautifully in The Soul's Code,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: which is the sense, you know, some people just sort
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: of maybe have a destiny. So he's mentioning the person
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: that I worked with who just had this, you know,
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: just incredible talent. You know, if we take a look
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: at someone like Taylor Swift, now I'm not an aficionado
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: on her work, but I do know a couple of
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: songs that And, you know, I think she's really quite talented.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: I think she writes really great songs. I think she's
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: got a great voice. As far as I can tell,
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: she's a wonderful entertainer, right? So she's, you know, she's
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: sort of, she's kind of got the whole package. It's not,
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: you know, you can't look at her and say that
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: her fame is undeserved. You know, she's really very talented.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: So I can imagine what Hillman might say about her
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: is that this is her destiny. It is her destiny
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: to be an entertainer. It is her destiny to be
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: a musician. She is living out her destiny. And fame
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: is almost like a byproduct of following her daemon. Fame
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: just kind of comes with a package. And I think that...
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: That is true for certain people, that this is just
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: kind of what they were destined to do. And I
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: guess part of what they then have to do is
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: figure out how to carry the burden of fame, knowing,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: of course, that they're always running the risk of being,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: you know, finding themselves on the other side of it
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: with someone kind of eager to tear them apart. You know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: and also one can lose one's footing, right? Because, you know,
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: remember when the Beatles said something like, we're more famous
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: than God? Do I have that quote right? One of
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: them said that. I think that's a quote, we're more
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: famous than God. And, you know, arguably, maybe they were.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: But that, you know, the sort of inflation that comes
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: with that, and then how that can cause us to
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: lose our way psychospiritually. You know, in Rome, the coronation
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: of the emperor, The emperor would ride through Rome to
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: throngs of cheering crowds, you know, dressed in imperial purple.
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: And the story is that there would be a slave
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: standing in the chariot next to him whispering in his ear,
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: remember you are mortal. You know, it's like you've got
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: to remember that you're just an average person. No matter
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: what is getting projected on you, no matter how much
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: power the world has given you, you are just ordinary.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: And how do we remember that when we're being swept along?
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: If it's our destiny to be famous, and I think
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: for some of us it is, not myself, but someone
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: like Taylor Swift, how do we hold on to ourselves?
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: It's almost something like a practice, I imagine.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: I'm thinking so much about what is external and what
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: we can do and get in the external world and
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: how precious and central and important and inescapable our inner
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: world is. And some of these stars that I mentioned
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: a little while back who came to such sad Sad endings,
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson, for example.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: I was a great appreciator of John Belushi. I just
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: loved him on Saturday Night Live. But for all of us,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: one way or another, the injunction is to find work
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: and relationships in the world that matter. and develop our
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: internal sense of self. And that some of these celebrities,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: great talents, Janis Joplin, were swept away because, of course,
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: fame came to them young and developing a sense of
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: self is the work at least of the first half
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: of life, if not your entire life. That's what our
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: task in life is, is to turn inward and become
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: who we were innately meant to be and serve that,
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: serve our own souls and serve people and work in
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: the world and not identify with it. Do I have
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: to have the corner office? Do I have to drive
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: a Lamborghini? Do I have to have a stadium filled
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: with thousands of people applauding? What am I really here
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: to do?
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: So I'm thinking about people who are tremendously talented, who,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: you know, sort of were led through life by the
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: daemon and may have wound up, you know, with a
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: dark end. I mean, someone like Garland, for example. I mean,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: you know, God, what a voice. You know, I mean,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: just amazing. Amazing. Hillman talks about her in The Soul's Code,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: you know, that she was just a little itty bitty thing.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: And she saw some kids performing and she saw this
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: girl step forward, this little four or five year old
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: girl and sing a solo and she was just enwrapped.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: And as soon as it was over, she turned to
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: her father, she said, Can I do that, Daddy? And
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: soon after she did. So, you know, this was really
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: something she just knew right from the beginning that this
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: was something she had to do. And then there's this
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: other thing that, Deb, you've alluded to, and I kept
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: on saying, oh, I'm going to get there, I'm going
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: to get there, which is this sort of internet culture.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: So people kind of seeking fame almost for its own sake.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: I want to mention this article that's written by this
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Substack writer that I really, really like. The Substack is
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: by Gerwinder and the title of this post, and we'll
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: link it in the show notes, is The Perils of
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: Audience Capture. Because again, I think we're in this realm
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: of projection and how dangerous it can be. So Gerwinder
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: starts talking about someone, a 24-year-old man named Nicholas Perry
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: who wanted to be big online. So he was posting
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: videos of himself playing the violin and talking about veganism.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: And he wasn't getting any notice. So he started, he
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: gave up being a vegan. He started posting videos of
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: himself eating. just, you know, kind of eating dinner and
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: kind of talking to the audience. And, um, people started,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: people started liking those videos. So then the comment section
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: of the videos were encouraging him to, uh, eat as
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: much as he physically could. So we started doing that
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: and the audience applauded, but always demanded more. And so
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: then he was, you know, filming himself, uh, eating entire
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: menus of fast food restaurants in one sitting. I'm sort of, uh,
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: paraphrasing and reading from Gerwinder's post. So I just want
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: to credit that. So he eventually got over 6 million
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: subscribers on YouTube from eating. And he is now fantastically,
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: grotesquely obese. He must weigh some 500 or 600 pounds.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: And so I'm just going to read here from the
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: sub stack. Nick Acato, so he's now known as Nick
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Acato Avocado, that's his YouTube name. Nick Acato, molded by
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: his audience's desires into a cartoonish extreme, is now a
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: wholly different character from Nicholas Perry, the vegan violinist who
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: first started making videos. Where Perry was mild-mannered and health-conscious,
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: Nick Acato is loud, abrasive, and spectacularly grotesque. Where Perry
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: was a picky eater, Nicocado devoured everything he could, including, finally,
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Perry himself. The rampant appetite for attention caused the person
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: to be subsumed by the persona. And so he terms
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: this audience capture, and I think it's a really interesting phrase.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: phenomenon that, you know, I could point to other examples.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: There's an extremely anorexic woman named Eugenia Cooney, I think
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: is her name, who does all of this stuff and
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: is kind of applauded for being just, again, grotesquely thin.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: So this is a particular phenomenon of, you know, TikTok
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: and Instagram, where the projections of the fans, as it were,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: shape and mold and capture and finally destroy the person.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: And I think it's an extreme example of what can
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: happen in fame in any case. But it's particularly dark.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: It's particularly dark. And again, you know, if you're well
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: known because you're in service to something larger than yourself,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: like Jung was, I think you're on steadier ground If
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: you're chasing fame and attention for its own sake, it
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: will devour you.
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: The parallel to the Greek play about the Maenads and
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: about Dionysus is really powerful. And that we've talked about
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: this as this is the stuff of the gods. And
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: Dionysus infused his followers with with this frenzy. You know,
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: whether it's fueled by drugs or alcohol or psychic energy,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: that is exactly what happens is that we can't get
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: enough of it. It's not within ego control. And eventually
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: it can devour people. Followers lose all sense of what
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: a person is like in the projection of somebody that
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: can eat all manner of things in an astonishing way. Well,
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: the person is not under consideration here. There's no relationship.
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: It's just an egging on, a cheering on, I dare you,
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: I dare you. And if we take that on, either
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: as a would-be celebrity or as a fan, we are
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: inflated and we are not grounded. And it's heady and
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: it can be really destructive and dangerous.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I think that that is, you said something, Deb,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: that I want to pick up on that, you know,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: the person is not under consideration. There is a way
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: that Being famous, I imagine, never having been famous, nor
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: will I ever be, but my imagination is it totally
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: flattens the individual. You know, if you're really famous, you know,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't follow Taylor Swift, but people in
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: my family will occasionally give me reports. Apparently, it's very
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: difficult for her to date anyone. And of course it
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: is because, you know, who are you going to date
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: if you're Taylor Swift? And what are those, how does
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: the dates go? I don't know. Gee, how was your
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: day today? I mean, you know, it's like, who's going
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: to relate to you like you're a normal person? Who's
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: going to just be interested in getting to know you
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: for who you are? Who's going to not be, you know, nervous,
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: you know, when they talk to you and sort of
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: feel like the sun is in their eyes because they're
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: talking to Taylor Swift. I mean, I think it deprives
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: one of their humanity in a way.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: You know, this takes me back to something you mentioned
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: a little while ago, which is, you know, what if
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: you are, as Jung was, and as many a person
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: who's truly talented is, if you were born with a diamond,
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: if you are born with a drive to create, to
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: write poetry, to sing, to any one of a number
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: of things, if that kind of gift and creative urge
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: is yours, and Jung wrote about it at the end
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: of his life, he said very movingly that that was
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: what he was in service to, that his daimon, drove
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: him and guided him of how, you know, I'm imagining
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: Taylor Swift has a dime on. And then it is
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: that person's special gift and a burden to manage that
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: so that there is private time, personal time, and the
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: ability to make a separation between who public self is
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: and who the private or personal self is. And it
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: can be hard because the mainnets that are out there,
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: the fans, just want more and more and more and more.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: And you get sucked in, as did Janis Joplin, to
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: being forced to do more tours and more performances and
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: And at one point, she begged to be given a timeout.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: But it takes on a force of its own because
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: it is of the gods. But it needs to belong
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: in the realm of the gods, not in the realm
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: of humans' ego control. It's not to us to arrogate
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: those powers to ourselves.
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: But, you know, that brings me to another famous person
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: who met a very sad end, and that's Princess Diana.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, my.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Because, yes, I mean, I suppose if you're a very
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: famous person, you need to, you know, try to make
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: sure that you have your private life. But we know
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: that that can be very difficult for famous people, that
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: they're constantly being hounded by the paparazzi and everywhere they go.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: You know, someone's taking a picture of them. And if they,
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: you know, show up the grocery store, there's someone, you know,
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: reporting on it or something like that. It's really difficult.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: And I sort of just feel terrible when I see
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: the way celebrities are treated. I'm just not interested in
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: participating in it at all. So I try to kind
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: of avert my eyes. Actually, I don't really want to know,
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: you know, who was seen where with whom. The royal
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: family in general and Princess Diana in particular is a
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: good example of that, that they just, they cannot escape
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: the kind of constant projection generating machine. And for them, it's, well,
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: that's a special case, isn't it? It really is. because
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: in some sense, that's sort of their job to carry
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: those projections. But certainly, it's incredibly intrusive and very difficult
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: to have a normal life.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: And in the case of the British royal family, we
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: can really see the polarity between their being larger than life,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: everybody's very, very interested in them, they're beautiful children, ribbon-cutting ceremonies,
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: they are more than sort of the average commoner. And
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: on the flip side of that, the British tabloid press
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: is vicious. Paparazzi, follow them, send drones, over swimming pools,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: go to all kinds of lengths to sort of uncover
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: salacious conversations, details, photographs. We really see the polarity there
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: between being larger than life and then being ripped apart
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: like Pentheus by the main.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: It's yes. Well, and it is like, we, we both
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: want to admire them. You know, we, there's something irresistible
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: about imagining their lives and seeing pictures of their lives. And, uh,
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: but at the same time, we, we also, we want
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: to find out the salacious details. We want to bring
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: them down. So there's, there's both. We want to, lift
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: them up and we want to bring them down. And
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: I think, I think any of us can, can find
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: both of those impulses within us. If we're honest with ourselves, that,
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: that desire to elevate someone and admire someone and that,
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: that desire to, you know, I mean, I think envy
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: with the Royal family is, um, is certainly very, very
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: active and, you know, setting aside that there, there might
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: be some kind of very sober, uh, desires to evaluate
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: the worth of those positions to the culture. But there's
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: certainly just something like envy in there too.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: We haven't really walked around envy. And let's take a
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: minute and do that. Because I think envy is hugely important.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: That if you have been given a gift, You're a
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: member of a royal family. Well, then you just got
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: the luck of the draw. You happen to be Charles
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: and Diana's kid. Well, good for you. Lucky you. But
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: you didn't earn it. You just kind of landed there.
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: Other gifts also people develop, but they haven't earned. And
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: the place that I go with that is sports stars.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: You know, I imagine that I could have, I don't know,
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: trained and practiced in some sport. And I can promise
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: you that if I spent 10 hours a day playing tennis,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: believe me, whatever that special gift is, it would never
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: have happened.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: I'm right there with you.
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: And so I wonder if the envy is about have
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: the other person having been given a gift, and why
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: them and not me? How come I didn't get one
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: of those magical singing voices or incredible physical talent or
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: genius brain like, let's say, Steve Jobs? Yeah, I'll take that.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: And I wonder if that's where the envy comes from
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: is how come you and not me? What did you do?
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: How come the gods favored you? Which takes me back
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: to the story of Psyche and Eros. She was a princess.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: She was mortal. And how come she was so incredibly beautiful?
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: Her sisters were envious. The goddess herself was envious.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. That's great, Deb. I really like that. Because
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: I think that it's true that when we're talking about fame, certainly...
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: certainly I would, I would be willing to bet that
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: most famous people, whether they're writers or sports stars or,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: or singers, you know, Taylor Swift, I would be willing
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: to bet you anything they work really hard. Most of them,
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: most of them work really hard and are not there,
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: you know, because they just, that they just kind of
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: stepped in it. I mean, other than maybe Charles and
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Diana's kids, you know, and they have, they have to
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: work hard in a different way, but But someone who's
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: famous for something they've achieved, there's certainly a lot of
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: hard work in the equation. However, there really is something
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: about they just, when the gifts were being handed out, man,
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: they just lucked out, you know? They got... You know,
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: amazing brains or beauty or talent or even some people,
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Lord knows, have all of those things, you know. And
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: it's like, wow, why you and not me? You know,
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: so I think you're right. I think there's something, again,
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: it's like remarkable. We recognize that these people have, you know,
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: been touched by the gods and we want to be
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: close to them. You know, the thing about someone who's
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: famous is you want to be in their presence. You
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: want to, you know, find yourself sitting next to them
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: on the airplane. Or I can remember, this is a
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: little embarrassing, but when I was in high school, my
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: favorite band was The Clash. And I went to see
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: them a bunch of times. And once I, you know,
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: hung around afterwards and got to meet Joe Strummer. And
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: it was just like, wow, you know, I'm like, I'm
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: like in his presence, you know. Um, or, or that thing,
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: it's like, I'm not going to, if you fake, you
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: shake the hand of a famous person, you say, okay,
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to, I'm not going to wash my
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: hands ever again. You know, it's like somehow if we
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: can be close to them, we can be touched with
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: some of that magic too. Um, but then, but then
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: there is the sense of like, why, why did those
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: people get it? And I didn't. So envy can definitely
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: be there.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: You know, I think I want to, um, say a
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: word about the antidote. to all of this. And I
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: hear you that that's right. Some of it will rub
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: off on me that I too can have something of
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: the magic. But, you know, the old Buddhist saying is
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. And after enlightenment, chop wood,
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: carry water. Each of us has a destiny, has a soul,
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: has a life to live. And I've been thinking on
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: and off this whole time about an aunt and uncle
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: that I had, who in effect adopted us kids as
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: family friends, not biologically related. The love, the attention, the interest,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: the generosity of taking us places, exposing us to things
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: like our town's repertory theater, not big Hollywood stuff, taking
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: us on picnics, coming to visit us when we were
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: in college, has been a gift of a lifetime. As
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: far as I'm concerned, that is hard to beat.
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: Well, with that, perhaps we will transition to a dream.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: And before we do, I want to remind everyone as
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: we always do about Patreon. So we, uh, we analyze
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: your dreams. If you're a patron, we, uh, answer your questions. And, uh,
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: so you, if you like our dream interpretation and maybe
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: have submitted dreams a bunch of times, and we've never
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: picked your dream. I just want you to know that I,
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: I am the dream picker and I look at our
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: recent dreams. I try to pick a recent dream. and
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: I try to pick a dream that maybe is, you know,
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: about the right length. And I like if possible to
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: sort of be as representative as I can, and sometimes
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: pick the dreams from men or younger people or older people. And,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: and I also want to pick a dream that, um,
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: you know, that I feel is going to be of
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: interest to our audience. So, uh, Sometimes I like to
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: pick dreams that are fairly straightforward, and sometimes I like
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: to pick dreams that are really, really opaque and just
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: I know we're not going to be able to do
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: a whole lot with, but that's the way dreams are.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: So those are my criteria. And so if your dream
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: hasn't been picked, I'm sorry, but... If you become a patron,
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: you have a much better chance of getting your dream
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: pick because we get just dozens of dreams submitted every
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: week for the podcast. But as a patron at the
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: $ 10 or $ 25 level a month, we don't get that
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: many dreams. So it's much, much more intimate. So consider
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: becoming a patron. If you go to our website, thisunionlife.com,
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: And then under podcast, there's a drop down menu and
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: it says become our patron.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: Today's dreamer is a woman she's 43 years old and
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: she's an adjunct professor at a university and she has
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: titled her dream going back to the university and here's
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: the dream I'm called back to the university with other
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: members of my cohort. Not everybody goes back. I'm supposed
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: to take a few courses that were later added to
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: the curriculum. Failing to take these courses could cancel my degree,
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: so I go. I'm having difficulty logging into my student
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: account because I don't remember my credentials, so I can't
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: find the time in the classroom of the classes. I
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: miss my classes and feel ashamed because it will ruin
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: my reputation in the eyes of my favorite professor. I
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: start to CCE critical and claim in my mind that
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: I have a PhD. So why should I take undergraduate
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 3: courses when I'm capable of teaching them? My cohort is
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: hanging around and I can't be part of the group.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 3: And almost nobody cares that I am there, even my
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: best friends. I try to find the registrar's office to
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: discuss why I shouldn't be there. Then I go back
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: to my apartment that I used to live in on campus.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: I don't have the key, but the door is not locked.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: My room is still the way it was. My clothes,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: my bed and furniture are still there. But my roommates
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: are college kids. Sometimes my room is replaced with another
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: room that is not as good because I have not
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: been there. I never see the roommates, but I see
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: their rooms. I try to reclaim my room, but again,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: I can't reach anyone to do this switch. I see
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: this dream quite often. I am not happy, she says
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: in her context. I'm not happy in academia. I feel
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: exploited and not important. I'm transitioning to a completely different
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: career that has nothing to do with academia. I have
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: been searching for what occupation can really help me use
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: my potential and makes me happy. And she adds, I
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: feel left out from my cohort, mis-evaluated by the college,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 3: and there's no one there to talk to and prove
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: that I do not have to take these courses. While
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: I'm happy to see my room is there, I feel
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: insecure because the building feels not familiar anymore. And she adds,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 3: I had the best time of my life during college.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: I lived on campus and had the best friendships that
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: still last. I've been living abroad for about two years,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: and she's leery of going back, not being understood or
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: left out, and that that makes her feel fearful and upset.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: So we have this dream about the dreamer kind of
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: going back to an old situation. And in fact, this
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: is not an uncommon dream that I'm back in school
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: and there's a test that I still have to take.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: I never took this class. Now I have to go
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: back and take this class. So this is actually one
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: of those kind of common dream themes. But this one's
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: a little bit more, isn't it?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: Um, yes, it is.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: There's a lot about going back and, and I can,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: I can really, uh, kind of empathize with the streamer.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: It sounds like in some way she, uh, she feels
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: like she may have peaked in college and somehow that
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: has led her, you know, she's found herself in a
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: bit of a cul-de-sac in life. She's in a field
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: she doesn't find rewarding and, and she's, uh, you know,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: she's a little bit, um, out of gas and has
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to get started.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: And her career that she's now switching out of, you know,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: I wonder, you know, this is a real reach, but
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: a way to stay in that stage of life of
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: to extend the college experience by moving on and being
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: part of becoming a teacher, becoming as she is an
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: adjunct an adjunct professor. And you're right, the first part
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: of that dream is, you know, that classic anxiety dream of,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: I have to take the test, but I can't find
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: the building. And, oh my God, I never even took
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: the class. But what she says in her dream is
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: that she doesn't really understand in the dream, the dream
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: ego doesn't understand, why should I take these classes? when
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: I could be teaching them. So it is a little
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: different from, I can't get there from here. It's a
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: little more of, I've outgrown this.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: Although, you know, whenever someone brings in this dream, like
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: I was back in high school and I had to
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: take chemistry because they lost my transcript or something like that.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: I always think... I always think, okay, what's the unfinished
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: business from back then? What didn't you learn? So, so
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: what does, what does she say? There've been some classes
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: added that she needs to take. Otherwise her degree will be, uh,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: considered and will be invalidated. Okay. So there's something she
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: should have learned back then that she didn't learn. And
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: the ego thinks I'm, you know, I'm better than this.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: But that's not what the dream maker is saying. The
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: dream maker is saying there's something you should have learned
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: back then that you didn't. And it kind of goes
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: down hard to have to square yourself with that. That
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: in some sense is kind of back to basics. And Deb,
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, I recognize that you were sort of making
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: it up when you said, oh, maybe she chose to
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: stay in academia because it was such a good experience.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: But acknowledging that that's just our projection and our fantasy.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: I like it. You know, it's certainly understandable that if,
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: you know, college was kind of a peak experience that
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: you would, that it would make sense that you'd say, great,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: I'm going to stay in academia. Let me become a professor.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: And perhaps that kind of easy choice to stay in
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: the field, which we actually don't know that it was,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: is a way of avoiding some harder decision that now
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: has to be reckoned with.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: You know, I'm going to the second, what I think
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: of as sort of the second scene in the dream. First,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: there's a part about taking these classes. It reminds me
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: of you know, what we have to do to maintain
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: our licenses. You know, that every so many years they say,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: have you taken some extra courses to keep your knowledge
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: up to date?
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: But then no one cares that she's there, even her
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: best friends. She goes to the registrar's office. And then
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: scene two is I go back to my apartment that
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: I used to live in. I don't have the key.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: The door is not locked. Everything is there. Her clothes,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: her bed, but her roommates are college kids. And I
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: think that is significant because that hints at a younger
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: stage and age of that they are college kids and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: she is still in a dorm room. but aware of
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: the difference between her and her new roommates. But then
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: at the end, I think she's referencing other dreams. Sometimes
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: my room is replaced by another room that's not as
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: good because I've not been there. In other words, she
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: hasn't been in that room in the college, in her dreams,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: in her psyche. And then she says, I try to
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: reclaim my room, but I can't reach anyone to do
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: the switch. So it does hint at a time that
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: isn't fitting anymore. But our dream ego, which is often
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: very like our waking ego, our dream ego keeps trying.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: You know, I think this one's at a major... kind
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: of crossroads in her life, right? She's really rethinking this, um,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: decisions and career of the past 20 or so years.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: She's right smack in the middle of the midlife transition.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: This is a hard time. I really feel empathy with
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: this streamer and it's sort of like back to the
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: drawing board. Now I have to, what do I want
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: to be when I grow up? And I'm 43. Um,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: And the thing is that when we do that, we
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: often do regress to an earlier stage in life. I mean,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: in what is ultimately a constructive, creative way, by the way,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: there's a discussion in psychoanalysis in general and then young
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: about it too. He, of course, used the French for it,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: reculier pour mieux sauter, you know, that we have to,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: I know, I pulled that one out this morning, but
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: you know, that sometimes you go back to be able
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: to better jump forward. And oftentimes when we are at
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: a crossroads, we are looking, we are reviewing the past.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: We're looking at what decision was good and what decision
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: maybe would I go back and make differently or what
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: could I do differently now? What worked? What didn't work?
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Where were my assumptions faulty? Or maybe they were right
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: for then, but they're no longer right.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: There is a kind of regression that goes on in
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: order to better move forward. And I think this dream
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: is a really good example of that. So she is
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: kind of regressing to being back in college. There is
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: some knowledge she didn't get then. There is some kind
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: of unfinished developmental tasks, maybe. I mean, again, you know, Deb,
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 2: you and I are totally having this fantasy about this dreamer,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: and I'm acknowledging that. But to stay attached to the
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: alma mater, to the mother of the university, may have
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: represented a kind of skipping over of a developmental milestone
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: to go through this difficult thing where you say, well,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: who am I really? But instead you just kind of
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: went with what's there. Well, now you have to do that.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Now that bill has kind of come due. But also.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: What is it like to go back to my college self,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: to remember the things that I loved, the things that
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: energized me, the friendships that sustained me? What can I
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: bring forward from that time of my life to help
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: me shape where I go now? So it's both and.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: It's a very kind of complex time, I'm sure.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: And there's a lot of legitimacy there. to going back,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: people go back and we engage those conversations with people
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 3: of what did you love when you were a child?
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: What did you love when you were a teenager? Oh
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: my gosh, I was really into cooking. I did all
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: this and that and the other to see what is
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: the kernel there of what was it about that time,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 3: that story, that activity, not that, you're going to repeat
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: that particular activity again, but you're trying to find the
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: threads of here's the stuff that really turned me on.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: That in these various stories, what I really loved was
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: so that you can take your history and find some
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: fresh way to bring it forward and apply it to
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: where the future is. is headed and where you're headed.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: We use the past to help us with the future.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: And it is a hard time, isn't it? The 40s
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: are a hard time. Absolutely. We certainly wish this dreamer
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: all the best.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: You've been listening to This Jungian Life. From our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: you can follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: help us produce future episodes by funding us through Patreon,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: and submit your dreams for possible interpretation on another episode.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: We'd like to thank our listener who shared a dream
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: for today's show and hope you'll let us know what
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: topics you'd enjoy hearing more about. Until next time, keep
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: living this Jungian life.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: Thank you.