Time’s winged chariot

I find Carl Jung’s thinking on the process of becoming attractive, because he includes not only humans; Jung sees what he calls the idea of individuation as applying to all living things. Individuation is then more than the idea of self-realization and self-actualization as Jung saw it as a property of everything that is alive.

‘Individuation is an expression of that biological process – simple or complicated as the case may be – by which every living thing becomes what it was destined to become from the beginning.’

Jung eventually concluded that a similar principle was at work in inorganic matter as well – as when a crystal forms out of a hidden configuration within its pre-existent liquor. In humans, Jung thought that the process of becoming involves the progressive integration of what he calls ‘the unconscious timeless self in the personality of the time-bound individual’. How this happens is affected by the environment we grow up in, and the nature of our early relationships. Some of the integration happens naturally and is almost indistinguishable from normal maturation … there is an imperative to develop in every aspect of life from the very beginning. But Jung was particularly interested in when individuation is consciously lived, and when the process is actively participated in, and he saw this as the responsibility of the second half of life.

The Jungian Anthony Stevens writes:

‘Involvement in life during the first thirty-five or forty years is usually so whole-hearted that it is possible to live out the life cycle quite unreflectingly and still experience the joys of achievement, but if one goes on living biologically and economically into the second half without becoming conscious of oneself existentially, then one is missing the point; life, in all essentials is finished. To choose individuation is to wake up to the prospect of aging, to grow accustomed to the sound of time’s winged chariot hurrying near, to accept one’s achievements and failures, weaknesses and strengths and to make ready to abandon the youthful ego-centred state for the mature state of ego-transcendence. Then the original promise of one’s conception may be achieved – to become as complete a human being as it is in one to be.’

The idea that each of us is a mere pale replica of our potential Self is extremely ancient: so, we have the Delphi temple of Apollo ‘know thyself’ and the Ancient Greek poet Pindar ‘Become what thou art’. The process of becoming is then partly about experiencing the unexperienced and knowing the unknown. If we can fulfil our individual humanity, recognize ourself as a unique expression of all creation, and transcend the fear of death, Jung believed one attained ‘wisdom’ and entered the religious dimension. ‘For the more conscious one becomes, the more conscious the universe becomes of itself.’