On Becoming Whole
The world within is worth dis-covering
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Without, everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity. Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.
- C.G. Jung
Dis-covery: the lifting of the veil and seeing underneath it. What a deeply human task! Thrown into this world, we are explorers and grow with our surroundings. Through our eyes and ears a world is built just for our minds to perceive.
This world of wonders that remains our own. Object of wonder! We flatter our senses by being in awe of their presentation. We remain silent while standing in front of a tree or a landscape, we find beauty in moments, we are so complicated that even pleasure can bring pain and despair can be romantic. All of us are slaves to our unique genetics and to our unique experiences, yet we share a common being there, a being there that is presented through existential realization, a sudden sense of being.
We perceive this being there without perceiving ourselves like the tree or the landscape. We grow distant in both cases but we are not in awe when realizing that we are here. We cannot feel the feelings of the tree and we cannot hear the thoughts of the landscape but if the roles were reversed, do you think they would be in awe of us? Met with our own shortcomings: doubts, anxiety, lack of attention or knowledge, low self-esteem we never get to experience being there as something pure. Every feeling disturbs the sense of calm that the being there of the tree emits, yet if we could look at ourselves from outside of ourselves, we would see that our being there is not a physical fact. We are always here, complete, and we cannot change that. We are never more than what is already there and whatever the future holds, it is already within us waiting to be discovered.
Sartre1 states that because our existence precedes our essence, we are always responsible for the things we make of ourselves. But before we perceive to be anything, we already are something. Is the newborn responsible for his parents’ love? Is he responsible for the language he hears? Is he responsible for all the impressions of his earliest life that guide him without him knowing?
We become before we can decide. How can we then freely decide what to become? Sartre’s ideal tumbles!
But Sartre advertises this ideal - oh, how sweet and optimistic: the human as the sculptor of his fate!
In the quote mentioned above, C.G. Jung writes “Without [looking into one’s heart], everything seems discordant; only within does it coalesce into unity”2 .
Unity.
This world within that we perceived, all the learning, our parents, our experiences are what make us whole. They are there and we cannot help ourselves but carry them with us. Looking within oneself is where it all comes together - by examining the unconscious, however painful it may be.
Only if we see ourselves as whole, we can assume responsibility and make life what it needs to be.
This is painful and embarrassing. But we exist. Just like that tree exists. Just like the landscape exists. If we can be in awe of the tree’s being there - why can’t we be in awe of ourselves?
Every dis-covery is exhausting. It takes time and sometimes it may hurt. But only from dis-covery do we learn. Only from learning do we grow. But like with the tree, in every stage, there is reason to wonder.
Accepting our fate is changing our fate.
Sartre, Jean-Paul (2007). Existentialism Is a Humanism. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11546-8.
C.G. Jung, Letters, Vol1:1906-1950, Bollingen Series XCV:1, Edited by G. Adler & A. Jaffe, Translated by R.F.C. Hull. page 33. https://jungiancenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/letters-of-c-g-jung-vol-1-1906-1950.pdf