July 25th, 2024
I just saw Deadpool & Wolverine and I need to talk about it, but not actually about it, and I promise (I PROMISE) no spoilers here (for real, I am very serious about this).
No, I really want to talk about Carl Jung and change (the personal kind, not loose).
When we discuss change, I think it’s fair to say we often consider it a form of evolution, of progress, of moving forward. We’re all fucked up to certain degrees, and in the process of improving ourselves, we make attempts to turn our compass in the right direction.
But what happens if we stare at the compass and realize it’s pointing right back at us?
I just finished Jung’s The Undiscovered Self and am almost done reading Jung’s Map of the Soul (I’m firmly in my Jung era right now); there are a lot of seeds for essays and future fiction here, but something unlocked by coincidence tonight was the concept of our core being.
Who we are before the world gets to us.
Before the world, as Jung so eloquently puts it, collides the fuck into us (I so eloquently added “the fuck”).
Most of the time, I feel like I’m trying to burn off my character defects like warts, to become something new, a person I could never be before; I rarely considered that what I am doing instead is shoveling the dirt of the world off me to get to the decent, kind, selfless person I used to be.
The thing about taking these roads back to our core is you have to cross the fiery bridges that shut you off from that core in the first place; the traumatic events that slammed screen doors, windows, brick and steel walls between you now and you then.
Most of the time we see the smoke in the distance as we approach, say “fuck all of that” and turn around.
But sometimes we find the courage to drive straight through.
And change becomes an implosion, an expansion back inside ourselves, and we find out that we’re the exact same kid we were at five years old. Vulnerable and hopeful and smart and brave and loving and deserving of love.
I promised no spoilers, but I only meant that about the movie; the key to change isn’t just forward and different, but sometimes backwards and familiar, if not forgotten.
It’s a lesson Carl Jung and Wolverine would totally share over a cold beer together.
The Den 