Jung on Man and His Symbols

Narcissists R Us

6/28/2013

Preface
Recently I read a Huffington Post article on Social Media and Narcissism. This is a not so modest example of the point madea little over the top, I would say. Last Monday, I engaged in a conversation with an acquaintance I met on a Facebook page about Carl Jung.

Now this is Social Media as Social Media is meant to beactually merging with someone elses consciousness in the great Metaverse. What is the social capital being co-created here? Clearly, we both saw value in this knowledge sharing. Stephanie is getting direction for her guidance to correct something amiss in her un derstanding of Jung and the unconscious. For me, it was a two-fer: (1) sharing my interest with someone genuinely interested as well and (2) unearthing an old six-month journal from when I began reading the 1964 book edited by Jung and his collaborator, Marie Louise von Franz who completed the work after his death. In this age of Short Attention Span Theater, do we still sip books slowly and let their flavors and complexities develop slowly as with a fine wine. I fear the world has come to view knowledge as jug wine. But here I hope to convince you that some still take time to revel is knowledge discovery. I shall reproduce the six-month journal in seven utterances until I complete the digitization of this journal. Knowledge is the ultimate reusable resource!

Copyright 2013, David M. Sherr

Annals of a Running Dog

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Jung on Man and His Symbols

Narcissists R Us

6/28/2013

[In these several writings in the found journal, I insert current commentary in brackets.] [Now for the context of this found journal: I had been employed at Citicorp North American Investment Bank since September 26, 1987. I am in the throes of being eased out of a group that produces trading systems, having implemented a Money Markets Trading System on a Sun Workstation unix platform. The COBOL development manager asserted dominion and was in the process of cashiering me. I knew it from the Aug 1988, when in a meeting, my boss agreed to her taking over. By Feb 1989, I was out, but with a six-month severance. That would double up with my job I got at Shearson Lehman Hutton in May 1989. It explains how I had the mind space to read and think while I looked for a job. I was in the labor market in Sept 1988, having read the tea leaves that I was a dead man, for that time being, at Citi. A window closed, a door opened! To the content without a further ado.]

Saturday, Nov 26, 1988, 1:15PM Man and His Symbols, Ed. Carl G. Jung and M. L. von Franz, Doubleday & Company Inc., Garden City, New York, 1964, 320pp. I came to this book as a gift from Pop [father-in-law] either last Christmas or the one before. His gifts are always thoughtful. For the past three to five, I have read extensively in the in the classic and pre-classic mythologies, as well as, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Concomitant interests, Renaissance Art and Medieval History have become richer experiences. All these focus on the role of symbol as a major determinant of thought and action. A sort of timeless human characteristic. From all that I read, from Gilgamesh to Pygmalion to the Divine Comedy [I was on the Cornice of Greed in Purgatorio waiting for my final Citicorp North American Investment Bank hiring interview as head of Decision Support in Public Finance in August 1987, coincidentally, my PhD and Municipal Bond expertise won the day.], nothing has changed one iota. Recently, Karen Horowitz, a business associate, upon hearing me explain this theory [over drinks at a sales luncheon for Progress] and why I arrived there, recommended Mari von Frantzs Divination and Synchronicity. As she was to explain further, von Franz was a major Jungian. All this brings me to begin this book today.

This is a cusp point of my life. My Life is used advisedly. Three days ago, at 12 Midnight, driving back from a Princeton Dance, I dozed at the wheel and bounced the car off the center guard rail at 60mph on cruise control on I95 just at the Bridge St. Exit. No traffic, luckily! The way I figure, death was right next to me. So quickly it happened. Death so stupidly courted.

Copyright 2013, David M. Sherr

Annals of a Running Dog

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Jung on Man and His Symbols

Narcissists R Us

6/28/2013

For 14 months, my regimen of a 4:35am awakening to get to NYC to work at 7:50am daily returning home by 8:00pm daily is taking its toll. Work hard. Play hard. Die Hard [released the previous July 1988it certainly was on my mind still]. Well, it gives one pause. The chase of millions (Success!!) may just be a killer. Doubt begins to enter the picture. Is it worth it? The work has become just that. Fighting the corporate behemoth and its dinosaur-like nervous system might be too Herculean a task for me. Give me the Augean Stables. At best, when youve moved a ton of real horseshit, you can see the results. Not so with corporate bullshit. With the prospect of funding for Acorn [my financial software business for which I resigned Temple tenure to pursuesome called me a fool for not doing both, but I couldnt in good faith do both. This was my burn the ships strategy!] (this may become real at last after 7 years), my desires turn to jumping back in. What holds me out is that playing major league hardball in NYCs financial park seems to enhance the value of Acorn. Or is this just a way for me to avoid the details of realization of an idea? Will I be successful in getting others to do the detail work? Must I do it myself!? Certainly Michelangelo offers a model to be the finisher after others have filled in the bulk of a master design. If what I am after is a publishing company and a life of writing and teaching, why dont I go directly for that? My self-image (there it is!!) is that of an epic hero who lives to tell about it. However, the myth usually requires the hero to die. Is that what I want? Hesses Joseph Knecht leaves Castelia only to sink to his death in a great cold lake. Was Temple Castelia? Am I the Magister Ludi playing The Glass Bead Game? The Sacred and the Profane once again appear to be mutually exclusive although they are manifest in the same corporeal entity. The Sacred requires only mind and integrated symbols. Totally disconnected from the Real. [ Ideal.] Surreal. It is when temporal exigencies [had the Rogets close at hand!] are accommodated that The Profane emerges. Venereal. I must say that the Profane has its enjoyments. Physical sensations of all sorts: oral, visceral, sexual.

[To be continued. Stay tuned for more ]

Copyright 2013, David M. Sherr

Annals of a Running Dog

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