This month, as I finished Dr. Jung’s 1961, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, I found the following excerpts on page 236.
We refuse to recognize that everything better is purchased at the same price of something worse; that, for example, the hope of greater freedom is canceled out by increased enslavement to the state, not to speak of the terrible perils to which the most brilliant discoveries of science expose us. The less we understand of what our fathers and forefathers sought, the less we understand ourselves…..
Jung goes onto write on page 236 and page 237 the following;
Reforms by advances, that is, by new methods or gadgets, are of course impressive at first, but in the long run they are dubious and in any case dearly paid for. They by no means increase the contentment or happiness of people on the whole. Mostly, they are deceptive sweetenings of existence, like speedier communications which unpleasantly accelerate the tempo of life and leave us with less time than ever before. Omnis festinatio exporte diaboli est- all haste is the devil, as the old masters used to say.
Reforms by retro regressions, on the other hand, are as a rule less expensive and in addition more lasting, for they return to the simpler, tried and tested ways of the past and make the sparest use of newspapers, radio, television, and all supposedly time saving innovations.
I find the preceding excerpt of C.G.Jung’s memoir prescient. He thought and wrote this approximately sixty-five years ago. Today, we can add the digital revolution to his litany of newspapers, radio, and television producing a cornucopia full of additional time saving innovations. Information inundates us with the force of a tidal wave. New sweetenings such as smart TVs, smart phones, computers, lap top and tablet computers, digital newspapers, social media platforms and pod casts have to be added to Dr. Jung’s list. We find our judgements, packaged with like minded company, on Facebook, Instagram, You-Tube, Ticktock, X and so many other platforms you might have discovered but I have not. All our “thoughts for the day” are greased and gassed up by A-I microchips. Our fingers do the walking on keyboards shopping at Amazon and so many other Walmart digital shopping malls. Time for us, and most importantly our children, has depreciated as a measure of value. Too much, I just don’t have a moment left to “stop and smell the roses”.
C.G.Jung felt it important to slow down and reflect. And with that goal in mind he had built a stone tower in Bolligen. Round with no corners, it contained very little to suggest the present. The focus for Jung was to point backward to things of long ago. It’s lighting, for example, was kerosene lamps. No electricity allowed. His reflections, while there, apparently helped him find inner peace and contentment. He felt it was important to attune to his ancestors to help ascertain whether they could find elementary gratification in his life or were just repelled from it. About his time spent in his stone tower he wrote the following;
There I live in my second personality and see life in the round, as something forever coming into being and passing on.
As I look back at clues of my reflections, I share a memory I have of my grandfather’s shanty. First, I have to share Pa’s back story. He was the patriarch of a farm in Becket. Family history hints that this farm was in his family since at least the mid 1800’s. It grew over the decades to encompass over five hundred acres. Pa and Gran had three children, one girl and twin boys. One of the twins was my father. Their sister went on to be a nurse and a business woman in healthcare. Her brothers, after their stints in the Air Force and the Navy during the W.W.II, both went on to study at Stockbridge in Amherst. The brothers apparently had dreams of following in Pa’s footsteps and helping him run the farm on Bancroft Road, Becket.
Now if you know the land in Western Massachusetts, you know that land grows granite boulders and stones easier than crops of corn or potatoes. Clearing the land was very labor intensive. My father and his young bride, (my mother), very quickly made a decision that it would be difficult to raise a family here and moved back east. Dad relied on the State to employ him as a farmer on one of their State Hospitals farms in Danvers. However, I and my younger brother were welcomed into my uncle and aunt’s home each summer to live with our two cousins and later a third son along with Gran and Pa on that farm. We were young, (very young), but grew up learning to milk cows, herd cows, hay and drive a pair of work horses, along with a Ford tractor, and for me, to receive my first driving lessons on roads off the farm in a 1949 Ford pickup.
Why is this important to share with you? Well I am attempting to paint you a picture of this farm so I can show you the importance of Pa’s shanty along with its location on the farm. The property had a huge farmhouse comprising many bedrooms, a large country kitchen, a solarium for my Aunt’s indoor flowers and plants and a large wrap around porch. Behind the farmhouse a good sized garage and tool shed were located. A long chicken coop was found back and to the right as you faced the property. The circular driveway ran by an apple orchard before exiting back on to Bancroft Road. Across the road there was a smaller two bedroom house. I remember Pa and Gran and later my Uncle and Aunt lived in that house while raising their third son. The farm house and a large barn and silo found across acres of open fields situated to the right of the small house anchored this part of the property. Two large parcels of farmland flanked the aforementioned valley. To the north, on Surriner Road, one came across forty plus acres called Uncle Elmer’s. Located to the south of the farm buildings a much larger tract, Uncle Dwight’s was situated. This area was made up of fields and woods. To reach that land, you had to walk through woods navigating a somewhat steep grade of a cow path that meandered along side a brook. This was our path growing up, a much greater adventure than walking up the paved Bancroft Road that was situated down the hill, through the farm, and past Surriner Road to the valley below where a paper mill once graced the Westfield River branch our farm’s brook emptied into.
As you emerged from the woods at Uncle Dwight’s you saw in the corner of the large field a shack. This shack had a couple of windows, if I remember correctly. The siding was composed of tar paper. The inside walls were covered in the musk of old cigar and pipe smoke. Your inside eyes were immediately drawn to a large soft chair, a precursor to a recliner, covered in blankets. In my distant memory the shanty also housed old copies of Field and Stream, a pipe or two, and a small table nesting a rickety chair. I don’t remember electricity running to the shack so there must have been a lantern present too, but maybe my cousin, who still lives on a portion of this farm, can fill me in on that memory.
Now that I have rambled on too long with this reflection, I summarize with this. My grandfather led a hard life, he lost most of a foot at a young age in a lumber accident. My young eyes saw a grizzled old man who was strong as a bull. He was a tough taskmaster and expected a lot from this ten year old. He taught me how to drive as soon as I could almost reach the clutch and see over the steering wheel. He used his cane to make a point. When we were just out of reach we were stupid enough to call him, ole-hundred! His voice was as gravely as the driveways we skun our knees on. He seemed to look at us and marvel that his progeny might almost be human. His shack defined for me the following; even a man like Pa needed space to be alone in. Where C.J. Jung had his round stone tower to reflect with his ancestors and his past, Pa had his shanty.
I guess this apple didn’t fall far from Pa’s tree as I have built in my mind’s eye a lighthouse. Each month I metaphorically visit this “light in the round” alone with my reflections!
Thank you for reading.
Be at peace and joy!
Mark