Inspiration
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
Winston Churchill
The Depth Psychology Perspective
Oh… That pesky human need to complicate the simple. We oftentimes forget that the most simple things in life are the most profound. Being told you are loved. Doing something truly kind for a stranger. Receiving a heart felt gift.
Why do we have to complicate the simplistic nature of life?
Psychology will lead us to attain answers within the mind. But this in and of itself is misleading. Psyche & Logos does not mean the study of the mind. Instead, the original greek meaning for the symbol Ψ was two fold. It meant breath… and soul. So the logos of Ψ is the study of soul, breath, or even more fundamental, life itself.
When did we transition it to the mind?
Medical science is partly to blame. But only in our setting of the United States. The original psychoanalysts, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Anna Freud, Erik Erikson, all knew you did not need advance degrees to help individuals. You did not need to know how to practice medicine to simply listen to people and help them solve major problem.
Why did we do this?
Well, that goes deeper. When we perceive through consciousness, we categorize and complicate. This is what it means in biblical terms to fall into consciousness, and know as God does, the paradoxes of Holy and Evil. The human mind perpetuates the need to label, diagnose, and complicate its own existence. This comes from a place of fear primarily. Fear of change. Fear of being different. Fear of that pesky (unconscious) unknown.
What Churchill speaks of is a fundamental law of nature. Nature operates simplistically. However, human consciousness does not. We attempt to project individualized aspects of our own consciousness into the environment. This allows us to make sense of what is there. However, in doing so, consciousness develops its capacity to make sense of, dictate, and create its own reality. Which is a good thing, dependent on the reality that is being perceived. Is life a great exploration, or an unsafe place filled with danger. It’s dependent on the mind. The beauty, either reality will be created, but only through lived action.
Freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, and hope are all figments of an imaginary realm. However, internal hopes become real through external action. What reality do you want?
What do you think? Are we complicating things by thinking too much and doing too little?
Got Hope? Show mercy on yourself… the rest of these values will follow.
