The Feminization of Man

[Satyr]

Prefix:

It is obvious that any differences between males and females are a matter of degree.
Even sexual organs find their corresponding parts expressed in different biological manners in each of the sexes.
A male penis can be found in women as a clitoris, a woman’s ovaries found in males as testicles and so on.
Whatever differences there are between males and females they are slight when compared to the vast similarities shared by belonging to the same species.

Despite this, the alterations in character and psychology caused by hormonal and genetic phenomena, which differentiate males from females, are enough to become discernible even to the fiercest advocate of human equality.
A male nipple may be worthless to a man but a matter of grave importance to a woman.

Those of us acquainted with Chaos Theory are aware that even slight effects can have huge consequences when projected in time.
It is referred to as the “Butterfly Effect”.

Furthermore the terms female and male are not restricted to strictly gender descriptions but will be used, here, as a state of being or becoming that may be used to describe both men and women.
So it will be clear that there are men with female dispositions and women with male ones, even though the majority of us will express the characteristics and psychological leanings of our own sex more often than not.
[I am not only referring to homosexuality here but to a state of mind and a psychological type]

Many will accuse me of generalizing, for this is the favourite defence of those seeking to find an escape from insulting or hurtful premises they cannot contradict directly, but I will remind them that any exception to the rule only serves to prove the existence of a rule.
If it were not so then science itself would be impossible and specific studies would have to be conducted for each and every individual alive on any given time. There would have to be a science focused entirely on me, one on you, and every category and label would be absurd and meaningless.

Yet, general patterns and characteristics are what man uses to construct understanding and the recognition of patterns is a fundamental aspect of consciousness. Through the general assessment of phenomena, and by keeping in mind that they do not fully express the subtle degrees by which each diverges from the general rule and the overtly exceptional circumstances that sometimes lead to a complete non-adherence to a general law, man creates comprehension that benefits him by allowing him to construct abstractions. These abstractions are then symbolized with words and are then used to create strategies.

Even exceptions to rules follow their own rules of exception and chaos and randomness may only be human prejudices caused by the incomprehensibility or complexity of the rules themselves.
But more than all this, the following critical analysis of man and woman within social contexts are based on my personal observations and deductions and will not be defended using popular beliefs, political-correctness, scientific studies, or any third-party sources, even if this is also is possible.
It is up to the reader to test or dismiss my positions or to challenge them, if he or she wishes to do so.

It is clear that one can find a study defending most perspectives making the studies themselves and the way they are conducted questionable.
How popular opinion is constructed and maintained is an issue that does not fall within the purview of this topic; how science has become dependant on wealth and how censorship is conducted in these modern, more sophisticated times is, also, not within this topic’s focus, even if some aspects may be touched upon as required.

Those minds dependent on the assessment of others, to create personal beliefs, inadvertently expose their weaknesses and limitations, and it also exposes the quality and motives of current educational systems as they are but a part of the entire mechanism that attempts to shape and control human destiny.

In areas where direct observation is impossible a reliance on second-hand accounts is understandable.
But in areas where personal experience is possible and sensual awareness is feasible, a personal assessment, is often, more preferable and constructive over a parroted one.

Philosophy isn’t a mere repetition of past hypothesis or a reassessment of previous theories. It is an exchange of critical thoughts and personal analysis as they have been shaped by experience and affected by environment – including the influences of mentors and authorities. It is normal to be guided and influenced by the work of others but to completely become dependant on them and to mimic or imitate them only reveals our own quality in comparison.

What follows is my perspective, based on my personal experiences and observations, using my own senses and mental faculties.
Any similarities with the perspectives of others are coincidental and/or the effect of inspiration, and not of plagiarism.
Any contradiction of popular scientific or other common beliefs is understandable and irrelevant.
Each age has its own ‘unquestionable truths’ and social prejudices, and each mind must struggle to be more than a mere product of its age.

You cannot judge the accuracy of an idea by its popularity but by the strength of its argument, the supporting evidence the ordered reasonable manner by which it is presented and by the accuracy of the predictions that can be formulated using it.

I will expect nobody to take my word on anything, nor will I expect the reader to simply agree with me - I actually expect scepticism and personal supporting or contradicting observations to prove or disprove the precision of my own.

It is normal that the subject of males/females and of sex in general, is going to raise some controversy given the central role sexuality plays in human existence and given the popular sentiments of our western, ‘modern’ world, but my intent is to insight thought and debate, not anger and shame.
When and if it does result in insecurity, fear, resentment and feelings of inadequacy it is unfortunate but natural when considering the pitiful state of the human condition and our modern world full of delusions and illusions.

To dismiss me as being a sexist, a male chauvinist or one suffering from some mental or psychological ailment or sexual dysfunction is to not deal with the subject at hand but to try to redirect the subject using some apparent human imperfections, upon which much speculation can be dedicated.
But I remind you that by using this easy strategy of slander and insult any and every human idea can be dismissed out of hand since all human ideas are the products of imperfect human minds with imperfect psychologies and imperfect senses.

The only way to fight an idea is with another idea and before one deals with the human imperfections that lead to a supposed error, the idea itself must first be shown to be wrong.

One must also keep in mind the constantly changing moral standards and popular beliefs that may make some ideas shocking in one time and within one cultural context, and a matter of common sense in another time and a different cultural context.

One must also keep in mind that the terms modern or future or popular does not always mean better or superior, and are not by themselves argument supporting the validity of a conclusion.
Every position has been at one time or another, a current and a modern one, and it inevitably becomes an old and primitive one.
The idea that the past is inferior to the present or to the future is one with no real substance and a whole lot of subjective reasoning.

Evolution Theory has shown us that genetic alterations often answer to changing environments and make some mutations into advantages. The label of superior or inferior is dictated by the environmental demands of a specific time and place and also based on an ideal.

It is my hope that my own attempts to uncover myths and ailing ideologies should help in this search for power and purpose in a universe where man has neither.

As a preemptive response to one of the most common responses to what are deemed sexist remarks I must say that the label of sexist by itself is no response but an attempt to defame the other using current cultural and social standards of agreeable behaviour and thinking.
The fact that certain opinions are disruptive, insulting and/or painful to any one individual or a group of people is not a case against their validity but only a case for censoring them with ulterior self-serving motives.
The error of assuming that reality is positively inclined towards humankind or that nature is in any way interested in our personal preferences and feelings is based on a fearful reaction to an indifferent universe. It is an error that eventually goes as far as to imagine omnipotent, omniscient benevolent parents watching over us or that comes to deny the world altogether so as to escape its awareness.

Reality must be faced honestly and completely before any hope of overcoming it can be ascertained with any seriousness. The tactic of escapism, either through invisible, self-contradicting Gods or through extreme ascetic ideals preaching self-denial and the debasement of the human experience, are the usual effective ones.

Promising relief from the very essence of existence these haters of existence and that which makes them possible mask their death cults behind pretty words with no definitions and practising a form of self-delusion that promotes non-thinking and makes of irrationality a profound virtue.

It is the very desirability of thoughtlessness amongst its members that makes these nihilistic cults into systemic tools, spreading complacency and docility.

The assault upon human sensuality and awareness reaches as far as to discredit the very senses and interpretations that have enabled man to survive in a turbulent and unknown universe.
In an effort to eradicate all remnants of human nature and sense of identity the human is trained to believe that his senses trick him or that his perceptions are superficial and extraneous when they represent the very center of his existential position.

That appearances are ‘skin deep’ or the mythology concerning a deeper, unchanging, unaffected inner core are cultural methods of levelling man into a uniform paste that can then be remoulded into any shape.
Appearance is the very essence of what we are, since the word phenomenon (φαινομενον) is that which is apparent. In it no notion of a thing is present - alluding to an absolute - but only the notion of activity and of movement is inferred.

That we exist is evidently a process culminating in our appearance which is continuously changing and flowing.
Each man and woman, each phenomenon, is the sum of its entire becoming as it has been affected by the forces it has interacted with and has affected in turn.

The female form, the feminine biological type, is not accidental nor is it superficial. It is a product of a historical process motivated by need and determined by every environmental condition that each and every of a woman’s ancestors has faced.
The same holds true for a male and for any other type, be it a species or plant.
Each individual carries with him/her his/her entire heritage in his presence.

If this were not so then the entire evolutionary premise is debunked with a simple denial and the very category of species is made into a human blunder.

Returning to the topic at hand let me first admit that gender roles only make sense within a social context.
But is not man a social animal and are not social unties continuations of natural processes?

The position that man invented gender, and their subsequent roles, is one attempting to exterminate yet another source of human identity and to deny an entire past.
Gender roles and their accompanying cultural limitations, symbolisms and positions of status, are the extension of natural processes and biological roles, as they have shaped our species.

That these roles are currently under attack and being reinvented, for multiple social and cultural reasons, is having many psychological and social consequences which man will be forced to deal with, as he does whenever he dares to intervene in nature’s ways.

The reasons for this will be explored in the following thesis.

continued...

[Satyr]

...
Prologue
The levelling of mankind continues.

Centuries of social engineering and civilization have resulted in a type of human being unlike our ancestors and, still to this day, socialization persists to filter out all the culturally and socially “unwanted” human characteristics, altering, in this way, human nature and degenerating, in my opinion, the human spirit into indistinct oblivion.
The result has been a growing uniformity, producing a desirable, to the system, conformity which is then marketed as a virtue.

There is no conspiracy here, no invisible entity or secret group directing things from the shadows. We might even say that the process is natural, given the circumstances, and the consequence of a normal social progression which started in the tribal unit and has resulted in the emergence of a huge socioeconomic machine, with its own logic and interest, assimilating, conforming, levelling and eradicating everything in its path.

We might also say that this ‘natural’ process has its roots in human physical disadvantage as it confronts reality, causing psychological insecurities which make the cooperation of individual beings a forced necessity.

But this degradation of man, besides being a typical consequence of interdependence and socialization, demanding a certain sacrifice of individuality for the sake of survival, has been exacerbated by the infiltration of slavish moral systems into a human psyche that has already been demoralized and undermined by extreme scepticism and mental fatigue – particularly amongst the intellectual elites - and by interbreeding between a growing intellectual subclass and a continuously diluted intellectual upper-class that finds itself incapable to resist social and religious pressures and socioeconomic prerequisites.

The growing need for resources, requiring hands to forage, cultivate and maintain the infrastructures man has become reliant upon, makes it inevitable that more and more mediocrity will be produced and then flattered by making it into a virtue.
These growing populations, in turn, require organizing and to be made malleable and disciplined.

No surprise then that moral systems and religious dogmas, which accomplish and promote just that, suddenly appear, as if by chance, and then spread amongst the masses like wildfire.
That they then find ready fuel, for their fire, amongst the meek that “shall inherit the Earth” and are then quickly taught as an “enlightened” state, is also quite understandable.

Natural selection implies the elimination of any substandard organisms so that a few can then pass on their more fit traits.
Once the process of evolution is diverted or when nature is “corrected” by human ingenuity, guided by some idealistic principle or other, and when man intervenes, producing many more unforeseen, side-effects, then the very weakness that was eliminated is made to flourish and then to dominate, out of sheer numbers.
The consequence of this intervention, as it is motivated by a specific ideal and a specific mindset, shaped by particular environmental conditions, and then promoted by particular mythologies, moralities, and cultural manipulations, is what this thesis is all about.

A fundamental characteristic of weakness, as a concept, is its willingness to sacrifice a part of itself to save its entirety. Weakness is furthermore characterized by its inconspicuousness, its ability to blend and vanish into the multitude, its non-confrontational incorporation within more powerful entities, its expendability, its commonness, its malleability, its reliability and willingness [when conscious] to conform and, so, adapt.

The ‘If you can’t beat them join them’ strategy is one most often practiced in nature and in our universe. What cannot survive on its own inevitably either perishes or winds-up as a part of something bigger and stronger, by means of consumption, via having its parts absorbed, or assimilation.
It is this fundamental principle that is primarily responsible for the constant state of flux and fluidity, we experience as change and time, and which characterizes our state of being and our perspective of reality.

Man, as an isolated individual being outside any group, is certainly a weak creature when compared with other beasts, making his cooperation with others, of his own kind, a requirement and his participation within unions of need, a matter of survival. But despite mans physical weaknesses he possesses the gift of intelligence, self-awareness and abstract thought that can lead to an alteration of environmental conditions and the revolutionary redefinition of what is weak and what is strong within them.
This human ‘gift’, which can take advantage of external resources through the application of the imagination and the utilization of man’s providential opposing thumbs, has produced the need for social units of vast scale and intricacy and has resulted in the added need for an adaptation to human environments that have replaced or surpassed the importance of natural ones. In addition to this, human psychological insecurity and physical frailty has imposed the need to armour mans feebleness with technological artifices that place a wall between man and his true spirit and distances man from himself and from nature entirely, by means of self-contained artificial systems.
{The concepts of artificial and natural are used, in this thesis, as a designation between environments that pre-existed humanity or that are independent from humanity, and those that are a direct result of humanity}

This artificial ‘wall’ is the source of man’s current sense of separation and feeling of uneasiness that is expressed through the arts and through politics as the demonization of technology and the machines we’ve created but that now we’ve come to serve.
Machines and the machinery of modern social existence, in fact, function as our surrogate targets of hate, anxiety and fear in place of the real culprit of human enslavement: modern society, religion and culture, that engulf us in this unconscious, invisible matrix of artificiality and superficiality in order that we may serve its requirements by undermining our individuality, our essence and our uniqueness - all the while, in true Orwellian newspeak, they claim to do the exact opposite. As this engine of civilization grows its parts lose value by becoming expendable and disposable (uniform) and man becomes an insignificant wheel in a huge engine (alienation).

Like with all closed systems, a social system has its own methods and mechanisms by which it meets its needs and creates environments and participants which ensure its continuance and its health. In doing so each system replaces or mutates past systems and refocuses and redefines their premises.
This, too, mirrors the natural process of consumption and assimilation; of creation/destruction.

In human cultures and civilizations the struggle between the present and the past environmental demands, upon the individual, manifests itself in great psychological strain and in sometimes contradictory behaviours. These behaviours are trained into the human animal and are reinforced by using intimidation tactics, such as religious dogma and the rule of law. When these behaviours are detrimental to the harmony of the group they are diverted and defused through the entertainment industry, sports and political ideologies.

By trying to replace or restrict the influence of past natural environmental affects upon man, by promoting human characteristics that are desirable and restricting those that are detrimental to the social or cultural group’s premises, each system reshapes its parts into particular types, ideal for the given group’s fitness.
This is what I call specialization and it is the result of indoctrination, mind control and compartmentalization.

By controlling resources the system makes of itself a monopoly the individual must bow down to before it can be rewarded for his/her loyalty and surrender.
The innate desire to survive makes every mind easily swayed by anything that promises its own continuance, either in the short term or, as in religious promises for eternal life, in the long term.
Thusly, the training of the mind, which is already of a questionable stock as we’ve mentioned earlier, to use different standards and different reasoning so as to maintain its focus on its own well-being, becomes an easy affair.

We can witness this affect on human behaviour by studying the specific systemic types created by different cultures throughout history and in how each utilizes, or utilized, sexuality, human nature and psychology through institutions and moral codes in similar manners but with distinctly different orientations and dissimilar results.

The usage of direct threats and force has given way to more subtle methods of a constant state of anxiety and the method of training the mind, from an early age, as to what to think, rather than how to think.
Making the slave believe he is the master or that he can be the master, is just the modern way authority imposes itself on the weak, during these, modern times.

All human cultures may use familiar methods for parallel reasons but each has a noticeably different motivation leading to diverging human ideals, guided by each cultures ethical standards and value systems as they are inherited, through time, from ancestral backgrounds, historical experiences and philosophical/ideological pasts.

This is what I refer to as essence.
The essence of each man, for example, is the sum of each and every environmental effect and of how his accentors reacted to them, culminating in his presence.
Each organism represents this culmination of effects. Its biology, behaviour, needs, traits, appearance is this end result.

In cultures where paternalistic dominance is still prevalent, such as in the Middle-East and India [And only until recently in the west], social engineering is still controlled by males that are governed by their particular cultural perspectives and it is facilitated by the supremacy of religious dogma, by existing totalitarian political systems and by the subjugation of females to the culture’s demands.
In the west, where centuries of world domination and due to its contamination by Judeo-Christian ethical systems and altruistic ideologies, the paternalistic system has eroded enough to make equalitarian impoverishment and spiritual degradation possible.

Democracy is the result of weariness, caused by the constant conflict and uncertainty of previous political systems, and the natural consequence of population explosions that enabled individuals, of questionable quality, to unite and achieve political relevance through the strength of numbers.
It is also the expected result of increasing demands for resources, caused by a prospering civilization, shrinking spaces and a human psychological predisposition for peace and stability.

This social circumstance, caused paradoxically by the very natural tendencies that eventually become dangerous and unwanted {survival, dominance, control, violence, selfishness, arrogance, procreation, power; all sexual male drives} unleashed upon the world by the unburdening of the human mind from matters of immediate survival, through prosperity, and from primitive religious myths and superstitions through intellectual enlightenment, lead to a western world dominion that exponentially increased populations and the accompanying need for resources and made it necessary to then suppress these very same instinctive drives in order to maintain stability and social harmony.

This trend towards larger and more malleable populations, existing within smaller spaces and dwindling resources, has made equalitarian, servile moralities essential and vital.

The more complacent, unaware and gullible a population is the more governable and controllable it becomes. It is therefore understandable why unsettling ideas must be quarantined and eradicated, why free thought must be restricted and why defiance and uniqueness must be controlled and punished as an example to be avoided before it becomes one to be emulated.
In our modern western world this dummying-down of the masses has resulted in populations that, despite their relative affluence, information access and general prosperity, display the apathy, ignorance and naïveté of the less fortunate in third-world countries.

The complete indoctrination of man into artificial [manmade] environments, sometimes demanding behaviours contrary to more primitive natural ones, has moreover been facilitated by the gradual diminution of man through unnatural sexual selection, re-education and the slow eradication of the, before mentioned, human characteristics that made man a natural dominator and a survivor in a threatening universe.

It is derisive that the very intellectual superiority that resulted in human dominion is also contemporary society’s greatest foe, that must be controlled and even narrowed, and the very male spiritual attitude that knelt to no natural demand and accepted no holy authority is now to be atrophied and warped.

In the west socialization/institutionalization/domestication, population control and mind manipulation has taken a distinguishing subtle, subliminal and indirect approach, to maintain the illusion of free-will and individuality, upon which all of western culture is based.

Unlike the more direct and obvious controlling practices in other cultures, it is more difficult to always perceive where and how we have been manipulated into thinking and behaving in certain ways. For many the current state of affairs, in the western world, is taken to be the epitome of human achievement, the height of human development and the worthy successor of a cultural revolution that began on the rocky Aegean shores of ancient Greece and has reached for the distant Martian plateaus in our time, but they neglect to consider the true spirit of this ancient stance towards life and only judge it from its superficial constructs and external facades.

The Hellenic spiritual revolution, which we now call western civilization, was not an external one where great monuments are built in the Egyptian style or where man is judged by his material creations [Although even this is a part of it, it is not the goal] or his discipline to greater forces, the true spirit of western thought was in how it perceived the individual, man’s place in the universe and in how it judged mans value and potential.
Evidence of how western ideals have been mutated and subverted through time is in how we, at present, perceive the world around us and from where we accept our own self-worth and meaning.

For instance, many of us in the west, influenced by marketing practices from an early age, find it obvious that certain product name-brands are associated with a particular ideal and that the acquisition of certain products and the image constructed to go along with them, is of the utmost importance and relevance and the means by which we advertise and express our own self-worth and quality to the world. Owning a BMW or a Mercedes or a Versace or a Rolex, is how we exhibit our social status, as capable consumers, and it is how we try to attract others, especially females, to our genetic potency dictated, in this case, not by natural symbolism but by a socioeconomic one. Guided by an ideal, we have accepted as our highest, we buy into the system. The quality of the products we own and consume must supposedly symbolize our personal quality, whether it is actually present or not.

But why these particular products of human ingenuity, no different than many others, are associated with a specific image and why, is for most of us unrecognizable and just a matter of ‘common sense’ that is mostly undisputed. Yet, here we can find evidence of how we have been manipulated into believing that mercantile quality is equal or a fair substitute for substantive quality and that external objects can fill in for an inner void to, at least, hide it behind the glitter.

The current popularity of spirituality and the rediscovery of past spiritualism, particularly amongst urban populations where the distance between man and nature is the greatest and where the fruits of mans labour are mostly of an impersonal nature, is a symptom of this systematic, capitalistic redefinition through abstraction of value and self-worth that serves the socioeconomic system by forcing a continuing striving for materialistic acquisitions. This, in-turn, drives modern economies, and maintains a constant state of tentative hopefulness for material wealth, that is supposed to be the ultimate answer to boredom, meaninglessness and misery, and keeps the masses working and dreaming. Despite the odds being stacked against them by the overall interests of the system itself which seeks to preserve the status quo of class disparity and hopeful need, the masses have been sold hope by raising hopelessness.

Most of us do not question the ideals of our chosen value system but only discipline ourselves to its premises and, in true female fashion, we become simple mirrors of the world around us.

Material wealth, that was meant to symbolize the quality of an individual by his access to resources in a natural system, has now come to symbolize, not only the physical or mental excellence that leads to abundance but the total obedience and compliance of said individual to a larger whole that is rewarded, with superficial riches, for his/her submission.
He is offered an identity when he has eliminated or suppressed all remnants of his previous one.
This is his proof of loyalty and dependence.

In a system where materialism prevails, consumerism reigns and where the preservation of already acquired status is desired, wealth is most often inherited than earned.
When earned it is frequently at the price of an entire lifetime’s toil, making the enjoyment of the consequent privileges, once again, a matter of heritage for later generations that can never fully appreciate what they themselves have not earned and therefore do not deserve.

Here we can also find the causes for the current generational gap and the roots of this recent pampered undisciplined naiveté and unmerited over-expectation of western urban youths that has resulted in them not respecting or valuing anything, including their very own selves.

Deconstruction and/or destruction often precede construction and so the individual must first be ‘cleansed’ of his heritage and sense of self, before he is fertile ground for a new ‘awareness’ and sense of self.


...continued...

[Satyr]

...
Prologue
The levelling of mankind continues.

Centuries of social engineering and civilization have resulted in a type of human being unlike our ancestors and, still to this day, socialization persists to filter out all the culturally and socially “unwanted” human characteristics, altering, in this way, human nature and degenerating, in my opinion, the human spirit into indistinct oblivion.
The result has been a growing uniformity, producing a desirable, to the system, conformity which is then marketed as a virtue.

There is no conspiracy here, no invisible entity or secret group directing things from the shadows. We might even say that the process is natural, given the circumstances, and the consequence of a normal social progression which started in the tribal unit and has resulted in the emergence of a huge socioeconomic machine, with its own logic and interest, assimilating, conforming, levelling and eradicating everything in its path.

We might also say that this ‘natural’ process has its roots in human physical disadvantage as it confronts reality, causing psychological insecurities which make the cooperation of individual beings a forced necessity.

But this degradation of man, besides being a typical consequence of interdependence and socialization, demanding a certain sacrifice of individuality for the sake of survival, has been exacerbated by the infiltration of slavish moral systems into a human psyche that has already been demoralized and undermined by extreme scepticism and mental fatigue – particularly amongst the intellectual elites - and by interbreeding between a growing intellectual subclass and a continuously diluted intellectual upper-class that finds itself incapable to resist social and religious pressures and socioeconomic prerequisites.

The growing need for resources, requiring hands to forage, cultivate and maintain the infrastructures man has become reliant upon, makes it inevitable that more and more mediocrity will be produced and then flattered by making it into a virtue.
These growing populations, in turn, require organizing and to be made malleable and disciplined.

No surprise then that moral systems and religious dogmas, which accomplish and promote just that, suddenly appear, as if by chance, and then spread amongst the masses like wildfire.
That they then find ready fuel, for their fire, amongst the meek that “shall inherit the Earth” and are then quickly taught as an “enlightened” state, is also quite understandable.

Natural selection implies the elimination of any substandard organisms so that a few can then pass on their more fit traits.
Once the process of evolution is diverted or when nature is “corrected” by human ingenuity, guided by some idealistic principle or other, and when man intervenes, producing many more unforeseen, side-effects, then the very weakness that was eliminated is made to flourish and then to dominate, out of sheer numbers.
The consequence of this intervention, as it is motivated by a specific ideal and a specific mindset, shaped by particular environmental conditions, and then promoted by particular mythologies, moralities, and cultural manipulations, is what this thesis is all about.

A fundamental characteristic of weakness, as a concept, is its willingness to sacrifice a part of itself to save its entirety. Weakness is furthermore characterized by its inconspicuousness, its ability to blend and vanish into the multitude, its non-confrontational incorporation within more powerful entities, its expendability, its commonness, its malleability, its reliability and willingness [when conscious] to conform and, so, adapt.

The ‘If you can’t beat them join them’ strategy is one most often practiced in nature and in our universe. What cannot survive on its own inevitably either perishes or winds-up as a part of something bigger and stronger, by means of consumption, via having its parts absorbed, or assimilation.
It is this fundamental principle that is primarily responsible for the constant state of flux and fluidity, we experience as change and time, and which characterizes our state of being and our perspective of reality.

Man, as an isolated individual being outside any group, is certainly a weak creature when compared with other beasts, making his cooperation with others, of his own kind, a requirement and his participation within unions of need, a matter of survival. But despite mans physical weaknesses he possesses the gift of intelligence, self-awareness and abstract thought that can lead to an alteration of environmental conditions and the revolutionary redefinition of what is weak and what is strong within them.
This human ‘gift’, which can take advantage of external resources through the application of the imagination and the utilization of man’s providential opposing thumbs, has produced the need for social units of vast scale and intricacy and has resulted in the added need for an adaptation to human environments that have replaced or surpassed the importance of natural ones. In addition to this, human psychological insecurity and physical frailty has imposed the need to armour mans feebleness with technological artifices that place a wall between man and his true spirit and distances man from himself and from nature entirely, by means of self-contained artificial systems.
{The concepts of artificial and natural are used, in this thesis, as a designation between environments that pre-existed humanity or that are independent from humanity, and those that are a direct result of humanity}

This artificial ‘wall’ is the source of man’s current sense of separation and feeling of uneasiness that is expressed through the arts and through politics as the demonization of technology and the machines we’ve created but that now we’ve come to serve.
Machines and the machinery of modern social existence, in fact, function as our surrogate targets of hate, anxiety and fear in place of the real culprit of human enslavement: modern society, religion and culture, that engulf us in this unconscious, invisible matrix of artificiality and superficiality in order that we may serve its requirements by undermining our individuality, our essence and our uniqueness - all the while, in true Orwellian newspeak, they claim to do the exact opposite. As this engine of civilization grows its parts lose value by becoming expendable and disposable (uniform) and man becomes an insignificant wheel in a huge engine (alienation).

Like with all closed systems, a social system has its own methods and mechanisms by which it meets its needs and creates environments and participants which ensure its continuance and its health. In doing so each system replaces or mutates past systems and refocuses and redefines their premises.
This, too, mirrors the natural process of consumption and assimilation; of creation/destruction.

In human cultures and civilizations the struggle between the present and the past environmental demands, upon the individual, manifests itself in great psychological strain and in sometimes contradictory behaviours. These behaviours are trained into the human animal and are reinforced by using intimidation tactics, such as religious dogma and the rule of law. When these behaviours are detrimental to the harmony of the group they are diverted and defused through the entertainment industry, sports and political ideologies.

By trying to replace or restrict the influence of past natural environmental affects upon man, by promoting human characteristics that are desirable and restricting those that are detrimental to the social or cultural group’s premises, each system reshapes its parts into particular types, ideal for the given group’s fitness.
This is what I call specialization and it is the result of indoctrination, mind control and compartmentalization.

By controlling resources the system makes of itself a monopoly the individual must bow down to before it can be rewarded for his/her loyalty and surrender.
The innate desire to survive makes every mind easily swayed by anything that promises its own continuance, either in the short term or, as in religious promises for eternal life, in the long term.
Thusly, the training of the mind, which is already of a questionable stock as we’ve mentioned earlier, to use different standards and different reasoning so as to maintain its focus on its own well-being, becomes an easy affair.

We can witness this affect on human behaviour by studying the specific systemic types created by different cultures throughout history and in how each utilizes, or utilized, sexuality, human nature and psychology through institutions and moral codes in similar manners but with distinctly different orientations and dissimilar results.

The usage of direct threats and force has given way to more subtle methods of a constant state of anxiety and the method of training the mind, from an early age, as to what to think, rather than how to think.
Making the slave believe he is the master or that he can be the master, is just the modern way authority imposes itself on the weak, during these, modern times.

All human cultures may use familiar methods for parallel reasons but each has a noticeably different motivation leading to diverging human ideals, guided by each cultures ethical standards and value systems as they are inherited, through time, from ancestral backgrounds, historical experiences and philosophical/ideological pasts.

This is what I refer to as essence.
The essence of each man, for example, is the sum of each and every environmental effect and of how his accentors reacted to them, culminating in his presence.
Each organism represents this culmination of effects. Its biology, behaviour, needs, traits, appearance is this end result.

In cultures where paternalistic dominance is still prevalent, such as in the Middle-East and India [And only until recently in the west], social engineering is still controlled by males that are governed by their particular cultural perspectives and it is facilitated by the supremacy of religious dogma, by existing totalitarian political systems and by the subjugation of females to the culture’s demands.
In the west, where centuries of world domination and due to its contamination by Judeo-Christian ethical systems and altruistic ideologies, the paternalistic system has eroded enough to make equalitarian impoverishment and spiritual degradation possible.

Democracy is the result of weariness, caused by the constant conflict and uncertainty of previous political systems, and the natural consequence of population explosions that enabled individuals, of questionable quality, to unite and achieve political relevance through the strength of numbers.
It is also the expected result of increasing demands for resources, caused by a prospering civilization, shrinking spaces and a human psychological predisposition for peace and stability.

This social circumstance, caused paradoxically by the very natural tendencies that eventually become dangerous and unwanted {survival, dominance, control, violence, selfishness, arrogance, procreation, power; all sexual male drives} unleashed upon the world by the unburdening of the human mind from matters of immediate survival, through prosperity, and from primitive religious myths and superstitions through intellectual enlightenment, lead to a western world dominion that exponentially increased populations and the accompanying need for resources and made it necessary to then suppress these very same instinctive drives in order to maintain stability and social harmony.

This trend towards larger and more malleable populations, existing within smaller spaces and dwindling resources, has made equalitarian, servile moralities essential and vital.

The more complacent, unaware and gullible a population is the more governable and controllable it becomes. It is therefore understandable why unsettling ideas must be quarantined and eradicated, why free thought must be restricted and why defiance and uniqueness must be controlled and punished as an example to be avoided before it becomes one to be emulated.
In our modern western world this dummying-down of the masses has resulted in populations that, despite their relative affluence, information access and general prosperity, display the apathy, ignorance and naïveté of the less fortunate in third-world countries.

The complete indoctrination of man into artificial [manmade] environments, sometimes demanding behaviours contrary to more primitive natural ones, has moreover been facilitated by the gradual diminution of man through unnatural sexual selection, re-education and the slow eradication of the, before mentioned, human characteristics that made man a natural dominator and a survivor in a threatening universe.

It is derisive that the very intellectual superiority that resulted in human dominion is also contemporary society’s greatest foe, that must be controlled and even narrowed, and the very male spiritual attitude that knelt to no natural demand and accepted no holy authority is now to be atrophied and warped.

In the west socialization/institutionalization/domestication, population control and mind manipulation has taken a distinguishing subtle, subliminal and indirect approach, to maintain the illusion of free-will and individuality, upon which all of western culture is based.

Unlike the more direct and obvious controlling practices in other cultures, it is more difficult to always perceive where and how we have been manipulated into thinking and behaving in certain ways. For many the current state of affairs, in the western world, is taken to be the epitome of human achievement, the height of human development and the worthy successor of a cultural revolution that began on the rocky Aegean shores of ancient Greece and has reached for the distant Martian plateaus in our time, but they neglect to consider the true spirit of this ancient stance towards life and only judge it from its superficial constructs and external facades.

The Hellenic spiritual revolution, which we now call western civilization, was not an external one where great monuments are built in the Egyptian style or where man is judged by his material creations [Although even this is a part of it, it is not the goal] or his discipline to greater forces, the true spirit of western thought was in how it perceived the individual, man’s place in the universe and in how it judged mans value and potential.
Evidence of how western ideals have been mutated and subverted through time is in how we, at present, perceive the world around us and from where we accept our own self-worth and meaning.

For instance, many of us in the west, influenced by marketing practices from an early age, find it obvious that certain product name-brands are associated with a particular ideal and that the acquisition of certain products and the image constructed to go along with them, is of the utmost importance and relevance and the means by which we advertise and express our own self-worth and quality to the world. Owning a BMW or a Mercedes or a Versace or a Rolex, is how we exhibit our social status, as capable consumers, and it is how we try to attract others, especially females, to our genetic potency dictated, in this case, not by natural symbolism but by a socioeconomic one. Guided by an ideal, we have accepted as our highest, we buy into the system. The quality of the products we own and consume must supposedly symbolize our personal quality, whether it is actually present or not.

But why these particular products of human ingenuity, no different than many others, are associated with a specific image and why, is for most of us unrecognizable and just a matter of ‘common sense’ that is mostly undisputed. Yet, here we can find evidence of how we have been manipulated into believing that mercantile quality is equal or a fair substitute for substantive quality and that external objects can fill in for an inner void to, at least, hide it behind the glitter.

The current popularity of spirituality and the rediscovery of past spiritualism, particularly amongst urban populations where the distance between man and nature is the greatest and where the fruits of mans labour are mostly of an impersonal nature, is a symptom of this systematic, capitalistic redefinition through abstraction of value and self-worth that serves the socioeconomic system by forcing a continuing striving for materialistic acquisitions. This, in-turn, drives modern economies, and maintains a constant state of tentative hopefulness for material wealth, that is supposed to be the ultimate answer to boredom, meaninglessness and misery, and keeps the masses working and dreaming. Despite the odds being stacked against them by the overall interests of the system itself which seeks to preserve the status quo of class disparity and hopeful need, the masses have been sold hope by raising hopelessness.

Most of us do not question the ideals of our chosen value system but only discipline ourselves to its premises and, in true female fashion, we become simple mirrors of the world around us.

Material wealth, that was meant to symbolize the quality of an individual by his access to resources in a natural system, has now come to symbolize, not only the physical or mental excellence that leads to abundance but the total obedience and compliance of said individual to a larger whole that is rewarded, with superficial riches, for his/her submission.
He is offered an identity when he has eliminated or suppressed all remnants of his previous one.
This is his proof of loyalty and dependence.

In a system where materialism prevails, consumerism reigns and where the preservation of already acquired status is desired, wealth is most often inherited than earned.
When earned it is frequently at the price of an entire lifetime’s toil, making the enjoyment of the consequent privileges, once again, a matter of heritage for later generations that can never fully appreciate what they themselves have not earned and therefore do not deserve.

Here we can also find the causes for the current generational gap and the roots of this recent pampered undisciplined naiveté and unmerited over-expectation of western urban youths that has resulted in them not respecting or valuing anything, including their very own selves.

Deconstruction and/or destruction often precede construction and so the individual must first be ‘cleansed’ of his heritage and sense of self, before he is fertile ground for a new ‘awareness’ and sense of self.


...continued...

[schrodinger]

I can’t help but wonder why you have gone to such great length to say nothing.:dunno:

[Satyr]

I can’t help but wonder why you have gone to such great length to say nothing.:dunno:This is a typical and fascinating, from a cultural and sociological and psychological perspective, of a comment that attempts to imply wisdom by alluding to understanding and yet never displaying it.

If you did not understanding anything then "nothing" is what you got.

As far as I'm concerned I've said plenty concerning modern cultural and social trends, as they relate to biological and evolutionary processes.

Your dissatisfaction with what is said is not only typical but understandable.
Who wants to be told or to be reminded about how emasculated they are and what kind of concessions they've made?

:huh:

[schrodinger]

This is a typical and fascinating, from a cultural and sociological and psychological perspective, of a comment that attempts to imply wisdom by alluding to understanding and yet never displaying it.

If you did not understanding anything then "nothing" is what you got.

As far as I'm concerned I've said plenty concerning modern cultural and social trends, as they relate to biological and evolutionary processes.

Your dissatisfaction with what is said is not only typical but understandable.
Who wants to be told or to be reminded about how emasculated they are and what kind of concessions they've made?

And your reaction to my criticism is so typical of a writer who has had his precious phrases and pet paragraphs stepped on by a reader who simply points out that your prose is obscure and clumsy and altogether much too wordy. Rather than manfully accept such criticism you demonstrate your emasculated indignation in a petulant pout, all the while thinking to yourself that you represent the paramount of masculinity. You make me laugh, Mr “Know Thyself”!:goodlaugh:

[Satyr]

And your reaction to my criticism is so typical of a writer who has had his precious phrases and pet paragraphs stepped on by a reader who simply points out that your prose is obscure and clumsy and altogether much too wordy.You were commenting on my style rather than the ideas expressed?
Nice.

Well your criticism is dully noted.
I loved the redirection.

Rather than manfully accept such criticism you demonstrate your emasculated indignation in a petulant pout, all the while thinking to yourself that you represent the paramount of masculinity. You make me laugh, Mr “Know Thyself”!:goodlaugh:Where in this essay have I claimed that I was represented the "paramount of masculinity"?

As is often the case, amongst the mediocre, and as is natural in thinking, the mind takes itself as an example so as to ascertain the other.

As such you, like most like you, intuitively know that your own views are self-serving and comforting, and so you seek out advantage behind everyone else's views.
For this reason you take this description of a social/cultural process, and you attempt to figure out how the author benefits from it, immediately, and not as a result of perceiving it.

This is why I excuse you from your foolishness and teenage methods.

I, for one, never excluded my self from any of my perceptions, no matter how negative or detrimental or unflattering they may be.
The idea that reality is automatically positively inclined towards us or that nothing negative can be said about things we depend upon, is a human prejudice based on anxiety and fear.

One can only hope to deal with reality once one fully comprehends it, just as a slave can only hope to escape imprisonment when he perceives the chains that bind him....and then it isn't a certainty.

Whitewashing the world or denying what disturbs us is a sure way of remaining dumb and imprisoned behind our self-serving mythologies.

:applause:

[...]

..it is true that in western culture there's a tendency for men to exhibit female qualities at the expense of positive male traits. This is mostly due to fashion trends and peer pressure, but is easily avoided by not participating. I must admit though that improper parental guidance contributes a lot to the confusion of young people in regards to what can be considered positive male/female traits. Combine this with the notion that femininity trumps the male perception, and the feminization of men becomes a process, an undercurrent. I haven't read your very, very long post Satyr so if you've proposed a solution i wouldn't know; but do you have one?

[spiritual_emergency]

Satyr: the terms female and male are not restricted to strictly gender descriptions but will be used, here, as a state of being or becoming that may be used to describe both men and women. ... So it will be clear that there are men with female dispositions and women with male ones, even though the majority of us will express the characteristics and psychological leanings of our own sex more often than not.


Some food for thought from a book I recently read regarding the principles of the Masculine and the Feminine...




The premise of the book is that four archetypal patterns drive all human activities: These four patterns are the static Feminine, the dynamic Masculine, the static Masculine, and the dynamic Feminine. These patterns underlie the development of the Self and can also be used to identify developmental patterns that manifest culturally.

The original state of consciousness is one of unity with the mother -- the Static Feminine. Ego consciousness arises out of this unity and becomes aware of its separation as it moves to the Dynamic Masculine. The next stage of development of the psyche is the transition to the Static Masculine; this transition is marked by a fiery initiation. Next comes a move to the Dynamic Feminine as followed by a watery initiation as the psyche returns once more to the Static Feminine and is "reborn" in those waters.


Static Feminine - Positive Qualities- Organic, undifferentiated wholeness- Uterus, nature-in-the-round- Being and self-acceptance- The Great Mother (Archetype)Static Feminine - Negative Qualities- Smothering entanglement- Inertia, ensnaring and devouring routine- Stupornous, mere existence- The Devouring Mother (Archetype)


Static Masculine - Positive Qualities- Order- Rules and regulations- Systems of meaning- Hierarchies of value- Theories of truth- Standards- Persona- The Great Father (Archetype)Static Masculine - Negative Qualities- Inflation- Willfulness and determination- Rape, directed violence- Life-taking technologies- Disregard for nature and ecology- The Despot (Archetype)Dynamic Masculine - Positive Qualities- Initiative- Goal-directedness- Grandiosity- Linearity- Technology- The Dragon-Slaying Hero (Archetype)Dynamic Masculine - Negative Qualities- Order, organization for its own sake- Complacency, rigid expectations- Dehumanizing righteousness- Inauthenticity, pettiness- The Saturnine Senex (bitter, envy ridden old-man) (Archetype)

Dynamic Feminine - Positive Qualities
- Transformation- "Altered states"- Imagination and play- Liminality and "potential space"- Dionysos, the Dancing Maenad, the Trickster (Archetypes)
Dynamic Feminine - Negative Qualities
- Transformations and altered states leading to chaos, emptiness, despair and death including depression, alcohol and drug intoxication, hysteria, and identity diffusion.- The Mad Man/Woman (Archetype)Source: Masculine & Feminine: The Natural Flow of Opposites in the Psyche (http://www.amazon.com/Masculine-Feminine-Natural-Opposites-Psyche/dp/1570626472/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242803300&sr=8-1)




According to Jungian psychology there is the belief that within each individual there operates another contrasexual being known as the anima or the animus. When Satyr refers to this feminization of the masculine, he seems to be referring to the relationship between a man and his inner anima.

In very broad terms, we could say that the Masculine and the Feminine are opposites. It might be said that the goal is to eventually transcend the opposites (dualities) but on the way there, it seems to be valuable to recognize these contrasexual opposites operating within our psyche (and life) and work towards balancing them in a positive manner.


Music of the Hour: Tracy Chapman ~ The Promise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUVnKz_deUA)


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[spiritual_emergency]

As an additional note: It's been my observation that males in early adulthood highly prize the break from mother and the transition from Static Feminine to Dynamic Masculine. It's during this stage that a man/woman may forge their own individual identity (Persona) within the larger world and culture

Men who have moved beyond midlife however may likewise prize the transition from Static Masculine to Dynamic Feminine for they are more capable of seeing the shortfalls of over-identification with materialistic pursuits.

The archetype of the Dynamic Feminine is associated with madness, altered states of consciousness and rebirth.
... Water to water, ark again to ark,
From woman back to woman:
So each new victim treads unfalteringly
The never altered circuit of his fate,
Bringing twelve peers as witness
Both to his starry rise and starry fall...

Source: To Juan at the Winter Solstice -- Robert Graves (http://www.cscs.umich.edu/%7Ecrshalizi/Poetry/Graves/To_Juan_at_the_Winter_Solstice)

St. John of the Cross seems to have encountered this feminine force as well...
O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Source: Dark Night of the Soul -- St. John of the Cross (http://www.karmel.at/ics/john/dn.html)
We can also find reference to this feminine force in the Tao...

Before the universe was born
there was something in the chaos of the heavens.
It stands alone and empty,
solitary and unchanging.
It is ever present and secure.
It may be regarded as the Mother of the universe.
Because I do not know its name,
I call it the Tao.
If forced to give it a name,
I would call it 'Great'.

Source: The Tao Te Ching (http://www.wright-house.com/religions/taoism/tao-te-ching.html#1)


To a young man however, this idea of returning "to the Mother" may be met with hostility -- they just left her, why would they want to return?!

More thoughts...



Psychological Development is the progressive emergence and differentiation of the ego or consciousness from the original state of unconsciousness. It is a process which, ideally, continues throughout the lifetime of the individual. In contradistinction to physical development, there is no time at which one can say that full psychic development has been achieved. Although we may distinguish various stages of development for descriptive purposes, actually one stage merges into another in a single fluid continuum.

In the early phase, the ego has very little autonomy. It is largely in a state of identification with the objective psyche within and the external world without. It lives in the world of archetypes and makes no clear distinction between inner and outer objects. This primitive state of ego development is called, after Lévy-Bruhl, participation mystique, and is shared by both the primitive and the child. It is a state of magical participation and interpretation between the ego and its surroundings. What is ego and what is non-ego are not distinguished. Inner world and outer world are experienced as a single totality. This primitive state of participation mystique is also evident in the phenomena of mob psychology in which individual consciousness and responsibility are temporarily eclipsed by identification with a collective dynamism.

Jung made no effort to present a systematic theory of psychological development. However, some of his followers, especially Neumann, have attempted to fill in this gap. Following Neumann, the stages of psychological development can be described as follows.

The first or original state is called the uroboric stage, derived from uroborus, the circular image of the tail-eating serpent. It refers to the original totality and self-containment which is prior to the birth of consciousness. The ego exists only as a latent potentiality in a state of primary identity with the Self or objective psyche. This state is presumed to pertain during the prenatal period and early infancy.

The transition between this state and the second stage of development corresponds to the creation of the world for the individual psyche. Thus world creation myths refer to this first decisive event in psychic development - the birth of the ego out of the unconscious. The basic theme of all creation myths is separation. Out of undifferentiated wholeness one element is discriminated from another. It may be expressed as the creation of light - the separation of light from darkness, or as the separation of the world parents - the distinction between masculine and feminine, or the emergence of order out of chaos. In each case the meaning is the same, namely, the birth of consciousness, the capacity to discriminate between opposites.

The second stage of psychological development is called the matriarchal phase. Although beginning consciousness has appeared, it is as yet only dim and fitful. The nascent ego is still largely passive and dependent on its uroboric matrix which now takes on the aspect of the great mother. Masculine and feminine elements are not yet clearly differentiated so that the great mother will still be undifferentiated as to sex. To this stage belongs the image of the phallic mother incorporating both masculine and feminine components. Here, the ruling psychic entity is the great mother. The predominant concern will be to seek her nourishment and support and to avoid her destructive, devouring aspect. The father archetype or masculine principle has not yet emerged into separate existence. Mother is still all. The ego has achieved only a precarious separation and is still dependent on the unconscious, which is personified as the great mother. ...

The third stage is called the patriarchal phase. The transition is characterized by particular themes, images and actions. In an attempt to break free from the matriarchal phase, the feminine with all its attributes is rejected and depreciated. The theme of initiation rituals pertains to this period of transition. The father archetype or masculine principle emerges in full force and claims the allegiance of the individual. Tests, challenges, rules and discipline are set up in opposition to the sympathy and comfortable containment of the great mother. The incest taboo is erected prohibiting regression to the mother-bound state.

Once the transition to the patriarchal stage has been accomplished, the archetype of the great father, the masculine spirit principle, determines the values and goals of life. Consciousness, individual responsibility, self-discipline and rationality will be the prevailing values. Everything pertaining to the feminine principle will be repressed, depreciated or subordinated to masculine ends. In childhood development, the patriarchal phase will be particularly evident in the years preceding puberty.

The fourth phase is designated the integrative phase. The preceding patriarchal stage has left the individual one-sided and incomplete. The feminine principle, woman and therefore the anima and the unconscious have been repressed and neglected. Another change or transition is thus needed to redeem these neglected psychic elements.

This transition phase also has its characteristic imagery. The most typical myth is the hero fighting the dragon. In this archetypal story, a beautiful maiden is in captivity to a dragon or monster. The maiden is the anima, the precious but neglected feminine principle which has been rejected and depreciated in the previous patriarchal phase of development. The monster represents the residual uroboric state, the great mother in its destructive, devouring aspect. The anima or feminine value is still attached to this dangerous element and can be freed only by heroic action. The hero represents the necessary ego attitude that is willing to relinquish the safety of the conventional patriarchal standards and expose himself once again to the unconscious, the dangers of regression and bondage to the woman in order to redeem a lost but necessary element, the anima. If this is successful, the anima or feminine principle is raised to its proper value modifying and completing the previous one-sided patriarchal attitude.

This is a decisive step in psychological integration that amounts to a reconciliation of opposites; masculine and feminine, law and love, conscious and unconscious, spirit and nature. In individual development of the youth, this phase corresponds to the emerging capacity to relate to girls during puberty which is subsequently followed by love for a particular woman and eventually marriage.

It should be understood that although these phases of psychic development have been related to various periods in the development of the child and young man, their meaning is not confined to these external events. The end of psychological development is not reached with the event of marriage. Such external happenings are only the external manifestations of an archetypal process of development which still awaits its inner realization. Furthermore, the series of psychological stages here described can be traversed not once but many times in the course of psychic development. These stages are, so to speak, successive way stations that we return to again and again in the course of a spiral journey which takes one over the same course repeatedly but each time on a different level of conscious awareness.*

*The foregoing account of development refers particularly to masculine psychology. Although the same stages of development apply to a woman, they will be experienced in a somewhat different way. Relevant myths are those of Demeter and Persephone and Amor and Psyche. See Neumann's excellent commentary on Amor and Psyche.

Jung's major contribution to developmental psychology is his concept of individuation. The term refers to a developmental process which begins in the adult individual, usually after the age of thirty-five, and if successful leads to the discovery of the Self and the replacing of the ego by it as the personality center.

Individuation is the discovery of and the extended dialogue with the objective psyche of which the Self is the comprehensive expression. It begins with one or more decisive experiences challenging egocentricity and producing an awareness that the ego is subject to a more comprehensive psychic entity. Although the full fruits of the individuation process only appear in the second half of life, the evolving relation between the ego and the objective psyche is a continuous one from birth to death.

Source: Analytical Psychology (http://www.capt.org/using-type/c-g-jung.htm)




Still the Music of the Hour: Tracy Chapman ~ The Promise (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUVnKz_deUA)


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