Pent
Up Energy
“People
who have a creative side and do not live it out are most disagreeable clients. They
make a mountain out of a molehill, fuss about unnecessary things, are too
passionately in love with somebody who is not worth so much attention, and so
on. There is a kind of floating charge of energy in them which is not attached
to its right object and therefore tends to apply exaggerated dynamism to the
wrong situation.”
Marie-Louise
von Franz
I’m
supposed to give a talk next month to the Jung After Work group that meets
monthly to study Carl Jung’s teachings. My topic is “My Process;” that is, what
is my process both with art and with writing. I’ve been casting about for
guidance on this subject, and having a lot of “I’m not an expert” angst. I’ve given
myself generally negative messages that cut the ground from beneath my feet. I’m
good at that.
So, this morning Marie-Louise
von Franz, one of Jung’s protégées, just popped into my head out of nowhere. I’ll
be honest with you, I knew who she was, have seen films of her talking about
analysis with Jung, but I don’t own a single one of her books. When I plugged
her name into the search engine, I got a raft of quotes, all of which seemed
written for me. The one above is no exception. Von Franz sees an unlived life
as the major source of neurosis. It is, she says, creative energy unattached to
its proper object.
I can’t tell you how much
sense that makes to me. I know many people, myself included, who focus on
things that do NOT matter. We hand-wring and worry and fret about things we
have no control over and that do not deserve the depth and breadth of anguish expended.
Not because we examine the situation and deem it worthy of anxiety, but because
we have a raft of unexpended emotional energy that has to go somewhere.
So many of us fall into
this distemper because of pandemic limitations. It’s been a whole year this
week that all of us have had to severely limit our contact with others and stay
home most of the time. We underestimate the impact this has on our creative
energy and emotions. I think of all the people in the arts, who have been
stopped dead for a year; all the chefs who have shuttered their businesses,
laid off employees and all the galleries closed, event spaces closed, and so
on. Some of these people, who create because they must, have had to curb their
lives almost entirely. It would be similar to tying a racehorse to a fence
inside a stall—for a year. Yes, he has food and shelter, but what happens to
his desire to run? Where does it go? In the case of a racehorse, probably into
kicking down the stall.
All this is to say, I
hope we are being kind to ourselves and to each other. We have been through a disastrous
time and even though we can almost see the end, we aren’t there yet. The best
we can do is be aware of how difficult this is, of how out of sorts we feel,
and how important it is not to take it out either on ourselves or on one
another. This is hard stuff, folks. Give yourself a break.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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