Member-only story
Carl Jung’s Tower and the Unity Behind Duality
Love and war and the sex lives of swans
I passed the tower every day
On my way to college, the lurching bus would wind its way out of the city along narrow lanes lined by thick hedges. The tower rose above the fields, a striking building in the midst of otherwise forgettable scenery.
I hated everything back then. I carried hatred around my heart like a stone, snarling at everything I saw. But I liked the tower. It was somebody’s house, and I used to imagine what it would be like to live in such a magnificent structure. To be able to look at the world from a distance, raised above the petty concerns and drudgery of a suburban existence. Distance makes everything beautiful. Even the crawling traffic and the steady rain.
But impressive houses weren’t for the likes of me. I knew that then. I trudged through a world that seemed set against me, knowing that the rewards our culture throws out sometimes to keep us toiling away in our allotted place were destined to be forever withheld.
I was against a world that was against me. Everyone was my enemy. I didn’t know then what I know perfectly well now:
That trees can’t grow straight without gravity to tell them what straight is. That without friction…
