I pause to allow some of my speech to seep in past late-night parties and alcohol fueled one-night stands.
“Jung’s psychological process of dividing the self from the conscious and unconscious parts, like every other concept of similar theory, remains challenged, his method incomplete and never proven.” I cock an eyebrow. “His process,” I repeat with an underscore. “Otherwise known as some strange, abstract method through Gnostic belief systems and spiritual alchemy that, truly, no one has any fucking clue what any of it means.”
Another round of laughter.
I glance down at my hand, at the freshly inked symbols on my skin, feeling the weight of my recent sabbatical heavy on my conscience. I bury my hand in my pocket, run my tongue over the ridge of my teeth, then face my audience.
“But, it’s not what a man writes when he’s had time to form and censor his thoughts. It’s what he says, that which can be swept away by a sudden wind and questioned if it ever existed.” I walk a path across the front of the hall. “Jung posed the question: who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood.”
The laughter and chatter quiets, silence stretching in prelude for a deeper punchline.
I spent majority of my life inside classrooms like this, studying the same philosophies that have been studied for centuries, believing I was discovering a profound wisdom. Zealous, rebellious, the bad boy of academia, my dissertation on resolving philosophical arguments acclaimed, my name already renowned before I embarked on a career within a university.
Then one trip to Cairo to research the origin of Egyptian shamanism linked to the earliest known texts of the Hermetica changed my course.
As seekers of knowledge, we ask the universe to reveal itself.
But once you see, you can never unsee.
“What does this mean?” I ask of the class.
This time, no hands go up. I let my gaze roam over the students in search of someone worthy. A girl with a cute pout twirls a length of her dark hair around her finger in a seductive manner as she begs with her eyes to pick her.
She’s not the first to try to capture my attention.
It’s the eyes. They love the unique blue and green smoldering intensity, and mistakenly attribute my passion as lust. My classroom is not where I hunt for prey.
When I’m hungry, I eat. Pick Me girl would run away in terror if I showed her what I need in order to get off. My tastes have always been particular. But it’s like with any drug, the more you use, the harder it is to achieve the same high.
Moving on, I point to a twenty-something guy in an expensive, stylish button-down in the front row. “What does this mean to you?”
His smile is cocky. He reminds me of myself ten years ago, and I have no doubt he’ll say something witty to get a reaction from the other students.
“That I wasted a lot of money on textbooks for this course?” he says.
On cue, laughter circles the hall, and I praise his cleverness with a wry smile. “Your wardrobe states your parents can afford it.”
His arrogant smile falls as his peers carry on laughing. This time, at him. A psychologist somewhere would infer I’m lashing out at the things I detest about myself. Affluent, absent family. The question of whether privilege greased the wheels of my career.
And this is why I detest psychology.
We don’t get the choice of where we originate from; but everything after is all choice.
There was a time when I looked in the mirror and saw my father’s eyes—but I found a way to never have to see them again.
I turn toward the lectern and look at Ryder, giving him the cue to change the slide. “This weekend, your assignment is to contemplate Jung’s—”
“I’m curious what it means to you, Professor Locke.”
The question comes from the back of the lecture hall, a distinguished voice obviously not belonging to a student. I face the class and search the rows, finding the source standing.
“Professor Wellington,” I say, crossing my arms. “I didn’t realize you’d come to sit in on my lecture.”
Percy is new to the university. I’ve yet to have a formal introduction to him, but I’ve heard the scandalous rumors as to why he had to transfer institutions. Authority issues. Countless absences. Marriage and drinking problems. Nothing so dire he’d lose tenure, but then he wouldn’t be here if that was the case.
The dean had arranged a meeting for us to discuss a joint project for the upcoming commencement ceremony, which I expertly avoided.
I don’t play well with faculty.
Wellington rakes a hand through his thinning blond hair, a self-assured smile creasing his features. “Lecture? Did I miss it?” He chuckles. “I’ve heard such praise for the astounding Professor Locke, I had hoped to be impressed.”
The proverbial glove smack to the face. I offended him when I refused to consult on the project. Now he’s here, in my territory, to issue an intellectual challenge and humiliate me. In academia, it’s sadly the only way the stuffy, tweed-and-sweater vest-wearing intellectuals dual to the death.
Tension threads the air of the hall as I move to the front of the room and accept the challenge. “History is not contained in thick books, but lives in our very blood,” I repeat Jung’s assertion. “History is written by people, perspectives. Biased opinions. Our guiding intuition to discern history based on the actions and violence of the past should determine how we choose to pursue the future.” I shrug. “If you want to get philosophical on the subject.”
As laughter erupts to diffuse the tense atmosphere, I hold Wellington’s narrowed gaze, waiting for his rebuttal.
I’ll give him a minute. While in Cairo, I had cemented my viewpoint. I won’t be swayed. What I found in Egypt wasn’t divine inspiration or insight to a profound wisdom. It was nothing rousing or enlightening at all.
It was the damn simplicity of how tragically basic we are.
Upon that realization, I decided there is a difference between pondering life and living it.
Such a simple concept. So obvious once you see the writing on the wall. Yet I felt sublimely stupid for my oversight.
I’ve since deigned to spend the little precious time I have left on this rock in search of my muse. What immortalized the profound thinkers was their want. That driving, maddening desire to create.
And that won’t be achieved by becoming a footnote in someone’s textbook.
The professor takes a step down from the back row, making his way toward me. “Violence,” he echos. “That’s an interesting and telling perspective. What about the gift of enlightenment through the study of history? Doesn’t that stand to achieve and ensure a peaceful future? Shouldn’t we maintain our course of study in books and texts, passing knowledge down to future generations so they don’t leap into abysses ill prepared?” He glances around at the students, his smile knowing. “For argument’s sake.”
I look down at the lacquered floor and shake my head. Goddamn Nietzscheism always worms its way into any debate. Seems Wellington subscribes to the historian’s school of thought.
I return my gaze to find him standing on the bottom step, positioning himself a foot above me. “I assume by your use of gift you’re referring to Jung’s idolization of Nietzsche,” I say, dodging the abyss reference altogether. “The core of Jung’s method into the Higher Self, the proposed gift of the Übermensch, the overman.” My amused expression falls. “Or what Nietzsche and every scholar who came before and after based their idealism on: the shaman’s Primal Man.”
He holds up a finger. “I think you’re considering the concept too literally. It’s an ideal, a goal, one that mankind is capable of achieving. Of course, it’s an arduous path to an enlightened mind, yet that is our way to peace. But only if we continue to study and learn from our predecessors.”
