Goodbye My Friend
Because I am the chumpiest of chumps, instead of saying goodbye to my friends with a hug and farewell, I write short essays. I thought I would share it here, edited slightly so that personal information and "inside-jokes" remain just what they are supposed to be:
Underlying the psyche of every man is the need to be free. This has been the focus of much of metaphysics for as long as the disciplinary practice of philosophy has existed. In its present, postmodern form, it is accentuated by Rousseau’s famous 1762 quote, “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains,” from his great work, The Social Contract. I believe this to be a critical line in understanding many current trends within the socio-political and economic environments. While freedom seems to be an absolute attribute of Western society, there are in fact restrictions on nearly every action one can make and thought one can have. The example of driving brings to light this very intersection of freedom, society, politics, and the economy: The choice of car can be expensive for the powerful variety of automobile; the advantage of such ownership brings with it societal advantage because of class distinction (highly correlative to the aesthetic quality); the state taxes and requires particular services for car purchase and ownership; and the state further places restrictions to ensure that a collective benefit (relatively safe driving conditions for everyone) is maintained on motorways. However, this is all at a cost to true freedom for obvious reasons which I do not need to state here.
So, to think that our daily lives are an expression of our free agency is, ultimately, folly. But, what I would like to suggest is that true freedom is reached not in action nor material wealth, but in thought. To face the struggle of our biological mechanics, our psychological interpretations, and social navigations – the unconscious – with a criticality that is at once rational of the circumstances leading to such practices and also accepting that one’s reality is inescapably bound to the aforementioned struggles – the conscious – I believe that the necessary conditions for individuation (as Jung put it), the self-actualization of the conscious and unconscious, can be met.
But, so what? What does this mean to me and you? I suggest that while individuation can maybe be achieved alone, the capacity and resources available to achieve individuation is only truly possible when the self is placed in the space of the support, understanding, and pressure of another individual who seeks individuation themselves. This other, then, becomes not only a scale with which to measure the validity of one’s thoughts, but also an antenna that amplifies the reach of one’s own thinking. In this way, the self-actualization process, while completed as an individual, is achieved by social processes. While I recognize that Buddhists, for example, identify a process similar to Jung’s individuation through a self-actualization-like practice, I would remind you that growing up in the West means that at birth one is climatized to the social-conditions of the foundation-level narratives of psychic development. In the West’s case: Christianity.
The history leading up to the formation of Christianity is not necessary to repeat here, but it is critical to grasp that one of the conditions that made the word of Christ so appealing was the inclusivity which he welcomed. This means, fundamentally, that if we take that core narratives have affective influence on the effective construction of the psyche, the West, as a social-collective, through a process of social heredity, was bound to the necessity for social relations, and was a psycho-semantically propagated component of the West’s culture. (Not to mention the necessary advantage that socialization offered biological evolution!) Thus, I believe that true individuation is only possible together.[1]
This leads me to the point of this short paper: As my friend, Strider, you allow me to get closer to my self-actualized state. Your friendship, though distant and in bursts of physical proximity, is one of the most important components in my life. Though at times you say little, or struggle to say what you mean via a precision of language you desire to have, you force me to take the quiet moments as instances where I can be in solitude or to work through articulations of thought that aren’t my own in order for me to better understand not only you, but myself as well. Often times, however, you present a well-thought explanation of your thinking (usually in regard to yourself) that makes me evaluate how I think of myself in turn. It is this point that is critical in the social aspect of individuation.
My hope is I help you to reach further in your thinking than you can do on your own by challenging you (respectfully) to reach deeper into your heart and mind to arrive at truths you may not want to reach or may not have thought about. I hope that I inspire you, as you inspire me, to be better than what you currently are so that tomorrow you can face new challenges that were never possible before. For myself, you have changed not only my thinking (you, above anyone, have helped create my focus on the split between subjective and objective perspectives), but also my physicality as well (sick tatts!). When you told me of the personal struggles that you had (are having?), that was a jarring shock to whom I thought you were; but it did not change the way I see you, it only made you more whole, more full, in my mind.
So, essentially what this self-indulgent piece of writing is, is a thank you from the deepest reaches of my plums for not only being my dear friend, but for sharing the last month of summer 2018 with me. When I am with you, I feel, in a way very unlike what Rousseau suggests: free. My meditations over the course of this August have been mostly focused on you and everything you have told me about your struggles, and it has quite honestly caused me to feel disturbed. This was not because I am critical of the actions you took, but because I can see the toll it has had (having) on you. I care deeply about your being, so your struggles affect me too. In the manliest, lumberjack, dirtbaggin’ way, I love you very much and I hope that I didn’t “jingle your jangles” too much during our adventures around Toronto.
Your friend and brother,
Vice
[1]This raises an interesting question of whether individuation must be achieved by the collective society, the larger structure of social organization, in order for it to actualize at the personal, agent level.