Stephen Gerringer
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Well done on posting the link!
I learned the accordion as a kid, but in my teen years never had any luck attracting a fox, literal or metaphorical (I know this will come as a shock, but turns out playing the accordion in high school is not the babe magnet one would think!).
Glad to be of help!
However, once you click the gear icon, all you need do in the pop-up is check the open-in-new-tab box. The “destination URL” carries over from the first field you pasted it in, so you don’t need to re-paste it.
As you point out, Kristina, it’s a tough question – all the more so because we are in a fluid situation where archetypal forces are in play.
I touched on this briefly in the discussion of Brad Olson’s MythBlast last week:
In the Jungian model of the psyche archetypes are unable to directly access, or to be directly perceived within, mundane reality — but when patterns that evoke an archetype arise in an individual’s life, a complex set of behaviors are constellated, in effect adding flesh to the archetype as it comes to life in the individual, compelling actions that the conscious ego would never contemplate. Indeed, two weeks ago it seemed inconceivable, possibly even to Zelensky himself, that a professional comedian and past winner of the Ukrainian Dancing With the Stars contest, so far out of his depth, wouldn’t flee the country, under the rationale of ‘leading a government-in-exile’ – but, as he tells it, this ‘accidental hero’ had no choice but to stay and stand with his people.
Just as these intense and shattering circumstances constellated the expression of the Hero archetype in Zelensky, the same for his people – and, indeed, that archetypal energy seems to have rippled out across Europe, reaching our shores and elsewhere as even nations previously aligned with Russia take a stand.”
In a sense, the heroism of Zelensky and the Ukrainian people in these extreme circumstances proves contagious, as this dynamic overwhelms and subsumes the usual cautious rationalism of several major players (e.g. Germany and Sweden reversing tradition and agreeing to provide weapons to the Ukrainians, or Sweden and Finland abruptly open to NATO membership, and even historically neutral Switzerland actually imposing sanctions). I am in awe of how quickly and smoothly this night-sea change has manifested, in large part because archetypal energies are driving this transformation.
At the same time, in archetypal situations things tend to get a little fuzzy from the standpoint of conscious awareness. Zelensky, prior to the invasion a somewhat ineffectual, mediocre leader supported by less than 30% of his own people, is the beneficiary of a host of positive projections, as, indeed, are the Ukrainian people; similarly, for those of us outside Russia (and some inside that nation), Putin is an obvious target of our shadow projections.
There are plenty of hooks in both instances on which those projections catch and snag: Zelensky and his people are risking their lives in an heroic defense of their county, their families, and their way of life; Putin really is a dictator who has ordered the murders and incarcerations of those who oppose his rule, violated international norms, boldly lied to us time and again, and is responsible for suffering on a surreal scale of magnitude.
That tendency to elevate one’s allies and demonize one’s enemies is ever present in times of war, as Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, James Hillman (A Terrible Love of War), and Sam Keen (Faces of the Enemy), among others, have observed.
Indeed, it’s so difficult to transcend that dynamic that even your response to my post focuses on Putin as the embodiment of negative shadow energies, and on the positive traits of the Ukrainian people. Useful as is the exercise of embracing the shadow qualities we associate with Putin as present in our own psyche, as well as the positive qualities we now associate with the Ukrainians, that doesn’t answer my question, which was
“How can I feel compassion for Vladimir Putin?”
Your response has tremendous value, in that it helps me learn something about myself – but it also reinforces the negative projections I’m already making onto Putin (“totalitarian,” “black-and-white thinking,” “controlling,” “manipulative,” “coercive,” “power hungry,”).
Alas, that does nothing to help me feel compassion for Vladimir Putin as a human being.
That is indeed a tough question. It’s incredibly difficult to even discuss, as there is a natural tendency to assume that feeling compassion for someone who does horrible things is to condone, endorse, or excuse their behavior. Our default setting seems to be that those who do horrible things do not deserve compassion.
That’s where I found James’ observation during last week’s MythBlast discussion particularly relevant: “‘Loving your enemy as yourself’ doesn’t necessarily mean accepting evil . . . ” Experiencing compassion for someone who commits evil, whether Charlie Manson or Vladimir Putin, neither justifies their actions, nor helps them evade the consequences of their behavior.
It is easy to feel compassion for the valorous Ukrainians – but not so much their tormentor. Nor is there a practical benefit: we should not expect someone like Putin will respond to compassion from others. That’s just not going to happen.
After several years of working with the raw source material, I recently completed editing a Joseph Campbell volume that should be released toward the end of 2023. This discussion brings to mind a passage where Campbell mentions a friend of his, a Tibetan monk whose autobiography he helped edit. The stories that man had to share, of the escape from Lhasa “with machine gun squads mowing down whole companies of refugees,” and other tales of suffering and torture, are quite brutal.
But these Buddhists are marvelous, with no complaints: this is world process, buddha process. I’ve lived with this young man now for years and have never heard a negative word about the Chinese. I learned what religion is from him. This is real love. This is inexhaustible benevolence. This is the wisdom and virtue of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, and of Chuang Tzu. You get it from the Dalai Lama as well; he will never say a negative word. They read things positively. It’s marvelous!”
I’m not there yet . . . but I am working on it.
Very cute, Sunbug – and the link was almost perfect. The only drawback is that when I click on it, it leaves this page and takes me elsewhere; what we’re aiming for are links that open on a different page, so users don’t have to navigate their way back to COHO (or get distracted and not come back to COHO).
I thought I would post a couple screenshots that might help. First is what happens when you highlight a few words and click on the hyperlink icon (which looks like a diagonal paperclip in the small menu at the top as you write your post):
As the image makes clear, you highlighted the words you wanted to link (Loki the Raven), clicked on the hyperlink icon, and then pasted the address of the link into the field provided. That part is perfect – but then, you needed to click on the gear or sprocket icon all the way to the right this field, to the right of the arrow. If you had, then the following field would have opo-up would opened:
Then, as the above graphic shows, all you have to do is select the box that says “Open link in a new tab,” and click the blue Update button in the bottom right. Don’t worry about anything else in this pop-up.The fields should then disappear, and you can continue on with the rest of your post.
Hope that helps
Beautiful essay. I’m especially fond of this point:
We rarely appreciate the whole of the landscape, which is present principally in myth and poetry, the former by rendering incarnate ocean, sky, earth or seasons as a pantheon of divine beings, the latter through metaphor and symbol.”
So true!
James,
You write
In other words: “loving your enemy as yourself” doesn’t necessarily mean accepting evil; but understanding it’s the other side of the duality that lives in all of us. It’s a war and you have to choose a side, but you do it with discrimination within the choices you make . . .”
Well said! I’d like to mentally bookmark this passage, and hope you will return to this theme in our COHO discussion with Kristina Dryža next week. Her upcoming MythBlast focuses on compassion, which is extremely relevant at the moment – perhaps even more so as Kristina currently resides just a few miles from the Russian border in Lithuania, which, as President Zelensky noted in the link you shared, is also in Putin’s crosshairs.
Tiago,
I’m sorry to take so long to respond to this. Throughout Campbell’s work he does cite several authors linked to German Romanticism (Goethe, Novalis, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others), but the only reference to I found to Schelling is Creative Mythology (Volume IV of The Masks of God), on p. 74 of the print edition – a passage quoted from composer Richard Wagner’s autobiography discussing the idea that “there is made manifest only one, single, truly existent Being, present and ever the same in all”:
The Christian mystics, no matter when or where they appear, can be seen caught in this realization — even against their will and in spite of every effort. Spinoza’s name is identified with it. And in our own day, at last — now that Kant has blown the old dogmatic theology to bits and the world stands appalled among the smoking ruins — the same perception is restated in the eclectic philosophy of Schelling [1775–1854], uniting deftly in a single system the doctrines of Plotinus, Spinoza, Kant, and Jacob Boehme, combined with the findings of modem science, Schelling, to meet the pressing need of his generation, developed his own variations on the common themes — so that this knowledge has now gained general credit among German scholars and is known even to the educated public.”
Though Campbell doesn’t appear to mention Schelling himself (not as far as I’ve seen), I would say he is definitely influenced to some extent by German romanticism, which to me seems most apparent in Creative Mythology.
I hope that helps.
Thank you, Chris, for sharing this production. A labor of love, yes, but the quality of the presentation, including the graphics, the pacing, the narration, are clear.
Though I tend to collect theories of consciousness, the Ten Terrains model has been flying my radar. Luke Skywalker’s story arc is a useful entry point, and certainly served its purpose, prompting me to visit the Ten Terrains website. It does seem a useful model, and I appreciate that the authors, while explaining differences, do not set it at odds with the many other helpful models.
I am curious about Luke Skywalker’s development in the final trilogy of the film series, and where the seeming setback, when his failure leads to the destruction of his school and death of his students, fits into the Ten Terrains model.
Just a brief housekeeping note: We ask that forum participants post their creations (papers, art, video, music, etc.) in the Share Your Work Corner (a subforum within The Conversation with a Thousand Faces forum). Eventually I’ll move this thread over there, but for the moment I’ll leave it here so more eyeballs see it.
I, too, appreciate James’ recommendation of Daryl Sharp, who has been mostly off my radar. But I’d like to follow up on a reflection from your earlier response:
It’s impossible to ignore the events of the past several days, which show us a Mr. Putin who apparently believes that he is acting in an heroic manner, but like Ciardi’s hero, he is saving the Ukraine in two. Berthold Brecht wrote in his The Life of Galileo, ‘Unhappy is the land that needs heroes.’ Because the land that needs a hero suffers on two fronts, first from the circumstances that evoke its cries for deliverance, and secondly, large portions of the land and its people themselves will suffer from the Hero’s acts of ‘saving them.’ The hero business is always a rather messy one.”
Thank you for going there, Brad!
All eyes seem riveted on the tragedy unfolding in eastern Europe. But rather than focus on the faux heroic mantle Putin assumes (which brings to mind his American disciple’s claim that “I alone can fix it”), I’d like to turn my attention to Ukraine, very much an unhappy land sorely in need of heroes.
And heroes there are, in droves! Not individuals on a seemingly abstract psychological journey, but people in the flesh engaging in literal, real world heroics – not celebrities or sports figures, nor characters in a film or other work of fiction, but so many living lives just like us, exhibiting in deed and act courage beyond the ordinary, even in the face of certain death, on behalf of family, friends, country, and the idea of democracy and freedom – all playing out in real time across our screens.
No wonder songs have been sung and stories told about heroes from time immemorial! It is so incredibly affecting to observe a true act of heroism. The example of Volodymyr Zelensky (who shares the same first name as Vladimir Putin – which ironically means “to rule with greatness” or “renown prince”), who knows that he and his family are targeted for elimination but nevertheless declined the offer to evacuate to lead his people (“The fight is here; I don’t need a ride – I need ammunition!”), outgunned, outmanned, and outspent, against an enemy bent on destruction, has proven contagious. His heroism galvanized an entire population, and even persuaded several European leaders to change direction and take dramatic and drastic actions at great risk to their own economic well-being. (Heck, even Switzerland has dropped their longstanding neutrality!)
Zelensky, a comedian whose prior governing experience consisted of playing a president on TV, had been no great shakes as a leader up to this point. He hadn’t been able to get a handle on the corruption he promised to end, didn’t stand up to Trump’s strong-arming, and seemingly went out of his way to avoid antagonizing Putin, ending up with approval ratings below 30% as of December – but with the invasion he heard the Call, and rose to the occasion.
Would the Ukrainian people have held firm if he had followed the example of previous presidents who fled when the proverbial sh*t hit the fan?
The plight of the the Ukrainian people has awakened my compassion, just as it has so many around the world. But it’s not just sorrow I feel in solidarity with their pain and loss. I can’t help but also be uplifted and inspired by such real world heroism, large and small, magnified many times over.
There are no doubt archetypal forces in play.
In the Jungian model of the psyche archetypes are unable to directly access, or to be directly perceived within, mundane reality — but when patterns that evoke an archetype arise in an individual’s life, a complex set of behaviors are constellated, in effect adding flesh to the archetype as it comes to life in the individual, compelling actions that the conscious ego would never contemplate. Indeed, two weeks ago it seemed inconceivable, possibly even to Zelensky himself, that a professional comedian and past winner of the Ukrainian Dancing With the Stars contest, so far out of his depth, wouldn’t flee the country, under the rationale of “leading a government-in-exile” – but, as he tells it, this “accidental hero” had no choice but to stay and stand with his people.
Just as these intense and shattering circumstances constellated the expression of the Hero archetype in Zelensky, the same for his people – and, indeed, that archetypal energy seems to have rippled out across Europe, reaching our shores and elsewhere as even nations previously aligned with Russia take a stand.
Heady times, this rare measure of nearly global consensus.
Will that be sustained once the crisis is past? Who can say?
Most heroes, once they come back down to earth, turn out to have feet of clay; it takes many years of sustained tempering to forge the soul of a Nelson Mandela or a Martin Luther King. Should he (and Ukraine) survive this ordeal, Zelensky the War Hero may still turn out to be a mediocre chief executive, and Europe may yet settle back into the status quo.
But then again, strong winds are blowing. Could just be an illusion created by the numinous feel of those archetypal energies, but I can’t shake off the impression that a night-sea change is underway.
Maybe you are on to something when you quote Bogey in Casablanca, as indeed,
It seems that destiny has taken a hand.”
A relevant passage from Joseph Campbell’s essay on “The Fairy Tale” (from The Flight of the Wild Gander, 8 – though the essay title is linked to an inexpensive, stand-alone Esingle available for download):
The most ancient written records and the most primitive tribal circles attest alike to man’s hunger for the good story. And every kind of thing has served. Myths and legends of an earlier period, now discredited or no longer understood, their former power broken (yet still potent to charm), have supplied much of the raw material for what now passes simply as animal tale, fairy tale, and heroic or romantic adventure. The giants and gnomes of the Germans, the ‘little people’ of the Irish, the dragons, knights, and ladies of Arthurian Romance were once the gods and demons of the Green Isle and the European continent. Similarly, the divinities of the primitive Arabians appear as Jinn in the story-world of Islam. Tales of such origin are regarded with differing degrees of seriousness by the various people who recount them; and they can be received by the sundry members of the audience, severally, with superstitious awe, nostalgia for the days of belief, ironic amusement, or simple delight in the marvels of imagination and intricacies of plot. But no matter what the atmosphere of belief, the stories, in so far as they now are ‘tales,’ are composed primarily for amusement. They are reshaped in terms of dramatic contrast, narrative suspense, repetition, and resolution.”
Similarly, several Celtic scholars, including Heinrich Zimmer Sr. (father of Campbell’s friend and mentor, Indologist Heinrich Zimmer, Jr.), and Campbell’s advisor at Columbia, Roger Sherman Loomis, in his The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol, have made the case that Arthurian lore is a reworking of Celtic myths, with the knights in the tales of the Round Table in the role of the gods in the Celtic pantheon.
No surprise the observations in the Smithsonian article you share ring true for me.
Thank you, Diane, for such elegant, rich, and detailed responses to my questions – so many thoughts come to mind! Like so many on creative quests, yours is not a linear “A leads to B leads to C” path, unfolding instead like, well, a dance!
I especially appreciate how, even when it seems you were diverted from following your bliss, you still discovered tools and experiences helpful to the path you ultimately followed (such as the anatomy and physiology studies on that medical technology track which served you well in the field of dance). Yours is also a wonderful example of how doors do open “where you would not have thought there would be doors,” to paraphrase Campbell.
Shifting focus to Jean Erdman, I am curious how her innovations were initially received – particularly her emphasis on story in dance, and willingness to move beyond a focus on “pure” dance to embrace other elements of the performing arts in her presentations. Did she face face much resistance and criticism after starting her own company?
I apologize for being tardy to the party – the multiple demands of the mundane, workaday world have gotten in the way of composing long thoughtful posts . . . and even this comment is an all too fleeting response.
Robert – I appreciate the reference to Spengler (whom I never would have read if it weren’t for Joseph Campbell); though I wouldn’t exactly call that final scene around the dinner table a solution (which, at least in the popular sense, implies a fix that remedies the crisis), I agree that moment of authenticity is indeed the most appropriate response.
And Norland – thank you for focusing the discussion on the imagery in the film, and emphasizing a mythological reading of the symbolism in the film. And I really love the resonance of that final dinner scene with the Last Supper. Of course, there are significant differences (one never finds an exact, point-by-point correspondence between symbols), but the feeling-tone is much the same.
Though I know you are both already aware of the following, I’d like to share a couple relevant observations by Campbell on symbolism and image, so that anyone following the discussion who might not be as conversant doesn’t get lost. And I’ll have to ask you to trust me on the source of these quotations, which are from an unpublished manuscript I’ve edited for JCF, slated for release in 2023, drawn from multiple obscure interviews with Campbell, as well as audience Q & A sessions with Joe after his lectures.
First, Campbell on symbolism:
I’m calling a symbol a sign that points past itself to a ground of meaning and being that is one with the consciousness of the beholder. What you’re learning in myth is about yourself as part of the being of the world. If it talks not about you finally, but about something out there, then it’s short.”
And a slightly more detailed excerpt on visual imagery:
The logics of image thinking and of verbal thinking are two very different logics. I’m more and more convinced that there is, as it were, a series of archetypes which are psychologically grounded, which just have to operate, but in whatever field is available to them. In the myths, they are represented pictorially. There’s a big distinction to be made between the impact of the image, and the intellectual and social interpretation and application of the image.
. . . Mythology talks through the image. And what transforms consciousness is not the language, but the image. The impact of the image is the initiating experience. So by understanding—or trying to understand—the communication of the imagery of myth, just as trying to understand the communication of the imagery of your dreams, you bring yourself into accord with your own deeper nature.”
So what is the primary image in this film that precipitates the crisis?
That damn comet hurtling towards Earth.
Sure, this of course can be seen as an allegory for climate change, especially given the filmmaker’s intention – but, as Norland so elegantly points out in the second paragraph of his essay, “A truly mythological reading of the comet would show its reflected meaning in the many mirrors it contains, drawing from the internal resources of its archetypal imagery.”
YES! That’s one reason why I find myself nodding my head at every post in this thread, as a mythological symbol contains so many possibilities – parallel and paradoxical – enfolded in a single image.
So I’d like to throw one more thought into the mix. As opposed to a reductive interpretation (the comet is exclusively a stand-in for climate change and nothing else), this might be an overly expansive and all too simplistic reading, but it’s been stirring my imagination for a couple months now.
The comet is on a collision course with Earth. All efforts to prevent it, or escape it, are futile; in the end, everyone dies. (Granted, for comedic purposes Jason [Jonah Hill], the president’s son, does survive impact, but the odds for long term survival aren’t exactly in his favor – and even the privileged and powerful find their escape comes up short.)
What is it that’s coming for each of us, regardless of wealth, status, or privilege? What is the one inevitable and inescapable conclusion each must face?
Don’t Look Up is described as a dark comedy – or a tragicomedy, which brings to mind Campbell’s reference to Stephen Dedalus’ interpretation in Joyce’s work of Aristotle, who labels the tragic emotions pity and terror:
‘Pity is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the human sufferer.’ Not the poor, the black, the jobless sufferer, be it noted, but the human sufferer. We are penetrating the local, ethnic, or social mask to the human being.
‘Terror is the feeling which arrests the mind in the presence of whatsoever is grave and constant in human sufferings and unites it with the secret cause.’ Here we are moving toward an experience of the sublime. What is the secret cause of any moment of suffering? . . . [E]very life, either knowingly or unknowingly, is in process toward its limitation in death, which limitation is of the nature of life.” (Joseph Campbell, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space 102, 103)
Part of the adverse reaction to the film is what some have referred to as its pessimism, manifested in that moment when all efforts have failed and it becomes clear there will be no rescue, no deus ex machina, no happily ever aftering – and every human becomes aware they are about to die (save for the comparatively small handful who abandon the rest of humanity, believing, like many cultists, that there is a way out – though, as we see in the penultimate scene, there is no escaping Death).
It’s hard for any viewer not to share in that sense of terror that the bulk of humanity in the film feels in the face of certain death. Who wouldn’t feel the same, to know the exact day and hour one will end?
On the same page, Campbell speaks of this awareness in one’s own life of what is “grave and constant” as an affirmation: “And in this affirmation itself the mind is carried beyond, purged and cleansed of the fear of death.”
Which brings me back around to one of Robert’s concluding sentences, in post #6837: “We should not live life in despair – we must go on living, not a provisional life in fear, but an authentic life, affirming and embracing Life as it is.” That is indeed the vibe of the gathering of scientists and friends around the dinner table, breaking bread together and enjoying each other’s company in their final moments
. . . and also resonates with that sense of communion depicted at the Last Supper (though only the Christ knew in that company what lay ahead).
My thought is that placing Death in its archetypal aspect – inevitable, inescapable, and universal – front and center is what stirs such an intense reaction in viewers. Of course today, when it comes to mortality, the default setting for most people is “don’t look up”; rather than examine that existential dread, far easier for most to focus on partisan wrangling over climate change.
Norland and Robert, I know this post is sloppy, lacking in nuance, a touch hurried in comparison, and sort of peters out at the end – and I apologize for that.
Thanks for bearing with me!
Janet,
I especially appreciate this observation of yours:
If the work creates waves of response on different levels than the artist intended then the artist has touched some collective fibre, deliberately or not.”
Norland does a wonderful job of seconding your thought and expanding on this theme in his reply (post #6826, which for some reason appears out of the order in which it was posted).
What also stands out for me in your remarks is your characterization of Elon Musk, whom you associate with billionaire and BASH founder Peter Isherwell in Don’t Look Up, as “a symbol of a far darker mystery, the human gift of rationality without the brakes of human feeling . . .”
That really strikes a chord for me; though Isherwell and Musk appear to share similar traits, in my mind this applies not just to Musk, but to all of Silicon Valley. For many, there is an assumption that technology will ultimately save the day (even as that technology is evermore driven by impersonal AI logarithms impervious to human feeling). I can’t help but see the figure of Isherwell (and Musk) as the inevitable end-product of our “off-tilt capitalism.”
A work of art often serves as a Rohrshach inkblot test that reveals more about the the viewer than its creator. For what it’s worth, I experience this satire as a compelling commentary on our post-factual society, a lampooning of elites across the board (whether politicians, the media, “woke” celebrities, MAGA partisans and their more liberal critics, etc.), with a focus on widespread selective denial of evidence in favor of pre-conceived beliefs (e.g., even with the comet clearly in view, a significant swath of the public follows the advice to “don’t look up”).
Others experience this as a harsh, heavy handed, self-righteous attack on conservative beliefs and values (true, up to a point – but that reaction ignores the implicit criticism of Hollywood liberals and pundits on the left as well as the right). At the same time, a great many who fall into that camp have not actually seen the movie (ironically, they don’t look up Don’t Look Up, but base their opinions on what others say).
What I do find intriguing is that the film raises questions, but does provides no solution, which reflects where we find ourselves in “the real world” today. There is no rallying of the troops, no deus ex machina at the end to make everything right. Pessimism carries the day – a dark comedy indeed!
I’d like to think it’s not prophetic, but . . .
Norland & Janet,
No idea how the truncation happened, but wearing my admin hat I was able to restore Janet’s complete post from my email notification (which is fortunate – it’s a great comment that we definitely wouldn’t want to lose).
James & Kristina,
Two incredible take-aways for me from your exchange:
One is James’ observation:
Something I think that confuses us so often is that as our life stages change, we must change and go with it. In other words, as Jung mentions also, the life requirements must match this metamorphosis as we age from that of achievement to that of meaning.”
So easy to forget that change is the one constant – not just in the external world, but within as well.
That’s not easy to accept. I am reminded of some of the initial reaction to The Last Jedi, the middle film in the final Star Wars trilogy, where Luke Skywalker assumes the role of mentor rather than the central character. I read numerous vociferous criticisms on fan sites at the time, complaining that Luke should have been the hero of this trilogy, as in the first three Lucas films (Episodes IV – VI).
I understand their disappointment, but was pleased that the writer and director depicted the interior changes the character had undergone over the course of a lifetime, which served as a mirror for me in which to recognize my own evolution.
And then there’s this statement from Kristina:
We don’t cure our wounds. They cure us.”
Powerful, and poignant. I am reminded of something I swear I read in James Hillman’s work a few decades back, though the exact reference continues to elude me to this day:
“Our wounds are the eyes through which we see ourselves.”
Your observation, Kristina, is liberating (as is your essay), affording us the opportunity to reimagine our lives, past and present. In a literal sense, nothing has changed – but with this shift in perspective, the poison we’d been drinking transforms into the elixir of life, and the whole world opens up
. . . which brings us back to Joe, and this quote of his, which graces JCF’s home page this week:
Blunders are not the merest chance. They are the results of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep—as deep as the soul itself. The blunder may amount to the opening of a destiny” (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 42)
