[Excerpt from 2017 Maps of Meaning #4]
All right, so
Carl Jung talked about this phenomena he cried, - phenomenon - he
Described as a retrogressive restoration of the persona and
So it's a complicated idea, but basically what it means is that sometimes
You take a leap forward, and you learn some things,
But you can't catalyze a new identity, so you try to go back and hide in your old identity - and that actually doesn't work
because
Well things have changed and you've learned something and that isn't who you are anymore
and so it's like you have to cut part - parts - of yourself off in a
Destructive manner to fit back into the person that you were now what happens here is that Pinocchio
escapes from this tyrannical
situation and
Undergoes this descend into chaos, but he tries to go back home. He tries to go back to what he was and
He can't do that anymore
His father isn't at home anymore
and so
So when he goes home he finds that there's no home there. Now,
This happens to people sometimes and it's often a shock to them so
One of the things I've noticed about peterpan type,
I'm gonna speak about men here because I - I've - observed it more in men, is
That they often stay under the thumb of their father, and you think well
Why would someone do that? Because it means they're subject to the tyrannical judgment of their father,
They're always concerned about what their father would think or whether their father approves of him - of them - and so forth
And you think, well, that's got to be an unpleasant place to be. Why would you
Do that?
one of the things that I've
Suggested to my clients, and to other people sometimes, is that - here's a weird little exercise that you can undertake, a little thought
experiment.
So, you have your parents, and of course your parents have friends who are about their age.
And maybe some of them are people you only know peripherally and I might ask you well
do you care more about what your parents think than you care about what these peripheral people who know your parents think? And
Then the answer to that is well of course and then the question that arises out of that is
Why?
I mean, for someone else, your parents are the peripheral people and their parents are central like why is it logical that your parents make -
opinion makes any more difference to you than the appearance - than the, uh -
The opinion of some randomly selected people who are approximately that age?
Why is it the case that you would consider that they would know more than someone else?
I mean I know they know you better, and fair enough, but that that's not the point. And
then another point there is that, to the degree that your parents' opinion about you matters more than some randomly selected people of
Approximately the same age. Jung would say well you haven't exactly
Separated out the God image from your parents, and so you're still under that - that - combination
It's like, it's a complicated thing to talk about, but think about the Harry Potter
Series. Harry has two sets of parents, right?
He's got the Dursley parents [They're actually his aunt and uncle, Dr. Peterson, but continue], and then he's got these like magical parents that sort of float behind
And he should know the difference between them. They shouldn't be one in the same. They're not for him. And
It's like well you have your parents and you have nature and culture as parents
And you shouldn't be thinking that your parents are nature and culture as well
They shouldn't have final dominion over you. That means that you're not an individual yet if that's the case. Freud said, for example, that no
No, no one could be a man unless his father had died. And Jung said yes, but that death can take place symbolically
Okay, so there's that part of the idea, and then another part of the idea is
One of the times in your life when you actually realize that you're an individual is when you'll go and ask your parents something and
You'll realize they actually don't know any more about
What you should do than you do, and that sucks and
That's partly why people are often willing to maintain a tyrant-slave relationship with their father. It's like on the one hand you have to be
inferior in a relationship like that
You know, you've always got the judge watching you. But, on the other hand, there's always someone who knows what to do.
There's always someone standing between you and the unknown that you can go ask. What should I do? Well, at some point,
You'll realize that the reason you can't ask that anymore is because they actually don't know anymore than you do
And then that's a pain like that - that - is a symbolic death
That's also when you establish a more individual relationship with your parents
It's at that point that you could conceivably start taking care of them instead of the reverse and that's a time that should come
But you have to let that image of perfection go, and that exposes you. Well, that's what happens here
You know Pinocchio goes home?
And he wants things to be the way they were and he wants to stay under the careful care of the benevolent father
but
That's no longer possible. He's past that point and that's why the father has disappeared and so
Geppetto has gone off to look for Pinocchio because he also needs his son, but
But in any case the house is abandoned and so then
There we see inside the house that everything's covered with cobwebs and everything's gone and Pinocchio and the cricket sit on the steps
And they're very concerned. First of all, they wonder where he went so they're actually concerned that he's gone
But they also don't know what to do because there's just no going home
And so you know that's also the case that once you hit a certain point in your development
Well, it's the same thing we already talked about
The answers that you're looking for are not going to be found in your parents' house. It's as simple as that. Now, you could artificially
maintain your
Dependency, but, you know, if you do that for too long things get pretty ugly
So you get pretty stale and - and - you know, you're like bread that's been on the shelf for too long.