It is said that every time a friend reported
enthusiastically, 'I have just been promoted' Jung would say, 'I am very sorry
to hear that: but if we all stick together we will get through it'. If a friend
arrived depressed saying 'I have just been fired. ‘Jung would say, 'Let's open
a bottle of wine, this is wonderful news, something good will happen now.' -
Robert Bly 'Iron John'
Apart from this being classic reframing it actually goes
much deeper into the myths of change coming from adversity. What do we learn
from things going well? I would say very little if anything, life keeps
plodding down a rutted road into a ditch, then wham! Something comes and lays
waste to your dream and you wake up.
The ability to look and learn from the event is what
makes us adapt. It is the moment in the music when something goes into the
unplanned that real musical and spiritual brilliance happens; true
improvisation.
As a society we are heading, I would say sleep walking
into such a place. We have been told the problems are someone else's, it is the
immigration, it is the fuel crisis, it is the global warming, it is Islamists etc.
BUT have we changed our habits and life styles or are we thinking that we are
right are we just playing the same tune over and over again?
We consume three times what we should in the West and
that is the real problem, if a political party said this it would make them
unelectable so they carry on saying we need to grow and consume more, like
eating more is a way to deal with obesity.
Fracking is their answer to energy problems but this will
lead to a catastrophe both economically and ecologically because they are both
linked. Economists have in the Cartesian view separated ecology and economy as
if there is no way that environment has anything to do with making money but
what worth is the money when you have poisoned the water table and the air is
spoiled and global warming is making the environment unsuitable for us to live.
Time for a new tune based on listening to the other players
on the stage and maybe the answer is when opportunity comes dressed as the devil;
frightening, shocking but unstoppable.
Vic
