I am reminded of Jung's words: "We are awakening a little to the feeling that something is wrong in the world, that our modern prejudice of overestimating the importance of the intellect and the conscious mind might be false. We want simplicity. We are suffering, in our cities, from a need of simple things…." (in Americans Must Say 'No' in McGuire, William, and Hull, R.F.C., eds., C.G. Jung Speaking (Princeton: University Press, 1977))
The topic of technology and the fast pace at which the world is moving came up in a group discussion recently and someone suggested it's not that technology is evil, but that we get caught up in it, and culturally, we tend to abandon ourselves and the sacred in order to maintain the pace (or be inundated by it) full-time. Jung said the loss of connection to our instincts and to nature has been devastating to us. Perhaps now is the time to take a few moments and step outside, or look at the sky, or light a candle in ritual, or just take a long deep breath and appreciate something bigger and more simple....
How do you feel about the pace of the world we live in today?
Replies
I have also experienced a situation similar to Laura's (I am sorry, too - it is heartbreaking). I wonder now if what we as a culture are losing is the authentic feeling and expression of our emotions, partly due to the screentime seduction sucking up our time and capacities, as well as the the actual screen as the interface between people.
Moreover, if emotions are pathways of opening to archetypal energies, as rooted in our instincts (an unwavering compass in our body) then what will become of us if we cut off those pathways and the archetypal energies are really shut off from our conscious experience and expression of them in the world?
A few weeks ago I was attempting to connect with him in a rather heated moment via email and was very frustrated. He emailed back: "I'm not shutting you out. I've got three computers running and you keep talking to the one I am not in front of."
I told him that was better than a dream image and that there was nothing I could say that would portray the dynamic any better. I think some people are just "wired" to prefer virtual stimulation on demand to interpersonal intimacy and deep connections. Sad, but alas.
Jung says it is our ethical obligation not simply to notice and wonder about images that come to us, but to truly seek their meaning (in MDR, p. 193). Hillman says we sin against the imagination when we simply ask the image to reveal its meaning to us in the form of a (flat or simple) concept (in Re-visioning Psychology, p. 39). Instead we have to engage with it, visit it where it resides, dialogue with it and let the meaning emerge.
How do we stop long enough to see that the image has it's own vitality and that it lives in us in an alive way as well? Do so many flickers make our brain skip over and move on too quickly?
Maybe that is the real impact of technology - as you brought up the pace of the world we live in, it crowds out the space and time needed for a 'religious' or imaginal attitude.
I like Jung's definition of the essence of religion - religiere, the "careful consideration"
of the archetypes. On the Nature of the Psyche, par. 426.