Definitely a recovering Puer in me
Another of von Franz, excellent analysis of The Little Prince and other stories. There is an eternal child in me, to be sure, a mother complex that started very early on and for sure has not gone away. That said, it doesn’t. Also a great many men do. And, what’s more, the creative must, so this is not at all altogether a curse. The trick, so to speak, is to recognize it’s there, to get into life without burying/dismissing the feeling side altogether. To use it.
I have a lot of reflecting to do still on this one as I only finished it today. Many pages have underlines, some consecutive whole pages are highlighted.
Really I think the thing here is not to forget, to remind myself semi-periodically, to commit to life, to others. Some of my puer comes out in my personality, ENFJ, Type 3, etc. Perhaps that is true for all types but as I was listening to some podcast, I thought well how am I to know if it’s my puer then or if it’s just part of my make-up? Funny. I mean von Franz spends a good bit of time pointing to the need of recognizing the union of these opposites. So I can be aware of how my puer comes through in my personality, I can admit my personality may have partially formed as a result of my puer, and I can have whatever realization is needed in the context of my life in order to act accordingly to what’s next. But only, again, if I remember to remind myself here, otherwise life or the unconscious will have to do it, and it may anyway of course, though likely better not to be wholly dependent on that. It may hurt more.
I think there is a lot of value here for men who want to get into their lives more, who want to create and feel stuck, who feel malaise in their lives…on the contrary, it does not advocate changing necessarily, perhaps the proper course is to stay in the conflict actually, if at all possible. I think that is the first recommendation. But it is just in the recognition through the story telling and looking at the symbology of motifs there that there can be just a spontaneous change in the individual. Some may take that change once and need it only the one time. Regardless, there is the potential for awakening in the stuck areas of life, and of really seeing with the inner eye if and where a man may be stuck.
That said, while mainly written in the context of men, this is also very much for women given the inherent inner non-duality of masculine and feminine. But as this book was written in 1970, there is still quite a bit of differentiation between the sexes though that is likely still appliable today for the majority of people.