I was listening to Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, and they played a song with lyrics about what we talked about. The song is”NotDark Yet” on the Time Out Of Mind album. Listen to the lyrics near the end of the song, he talks about not knowing where he is running to, and he and he does remember why.
Oh my god I love that song. It was the second last on my first ever Bob Dylan album (the essential bob dylan). Hadn't listened to it in a few years until I read your comment now I can't stop listening to it "I know it looks like I'm moving but I'm standing still"
Looking up the lyrics now this is part of the verse you were referencing. It's so laced with the tragedy of experience it hits me so deep. Need to go listen to that album actually. Was a big fan of modern times which came later but never gave time out of mind the time it deserved
I enjoyed your piece. It made think of many variations of this story, from Madonna to Lady Gaga that committed to a character so strongly it affects their whole life. In the search for fame, or fortune or being understood;they loose themselves. You seem to be saying that is a more rewarding outcome for some people. It would be interesting to understand why he needed to recreate himself. Who are they running to? Unintended consequences?
Madonna is a great example. Your Lady Gaga example has got me thinking. Her persona seems like Bo Burnham—it's a mask which is more deliberately constructed, a Metamodern persona which acts as a public face and can be treated (by the individual) as a separate thing from their personal identity. It's a performative archetypalisation which protects the individual this sort of dissolution that Madonna and Dylan subjected themselves to. I might need to work on this more to communicate it clearer because I suspect that was rather opaque.
As for the point: what surprised me is that it could be a more rewarding outcome. We are used to hearing of fame (which I hadn't thought of as Archetypalisation but it certainly is) as being a curse. The individual is flattened.
My thinking is it could be two things: most people don't choose it or don't know what they are choosing with fame. Or two: it's about the archetype you dissolve into.
I'm not sure it's ever a good thing. I'm reminded of a Nietzschean aphorism in which he calls the paragons of virtues sacrifices at the altar of society. Their excellence in whatever virtue is to their personal detriment but to society's boon.
As for the question of who they are running to, in the case of the medieval disciple it's clear and noble: to Jesus/God. I wonder if in that case the unintended consequences would be any better. I suspect this might be related to my disgust for spiritual guru culture. Maybe it's never what the (dissolving) individual wanted; instead they are moths to the flame and they are destroyed by the siren that ensnared them.
Makes you wonder, what if Madame Blavatsky had been a conduit for something more in the way of music than a conduit for the muddied waters of yet another stagnant pond of mystical racism to be gazed into by other narcissistic personalities? What would that have sounded like? That is not to bash everybody who's ever crossed paths with the theosophists, but their fatal flaw seems to have been committed to and doubled down on by some I'd have thought should've/would've known better. At least in the case of Jung, he delivers so completely that you find he's even given you the tools with which to convict him. ("Jungian Reflections on Systemic Racism" is in my opinion a work of grace.)
I was listening to Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, and they played a song with lyrics about what we talked about. The song is”NotDark Yet” on the Time Out Of Mind album. Listen to the lyrics near the end of the song, he talks about not knowing where he is running to, and he and he does remember why.
Oh my god I love that song. It was the second last on my first ever Bob Dylan album (the essential bob dylan). Hadn't listened to it in a few years until I read your comment now I can't stop listening to it "I know it looks like I'm moving but I'm standing still"
Looking up the lyrics now this is part of the verse you were referencing. It's so laced with the tragedy of experience it hits me so deep. Need to go listen to that album actually. Was a big fan of modern times which came later but never gave time out of mind the time it deserved
I enjoyed your piece. It made think of many variations of this story, from Madonna to Lady Gaga that committed to a character so strongly it affects their whole life. In the search for fame, or fortune or being understood;they loose themselves. You seem to be saying that is a more rewarding outcome for some people. It would be interesting to understand why he needed to recreate himself. Who are they running to? Unintended consequences?
Madonna is a great example. Your Lady Gaga example has got me thinking. Her persona seems like Bo Burnham—it's a mask which is more deliberately constructed, a Metamodern persona which acts as a public face and can be treated (by the individual) as a separate thing from their personal identity. It's a performative archetypalisation which protects the individual this sort of dissolution that Madonna and Dylan subjected themselves to. I might need to work on this more to communicate it clearer because I suspect that was rather opaque.
As for the point: what surprised me is that it could be a more rewarding outcome. We are used to hearing of fame (which I hadn't thought of as Archetypalisation but it certainly is) as being a curse. The individual is flattened.
My thinking is it could be two things: most people don't choose it or don't know what they are choosing with fame. Or two: it's about the archetype you dissolve into.
I'm not sure it's ever a good thing. I'm reminded of a Nietzschean aphorism in which he calls the paragons of virtues sacrifices at the altar of society. Their excellence in whatever virtue is to their personal detriment but to society's boon.
As for the question of who they are running to, in the case of the medieval disciple it's clear and noble: to Jesus/God. I wonder if in that case the unintended consequences would be any better. I suspect this might be related to my disgust for spiritual guru culture. Maybe it's never what the (dissolving) individual wanted; instead they are moths to the flame and they are destroyed by the siren that ensnared them.
Makes you wonder, what if Madame Blavatsky had been a conduit for something more in the way of music than a conduit for the muddied waters of yet another stagnant pond of mystical racism to be gazed into by other narcissistic personalities? What would that have sounded like? That is not to bash everybody who's ever crossed paths with the theosophists, but their fatal flaw seems to have been committed to and doubled down on by some I'd have thought should've/would've known better. At least in the case of Jung, he delivers so completely that you find he's even given you the tools with which to convict him. ("Jungian Reflections on Systemic Racism" is in my opinion a work of grace.)