To Be Jung Again

Imminence changes everything.

I have a friend, Kathleen, who has been a muse to me. (I promised her in return to be a mentor to her.) For those not familiar with these archetypes, a muse would be a creative inspiration, and a mentor, a wise, old, opinionated geezer. Let's be clear: Kathleen didn't ask me to be her mentor. I offered the service in exchange for her being a muse. She didn't offer that either, it just happened.

Oh, and by archetype, I mean that in the sense of "a constantly recurring symbol or motif in literature, painting or mythology. This usage of the term draws from both comparative anthropology and Jungian archetypal theory." (from Wikipedia)

Kathleen is with child. She is openly telling about this new experience, on her blog: andkathleen.com. As I read her posts lately, I can tell the imminence of it all is becoming very real to her.

Kathleen with child. Her shirt reads, "It's In The Bag."

I have been the male participant in this waiting-for-imminence twice as a parent and twice as a grandparent (and now once as self-appointed mentor). It's wonderful, powerful stuff. Such anticipation mixed with awe and angst.

And while I have no desire at all to be a parent again (due solely to old age and a bit of been there, done that), I do think I could use a bit of imminence about something besides retirement and death. I'm pretty sure all of us guys in our second-coming-of-age could use some imminence.

Why? Because without it I'm getting all wishy-washy, or in the vernacular of those who use such idioms: wishy-warshy. Tonight we will go out to dinner somewhere with a friend. The routine is always the same and the decision of where we will go to eat will be mine. The reasons for this are silly but it boils down to this: they know if I make the call then I won't piss and moan about the service, the food, the crowd, the jerk at the next table who won't get off his phone, yada, yada.

As I've posted already here, I really want an Airstream® Travel Trailer. But because I can't get a sense of imminence about it, I'm stuck in a quagmire of indecision. My Amazing Missus occasionally, lovingly suggests that I "either poop or get off the pot." That doesn't help. Maybe what I need is for someone to say, "You have until March 1, 2014, to decide or you forever forfeit the privilege of being an Airstreamer--your dream of traveling with that sleek silver icon in your rear-view mirror is dashed forever. The only RVing you'll ever get to do is in a pop-up camper parked next to a million dollar road bus with 13 slide outs."

Remember a few words back, when I mentioned Jungian archetypal theory? I am fascinated by Karl Jung and his personality theory. I would like to go in to detail about it and how it explains my contained, imaginative, open-ended, emergent, INFP personality that can't make a decision, but I'm out of space here. (Someone told me not to make a blog post more than 500 words long, "People will bail on you.") So, more on Jung later.

I'm imminently interested in your thoughts though.

By the way, since I have room for a few more words, do you remember that the Crane brothers were divided on their psych-theory loyalties? Frasier was a Freudian and Niles a Jungian. Remember when he hosted Frasier's radio show and he explained this to the audience and then said, "So there will be no blaming mother today." I miss them.