Monday, September 18, 2006

Jung 101

A few nights ago I went to the bookstore and was hanging out in the religion/philosophy section—no surprise there. I mostly check out the Eastern Philosophy books, looking for new trends or anything interesting. Buddhism and psychology seem to be coming back into vogue.

Anyway, while I was there, an older man came over and started talking to me. First he wanted to know what I was looking for. Then he wanted to tell me all of the gurus he’d met or meditated with. Then he wanted to know if I knew them. Then he told me all about how he was there “when it all started.” Then he wanted to know whether or not I practiced, and what I practiced. Then he told me he was beyond “isms.”

I responded to the majority of these comments with either hmmm, or very short responses.

Then he told me he didn’t practice Zen anymore because it didn’t fit his (Jungian) archetype.

I said, “Hmmm.”

But what I wanted to say was, “Which archetype is that, the one that hangs out in bookstores and tries to pick up blonde women twenty years younger than you?”

I don’t remember that one.

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