You start with Neville: imagination as causation, awareness as authorship. But somewhere along the way, the work stops being creation and becomes confession. Everyoneβs building identity through diagnosis, not through desire. The point was to recognise the observer, not to turn the symptoms into your brand.
It is not about shame β there is something beautiful about how much more open people are now β but thereβs a difference between honesty and identification.
Neville said, assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled; today, we assume the feeling of the wound identified. We keep rehearsing the trauma as if it is the only thing real enough to anchor us.
It used to be that some things belonged to quiet rooms and close friends. Not secrecy, just sacredness. You could still have an inner life that was not available for public consumption. Your religion, politics and mental health status were spoken about with your nearest and dearest. Now our private diagnostics have become social dΓ©cor β like hashtags we wear to signal awareness.
Or:
βI came for Neville, not Jung. I wanted to imagine, not excavate. But somehow we have mistaken self-analysis for self-concept.β
