At various points in the past, I’ve written about the power of stories and how we can be attracted to archetypal figures, but I’ve never really gone deep on the topic because (I have to confess) I found the mystical vibe off-putting.
Typical scientist.
This week’s YouTube video is all about this subject, and again, I just outright cheat and avoid the issue of whether or not Jung’s archetypes have any sort of rational basis in neuroscience, or if it’s all metaphor.
The “it’s useful so let’s go with it” approach is fine for the video, but I thought it would be worthwhile to use the blog to expand on the topic, as there are some interesting things to say, even if they are not really fully formed ideas yet.
Basically, you’re all my sounding board.
What are Jungian archetypes?
Jung developed the idea of archetypes alongside the concept of the “collective unconscious”. The premise is that certain characters, plot themes, symbols, and motifs recur in people’s dreams, myths, and stories – things like the Wise Old Man, the Child, the Flood, and the Apocalypse. This phenomenon seems to be cross-cultural, and Jung saw it as a human universal.
He took this to be highly meaningful, arguing that archetypes are ancestral patterns of thought that are shared collectively in the form of “primordial images”. The collective unconscious is a kind of psychic otherworld that everyone can access through the subconscious, and that ideas bubble up to us from this ancestral source in cryptic but emotionally powerful forms.
Jung distinguished archetypes from instincts, but both are aspects of the collective unconscious. Just as animals display behaviours that they cannot have possibly learned from their own life experience (the bizarrely epic migrations of eels is a good example), we all inherit instincts that are hardwired into our brains. But archetypes are more like shared ancestral memories – ideas that animate us but are not built into the circuits of the brain in the same way as a reflex or behavioural drive.
Rationalists start to feel disquiet at this point, and even more so because Jung chose to probe the collective unconscious through dream analysis and what could be called spirit quests. He attempted to commune with aspects of his own unconscious that came embodied in archetypal figures – like a sage “Philemon” whom Jung used to “take walks with” as a spirit guru. This led Jung to the idea that archetypes had an external reality outside of the mind, almost like a Platonic ideal form of a human type that could be connected to.
This mysticism is why Jungian interpretations of human behaviour have mostly been dismissed by mainstream psychological science.
Evolutionary psychology
The concept that ideas can be inherited in a parallel way to instincts and reflexes does have explanatory power, however.
One branch of psychology that has in some ways embraced this principle is evolutionary psychology. This field is predicated on the concept that behaviour can be selected for in the same way as the limbs, organs, and systems of the physical body.
Evolutionary psychology attempts to explain how universal human behaviour could be “adaptive” – increasing survival and reproductive success. The driving forces for evolution through natural selection.
It is a contentious field, partly because it inevitably touches on touchy subjects (like politics, religion and economics), but also because the evidence for the social conditions that were present in our distant past is pretty scanty.
Nevertheless, the argument that psychological drives – like fear of strangers, fear of loss, novelty seeking, and so on – were selected for by evolution and passed on through inheritance is persuasive.
If we can inherit an innate fear of snakes, we clearly can pass on “patterns of thoughts” down the generations.
Romantic archetypes
When it comes to evolutionary pressures, reproduction is the central force. Choosing a mate well is a dominant concern of all animals, the more so for those animals that invest a lot of energy and resources into the gestation and care of offspring.
For people, that means that romantic and sexual behaviour are prime candidates for analysis by evolutionary psychology, and the literature on mate selection is impressively substantial.
When it comes to limerence, formation of a limerent attachment represents an “all in” commitment. Limerent objects have enormous psychological power over us. Few experiences come close to the emotional overwhelm of limerence and the urgency and intensity of the drive to form a pair bond with this other person.
That’s why one of the most useful things that any individual limerent can do to understand themselves is to try and identify their limerent triggers. What sort of person causes the glimmer in you?
Well, it’s going to be a combination of your own unique experiences, and your evolved instincts and psychology.
Put another way: people are attractive both for the archetype they represent and for the associations that they trigger in you, specifically. Mate selection is partly driven by ancestral forces (genetic fitness, phenotypic matching, etc.) and partly by personal forces (formative experiences, childhood role models, etc.).
To really get to grips with the roots of our desires we need to consider both the influences coming from the collective unconscious (species-level lessons) and our personal unconscious (life lessons).
Quite a knot to untangle…
Dr L,
Nice topic! As someone whose mind tends heavily towards rationalist, I’m struggling here, but want to know more.
It’s like what you wrote needs a connection. How did Jung get from positing the existence of these mystical figures like his Philemon spirit guru, to the archetype of the sort of person we want to pair bond with for evolutionary reasons? How does the one feed into the other?
I need no convicing that such an archetype exists, and informs much mate selection and limerence … I just want to understand how his theory got from A to B, if that makes sense.
Yep,
There is something about damsels in distress and running off together.
https://livingwithlimerence.com/can-limerence-explain-twin-flames/#comment-6090
I never felt like I wanted to run off with LO #4. However, compared to LO #2, LO #4 triggered more direct associations to my mother than LO #2 did.
For example, as I kid I remember my mother sobbing in the bedroom during the divorce and me trying to cheer her up by telling her jokes.
In the 5 years we crossed paths, I don’t remember LO#2 shedding a single tear about anything. LO #4 told me on multiple occasions that she was crying or had been crying.
What did I do? I told her jokes.
Oops,
That should have been a separate comment.
LaR,
“I just want to understand how his theory got from A to B, if that makes sense.”
I thought about your question a lot yesterday and still couldn’t quite grasp my intuitive answer, but I’ll give it a try here and see if it makes some senses to you.
During summer of 2023, I dug just a bit deep into Jungian theories (he got too many) and encountered Philemon, but could not fully comprehend it. Now that Dr L mentions it again, I immediately thought about my Phantom, and my hundreds of monologues to him through ET.
I said in the past that I scripted — strongly felt and believed that would be, what and how the Phantom would respond (ET replied little) and thus felt consoled (for trauma stuff) or spiritually uplifted (when creativity was inspirited with purple lines here or there). In the end, I credited all the healing to a part of my inner self, perhaps this part is my Philemon — a personal sage?
“He attempted to commune with aspects of his own unconscious that came embodied in archetypal figures – like a sage Philemon” whom Jung used to “take walks with” as a spirit guru. This led Jung to the idea that archetypes had an external reality outside of the mind, almost like a Platonic ideal form of a human type that could be connected to.”
If Jung had “taken walks with” his Philemon, then I have certainly monologued to my Philemon, through a “Platonic ideal form of a human type” that my DNA drives have felt connected to — ET (I did not monologue to any past crushes, just wrote journals or normal letters/emails). Only through this LE, I finally realized what I was doing — talking to a part of myself through ET’s SM address as a link, perhaps a “Platonic ideal form of human type” for me to reach my spiritual sage?
I do not need to go over here who would be our LO type, our genetic components or cultured romantic type (personality) or personal experiences (traumas) always enigmatically selected for us. As I mentioned before, all my previous crushes (except one or two) carried a similar aura or even look (from very different racial background); and it was ALWAYS my Unconscious who glimmered at them first, not the other way around.
Am I making a bit of sense to your question: how to get from A to B?
LaR,
You said that you became more alive and creative with your LO/MFF, perhaps she just happened to wake up your creative talents and aliveness, adventure spirit, etc. already in you yet unknown to your Self. So you projected a part of your Self to her as your “Platonic Ideal form of human type”.
If this is the case, I think you need more alone time (more LC, less texting with MFF, not cutting off) to locate and communicate/commune with your own Philemon, who was and is IN you always…. do not search for IT in anyone else or mistaken LO for IT.
After I took back the Phantom from ET, he no longer appeared as a surrogate parent, but an ordinary, flawed, still attractive man. I began going out of the LE spell slowly, then my rational mind has gradually come back….
Snow,
I’ll reply more in detail to your first message later, but your analysis of me and MFF in the second makes total sense. Yes, MFF speaks to many sides of me (‘P’ – creativity, spontaneity, inner strength, authenticity) that are the parts of me I have previously underused / not nurtured, and benefit from using more.
Similar to how you had to decouple your phantom from ET, and it still wore his mask for a long while even after you did that … I find it difficult to harness those sides of me at the minute, without her being part of it. I really know that I could do with finding other avenues, and need to to move on from her. It’s a journey I’m on but may take time.
We don’t text that much at all apart from during leave from work – just flurries now and again if a topic of interest comes up. The reasons I can’t get enough time alone are not really down to her (she takes headspace, but that’s not currently at its worst). It is complex and relates to all of work demands, family, SO etc. None of that is probably that abnormal so I want to find a way to work with it and still get more ‘me-time’. There is also a certain resistance within me to it, but that’s far from the whole story – I often feel I have more demands on my time than I have hours to give.
I’ll go more intellectual/less personal with you on the Jungian point eventually!
If you’re really serious about your wellbeing, then scheduled a 11 day Vipassana retreat ahead of time (takes 2-6 months to get one spot). Your world would not collapse in 11 days….
Snow,
“Am I making a bit of sense to your question: how to get from A to B?”
I think so. Please check my understanding below.
“I dug just a bit deep into Jungian theories (he got too many) and encountered Philemon, but could not fully comprehend it. Now that Dr L mentions it again, I immediately thought about my Phantom, and my hundreds of monologues to him through ET.”
I have never 100% got to grips with what you mean by your Phantom but am getting there. When DrL mentioned Philemon as a kind of ‘spiritual guide’ I must confess I did immediately think about your Phantom, perhaps because of the similarities between the words. It feels a bit like a person or entity we imagine within, that we need. But we may not be aware ir is within. It is easily projected onto an LO who we feel has the qualities of the needed spirit guide (the suppressed part of Self). Until we learn about limerence, it can almost ‘become’ the LO. We fail to realise initially that it is a part of us shouting to be let out, but feel it manifests in someone else??
How am I doing? This all sounds fairly compatible with Jung’s shadow and anima / animus from what I learned from that video you shared…
“I said in the past that I scripted — strongly felt and believed that would be, what and how the Phantom would respond (ET replied little) and thus felt consoled (for trauma stuff) or spiritually uplifted (when creativity was inspirited with purple lines here or there).”
So that was after you realised that the Phantom and ET were separate things?
There seem to be three stages or more – not realising (joining the two), realising but still being unable to properly separate the two, then separating the them properly and acknowledging the Phantom / Philemon as an internal force, not attached to the LO. I’m in phase 2, you are maybe now in phase 3.
“This led Jung to the idea that archetypes had an external reality outside of the mind, almost like a Platonic ideal form of a human type that could be connected to.”
I can’t quite square the reality external to human mind part – I thought Jung believed it was inside us, really, but projected outside.
“As I mentioned before, all my previous crushes (except one or two) carried a similar aura or even look (from very different racial background); and it was ALWAYS my Unconscious who glimmered at them first, not the other way around.”
Was ET different in those ways to all the others? If yes, do you put that down to the surrogate parent element or something else?
LaR,
“I have never 100% got to grips with what you mean by your Phantom but am getting there.”
With my own case, I think “Phantom” is a formless entity/spirit within oneself, very hard to be detected due to busy and noisy outer world around us. This Phantom “talked” to me in the form of thoughts/emotions, some of which I still remember back in my week-care days — when I strongly suspect my lonely and desperate mind began to develop one, a phantom who could, during all my lonely hours, patiently listen to me and “speak back” based on my wishes and imaginations.
“When DrL mentioned Philemon as a kind of ‘spiritual guide’ I must confess I did immediately think about your Phantom, perhaps because of the similarities between the words. “
I wondered if you could make the connection, it was like Synchronicity for my case, as if the word “Phantom” is waiting for its “twin” term “Philemon”. However, I didn’t/don’t feel my Phantom is a spiritual sage, but a savor for sure to have revived/renewed a part of myself — the Self has done so and continues doing so.
“It feels a bit like a person or entity we imagine within, that we need. But we may not be aware it is within. It is easily projected onto an LO who we feel has the qualities of the needed spirit guide (the suppressed part of Self).”
This is the most confusing part for me — how the pair-bonding drive could make us feel an LO “has the qualities of the needed spirit”? Phantom/Philemon is far, far beyond instinctual/animalistic, but spiritually wise. I guess LE really messes our rational mind!
“Until we learn about limerence, it can almost ‘become’ the LO. We fail to realise initially that it is a part of us shouting to be let out, but feel it manifests in someone else??
Based on IFY, it’s a part of SELF that had deeply hidden within us; one needs to bring it to the conscious mind/the front 🧠. Not every limerent felt/feels this way, only some who have difficulties to recognize and express one’s Self. Based on Jung (or someone else), most of humans are “sleeping walk” on this earth.
“So that was after you realised that the Phantom and ET were separate things?”
Even before, even during the first stage. By nature, monologues don’t expect or receive any responses (still needed), so the monologuer scripts/imagines wished scenes and words — s/he’s a producer, director, actor/actress, and the audience all in one. And the observing self could see what other parts in one’s system are doing. As long as it’s psychologically effective, the show goes on! A kid could do this, and an adult-kid can also do this, just like one chooses to believe in an external god.
“ I’m in phase 2, you are maybe now in phase 3.”
Seems to be so, although in my case, the fate has played a major role. If my old job situation remained the same, I’m positive that I would be in your shoes, properly worse, since I was unable to pull myself away from our chitchatting at work….
“I can’t quite square the reality external to human mind part – I thought Jung believed it was inside us, really, but projected outside.”
I assume that Jung had gone a lot of self-analysis and was highly aware the spiritual stuff within, so he would not easily project his Philemon to another external human mind. But most of us limerents were/are totally in darkness either in limerence or Jungian theories, (as DrL points out it’s very off-putting stuff to majority of rational/scientific mind) we could easily project our Philemon to a LO or MFF without even recognizing doing so.
“Was ET different in those ways to all the others? “
One thing in DrL’s latest video “7 types of people bewitching us” strikes a core in me — all my first-sight crushes and ET carried that unbelievable, almost out of space, “familiarity”, which made me instantly feel I knew them from my past life, if it ever existed! The difference is that all the previous romance/relationship were “consummated” in one way or another, but not this LE with ET, who is officially unavailable and emotionally/mentally non-reciprocal.
“If yes, do you put that down to the surrogate parent element or something else?”
For the first 8-9 months before Father’s sudden passing, it was quiet and harmonious; I did not fall into LE. Physical or unknown attractions were there from both sides, but very subtle. I would say that 8 months after the Glimmer, I slipped into LE; and after 18 months, I began the “shocking confessional” emails “(en)treating” ET as a surrogate parent, largely due to Mom’s arrival and her habitual Narc attempt to control me again…. That was still in phrase 1 which lasted more than 3 years; the phrase 2 began in the beginning of 2022 when his black lies started….
You count your case by months, me by years; someone else here by decade… 😕
The Frenchman and I exchanged some texts this evening (while I was working on this post) and had some interesting in depth discussions about the movies he and I wanted to and not want to see, and the reasons…. I joined the membership he recommended, through which I got his full name and googled it. He has a straightforward professional and educational profiles since middle school…. Nothing personal existing.
I still have not given him my last name yet; I’m just cautious. I think/feel we could be movie-goer friends, with his cultural views and songwriting hobby, not sure about other stuff yet. I will not use the word “date” for as long as possible — it adds too much pressure, especially when the Glimmer is absent….
Hi Snow,
Please keep me posted on how the movie-going non-‘dates’ progress! I also dislike the word ‘dates’ – there is something archaic and pressurising /labelling about it. Reminds me of when my Mum used to say to me ‘are you courting?’ to mean ‘do you have a girlfriend?’.
Your phantom makes more sense to me now I know you were aware of it since childhood, and why. I understand less so how you projected it onto ET if you knew it as a part of you for that long.
“This is the most confusing part for me — how the pair-bonding drive could make us feel an LO “has the qualities of the needed spirit”?”
Could it be in reverse or in parallel? That the seeming qualities being present in a person somehow bring on the pair-bonding drive towards them?
Here is a question. With the benefit of hindsight, do you feel your spaceman did have (some of) the needed qualities of your phantom? Or was he just right place, right time?
I guess if we (collective) assign a number of qualities to our ‘Philemon’ – let’s say 3 just for the sake of example, but would vary – (in reality 3 parts of the Self that need tending to) – then there is a good chance we will sometimes encounter people who possess / seem to possess all these qualities.
Physical attraction must work somehow on a different level from spirit guides – so eg. if I met a man with all those qualities, there is no way I would become attracted in a sexual way to him! But if there is a base level of physical attraction too – that’s when it becomes limerence. Physical attraction but without the person appearing to possess the qualities would be more of a crush but not limerence.
Let me play it out with my own example. The initial glimmer happens at first sight / is physically based. Mild crush results but I can squash it. Spirit guide qualities form separately inside me. A time comes when I am in need of those qualities (have neglected them within myself). MFF (who does actually possess them) increases the amount she is displaying them towards me at that time. Second glimmer hits and becomes limerence and my mind amplifies these qualities in her x 100. When I arrive at LwL I slowly start to realise that it is bits of myself being projected. Today I have intellectually understood that, but F isn’t there yet.
I’m probably retrofitting a theory to make it fit but I want it to (bad practice!) but does that make any sense?
(Me) “I can’t quite square the reality external to human mind part – I thought Jung believed it was inside us, really, but projected outside.”
You have maybe missed my point in your reply to that. You and I are agreeing it is internal, and most of what we’ve said about Jung implies he knew that too. But in your last-but-one message you said, when discussing Philemon, “this led Jung to the idea that archetypes had an *external reality outside of the mind*, almost like a Platonic ideal form of a human type that could be connected to.”. Here Jung is reported as saying it has an external (not internal) reality, and it is that I’m finding harder to square.
“all my first-sight crushes and ET carried that unbelievable, almost out of space, “familiarity”, which made me instantly feel I knew them from my past life, if it ever existed!”
Could they be echoes of people from earlier in this life? I have often considered just how much – in looks and temperament – MFF reminds me of LO3 and a bit of LO1 too. I was very fond of LO3 and we parted well. When L.E. has told his story about his LO2 and LO4, he has said something similar. They are a bit like echoes of people, helping us to resolve unfinished business with the person.
Heaven help the poor woman who ever reminds me of MFF in the future then 🤣🤣
LaR,
“Your phantom makes more sense to me now I know you were aware of it since childhood, and why.”
I was not aware back then when IT communed” with me. But in hindsight, during the LE and after LwL, I gradually figured out this independent Phantom spirit. Then those pieces of bizarre (most people forget them), vague memories of childhood thoughts and emotions related to incidents, traumatic or lame, came back.
“ I understand less so how you projected it onto ET if you knew it as a part of you for that long.”
As I said above, I didn’t always actively know the Phantom, although my random thoughts always talked to me. In this LE, 8months after the peaceful Glimmer and father’s passing, ET immediately served as a consoling/emotional stabilizing force and a surrogate parental figure — it took place “at right time and right place.” But Glimmer had to take place beforehand, I didn’t go to other coworkers (even my motherly Lady friend) for the unconscious role.
Even though I had that tough psychologist dealing with my cptsd at the time (she was aware of my “improper” infatuation and “hammered” me for it), I was still “pushed/drawn” to share my historical and newly triggered cptsd pains. That’s just one of LE behaviors.
“Could it be in reverse or in parallel? That the seeming qualities being present in a person somehow bring on the pair-bonding drive towards them?”
No one knows it so far in the entire human history! To me, Glimmer took place in 3-5 seconds for every single crush, impossible to sense another person’s qualities or even scan all his physical features — except EYES! I believe in DrL’s theory about possible pair-bonding selections — still mysterious to everyone walking on Earth!
Why keep rationalizing this? instead of just accepting some nature’s existing unknowns? Why does rational mind want to “know” about everything unknown? This is where T annoys me a great deal — It wants to control, instead of peacefully accept 80% of imperfections in this world — the default!
“Here is a question. With the benefit of hindsight, do you feel your spaceman did have (some of) the needed qualities of your phantom? Or was he just right place, right time?”
I still do not know whether he has the needed qualities of my phantom, except that he listened well (even I complained and yelled at him) with little judgment(or all was just my perceptions and beliefs?) If he had responded like your MFF, then I probably could have never figured out this Phantom spirit was/is always with me, a part of me (I think that’s why it’s so hard to sort out your Philemon, with MFF’s constant presence, response and interaction with you).
The monologues served as a vehicle to bring out my sleeping Phantom, who was given a “newly waken” life since the Fall of 2018. But I only began to see Its independent figure at the beginning of 2022. I severed the tie between the Phantom and ET in the Spring of 2023 (told him in person), even before I dived into Jungian theories and his Philemon (the image is all over the internet) during the same summer before landing in LwL.
“I guess if we (collective) assign a number of qualities to our ‘Philemon’ – let’s say 3 just for the sake of example, but would vary – (in reality 3 parts of the Self that need tending to)”
The word “assign” sounds too much T to my year, one can’t use T to understand spirit, Philemon/Phantom. Our deep, aware or unknown, insecurity would tell us which vulnerable parts still need attention/care, and which protectors are acting to “protect” them. To enact parts of the Self to win the uncountable battles, one has to reduce/kill some protectors, extreme rationality, T, is one of them!
“ – then there is a good chance we will sometimes encounter people who possess / seem to possess all these qualities.”
“Seem to possess” is a proper phrase to use, showing Lim-brain/mentality. Nowadays, I tend to disbelieve anyone could possess qualities of another’s Phantom quality and haven’t seen any tangible evidences in reality or even in fictions. Two difference personalities and two kindred spirits could connect but not replace each other; each side, with similar or different cultural and personal background, has its own Philemon guiding or misguiding them.
No two people are alike, one’s Phantom spirit only comes/is cultivated within oneself, but could be unknowingly projected onto another, especially LO or some guru figure. You still sound like so much wanting to “define/credit” your MFF as a part of your own Philemon, she was/is not. At most she has held up as a mirror showing your own characteristics and your own Phantom (sorry, this idea might sound plagiarized)! I do not need to know her personally to say this.
“Physical attraction must work somehow on a different level from spirit guides – so eg. if I met a man with all those qualities, there is no way I would become attracted in a sexual way to him! “
*sigh”, too much T dwelling on unknowns again; there is no such direct or indirect connection as you state. Anything can and has happened in reality. Based on Fisher, Tunnov, and DrL, DNA drives bring out that Glimmer, what does it have to do with “spiritual qualities” — what are they by your T mind?
In my personal encounters, that physics’ magnetic field also worked, how do you/I explain that? Under physics laws, we, animated or unanimated, are all objects, with or without emotions; therefore magnetic pulls or expels exist by nature.
“But if there is a base level of physical attraction too – that’s when it becomes limerence. “
From what I’ve learned from LwL and my own experiences, it’s not the only type of LE. Physical attraction can leads to a crush, but not necessarily limerence (I’m still physically attracted to Romeo, but rarely think about him besides teaching him). Huge emotional/mental infatuation has to be involved and reaches beyond a manageable scale, to be categorized in limerence.
“Physical attraction but without the person appearing to possess the qualities would be more of a crush but not limerence.”
Qualities are fluid, are a part of one’s social mask — the persona, never fixed inside and can be changed at unexpected events or random times. If they’re so fixed and stable all the time, we think those people are boring/dull, noncreative, non-progressive, non-inventive, etc, we don’t want to deal with them! Haven’t we known enough our ever evolving (fickle) human natures and their appeals and non-appeals? Can we live with them in peace?
“Let me play it out with my own example… Today I have intellectually understood that, but F isn’t there yet.”
I understand. F will take a long time to catch up with your T. It’s all so human!
“I’m probably retrofitting a theory to make it fit but I want it to (bad practice!) but does that make any sense?”
It does, because you’re still strong in limerence, but with a clearer 👁️. However, I can’t see non-limerent MFF’s true “role”, since we do not know/understand her motivation/psychology behind those flood texting… If it were from you, the explanations would be clearer.
“You have maybe missed my point in your reply to that.”
Yes, I realized that after posting last night, but too tired to correct myself.
“Here Jung is reported as saying it has an external (not internal) reality, and it is that I’m finding harder to square.”
I still remember I hear my thoughts in numeral situations during my childhood, in which some dramatic events took a place, ie. dancing alone in the street/classroom with “clear music/rhythm” in my head and was laughed/mocked by random bystanders and classmates. By age of 10, I stopped.
During my LE, of course, the phantom wore ET’s vague face which I always forgot as soon as I left the office (Now I can remember it better). However, from his face I always saw/sensed a part of myself — still do….
“Could they be echoes of people from earlier in this life?”
Then for the first Glimmer, where did familiarity come from? There were actually only 3 major ones that qualifies – Glimmer 1, 4(SO) & 7. #4.2, 4.3 (gay) were close. Their races, cultures, personalities, and appearances varied a great deal.
“They are a bit like echoes of people, helping us to resolve unfinished business with the person.”
I don’t think it’s true in all LE cases. In me, they were (romantic) distractions, helping me mentally/emotionally run away from Mom’s narc grips and other “stuck” situations, even serving my needs for feminine care — you have no idea the strength of Mom’s Animus, so narcissistic, cold and cruel!
Due to the unreciprocated nature of the LE, I finally got to know my own Phantom and keep HIM by my side, that’s a huge positive gain from a LE!
LaR,
Another analogy here :
A physical/mental therapist find three weak muscles in your body/mind, who is going to do effective strengthening exercises?
So a LO MIGHT appear/serve as an external spiritual mirror/therapist, telling what is sleeping or weak inside us. Who is going to do strengthening work? You, your mind, and your spirit!
Try to stop relying on your MFF or anyone else. No one else is our personal “god”, except our SELF!
Snow,
You are spinning my brain!! This is one of those times I wish we had more than the <10% of communication represented by words, for us to properly explain what we’re trying to say to each other. To actually be able to discuss this over a real coffee would be so nice!
(Sorry in advance to anyone else trying to keep up, for the amount of MBTI shorthand. Below, F=feeling, T=thinking each time; MFF = reference to my LO)
I understand what you’re saying that pair-bonding attractions are a magical, mystical and magnetic thing, full of F wonder and not explainable by the T brain. Point accepted 100%.
But – the point here was also to look at how we (collective) “get from A to B”, that is from the spirit guide / Philemon (which I acknowledge is inside us, not in anyone else) to the ‘manifestation’ sometimes in a limerent object. That’s the question I originally asked to Dr L in response to his post. If we are going to try and connect Jung’s theories about Philemon, archetypes, shadow etc to limerence, I feel we simply HAVE to apply some T / rationalism to figure it out. I don’t think F can solve that puzzle (at least not alone) of connecting theory and experience.
I understand (as best I can) your reasons from your past explanations about your life, about why you find “too much T” in yourself or others (including me) to be aversive. But I still genuinely think the above is a problem that needs “T” intellectualism / rationalism to look at.
I think we need to be OK with the fact that T and F constantly play off and interact with each other – it is not a case of one or the other. For instance (and this is kind of the other way round from where you tell me elsewhere to use less T), you say to me “Try to stop relying on your MFF or anyone else. No one else is our personal “god”, except our SELF!”. Well, I can really only achieve that by using T (you are talking to my T there), because F just is a magnetic force pulling me towards her in the face of pretty constant exposure. So … only by me intervening with T (almost fighting F until it can catch up) can I achieve that – “mind over matter”. On this topic, and before I get more theoretical again, I do fully know about and accept the need to draw away, and have already started to do so as explained in another message.
—
I want to try and simplify what I meant about “from A to B” to get it across better:
– Physical glimmer (mystical F process) = crush
– Physical glimmer (F) + the *apparent* (mindful word choice here by me – may not be actual) presence of archetypical qualities in the person (T) = limerence
– The LO is certainly a ‘mirror to our soul’, not themselves a Philemon, Phantom etc – I don’t dispute this point – I was trying to agree with you before about that.
There is a stage within limerence where we come to understand this above fact, if we use T enough (e.g. read and interact with things on LwL). Some people probably never do realise. F just floods them with emotions until its work is done. Eventually, if we do grasp it, it should allow us to see: 1. The LO as more of a whole person, not a saint; 2. the gaps within ourselves – the unattended to things from our subconscious/Philemon – that we’ve been projecting onto the LO. I could name four or five of these things in my case (have done before so won’t repeat) and recognise them now as lacks in myself, not simply ‘wonderful’ things about MFF or anyone else. I probably don't understand Jung's theories well enough yet (the parts about mythical creatures and the species-level stuff Dr L discussed) to totally get what he meant with his Philemon.
Another stage again is separating the two. This is current work in progress in my case that can pretty much only progress at the speed F follows T along (you have said before how trying to force these things has the counter effect). I can do things to help, but my conscious / T / rationality is not in full control of it. You have achieved separation of your phantom from ET, but it took you time, patience and discomfort to get there. That will be needed for me, too.
But back to the word ‘apparent’. Without rejecting the ‘mirror to the soul’ point, I do think examining the choice of LO is important, hence my earlier questions to you about ET and my observations about me and MFF. It relates to a conversation we had with Anna before. Yes, they are a window to the soul, but *why did select that particular window (or why did it select us)*?? Why did that person turn into an (F + T) LO, not a mere (F) crush? Why not a different person who we found attractive? Why did this LO glimmer now???
My answer is – for many LEs – because the LO did/does, to some extent, have, or appear to have, those qualities (even if intangible) that feel neglected in ourselves, and that our inner Philemon/Phantom wants to nurture. We could stop there on the matter, as far as my T is concerned with understanding it. As much as we need to separate it out and solve the problem within ourselves, we did alight on *that LO* for some (archetype-related) reason in the first place. And I feel the quest to understand why is worthwhile. In my case I think I have done the work on why and it is now about moving to next stages.
—
“Why keep rationalizing this? instead of just accepting some nature’s existing unknowns? Why does rational mind want to “know” about everything unknown?”
I hope I’ve been clearer now about which parts I feel it is worth applying T to, which parts not (point well taken that T will never explain a glimmer)
“I think that’s why it’s so hard to sort out your Philemon, with MFF’s constant presence, response and interaction with you”
I have sorted out a lot of what is being 'said' inside of me, it is just that I have not had enough time to process through the next stages yet.
“we do not know/understand her motivation/psychology behind those flood texting”
I do have a strong guess at an understanding of that, and can explain it if it would be in any way useful, but I don’t want to be a bore.
LaR,
“To actually be able to discuss this over a real coffee would be so nice!”
Having a nice up of strong coffee while discussing a big topic of LE would be indeed nice, but I’m not sure how much of a f2f discussion with me (my dancing P, N, T, F might spin your head worse.…) could really help your situation. If you really want to totally clear up your T head, why don’t go to visit DrL? You two live much closer, I’m sure a day trip/getaway would suffice, and DrL would be very welcoming to his LwL “inmates/kids”.
“I understand what you’re saying that pair-bonding attractions are a magical, mystical and magnetic thing, full of F wonder and not explainable by the T brain. Point accepted 100%.”
A correction here: … Full of Instinct/Intuition — N wonder (in one’s core somewhere very deep, and spirit is involved), not F (occurred still in head/heart), in all my cases.
As I said before I could not even define my feelings to my therapists, many had been oppressed or killed by COO. Growing up, I relied on N much more than F. Most of the time on the surface, my T dominated, which fended off ET and others many times. I hated it! As I told you before, I want to cultivate more F in me.
“If we are going to try and connect Jung’s theories about Philemon, archetypes, shadow etc to limerence,”
I don’t see a necessary link between Philemon to Limerence, although it could be. To Jung, Philemon was his spiritual or psychic guide. Jung had several intense extramarital affairs (not sure if they were limerence), but I only read that he had linked Philemon to his dreams — the Unconscious. (Vast of his work is still unknown to me).
“I feel we simply HAVE to apply some T / rationalism to figure it out. “
No, we do not “have to”. Using T to encounter the Unconscious? Isn’t it like using science to prove or disprove God?
“I don’t think F can solve that puzzle (at least not alone) of connecting theory and experience.”
F (wishful) is just oil/fuel to push the engine, it has little brain. Again, I used S/N a great deal to “evaluate/predict”, like your hair color, Anna’s hair length, Marcia’s height, and ET’s favorite color and some behaviors (Glimmered helped)…. I didn’t know how those answers came into my head.
“Intuition does not denote something contrary to reason, but something outside of the province of reason.” —Carl Jung
I trust less and less my F in evaluating matters or people, but my N over T (with Frenchman)
“But I still genuinely think the above is a problem that needs “T” intellectualism / rationalism to look at.”
Totally disagree! It’d be futile to use T to figure out N/spirit, as Jung indicates above. By the way, my first BS is CS with tons of logical and mathematical trainings (an early AI model research), I didn’t enjoy it a bit — too mechanical and rational, unable to even ease human interaction discomfort. Only when dealing with purple words, my spirit/blood surged and ebbed.…
“I think we need to be OK with the fact that T and F constantly play off and interact with each other – it is not a case of one or the other.”
Please go ahead with both of them, I’ll stay off that track. I never glimmered at anyone with engineering and science background (I ran away from it), and refused to date any. Their T mind instantly put me off when I gave a couple of try.
“Well, I can really only achieve that by using T (you are talking to my T there), because F just is a magnetic force pulling me towards her in the face of pretty constant exposure. “
In LwL, only T-organized words could work (10%), so we all have to use T and language to convey our ideas and emotions as “accurately” as possible (impossible). I understand that why you F is pulled by a magnetic force, which then makes your head unable to coolly feel/think for your Self. Can you work a bit more with your N?
“I do fully know about and accept the need to draw away, and have already started to do so as explained in another message”
I saw that message. Don’t try too hard, otherwise, it’d backfire. Drawing away is aimed to kill limerence, but not your substantial friendship. Since the two is already entangled to the point of making you “suffer”, then one of them needs to be “severed”, which would temporarily hurt the other. Eventually, the pain would go away, your dreamed authentic friendship would be stronger— not returning to its old stage. Without ever been in your shoes, I do NOT know how possibly to achieve your goal!
—
“I want to try and simplify what I meant about “from A to B” to get it across better:”
— I’ll have to disagree with you here, word by word, based on all my crushes and “LEs”.
[you]– Physical glimmer (mystical F process) = crush
[me] — (physical + spiritual) Glimmer (mystical familiarity — N process ) = crush.
[you]– Physical glimmer (F) + the *apparent* presence of archetypical qualities in the person (T) = limerence]
[me] __ (physical + spiritual) Glimmer (F+N) + a possible presence of archetypical qualities in LO (N) not necessarily ➡️ limerence.
“There is a stage within limerence where we come to understand this above fact, if we use T enough (e.g. read and interact with things on LwL). “
“fact”? My understanding differs from your “above fact”. We use T mostly to manage our concrete (in)actions in our reality. I did/do listen to others’ talks, thought/think about them, pondering how they could (not) be related to my cases; however it was not by sheer facts or reasons given, but senses emerged from between lines of their talks…
“Eventually, if we do grasp it, it should allow us to see:
1. The LO as more of a whole person, not a saint;
2. the gaps within ourselves – the unattended to things from our subconscious/Philemon – that we’ve been projecting onto the LO.”
The issue here is that sometimes, even with clear knowledge of LO’s shortcomings or other negative personality traits, we are still strongly drawn/pulled to them, still can’t get rid of our LE! So LO is not the “issue”, but somewhere deep in our inner Self.
“I can do things to help, but my conscious / T / rationality is not in full control of it. “
I so hope your T is NOT in the most control of it! Gee, too much for me to stomach…
“but it took you time, patience and discomfort to get there. That will be needed for me, too.”
I’d give it two or more years, since your MFF is constantly around.
“But back to the word ‘apparent’. Without rejecting the ‘mirror to the soul’ point, I do think examining the choice of LO is important,”
Again! 😳 Absolutely disagree! You just can’t turn away from your MFF, instead into your Self, huh? To repeat your words to CSC, “what a lim-brain!”
“but *why did select that particular window (or why did it select us)*?? “
Your T did not select it AT ALL, but the Unconscious (N) did selection (Sammy was right on this!)
“Why did that person turn into an (F + T) LO, not a mere (F) crush? “
The unaware “needs” inside us turned her/him to (F+N) LO — in my cases it was the old and newly triggered cptsd; in your case, some “serious” issues of your brother and SO…
“Why not a different person who we found attractive? Why did this LO glimmer now???”
that’s due to that mystic Glimmer, and some of our real life crisis at the particular time — we already spoke about this hundreds of times, no need to repeat.
“My answer is – for many LEs – because the LO did/does, to some extent, have, or appear to have, those qualities (even if intangible) that feel neglected in ourselves,”
So ET has a Sensor quality, should I search or awake or give a brith to a Sensor possibly neglected inside me?
“and that our inner Philemon/Phantom wants to nurture. We could stop there on the matter, as far as my T is concerned with understanding it.”
What about our inner Philemon/Phantom was half-dead or gone hibernation before LE? LO, like a Muse, was at the right time, right place, just woke IT up? I didn’t know the Phantom was mine, until Nisor here suggested it, which then brought back my childhood memory.
“ As much as we need to separate it out and solve the problem within ourselves, we did alight on *that LO* for some (archetype-related) reason in the first place.”
What happened about a decade of friendship beforehand?
“And I feel the quest to understand why is worthwhile. In my case I think I have done the work on why and it is now about moving to next stages.”
As long as you feel calmer and more joy in your daily life, then your T work is effective and fruitful! I so dislike my T, although I need it to survive; it rarely brought me “innocent/simple” joys or fleeting happiness.
—
“I have sorted out a lot of what is being ‘said’ inside of me, it is just that I have not had enough time to process through the next stages yet.”
Lucky you that your T could make some decisions and move from stage to stage… which my unconscious would not allow in me, I just did this or that without rationalizing much but experimenting or taking a leap of faith, jump off the cliff to an abyss or Inferno….
“I do have a strong guess at an understanding of that, and can explain it if it would be in any way useful, but I don’t want to be a bore.”
To be very honest, I won’t believe your “strong guess” coming out of your T. You still can’t help but talk so much about your MFF, which shows that you’re still so much in LE, focusing a bit too much on her instead of your Self….
I’m sorry to be so blunt…. Could we please pause on T talks for a while?
“I’m sorry to be so blunt…. Could we please pause on T talks for a while?”
I don’t know what ‘T talks’ means for certain. If you mean pause on psychological topics, then yeah sure. We can pause any talks for as long as you like. I would never want anyone to feel obliged to ‘talk’ to me – it is and always should be a free choice here to come and go as one pleases. Respectfully, if you don’t want to get into heavier subjects with me for a bit, please try not to intervene on my points if and when such conversations crop up with other posters, or it is natural I would then want to respond and then we’d get drawn back in.
When we do talk again, I cannot realistically pause some bits of my character (T) and only talk with other parts, especially in text based words only, where other sides can’t be ‘seen’, as you said. It kind of has to be a conversation with the whole person (as they present), or not. Either way is fine with me.
A couple of things from that message that I’d just to tidy up my side on before I stop. I didn’t ever say my sibling was a cause of LE (much of that issue came simultaneously). My SO, yes a bit, but never tried to blame her – always discussed that in a sense of ‘me and her’, not ‘her’. I do, and always have, accept that both the reasons and solutions reside within me. I may not have found them all yet – doesn’t mean I don’t accept the principle. And it is from DrL that I took the point that it is important to understand our limerence avatar / archetype (the point is reinforced in two of his recent videos) and to whom I originally asked the question on that point that triggered this discussion.
I fully respect your right to disagree, but as is my right to have my own belief, the question “why this LO at this time?” will always be a worthwhile one to interrogate – not only in regard to me, but for any LE.
That doesn’t absolve looking into the self, but as I said once before (credit to either DrL or L.E. for the plagiarised bit below, I forget which), unpacking an LE involves all of:
-Why did THIS LO glimmer for me at this time?
-Why did this LO GLIMMER for me at this time?
-Why did this LO glimmer FOR ME at this time?
-Why did this LO glimmer for me AT THIS TIME?
As to your question about ‘what happened to ten years of friendship first?’ – they were a fact, I didn’t make them up! The reasons why the one thing changed to the other remains a source of fascination and the above questions have helped me get closer to answers.
LaR,
“I don’t know what ‘T talks’ means for certain. “
“T talks” means to rationalize things. I grew up with so much T thinking around me, I’m literally allergic/sick to it, as I mentioned before. In general, the West over-rationalizes metaphysical or psychological or mystical matters that cannot be or only could be partially analyzed . Such a tendency/habit creates this collective and personal anxieties, since no set of answers could be found.
“If you mean pause on psychological topics, then yeah sure”
Most of things related to Limerence is psychological, no way to avoid it. But aside from neuroscience and its phenomena (so appreciate DrL’s expertise), psychological components in LE are NOT scientific; (cultural, individualistic, and mysterious) you seem to strive to make it rational. I disagree and do not want to get into it.
“I didn’t ever say my sibling was a cause of LE (much of that issue came simultaneously). My SO, yes a bit, but never tried to blame her – always discussed that in a sense of ‘me and her’, not ‘her’.”
You sounded defensive again (in many, many of your posts, why???); I never said or hinted that your sibling or SO are issues themselves, but your interactions with them at the time of your slipping into LE. A relationship, working well or having problems, are always a TWO-WAY traffic… My ear turned deaf wherever someone complains it’s one-side’s issues…
“it is important to understand our limerence avatar / “
I hope your understanding would help avoid next LO/LE striking. To me, I’m prepared to encounter a LO again, with or without a new realistic grief/loss. But my current N thinks I can manage well enough so as not to slip into LE again.
“why this LO at this time?” will always be a worthwhile one to interrogate – not only in regard to me, but for any LE.”
I would not further invest my limited time and energy to such a question, there are many creative and fulfilling endeavors in reality to go for.
“As to your question about ‘what happened to ten years of friendship first?’ – they were a fact, I didn’t make them up! The reasons why the one thing changed to the other remains a source of fascination and the above questions have helped me get closer to answers.”
I never hinted your friendship (with a Glimmer seed in it) was made up! For you and Mila, there were/are a large incentive to invest such a change in MFF’s status. For me, it only took 5 seconds, the rest was the history, which I had analyzed, understood, accepted and am moving on with a sense of peace and joy…. with my internal Phantom — either from my childhood or created in the LE via the monologues, still wearing 👽’s 🎭, even after I jumped off the cliff or into Inferno….
I’d be very interested to know what you’d do and how you’d fare after finding your answers about the link of your LE with Jungian archetype or his Philemon….
Edit: “I hope your understanding would help you tame or rid of your current LE and avoid next one striking.”
IMO, analysis itself could help see causes of psychological/physical ailments, but taming or curing them is another matter.
“Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Philemon represented a force which was not myself. In my fantasies I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I. He said I treated thoughts as if I generated them myself, but in his view thoughts were like animals in the forest, or people in a room, or birds in the air, and added, “If you should see people in a room, you would not think that you had made those people, or that you were responsible for them.” It was he who taught me psychic objectivity, the reality of the psyche. Through him the distinction was clarified between myself and the object of my thought. He confronted me in an objective manner, and I understood that there is something in me which can say things that I do not know and do not intend, things which may even be directed against me.”
― Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Now, I really wonder if Philomon or Phantom is a Beast produced by some high knowledge or by the Unconscious — edgeless, if collective unconscious is included.
https://youtu.be/lewaL6ceCm8?si=NTA8au1vjl_zGWh6 — How to See Your True Self — Carl Jung
Just leave it here in case anyone has time and interests in how to see/find One’s True Self and live with IT fully.
This is my only ever LE and so feels extra special because of that so, as a romantic, I occasionally daydream that myself and my LO were somehow pre-destined to feel drawn to one another by something larger than ourselves. Although I find that a pleasant and tempting thought as it allows me to relinquish a certain amount of responsibility, it is not helpful as I try to retake that control and struggle to keep my rational self behind the wheel. For that reason, I am not prepared to entertain the theory of collective unconscious. Even if it does have an arguable basis in evolutionary science.
I am though willing to accept that my experiences in life have led me to be drawn to an archetype. Difficult for me to identify which one specifically as LO has features of more than one.
I think that the problem with evolutionary psychology is that in normal evolution, based on DNA (RNA in some bacteria etc), there is a gene / complex of genes and regulatory pathways working together – that act as actual molecules to be inherited. Hence a result of the ‘successful’ parental contribution and production of offspring is that these molecules (or genes and regulatory pathways coding for them) get passed on. So what would be a good set of molecules to pass on now, in current circumstances, may or may not be good / useful in the future. The measure of whether the molecules were ‘good’ is if they, in turn, help with the production of future offspring. This is all largely random too and just depends on what gene + pathway is best suited at the time in the particular circumstances (during the process of natural selection).
What exactly gets passed on in evolutionary psychology (behaviour) is more problematic – what is the mechanism for inheritance, hence evolution? What gets passed on and how is its ‘success’ measured?
Collective consciousness doesn’t really do it for me by way of explanation. I think that eels and birds etc with collective behaviours that are ‘hardwired’ is usually explained as a ‘trade-off’ – something necessary for survival in large animals without a huge amount of parental care in their life history (birds get some parental care, a small amount, eels get none). In such cases, major behaviours to aid survival are hardwired / intuitive and there are many scientific explanations for the migration – use of earth’s magnetism to help tell the way, travelling in groups for safety, etc. Its easy enough to imagine why such behaviours might evolve but I do not think that there are in any way similar to the mystical collective unconscious of Jung. The latter seems more like a by product of the imagination, and self consciousness that is often argued to be unique to humans (and not easy to detect in animals since we lack means of common communication).
Things like neurotransmitters and physical attractiveness can be inherited and how these drive behaviours in self and others is one plausible link to evolution, I suppose…. but that’s not where this blog is all headed! This is one of the less appealing bit I have read regarding Jung’s theories. I think they say a lot about human psychology but I am not sure that there is a evolutionary link – or at least – the word ‘evolution’ is being used in a very different sense here. Without molecules and more akin to ‘meme’ or story that spreads successfully (or unsuccessfully). In the age of social media such things are interesting in themselves. (Although can also be quite vacuous, in my opinion).
I generally agree I find the idea of inherited archetypes and an inherited colelctive unconscious very problematic in an evolutionary concept. If we however take the archetypes to be built up from certain innate behaviours, with the imagery built around it very early in life, then I can get behind the idea that we collectively interpret stories in similar ways, at least within segments of the population. This can pass down to the individual udnerstanding of our role within the stories, and the many conflicts we feel between our lived experience and the collective stories we use to interpret them.
There is an unprovable part of Jung’s ideas which is that until you can talk, you can’t describe what is in your dreams, but in learning language the first time we have to form the concepts from existing aymbols.
For me I think we do have internal pre-programmed behaviours which are fairly universal, and I am sure they do change across the population as a whole over time, albeit very slowly. However, the archetypes are learned symbols of those behaviours drawn from existing cultural ideas, but with a certain shared root. Thus certain non western cultures can be shown to have commonality with what he saw in his patients, support his universal idea.
I would argue the collective conscious is thus a fusion of culture and inherited behaviours, and means the shared consciousness is in practice often not completely universal. What is controversial for me is defining those boundaries and saying how fixed they are. Jung himself said theat he only thought 40% of the population were completely ‘rational’, and a small share were completely ‘irrational’, thinking purely in stories that drew on the individual and collective unconscious or who were lost in psychosis. I think he also included people like the demagogues of mid 20th Century europe in this category, and said that is why they could draw large parts of the population behind them, because they could speak in an irrational way to them about a collective conscious and unconscious understanding of what is going on in society, which might defy rational explanation if written down.
To get back to the original focus on individual romantic self understanding, it means you could assume these archetypes influence us, but we may have subtly different understandings of them, or we may interpret or weight them slightly differently to each other, or even if from a very different culture or upbringing we might have different archetypes than what Jung saw. He was well travelled, but focus in on a few very specific cultures for real depth of understanding, and also slightly out there stuff like Gnosticism, Alchemy etc.
I’d like to thank you, Heebie Jeebies for the developed explanation of archetypes. You have far more knowledge about this than me.
I have a question: Do you think that we could leave the word ‘evolution’ out of it altogether and just put these common collective unconscious archetypes down to ‘culture’?
What does ‘evolution’ add? (And here, I am not talking about loose use of words e.g. where a person or individual says that they have ‘evolved’ when they really just mean ‘changed’)
In the past, I read books by prominent philosophers like Mary Midgley arguing against the field of ‘Evolutionary Psychology’, also showing how this has so often been adjacent (perhaps malappropriated) by racists etc. which makes me very wary. As a field, it seems loose and unconvincing, and I am not sure what it adds, honestly. But, culture, that I can get behind 🙂
Bewitched, I am officially a one and a half book expert…. so probably completely wrong. It’s just my guesswork and some additiosn of my own after reading a book about Jung and starting The Undiscovered Self.
Apaprently Jung himself didnt get very far on Archetypes, and it was Neumann in The Origins and History of Consciousness who actually fleshed out the ideas. The wikipedia page for that book has some links to counter arguments.
I definitely agree I struggle with the evolutionary bit, as it is untestable. I can kind of follow why certain behaviours might be useful for survival, but we can never know if they have changed.
Whenever the Jung’s term “Collective Unconscious” cropped up, I just could not help avert my eyes and turn off my ears, and my mind turned to vacuous. I’m not knowledgeable enough to discuss or deny it, but I simply can’t comprehend how “neurotransmitters and physical attractiveness can be inherited and how these drive behaviours in self and others is one plausible link to evolution”.
I used the word “evolving” (changing) a lot in the context of cultural influences, particularly to migrants like me, it’s nurtured not natured! I don’t intuitively think that molecules could pass down personality traits or archetypical types as a universal phenomenon, but I have no evidence to argue or disapprove its possibilities.
In the East, we have a different set of mythologies, mythical tales, spiritual stories passed down through 5 thousand years of history: we don’t have blind Cupid flying around randomly shouting 💘, we have many deities harmoniously coexisting, but not Mount Olympia with a bunch of egotistical, argumentative gods/goddesses; we don’t have Bible, and Sanskrit is almost inaccessible to laymen Buddhists, we don’t have white knights, grandiose heroes in quests… So what are archetypes for us, while we have experienced the similar lovesick or limerence pains?
Therefore, I agree with “the collective conscious is thus a fusion of culture and inherited behaviours, and means the shared consciousness is in practice often not completely universal”. Jung was very drawn to the East — its spirituality, mysticism, and culture; but he never lived there before. I’m ONE sample here to think/feel that Jung’s archetypes maybe largely applicable in the West, but might not so to Easterners.
Sorry to generalize here again: Westerner (in general) often rationalize and search without for answers to their individual or collective issues (romantic or other desirous kinds), while Easterners (in general) tend to accept Fate, especially in romance/friendship, and look within to harmonize (not getting rid of) internal “desires/demons”, which are considered innate coming with birth. You want to win and “kill” enemies (more metaphysical), we want to obtain harmony and peace (germinated from within) with coexistence of enemies.
Based on what I read in LwL, my LE is similar to yours (collectively), but degrees of the pains and struggles are much less intense in me — I accept its mystical/fatalistic nature. To my eyes, many here want to control/kill the beast of limerence with endless analysis, while I worked (not so hard) to watch and tame IT (via purple writing and meditation), and then aim to live with IT in peace, harmony and joy (depending on myself) — the name/goal of this land.
Snow, im not sure I can agree with some of the things you are saying:
– living in harmony with limerence – understand it is your objective, but I have been limerent for 3 people, and 2 of those episodes just completely ended. If I saw them again, which I can’t really be bothered to arrange, I would feel literally nothing. I would feel no great urge to speak to them more than any other person and wouldn’t think about them for a second after I left the room. I dont even know if they have social media or not and can’t be bothered to even check. This happened relatively unconsciously, one time in contact one time without. In that sense LE2+relapse is something I would ideally like to end in the same way, I don’t want to live in harmony with it. I would though agree talking about it a lot leads to a degree of harmony with the problem or at least acceptance. My understanding is you have mainly had one episode, and I don’t want to be condescending, but will risk it – my experience suggests limerence is more or less an aberration, and does end. But maybe that can’t be forced.
– I do think that similarish concepts to seeking harmony exist in western modern culture, it is acceptance (not closure) with roots back to the stoics virtues, but agree the root of those ideas are fundamentally different
– I would be very surprised if there are not common archetypes across the various east asian cultures, which have more overlap with each other than those in the western cultures. When I used to live in the east 20 years ago I remember watching the TV films and thinking that there were a bunch of stock character types in different films that were unfamiliar to me, but seemed common across different stories. I dont think the archetype itself is important, more whether the person for whatever reason is more likely to have limerence triggered by a specific one. Even if social and individual harmony is more pronounced than egotistical interaction, the hierarchies, roles and life stages that archetypes draw on are still strongly pronounced
– Actually one of the main reasons I want to feel like I got to the root of limerence nad not just be in harmony with it or see it as mystical and ‘other’ is that I think it is a mirror of something quite fundamental that defines me, but which I can’t directly view with my conscious mind, which for me really echoes well with Jung’s ideas. I can see the triggers, I can feel the emotions driving me, i can see the commonalties of the people who have ‘triggered’ me, but I can’t directly ‘look’ at and know myself
Heebie Jeebies,
Let me see if I could express myself or my current lot better based on your points.
“– living in harmony with limerence – understand it is your objective”
Yes, not just with limerence’s two sides, but everything else around myself and has happened to/in me, including possibly dormant lymphoma. One’s attitudes/moods towards LE or life in a bigger canvas are up oneself to manage. I also try to keep some creativity sprung out of my lengthy LE; otherwise, I’d plunge into depression.
“but I have been limerent for 3 people,…. one time in contact one time without. “
For all my previous big “crushes” (unqualified as true limerence due to their total or partial reciprocation or lack of realistic interactions), I feel/think the same as you do: I rarely think about them (unless I travel(led) in their town); and when I did once in a blue mood, it’s just intellectual curiosity (passed in a day or so) — how those people (rarely objects) are doing in their life. They are kind of like dream characters in my memory. Those big infatuations all ended before I knew what limerence is; otherwise, I do not know how I would have treated them.
“In that sense LE2+relapse is something I would ideally like to end in the same way, I don’t want to live in harmony with it.”
Despite its intensity in both benefits and “harms” (still not sure whether my lymphoma was indirectly triggered by LE’s huge stress and consequent panicking attacks, or the other way around), I still want to live with it in harmony. As I said before, I even wish to become a friend with ET, as I (an xLO) had done so for my several “crushed” friends (they don’t know changing me and vice vista) from the past.
“I would though agree talking about it a lot leads to a degree of harmony with the problem or at least acceptance. “
True! But if one is still in the middle of LE, without doing effective treatments— purposeful, curing steps (silent meditation or physical workout) and distractions (other mental or artistic pursuits), excessive talking and analyzing can lead to fueling LE, causing more anxiety, and elongating LE’s altered state of mind, as we’ve seen here. Some left LwL because of the intensified pains after verbalizing them.
I like or even enjoy talking about other life topics, which have “naturally” distracted my mind from LE itself. I did not want to dwell on LE/ET, unless compelled to chat about it/him so sometimes. Each time I did, old regards or pains would resurface and the harmony would be “damaged” for a while. Then, I get irritated/triggered by other’s repeated “glorification” of their respective LOs, about whom all of us limrerents, in our active altered state of mind, have distorted views.
“My understanding is you have mainly had one episode”.
Some of my past unrequited crashes lasted long as well, the intensity of “obsession” was not less, but there wasn’t this pull-n-push interactive dance. Still, the crushing-object stuck in my head anywhere from 1-4 years, while my emotional life went through bumpily as well.
“my experience suggests limerence is more or less an aberration, and does end. But maybe that can’t be forced.”
It can’t be forced at all, but through at last acceptance and total NC; for some limerents, neural activities in the presence of LO is just uncontrollable and can repeat endlessly. Even if LE is somewhat “aberration”, its passion, imagination and exaltation have inspired tons of artistic, creative and inventive fruition throughout the history, especially in the West. Without them, particularly processes of those creations, how boring life could have been!!
Harmony seems to exist more in Buddhistic nations, but what practical or artistic masterpieces (aside from temples) have they invented or created? Except, by PROPORTION, more people are more relaxed and more content. Didn’t you feel it while walking in the street over there?
“– I do think that similarish concepts to seeking harmony exist in western modern culture, it is acceptance (not closure) with roots back to the stoics virtues, but agree the root of those ideas are fundamentally different”
Of course, the similar concepts and practices still exist in the modern era. Only by proportion, Stoics practitioners are much less, probably even less than unprofessional “narcissists” (I do not work on sociology but listen to some serious podcasts)
– I would be very surprised if there are not common archetypes across the various east asian cultures, which have more overlap with each other than those in the western cultures.
Despite sharply different political systems (3 totalitarian states over there), one common traditional element in the East is: dominantly patriarchal and macho culture, women are in an inferior social and economic position. Up to 1949, wealthy Chinese men can take a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th… wife, did they “need/want” a limerence?
The common archetype virtues for ordinary women might be: accept your lot, if marry a roaster (dominantly arranged marriage), stick to and learn to be content with roaster —don’t look at a peacock! For men, if you have money (or power), get mistress(es) (today), the society keeps one eye open, one closed. However, it’s not the other way around. Look at women’s position in Japan, India, and countrysides of China — who is a real boss inside a family/union?
Much fewer (by proportion) extramarital affairs (limerence??) have occurred in both sexes throughout history, but the women get more severely frowned upon or even punished (still rarely stoned into river in some remote areas of modern China). DNA drives are universal, but what one would do with it is a quite different issue in those powerful macho cultures.
There was/is little/no chivalry or romanticism traditions in the East (check their classical literature), attractive women are often depicted/viewed as sluts (named “old shoes”) even if they cast an extra look at men or chat with them in public, in except some legendary fairytales in which star-crossed man and women were equally in love but always sadly, eternally separated by fate or died of lovesickness — if one did not die of lovesickness/limerence, one’s considered NOT have loved enough — superficial.
One Eastern archetype: you naturally love and devote to one spouse all your life, like a swan! (Only Taiwan and Thailand approve guy marriage so far)
“When I used to live in the east 20 years ago I remember watching the TV films and thinking that there were a bunch of stock character types in different films that were unfamiliar to me, but seemed common across different stories. “
I’m not sure which Asian country you have lived; there are a great deal of differences between North and South Korea, Taiwan and China, or South and East Asia — they do share one thing in common — material wealth and social prestige/status as ultimate life goals, everything else is considered abstract or nonsense. True Taoists are rare in reality.
Unless I know your specifics, I am unable to discuss about my own views, and I know little about South Asia. I probably understand Orwellian“1984” better than a lot of Westerners…
“I dont think the archetype itself is important, more whether the person for whatever reason is more likely to have limerence triggered by a specific one.”
I agree with you here. My previous post was saying that Jung’s Collective Unconscious theory baffles me a great deal (he visited India a few months here and there but not truly lived in it). I don’t know how he could categorize Eastern spirituality, mentality, and their collective unconscious.
There is saying, “Once westerner, one is always a westerner.” You can take me out of the ideological or savage “prison” and liberate or civilize me, but I can never put you (back) into it. You can visit the prison to see/sense/describe what it is like, but you’d never know how your bones feel like being born and growing up in it. I would not have known it is a prison, until I came out of it and had a comparison.
7 archetypes of LO may have some their practicalities in the East, but definitely not in their forms and intensity — Eastern damsels are everywhere (maybe more), but no existing white knights would save them. Even ordinary men could take 2nd or more “damsels” behind a door (one Chinese official a couple of years ago was caught to have 9 mistresses and 10 children). You’re a damsel? Swallow or beat it with whatever psychological or spiritual means you can conjure up. (Several of my k-12 classmates have faced it)
“Even if social and individual harmony is more pronounced than egotistical interaction, the hierarchies, roles and life stages that archetypes draw on are still strongly pronounced”
Yes, I just summed up a little bit above, based on my observations. I’d like very much to learn more from your experiences of living in the East. It’s fascinating when I took my Western students to study aboard and watched their interactions and reactions with local people… one girl of 16 quickly had a crush for one of my students… They’re my cultural “ginny-pigs”.
“– I think it is a mirror of something quite fundamental that defines me, but which I can’t directly view with my conscious mind, which for me really echoes well with Jung’s ideas. “
Yes, I agree with you here. Based on Jung’s idea, everyone with whom we interact is a mirror to us, big or small. One has no social identity in a total isolation; one defines one’s identity by interacting with others. Sartre portraits it in “No exit”; it’s “scary” that we rely on others/external world to see ourselves. Sometimes we appear a different person in front of different personnels (or cultures in my own case). A LO probably mirrors some of our traits, hidden/shadowy or obvious/light.
“I can see the triggers, I can feel the emotions driving me, i can see the commonalties of the people who have ‘triggered’ me, but I can’t directly ‘look’ at and know myself”
I can’t help agree with you here, and it also helps me see that limerence is a universal experience, because xCrushers/xLO are from different races and personal backgrounds. Yet I saw that undeniable, mind-boggling shared familiarity in their eyes within just first 5 seconds — I heard/sensed “click” in my head, literally as if I had seen a same ghost (a part of myself?) in their EYES (heterosexual, homosexual, and a bisexual)! Yet, what was/is this part of myself, aside from the pair-bonding drive?
By the way (you don’t have answer), is your long-distance LO2 from a different racial/cultural background?
Hi snow,
I was an english teacher in a middle school near Beijing at the turn of the millenium, there wernt many tv channels… we wer definitely an object of fascination, solely for being quite ‘exotic’, i guess peoples lives were fairly humdrum.
No, all LOs have been deeply similar to me in terms of background, education, culture and archetype, the tortured soul, highly capable but plagued by self doubt and depression. Oh god, it’s so cheesy…. its embarassing to write it down, but its a clear trend…. Im still puzzling through what it means, but i think im hoping to help LOs inner joyfulness and confidence emerge, and to help them fulil their potential, but symbolically it could be me or my father. My father was lost in alcohol, my mother suffered under it but was somehow blind to it, and i had no male role model or advisor as i transitioned to young adulthood, then limerence emerged as i sort of basically failed at the first go at that. Well, i had a role model, but he was drunk and asleep on a sofa most nights… so my role model was my mother who is great, but in total denial. The whole thing fits an Archetypal pattern, but not a shadow i think. It is people who mirror my part of my persona i struggle with that glimmer.
The other female archetype list i have seen on google would suggest i fall for the Enigma, which obviously allows for lots of (probably very unfair) projection by me.
Thats my half formed analysis.
Definitely want to think about cross cultural Archetypes more.
HJ,
In the blog right after the US election, I sensed that you’ve had some “ties” with China, My (thinking + judging) intuition is proven correct again! (📣 LaR!) It’s almost impossible for one to get sensing or feeling intuition online.
“I was an english teacher in a middle school near Beijing at the turn of the millenium, “
An international or local middle school? Two students-bodies were very different.
“there weren’t many tv channels…”
Everything on media centered around the government’s agendas: economic development, more opening to the outside world, beating the West in all fronts, bla, bla, bla, right?
“we were definitely an object of fascination, solely for being quite ‘exotic’, i guess peoples lives were fairly humdrum.”
Of course, you were, all from the Mars or Jupiter, with colorful hairs and eyes and that Big Nose” (heard that addressing to you?), which almost frightened my guts out when I was 5 upon seeing 5 or 6 of Russians for the first time in a candy store.
Now, Imagine I was possibly one of your students, staring at you, imaging what your free life would be on the Jupiter…, while we were stuck in our gray, controlled existence…. Can you imagine one of your Earthen students would be one day limerent for“exotic”, colorful Martians? 😁
“No, all LOs have been deeply similar to me in terms of background, education, culture and archetype, the tortured soul, highly capable but plagued by self doubt and depression. “
That’s what truly puzzled me most after migrating to the West: with so much material abundance and mental/physical freedom/choice in life, why so many Westerners seem to have suffered so much psychological/addiction problems — what MORE do they need/want in life? Why they seem unhappier or more tense or lonelier (seen in the street) than most of us from the developing world with so little tangibles in hand and limited intangibles in mind…
I had three goals for my American dream: Fresh Bell pepper (hard to find in winter in the far north), daily hot shower (a luxury over there), and an ideal love ❤️ with an astronomical Glimmer 🤩 — “forbidden/taboo” and mocked in COO! Your Buckingham palace and all its glory aspects/association had and still has little lure to me; nor I acquired those Western memetic desires (probably due to my “unknown” cptsd). After physically getting out the prison. I just want(ed) my habitually self-censured, salt-berating mind to be totally “freed” and the wounded heart truly “loving” (of which Eros alone is incapable),
“Im still puzzling through what it means, but i think im hoping to help LOs inner joyfulness and confidence emerge, and to help them fulil their potential, but symbolically it could be me or my father. “
It sounds very much like your LOs were representative of your father, and you’re craving to right something wrong, which you were unable to in childhood/youth — symbolically “saving your forever lost Dad through LOs. You subconsciously believe your mature adulthood would be able to achieve this (subconscious) goal; it’s just my guess.
I guess me, a superficial warrior with hidden cptsd insecurity, subconsciously looked for a mother figure in a heterosexual man — a white knight who could mother and pair-bond with me, but not authoritatively father me. I hated/detested macho, patriarchy male figures! (Dad was only superficially stoic.). None of my X-crushers were similar to Parents, except two Narcs. (#3 to Dad, #6 to Mom), most of them appeared very feminine (two were often mistaken for a gay)
“The whole thing fits an Archetypal pattern, but not a shadow i think. It is people who mirror my part of my persona i struggle with that glimmer.”
I see, you glimmered at those who mirrored a part of your persona, the part you like or dislike? I was opposite, those xCrushers or xLOs had something that was missing or repressed in my shadow, so Glimmer stuck me with that mind-boggling familiarity, as if I saw my own ghost in their eyes….
“The other female archetype list i have seen on google would suggest i fall for the Enigma, which obviously allows for lots of (probably very unfair) projection by me.”
Despite all my xCrushers were strangers, Enigma, did not and could not catch my intuitive eyes. That familiarity had to strike/glimmer my core (somewhere inside everyone) first. Now, after LwL, I’ve learned how to kill it, if its carrier is a mismatch with me.
If to be categorized in Western types of stories, my mild “archetypes” puzzle myself: I see my inner self (not much shown on surface in reality) in the stories of: Voyage and Return — Gone with the wind; Tragedy — Madame Bovary, Hamlet; Rebirth — The Snow Queen, Groundhog Day; The Rule of Three — Goldilocks; The Hero with a Thousand Faces — a chameleon…. So what types of LO I ignorantly sought or glimmered at in the past ? Or who could eventually suit to be my SO❓
In DrL’ 7 archetypes, I feel I’m drawn to a combination of: 5, forbidden fruit, 6 the Man of Mystery—myteriously familiar, and 7. the free spirit — all in a degree a bit more than moderation. A bit of “blood” of the most ancient civilization is still left in me, even after shredding my skin several times — “Tomorrow is another day!
“Thats my half formed analysis.”
I don’t have a formed analysis. Every post here (a mirror) I read made me to reflect something on myself and jolt down a brand-new post (could take from hours to days…) .
“ Definitely want to think about cross cultural Archetypes more.”
After having tasted cultural flavors of China, you could now come up with your Heebie Jeebies cross-cultural archetypes. It would be a fascinating new world to explore.
Typo: it should be “self-berating mind”…
Huh. I’ve never thought of this angle before. I generally don’t have a Jungian type i go for. What I go for is…
Non-negotiable:
– Male adult
– physically attractive and physically fit (in my opinion)
A la carte:
Positive reenforcement in form of
(pick no fewer than 2)
– eye contact
– conversation
– laughter
– playful activity (intellectual or physical)
– flirting (intellectual or physical)
Substituting salad or sweet potato fries is extra $2
POSITIVE reenforcement has to come first. If they give me negatives, I’m not interested. It’s a kind of playfulness, igniting hope for me.
Then, after that, it’s the drip feed, breadcrumbs, mixed signals. The uncertainty on my end. The wondering. The hoping, trying. The illusion of connection. The fantasy.
That is the cocktail, for me, for full-blown limerence.
I am wondering, and maybe this isn’t the right place to ask this. Do you any of you ever wonder if you would know real love if you found it?
I am starting to wonder, am I just terminally limerent? I fall into it so much. I think I know why…but I feel powerless to feel like I could ever have a “real” relationship with anyone, that I would enjoy. It’s either totally safe, and I am “content” but not happy. Or, it’s all out mind-mess of limerence. And that’s torture.
Maybe I just won’t ever find “love”. Maybe others know what it is…they’re always talking about it like it’s something one can find if they really want to. But…I’m starting to wonder, would I even understand it? If I do make changes in my life, to try and live a more honest life…would I even know love? Presumably, I would be hoping to find it, like so many others. But maybe I would not know what it was….
Do any of you ever wonder this? I really do wonder. It doesn’t mean I won’t make my changes. It just means…maybe I can’t set expectations to ever know what love really is….at least, not love the way others talk about it.
Thoughts?
CSC
Feedback time. 🙂
First up, Dr. L, I would like to say I love the way you’ve recently been integrating your blog entries with your YT videos. (Here I am referring to your “Romantic Archetypes” video and your “Valentine’s Day” video). I think integrating YT videos with blog entries makes sense from a brand/business point of view – people can check out one resource and be referred back to the other. Also, it’s a good strategy from a pedagogical point of view. If people haven’t understood something in one medium, they can seek out more information/clarification in the other medium.
Secondly, Dr. L, I would like to say you come across as remarkably endearing in your videos. 🤣 You come across as this really sweet man. I don’t say this to butter you up. I think this is a quality that all limerence-prone people have, and most limerence-prone people don’t realise they have it. Obviously, it would make little sense for God/Evolution to endow people with this pair-bonding drive if the people blessed/cursed with this pair-bonding drive were completely undesirable as pair-bonding partners i.e. conspicuously unattractive and/or unpleasant.
I think your “sweet side” isn’t a function of your looks. Rather, your sweetness comes out in how excited you get when explaining your ideas. It’s weird seeing a roughly 50-year-old man get excited about ideas. Oddly enough, you remind me of a younger version of myself (personality, not sexuality). There’s this excited, excitable, sweet, wistful, boyish energy going on. Personally, I hated that version of myself, because I hated myself in general. However, I think you actually pull it off. Fingers crossed, your self-esteem has always been a lot more stable than mine and you are not tempted to despise yourself for a long list of very strange reasons.
Thank you for making a video about archetypes. I know by your own admission you’re not a hardcore Jungian or anything, so it was kind of you to take the time to cover said material for the people who are interested in said material. Children’s bedtime stories must be very entertaining affairs in the Bellamy household, given your own love of ideas and your flair for communication. 🙂
Incidentally, the way you say that word “okay” is incredibly cute. Must be the English accent, although Australians pronounce the word the exact same way. 😆 Or maybe your “okay” sounds cute because you’re hurrying from one point onto the next, and the transition isn’t as smooth as intended. It’s like you’re so excited about your ideas that you can’t wait to rush onto the next point. This enthusiasm isn’t a problem necessarily – such enthusiasm is frequently infectious. 🙂
Fenna Van Den Berg is another You-Tuber who specialises in limerence. (I believe this blog has referenced her work at least once). I feel she has the same “unintentionally endearing quality” going on in her videos. Let me explain what I mean. Fenna says “hope can be so toxic” (in limerence) and of course she’s right. However, Fenna is also objectively an extremely beautiful woman. Logically, therefore, even as a homosexual male, I understand where Fenna got her “toxic hope” from. I.e. a heterosexual man would have to be blind not to see that Fenna is drop-dead gorgeous. A heterosexual woman would also have to be blind not to see that Fenna is drop-dead gorgeous. Fenna’s physical beauty is undeniable, even if hope was toxic for her at some point in her life. In contrast to the lovely Fenna, I am a forty-two-year-old man who looks like a forty-two-year-old man. Right now, I possess all the sexual magnetism of a mouldy potato! 🙄😜🤣
In the past, I did a lot of research into feminism. Currently, I’m doing a lot of research into transgenderism. (For the record, I am neither a feminist nor a man who identifies as a woman. I just enjoy researching esoteric topics). Second-wave feminism appears to have grown out of Marxism. The modern transgender movement seems to be a fascinating mutation of ideas drawn from both feminism (bizarrely adopted by the male sex, no less!) and postmodernism. What Marxism, feminism, and transgenderism all have in common is that they can function almost as bona fide religions for the people who truly embrace them.
I see links between the convictions of people who embrace Marxism, feminism, transgenderism and the convictions of people experiencing limerence. That is to say, in limerence, limerence itself (understood as a super-charged form of romantic love) can be elevated almost to the level of a private, personalised religion. Marxists, feminists, and trans activists often don’t require science to support their beliefs. Beliefs are a matter of faith, not science. And limerents are often the same way – clinging to beliefs which for them become articles of faith.
Limerence might be so powerful (in theory I think) because in addition to the urgent biological need for human beings to form pair-bonds, it activates some sort of religious impulse, or the same impulse that religions and/or successful cultural movements activate. People may turn to limerence for pleasure/some innate reward (like some trans folk). People may turn to limerence for social reasons/emotional satisfaction (like Marxists/feminists). And people may turn to limerence for its apparent ability to endow their life story with meaning that feels at once ephemeral and timeless, ordinary and transcendent (like Christians and the members of many other traditional/conventional faith communities).
Hi Dr. L,
Nice video on Jungian archetypes! However, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think one of the examples you cite for archetype #5 must be in error : the Forbidden Fruit figure in THE GREAT GATSBY is surely Daisy Buchanan, not Myrtle Wilson (who was Tom Buchanan’s mistress and the hit-and-run victim toward the end).
Otherwise, loved the video–thanks!
Hi Niniane,
I agree with you. The LO in The Great Gatsby is Daisy Buchanan. I suppose you can stretch and say Myrtle represented some sort of Forbidden Fruit, but it would be a big stretch. Tom had no real desire or love or affection for Myrtle. She was just a convenient conquest.
Hi Niniane,
Yeah, that was a mistake 🙂 I meant Daisy, but haven’t read the book in ages so did a quick Google search of characters and blundered. I decided it wasn’t serious enough to pull the video over – and Myrtle is married too so there is that slim justification for my error.
Forbidden fruit was actually the hardest one to think of examples for. Which might be telling me something interesting…?