This quote comes from Seneca's essay "De Brevitate Vitae" (On the Shortness of Life), Chapter 3.1.
Flashback to beautiful Siracusa. Walking through ancient Ortigia. One of my favorite places.
Credit: photo Tama66 on Pixabay
A timeless reminder from Jung on the root of genuine creativity. It’s not about logic or intellectual force, but about inner necessity and playful connection with what we love.
Source: Socrates (as reported by Xenophon in Memorabilia)
Quote & Source:
>"Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness." — Carl G. Jung (C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, Interview with Gordon Young, 1960)
Reflections on the Tension of Opposites:
Jung often emphasized that psychological growth (individuation) requires holding the tension between opposing forces rather than striving for an artificial, one-sided state of perpetual happiness. In modern culture, there is immense pressure to reject painful emotions, yet Jung suggests that darkness isn't just an obstacle to happiness—it is the very context that gives happiness its weight and reality.
When we disown our sadness or suffering, we risk splitting off a vital part of the psyche, pushing it into the Shadow. True psychological wholeness (Ganzheit) demands that we accept both light and shade as necessary components of human existence.
Question for the community:
How do you practically navigate this balance in your own journey of individuation? Do you find that accepting moments of darkness deepens your capacity for genuine joy, or do you still catch yourself falling into the trap of one-sided positivity?
(Note: Written with original thoughts and structured with AI assistance).
Full quote:
“The unreal is more powerful than the real. Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die. But things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on. If you can change the way people think. The way they see themselves. The way they see the world. You can change the way people live their lives. That's the only lasting thing you can create.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke