[Excerpt from 2017 Maps of Meaning #4] 00:00:00

All right, so 00:00:02

Carl Jung talked about this phenomena he cried, - phenomenon - he 00:00:10

Described as a retrogressive restoration of the persona and 00:00:19

So it's a complicated idea, but basically what it means is that sometimes 00:00:25

You take a leap forward, and you learn some things, 00:00:30

But you can't catalyze a new identity, so you try to go back and hide in your old identity - and that actually doesn't work 00:00:33

because 00:00:40

Well things have changed and you've learned something and that isn't who you are anymore 00:00:42

and so it's like you have to cut part - parts - of yourself off in a 00:00:46

Destructive manner to fit back into the person that you were now what happens here is that Pinocchio 00:00:51

escapes from this tyrannical 00:00:57

situation and 00:01:00

Undergoes this descend into chaos, but he tries to go back home. He tries to go back to what he was and 00:01:01

He can't do that anymore 00:01:07

His father isn't at home anymore 00:01:09

and so 00:01:11

So when he goes home he finds that there's no home there. Now, 00:01:14

This happens to people sometimes and it's often a shock to them so 00:01:21

One of the things I've noticed about peterpan type, 00:01:25

I'm gonna speak about men here because I - I've - observed it more in men, is 00:01:29

That they often stay under the thumb of their father, and you think well 00:01:34

Why would someone do that? Because it means they're subject to the tyrannical judgment of their father, 00:01:40

They're always concerned about what their father would think or whether their father approves of him - of them - and so forth 00:01:45

And you think, well, that's got to be an unpleasant place to be. Why would you 00:01:51

Do that? 00:01:57

one of the things that I've 00:01:59

Suggested to my clients, and to other people sometimes, is that - here's a weird little exercise that you can undertake, a little thought 00:02:01

experiment. 00:02:08

So, you have your parents, and of course your parents have friends who are about their age. 00:02:10

And maybe some of them are people you only know peripherally and I might ask you well 00:02:15

do you care more about what your parents think than you care about what these peripheral people who know your parents think? And 00:02:21

Then the answer to that is well of course and then the question that arises out of that is 00:02:27

Why? 00:02:34

I mean, for someone else, your parents are the peripheral people and their parents are central like why is it logical that your parents make - 00:02:36

opinion makes any more difference to you than the appearance - than the, uh - 00:02:45

The opinion of some randomly selected people who are approximately that age? 00:02:49

Why is it the case that you would consider that they would know more than someone else? 00:02:54

I mean I know they know you better, and fair enough, but that that's not the point. And 00:02:58

then another point there is that, to the degree that your parents' opinion about you matters more than some randomly selected people of 00:03:03

Approximately the same age. Jung would say well you haven't exactly 00:03:11

Separated out the God image from your parents, and so you're still under that - that - combination 00:03:15

It's like, it's a complicated thing to talk about, but think about the Harry Potter 00:03:21

Series. Harry has two sets of parents, right? 00:03:27

He's got the Dursley parents [They're actually his aunt and uncle, Dr. Peterson, but continue], and then he's got these like magical parents that sort of float behind 00:03:30

And he should know the difference between them. They shouldn't be one in the same. They're not for him. And 00:03:34

It's like well you have your parents and you have nature and culture as parents 00:03:40

And you shouldn't be thinking that your parents are nature and culture as well 00:03:44

They shouldn't have final dominion over you. That means that you're not an individual yet if that's the case. Freud said, for example, that no 00:03:47

No, no one could be a man unless his father had died. And Jung said yes, but that death can take place symbolically 00:03:55

Okay, so there's that part of the idea, and then another part of the idea is 00:04:03

One of the times in your life when you actually realize that you're an individual is when you'll go and ask your parents something and 00:04:09

You'll realize they actually don't know any more about 00:04:16

What you should do than you do, and that sucks and 00:04:19

That's partly why people are often willing to maintain a tyrant-slave relationship with their father. It's like on the one hand you have to be 00:04:23

inferior in a relationship like that 00:04:31

You know, you've always got the judge watching you. But, on the other hand, there's always someone who knows what to do. 00:04:33

There's always someone standing between you and the unknown that you can go ask. What should I do? Well, at some point, 00:04:39

You'll realize that the reason you can't ask that anymore is because they actually don't know anymore than you do 00:04:45

And then that's a pain like that - that - is a symbolic death 00:04:50

That's also when you establish a more individual relationship with your parents 00:04:54

It's at that point that you could conceivably start taking care of them instead of the reverse and that's a time that should come 00:04:59

But you have to let that image of perfection go, and that exposes you. Well, that's what happens here 00:05:05

You know Pinocchio goes home? 00:05:12

And he wants things to be the way they were and he wants to stay under the careful care of the benevolent father 00:05:13

but 00:05:21

That's no longer possible. He's past that point and that's why the father has disappeared and so 00:05:22

Geppetto has gone off to look for Pinocchio because he also needs his son, but 00:05:29

But in any case the house is abandoned and so then 00:05:34

There we see inside the house that everything's covered with cobwebs and everything's gone and Pinocchio and the cricket sit on the steps 00:05:38

And they're very concerned. First of all, they wonder where he went so they're actually concerned that he's gone 00:05:45

But they also don't know what to do because there's just no going home 00:05:50

And so you know that's also the case that once you hit a certain point in your development 00:05:53

Well, it's the same thing we already talked about 00:06:00

The answers that you're looking for are not going to be found in your parents' house. It's as simple as that. Now, you could artificially 00:06:02

maintain your 00:06:09

Dependency, but, you know, if you do that for too long things get pretty ugly 00:06:10

So you get pretty stale and - and - you know, you're like bread that's been on the shelf for too long. 00:06:16