Transitional Consciousness

"I'm walking by the shores of consciousness. Waves of consciousness roll in, roll out, leave some writing, and just as quickly new waves roll in and erase it. I try to quickly read waht's written there, between one wave and the next, but it's hard. Before I can read it the next wave's washed it away. All that's left are puzzling fragments" (Murakami, Kafka on the Shore).

I have entered into a strange new ocean of consciousness. It feels different than anything i have experienced up until this point--there are tiny reference points that remind me of similar times and feelings where i can say "this is similar," but nothing identical, nothing just the same. I tend to describe such times as feeling like i'm dog paddling through unknown territory. That is the experience, but it shapes and shifts with the content of each new experience.

time dissolves.
there is no time.
past, present, future--circle around each other, play with each other, change identities and names.
symbols represent and point.
descriptions float without settling.

some may call this neurosis. According to Jung, neurosis is actually a way of working through an inner conflict:

Jung's theory of neurosis is based on the premise of a self-regulating psyche composed of tensions between opposing attitudes of the ego and the unconscious. A neurosis is a significant unresolved tension between these contending attitudes. Each neurosis is unique, and different things work in different cases, so no therapeutic method can be arbitrarily applied. Nevertheless, there is a set of cases that Jung especially addressed. Although adjusted well enough to everyday life, the individual has lost a fulfilling sense of meaning and purpose, and has no living religious belief to which to turn. There seems to be no readily apparent way to set matters right. In these cases, Jung turned to ongoing symbolic communication from the unconscious in the form of dreams and visions.
Resolution of the tension causing this type of neurosis involves a careful constructive study of the fantasies. The seriousness with which the individual (ego) must take the mythological aspects of the fantasies may compare with the regard that devoted believers have toward their religion. It is not merely an intellectual exercise, but requires the commitment of the whole person and realization that the unconscious has a connection to life-giving spiritual forces. Only a belief founded on direct experience with this process is sufficient to oppose, balance, and otherwise adjust the attitude of the ego.
When this process works, this type of neurosis may be considered a life-guiding gift from the unconscious, even though the personal journey forced upon the individual sometimes takes decades. This may seem absurd to someone looking at a neurosis from the attitude that it is always an illness that should not have to happen, expects the doctor to have a quick cure, and that fantasies are unreliable subjective experiences.
A significant aspect of Jung's theory of neurosis is how symptoms can vary by psychological type. The hierarchy of discriminating psychological functions gives each individual a dominant sensation, intuition, feeling, or thinking function preference with either an extroverted or introverted attitude. The dominant is quite under the control of the ego. But the inferior function remains a gateway for unconscious contents. This creates typical manifestations of inferior insight and behavior when extreme function one-sidedness accompanies the neurosis. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jung's_theory_of_neurosis)

I feel there is great importance to Jung's thought. Neurosis can be (and most likely is) something many individuals experience at one time or another (or perhaps multiple times) in their life. And it is something not to be feared. It is not a condition or label, simply a way one's mind works through something difficult. The key is not to get stuck there. With my nature, it seems such times and states occur often and for short periods during times of transition and rearrangement.

Hesse, in Steppenwolf, deconstructs our typified notions of "self" in a powerful scene towards the end of the book. In this scene, which takes place in a magical theater where one must surrender one's notion of "self" before entering, there is a man playing deconstructionist chess. The Steppenwolf enters, sits before the man, and see's he's playing chess with little pictoral fragments of the Steppenwolf's entire life/self. As the Steppenwolf watches in wonder, the man says the following:

The mistaken and unhappy notion that man is an enduring unity is known to you. It is also known to you that man consists of a multitude of souls, ofnumerous selves. The separation of the unity of the personality into these numerous pieces passes for madness. Science has invented the name schizophrenia for it. Science is in this so far right as no multiplicitymay be dealt with unless there is a series, a certain order and grouping.It is wrong insofar as it holds that one only and binding and lifelong order is possible for the multiplicity of subordinate selves. This error of science has many unpleasant consequences, and the single advantage of simplifying the work of the state-appointed pastors and masters and saving them the labors of original thought. In consequence of this error many persons pass for normal, and indeed for highly valuable members o fsociety, who are incurably mad; and many, on the other hand, are lookedupon as mad who are geniuses. Hence it is that we supplement the imperfect psychology of science by the conception that we call the art of buildingup the soul. We demonstrate to anyone whose soul has fallen to pieces thathe can rearrange these pieces of a previous self in whatever order he pleases, and so attain to an endless multiplicity of moves in the game of life. As the playwright shapes a drama from a handful of characters, so dowe from the pieces of the disintegrated self build up ever new groups,with ever new interplay and suspense, and new situations that are eternally inexhaustible. (Hesse, Steppenwolf)

I find much comfort in this concept of rearrangement. Often we tend to get stuck with certain options or strains of possibilities in our minds, unable to see that there are a multitude of possibilities and options, ways of configuring the pieces.

So here i am. I find myself in an elusive space of consciousness. I feel a strong pull of destiny and find myself questioning the concept of free will in the overall vision of life. At least in this season. I appreciate that such things as literature and nature can mentor me in such phases...that i am reading what it seems i should be reading, seeing such things that seem destined to be. Symbols and rearrangement. Symbols sparking up as little firecrackers on a dark beach...the only sound the roar of the endless waves. Textured crashing. Peace. Peace in the unknown. Peace with the unknown.

"Symbols are important...Symbols guide us to the roles we play" (Murakami, Kafka on the Shore).