Lit from within Exploring the
meaning of meaning .

Chapter Text.

The meaning of meaning.

Methodologically speaking, now is the time to address the meaning of the telos in the complexes of the gifted. First, however, it will be necessary to clarify what I mean by meaning. From a phenomenological standpoint, we might consider that meaning helps us to understand the significance of human phenomena.^{footnote 1} And, indeed, this is my starting point as I approach the meaning of the telos of the complex: What is its significance? But meaning will have an additional definition here, as well. This is because — at the risk of giving away the proverbial punchline — I will contend that the meaning of that telos is, in fact, meaning. On that basis, I turn to Jungian analyst Edward Edinger, who tells us that meaning is a psychological state which can affirm life.^{footnote 2} Here, we are not referring to absolute meaning but rather to a living meaning which, laden with affect, relates us organically to life as a whole.^{footnote 3}

As this dissertation explores the phenomenon of the complex, which is notable for being strongly accented emotionally,^{footnote 4} it feels important to highlight Edinger’s observation that life-affirming meaning is laden with affect.^{footnote 5} Because affect is deeply embedded in the complex and in those things which we find meaningful, the possibility of a relationship between the two seems worth considering. I especially invite you to keep this possibility in mind as you approach the section below.

Exploring the meaning
of telos in the complexes of the gifted.

Two events are said to partake in a synchronicity when they are connected not causally, but by some form of shared meaning.^{footnote 6} Considering …

1. the meaning-basis of synchronicity, generally,
2. our present arrival in the ‘meaning’ section of this dissertation, and
3. the torch-bearer synchronicity during the development of this dissertation,

… I intuit that it may be time to return to the issue of that synchronicity. If you will recall, the torch-bearer image emerged twice during my research — once, in Jung’s essay The Gifted Child, and again as I unpacked Hillman’s exploration of the myth of Er in relation to telos.^{footnote 7} In the former, the gifted person is the torch-bearer. In the latter, the torch-bearer is the goddess Ananke who presides over the assignment of human fates. Considering the powerful role of this synchronicity in the shaping of my dissertation, I am inclined to trust that there is still more important information imbedded in the image of Ananke. And so, let’s now return to Plato’s myth of Er.

First, a summary of the relevant points of the myth:^{footnote 8} Between incarnations, there comes a moment when we humans find ourselves in the domain of Ananke, Necessity. During our time there, we are presented with an assortment of lots upon which various possible fates are written. At some point, we are invited — or perhaps required — to select a lot which will provide the details of our next lifetime. There are no secrets here: each fate is inscribed on a lot, and we are apparently given time to deliberate with some care. Once we select our lot, the Fates weave this destiny into the tapestry of our existence and we are joined by our personal daimon. Our fate is sealed when we pass beneath the throne of Ananke who, by implication, makes our destiny not only a reality but a necessity. What can be has become what must be.

We can only imagine what it might be like to stand before that heap of lots, to find such an important decision in our own hands. How might we make such a choice? I suppose we could select a lot at random, relying on luck. More likely, however, is that we would choose a destiny which holds some kind of meaning for us. Consider Odysseus, who appears in the Er myth as a soul between lives. His lot of choice is the life of an ordinary citizen who minded his own business.^{footnote 9} After an obstacle-laden ten-year journey home,^{footnote 10} what feels most meaningful for him is a bit of peace and stability.^{footnote 11} Atalanta, too, chooses with meaning in mind. In her previous incarnation, she preferred to live on her own in the wilderness.^{footnote 12} In keeping with the cultural demands of the day, however, she was forced to choose a suitor. Hoping to reduce her chances of marital ensnarement, she declared that she would marry no man unless he could defeat her in a foot race. Alas, she lost the race and was wed. Faced now with the selection of her next lot, Atalanta selects an athlete’s life.^{footnote 13} Though Plato suggests that it is the athletic honors she craved,^{footnote 14} it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that the real attraction of an athletic life was that it increases her chances of independence and, if necessary, of escape!

Sukey Fontelieu suggests that myth conveys something authentic, [if] undeveloped at the core of the complex; the former teaches us about the latter.^{footnote 15} In this way, if the selection of a mythological lot sheds light on what is meaningful to us across time and existence, perhaps the same can be said of our telos-bearing complexes. We might imagine that the formative experience, or ‘lot,’ which creates a complex establishes both its trajectory and its core of meaning. The correspondence between the myth and the complex grows clearer still when we consider that both Odysseus and Atalanta set their priorities in response to traumas, much as complexes do. Both myth and complex reveal to us that which is meaningful — not necessarily to the egoic self, but to the greater psyche.

Complexes express their sense of meaning in a few ways. First, the very creation of the complex as the outcome of a powerfully affective situation^{footnote 16} surely indicates a source of meaning in psyche. We do not feel deeply about things that hold no meaning for us, which do not bear on some key value, be it survival or inclusion. But more specifically, Jung tells us that the complex arises from a trauma or a conflict deriv[ing] from the apparent impossibility of affirming the whole of one’s nature.^{footnote 17} When demands are in conflict, but there is an apparent impossibility of dwelling in both meaning states simultaneously, a complex results. Those things which do not mean are unlikely to create a sense of trauma or conflict. Imbedded in the seed of the complex, then, is both an original challenge to, and an ‘onboard’ sense of, meaning.

Additionally, as the complex expresses its magnetic quality,^{footnote 18} it pulls toward it those things which affirm what it values. Through its tinted lens, it assembles a world which feels meaningful to it. In the inverse, when the complex encounters something which does not and cannot validate its lens on the world, it may dismiss that thing^{footnote 19} as an object without meaning. So, too, projection transmits an essence that means utterly: this affect/image is so important that, if we neglect it, our complexes will ‘throw’ that image onto the outer world, a mirror we cannot avoid. Finally, autonomy and the ability of the complex to assert its will is also a matter of meaning. Autonomy is only a significant quality because it enables the complex to pursue that which feels meaningful to it.

To further explore the complex-meaning connection, let’s consider Jung’s statement that meaning makes a great many things endurable — perhaps everything.^{footnote 20} By implication, Jung suggests that meaning helps us manage pain and suffering. When we reflect on a) the foundational relationship of conflict and trauma to the complex, and b) the inherent meaning imbedded in the processes of the complex, we find ourselves with an interesting picture. Is it possible that the very nature of the complex helps us to create meaning out of trauma, which in turn, makes our wounds more bearable? That the creation of a complex is a meaning-reaction? In cases of extreme trauma, for instance, during the emergency stage, we need at least a tiny spark of meaning to hold on to. It keeps us alive.^{footnote 21} It is meaninglessness, after all, which is the greatest threat to humanity.^{footnote 22} Even in those situations when a complex-created meaning is maladaptive — for instance, ‘magnetizing’ an image of a world that is unremittingly dangerous, and the designation of a perpetually defensive posture as meaningful — it may be that such meaning acts as a placeholder, a bolster against intolerable meaninglessness. Perhaps the intractable nature of the complex^{footnote 23} is not the cause of problems in psyche so much as it is a saving grace which allows us to keep functioning until the work of healing can begin.

But am I leaning too heavily on the connection between the complex and the trauma to affirm the sense of meaning in the complex? Especially in the case of complexes which speak in the daimonic voice, or express as ‘the moment,’ where is the injury which triggers the meaning-reaction?

As I noted earlier, Jung posited that any strong affect may create a complex.^{footnote 24} The same is true of conflicts deriv[ing] from the apparent impossibility of affirming the whole of one’s nature.^{footnote 25} Perhaps these two kinds of experience — affect and impossibility of affirmation — are sufficient to account for the complexes described in these pages. We may, however, be able to deepen the connection by calling upon the work of those who study dissociation. The methodological challenge is that dissociation is arguably a theoretical concept with little place in a phenomenological study. What I will offer, then, is a stipulation that will connect the work of contemporary dissociationists to the personal complex: dissociation is that psychic process which creates and maintains a complex,^{footnote 26} however one experiences that process.

Michael Grosso explores what Stanley Krippner has called life-potentiating dissociative experiences,^{footnote 27} some of which align strongly with the ‘daimonic voice’ and ‘autonomous creative’ experiences of my subjects.^{footnote 28} Given that shared territory, let’s consider Grosso’s assertion that in creative dissociation … what looks like fragmentation or disconnectedness may in fact be a prelude to greater wholeness.^{footnote 29} Here, Grosso paints a picture of a process that is both telic and meaningful. Most critically, he adds, The meeting of … two unrelated realities is a type of dissociation; logical expectation and habitual perception are confused, and imagination is forced to make a new connection, forge a new meaning.^{footnote 30} The ability to join things in unusual combinations is a trait correlated to giftedness.^{footnote 31} In this light, I propose another spur for the creation of complexes in the gifted psyche: the moment of constructive confusion. Of course, such confusion may be understood as an affect-laden form of conflict, but the tone of Grosso’s assertion, I believe, offers us something new. Constructive confusion challenges the gifted psyche to bring its gifts to bear, evoking a sort of complex-based transcendent function, prompting a [break] through^{footnote 32} rather than a brokenness. Further, for Grosso, the outcome of this process is new meaning.^{footnote 33}

This sense of creative confusion also recalls Jaffe’s comments on modern artists who endeavor[ed] to give shape to ‘that secret ground where primal law feeds growth’ (Klee).^{footnote 34} The space between primal law and growth is surely a high-intensity, high-numinosity terrain marked by affect, confusion, and productive conflict. Further, Jaffe goes on, artists’ countless attempts … [at writing] manifestoes … show clearly that what was at stake was more than a new style … They were attempts to penetrate the hidden spirit and nature of things.^{footnote 35}

This may not, in itself, ‘read’ as a striking revelation, but allow me to restate it with the complex in mind. Imagine that the telic image at the heart of the complex^{footnote 36} forms the basis for its ‘manifesto,’ the statement it would make to the world. The complex’s magnetized ‘assemblage’ of experiences, as well as its projections, constitute its artistic works. Such images and products are anything but haphazard. The complex, in the very unfolding of its native processes, suggests that something important is at stake. The complex may not speak the language of the egoic self, just as art has its own symbolic language. But ultimately, such expressions of the complex can be understood as a revelation of a hidden spirit and nature,^{footnote 37} if only in its own small corner of psyche. Pay attention, the complex-as-artist cries out. This means something to me!

With this torch of meaning in mind, let’s now return to the experiences of the gifted subjects of this study.

In each case, the complexes of these gifted individuals demonstrated the intensity typical of giftedness, and were driven to enact a certain, important aim. Entelechy held a central spot in their lives and expressed itself undeniably in — or as — the autonomous expressions of their complexes.