The Psychology of Creativity

Not the artist alone, but every creative  individual whatsoever owes all that is  

greatest in his life to fantasy. The  dynamic principle of fantasy is play,  

a characteristic also of the child, and  as such it appears inconsistent with the   principle of serious work. But without this  playing with fantasy no creative work has  

ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to  the play of imagination is incalculable. 

What does it mean to be creative? The word  derives from the Latin creāre, meaning to create,  

bring forth, or give birth. Myths—eternally  recurring patterns that express fundamental  

truths about the human condition—portray creation  as the activity of the gods, who bring the world  

into existence. Thus, creativity was first  understood as a divine, generative force. 

The earliest recorded creation myths, such as  those of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Egyptians,  

converge on an archetypal motif: in the  beginning, only the primordial waters   existed, symbolising chaos, out of which order  emerges—heaven and earth, the gods, and eventually  

humans. From undifferentiated potential arises  differentiation and actuality. Psychologically,  

this mirrors the process by which the unconscious  (often symbolised by water) gives birth to  

consciousness. The human psyche is the womb of  all the arts and sciences. As Carl Jung writes: 

I am indeed convinced that creative  imagination is the only primordial   phenomenon accessible to us, the real Ground  of the psyche, the only immediate reality. 

From the Renaissance onwards, and especially  during the Enlightenment, creativity came to  

be understood as a distinctly human capacity  for imagination, innovation, and invention.  

At a deeper level, however, creativity involves  bringing one’s inner nature into being, a task  

unique for each individual. In Jungian psychology,  this process is called individuation—the lifelong  

task of becoming fully oneself by bringing  the contents of the unconscious up from  

their dark waters into the light of consciousness. Individuation, however, cannot occur without prior  

Differentiation and Individuation

differentiation. One must become psychologically  distinct from others, including one’s loved ones,  

and avoid adopting another person’s psyche,  values or identity in place of one’s own. 

A common conflict arises when people try to  tell others how to live, unaware that they  

are unconsciously projecting their own identity  onto them. Naturally, there will be terrible  

resistances, because no one can live someone  else’s life. In doing so, one violates not only  

the other’s individuality but also one’s own. Rather than remaining unconsciously fused,  

one must establish a conscious relationship  with others. This does not imply a withdrawal  

of love or care. On the contrary, fusion  creates confusion, whereas separation  

makes genuine love possible. Each person must  allow his or her own individuality to unfold,  

which is a painful process, for we are not  only physically attached to those we love,   but also psychologically bound to them. Letting  go of these unconscious ties can bring loneliness,  

anxiety, and guilt; yet without this  separation, psychological growth cannot occur. 

In the first half of life, differentiation  dominates as we build a stable ego through  

interactions with family, friends, school,  work, and relationships. In the second half  

of life, the psyche naturally turns inward,  focusing on aligning the ego with the Self,  

our whole personality. Failure to adapt to  this shift often leads to a midlife crisis.  

Both differentiation and individuation continue  throughout life; but one tends to dominate at  

each stage of life. One might say, with a little  exaggeration, that life truly begins at midlife,  

until then, we are just doing research. When the ego is not properly related to  

the Self, neurosis arises as a state of  inner division; and in extreme cases,  

psychosis may result. Many people suffer from  a profound disconnection from the psyche,  

or soul—the mythological and symbolic realm that  enriches our life with meaning. To restore this  

meaning, we must reconnect with the Self, which  represents the potential for attaining our true  

nature by making the unconscious conscious. Though many seek wholeness, they theorise  

endlessly about the process, precisely  to evade it. For we will do anything  

to avoid facing our worst enemy: ourselves. Human life seems naturally oriented towards  

The Divine Gift of Creative Fire

growth. Like a seed that becomes a tree and bears  fruit, we too seek to produce our own fruit,  

a symbol of our life’s work. At the same time,  there is a tremendous waste of potential,  

visible not only in the unlived life of humans,  but also throughout nature and the animal world. 

The creative process is never without struggle.  Every act of creation is first of all an act  

of destruction. For new life to emerge,  we must allow our old ideas, behaviours,  

and attitudes that hinder us from growth to be  destroyed. This is a symbolic death and rebirth,  

a painful transformation that not many are willing  to endure. But to refuse this sacrifice is to  

fall into stagnation and meaninglessness.  Just as a snake must shed its skin to live,  

we too must undergo inner change. A person must pay dearly for  

the divine gift of creative fire. The ancient Greeks regarded inspiration  

as a form of divine madness, a gift from the gods.  Through the aid of the Muses—personifications of  

human creativity—humans may briefly enter the  realm of the divine and obtain the “creative  

fire.” But this gift comes with a cost: those who  trespass the limits of mortality to claim what  

belongs to the gods must ultimately pay a price. Across the world, myths of tricksters and culture  

heroes stealing fire illustrate the dual  nature of creativity: it can enlighten,  

but also bring suffering. The most popular  figure is that of Prometheus in Greek mythology.  

As Hesiod recounts in Theogony, Prometheus  deceived the gods, leading Zeus to withhold  

fire from humanity. Out of pity for mankind,  Prometheus stole the fire back, an act for  

which he was condemned to eternal torment. In his  wrath, Zeus sought to punish humanity as well,  

commanding Hephaestus to fashion the first woman  from earth, who would bring misfortune to man. 

Hesiod revisits the myth in Works and Days,  framing Prometheus’ theft of fire as the  

origin of human suffering. The first woman is  introduced as Pandora (“All-gifts”), who carries  

a jar containing “countless plagues.” Prometheus  had warned his brother Epimetheus not to accept  

any gifts from Zeus, but Epimetheus ignored the  warning and accepted Pandora. Out of curiosity,  

Pandora opened the jar, releasing sorrow,  disease, and death, thereby ending the Golden  

Age. Only one thing remained within the jar: hope. In Prometheus Bound, Prometheus gifts mortals not  

only fire but also hope, and bestows upon them the  arts that shape civilisation, thereby expanding  

their knowledge. Before his intervention, humans  are described as having eyes yet seeing nothing,  

having ears yet hearing no sound. They  drifted like fleeting shapes in a dream,  

lost, confused, wandering through endless days. In myths, truths that occur internally are  

presented as though they were external events.  Psychologically, the theft of fire can be seen as  

a symbol for the increase of consciousness, which  may be described as the goal of human existence:  

to know oneself. Until we embark on this  journey, we exist in a kind of limbo,  

drifting aimlessly. But, the acquisition of  such precious knowledge comes at a heavy cost:  

the end of the paradisical Golden Age. A similar truth appears in the myth of  

Adam and Eve. If we imagine being born  in paradise and living there eternally,   we would be like unconscious automatons, with  little free will and no possibility for growth.  

By eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of  the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve’s   eyes were opened, symbolising the dawn of human  consciousness. However, they immediately felt  

ashamed and hid from God, who promptly expelled  them from paradise, lest they eat of the tree  

of life and become immortal like the gods. In his book The Courage to Create, American  

psychologist Rollo May considers the battle with  the gods as a struggle with our own mortality.  

Creativity is a way of reaching for immortality.  We know we must die, and each of us must find  

the courage to face death—but we also  rebel against it. As Dylan Thomas wrote,  

“Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage  against the dying of the light.” Creativity arises  

from this very struggle. Michelangelo’s  writhing, unfinished statues of slaves,  

struggling in their prisons of stone, are  a fitting symbol for our human condition. 

Every infant experiences a fall from paradise—a  kind of archetypal maternal womb or original  

wholeness—when leaving the comforting circle of  the mother to develop an ego. Yet without this  

“fall”, there would be neither consciousness  nor creativity as we know them. Thus,  

it can be seen as a “happy fall” or “fall upward”,  moving us from the stasis of the Edenic state to  

the full richness of the human condition, where  duality and the tension of opposites make growth  

possible. As Jung declared, “Only here, in life  on earth, where the opposites clash together,  

can the general level of consciousness be raised.  That seems to be man’s metaphysical task.” 

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William  Blake states that, “Without contraries is   no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason  and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human  

existence. From these contraries spring what the  religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive  

that obeys reason; Evil is the active springing  from Energy. Good is heaven. Evil is hell.” 

The marriage of these opposites suggests  that by reconciling them, we can transcend  

duality and go beyond good and evil. This  constitutes the true religious experience,  

through which we may return to paradise, but on  a higher level of consciousness. This journey is  

depicted by Blake in Songs of Innocence and  Experience, where the individual falls from  

Innocence into Experience and seeks to grow out  of the fallen condition into higher Innocence,  

a new Eden which transcends the original. Blake reverses the traditional view of Hell as  

a place of punishment, instead portraying it as  a realm of activity, desire and energy, writing  

that “Energy is Eternal Delight”. He walks among  the fires of Hell, “delighted with the enjoyments  

of Genius, which to Angels look like torment  and insanity.” In contrast, Heaven represents  

passivity, reason, and conformity. Thus, we can  distinguish between two types of individuals,  

the energetic creators and the rational  organisers, or the “devils” and the “angels.” 

Psychologically, Blake’s Hell can be understood  as the unconscious—the source of inner drives,  

impulses and creative urges—while Heaven  symbolises the superego, the internalised  

social norms and rules taught by parents,  institutions and role models. Both are necessary;  

problems arise when one dominates the  other, such as acting out destructive   impulses or succumbing to excessive conformity. Blake writes, “He who desires but acts not, breeds  

pestilence.” In other words, repressed contents  become dangerous, for they create neurosis,  

and can erupt uncontrollably. By bringing  unconscious psychic energy into consciousness,  

potentially destructive impulses can be sublimated  into constructive or creative expressions. In this  

way, fire becomes a symbol of the creative forces  of the unconscious, the flames of inspiration,  

and perhaps even the means of salvation—for  fire burns away everything that is superfluous,  

only the essential survives the fire. One of the central figures in Blake’s  

Los and the Bard

mythology is Los, who is frequently associated  to the labours of a blacksmith in his forge,  

heating metal in the furnace and shaping it on  the anvil with his hammer—a symbol of creative  

work. His ultimate task is to redeem humanity  from its fallen state through the divine spark  

of imagination, restoring man’s original  vision of unity in a benevolent universe. 

Los also takes the form of the Bard, a redemptive  agent who has transcended the realm of Experience,  

having seen through the veil that conceals  the benevolent unity of the universe,   which for others appears flawed or evil. Having  awakened, the Bard sympathetically cries out to  

the masses of the Earth, calling man to rise to  his level of consciousness, suggesting that he  

too was once oblivious to such a vision. However,  while all contain the capacity for this growth,  

not all achieve it, some remain in Experience. The Bard realises that his fallen condition is  

not final but transformative. For without  a prior fall, there can be no subsequent  

redemption. He also perceives time differently:  past, present, and future exist simultaneously.  

This fusion of time belongs to eternity  and stands apart from the ordinary,   temporal condition of fallen humanity. It forms  a vertical, timeless axis that intersects the  

horizontal flow of time at every moment, offering  a still point within the ever-moving world. 

Through creative work, we may at times enter  the eternal now, a realm beyond space and time,  

where self-consciousness fades and  we become fully immersed in the act   of creation. This is the flow state. He who  learns to live in the present is truly free  

from all worries, for tomorrow never comes. For Blake, our true nature comes from what  

The Poetic Genius

he calls the Poetic Genius. He writes: That the Poetic Genius is the true Man,  

and that the body or outward form of Man  is derived from the Poetic Genius. Likewise  

that the forms of all things are derived from  their Genius, which by the Ancients was call’d  

an Angel & Spirit & Demon… As all men are alike  (tho’ infinitely various), So all Religions & as  

all similars have one source. The true Man  is the source, he being the Poetic Genius. 

The Poetic Genius is the creative spirit within us  all, which is of divine origin. It is the aspect  

of the psyche that strives towards unity. The  word poet comes from the Greek poiein, meaning  

“to make” or “bring forth”. Thus, a poet is  literally a maker, a creator. In Roman mythology,  

the genius was a personal guardian spirit present  at birth, shaping one’s character and destiny,  

though today the term is usually used to describe  someone of exceptional talent or ability. The  

ancient Greeks called this guiding spirit a  daimon, and he who followed it could experience  

eudaimonia, a state of good spirit and fulfilment. By attending to our true nature, we participate in  

the imaginative process and in the creation of  our own myth; in doing so, we follow the path  

of the Poetic Genius. This creative spirit  is the source underlying all art and myth. 

Blake’s visionary work seeks to restore what the  ancients called the Golden Age, not as a period  

in the past or future, but as the realisation that  God and Man were one in paradise, and they still  

are, even though the illusions of the physical  world often obscure this Unity. The visionary  

perceives it directly, and the great works of  art affirm it. Blake saw the artist’s task as  

helping humanity regain Eden, to leave behind that  state of delusion that we are separate from our  

spiritual nature. Art is therefore prophetic,  revealing the true pattern of human life. 

The Spirit of the Age

The artist must sacrifice himself to become the  mouthpiece of the zeitgeist or spirit of the age.  

Modern art, for example, often shows  alienation, anxiety, or disorder,  

reflecting what is happening in society. In  this way, the artist gives us a distant early  

warning of what is happening to our culture.  The question is: Can we decipher the meaning? 

James Joyce writes: Welcome, O life! I go   to encounter for the millionth time the reality  of experience and to forge in the smithy of my  

soul the uncreated conscience of my race. Every creative encounter is a new event;  

each one demands an assertion of courage.  The task is as arduous as the blacksmith’s  

labour of bending red-hot iron in his forge  to make something of value for human life.  

Conscience is not handed down ready-made, but is  created through the inspiration of the artist,  

who seeks to express the inner voice rising  from the depths of his being, and in doing so  

contributes to the formation of the conscience of  the race. This is no easy task; it is as difficult  

as forging in the smithy of one’s own soul. Two forces are at war within the artist:  

on the one hand, the longing for happiness,  satisfaction and security in life; and on the  

other, a ruthless passion for creation which may  go so far as to override every personal desire.  

The unborn work in the psyche of the artist is a  force of nature, pushing itself into existence,  

sometimes with little regard for the individual  who serves as its vehicle. The creative urge  

lives and grows in him like a tree in the  earth from which it draws its nourishment. 

Jung writes: Every creative person is a duality   or a synthesis of contradictory qualities. On the  one side he is a human being with a personal life,  

while on the other side he is an impersonal,  creative process… Art is a kind of innate drive  

that seizes a human being and makes him its  instrument. The artist is not a person endowed  

with free will who seeks his own ends, but one  who allows art to realise its purposes through  

him. As a human being he may have moods and a  will and personal aims, but as an artist he is  

“man” in a higher sense—he is “collective man”—a  vehicle and moulder of the unconscious psychic  

life of mankind. That is his office, and it is  sometimes so heavy a burden that he is fated  

to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes  life worth living for the ordinary human being. 

If the lives of artists are often  so unsatisfactory, if not tragic,  

it is either because of some personal inferiority  or inability to adapt, or because they are  

compelled by forces beyond their control, which  compel them to create, willy-nilly. Jung writes: 

I have had much trouble getting along with my  ideas. There was a daimon in me, and in the end  

its presence proved decisive. It overpowered me,  and if I was at times ruthless it was because I  

was in the grip of the daimon. I could never stop  at anything once attained. I had to hasten on, to  

catch up with my vision... A creative person has  little power over his own life. He is not free. He  

is captive and driven by his daimon... The daimon  of creativity has ruthlessly had its way with me. 

Creative power is stronger than its possessor.  The true artist is the one who enlarges human  

consciousness. This creativity is  the most basic manifestation of an   individual fulfilling his own being in the world. A work of art is something supra-personal. The  

work shapes itself. Thoughts and images  arise that the artist never intended,  

even so he recognises that it is something within  him speaking, his own inner nature expressing what  

he could never say deliberately. Here the artist  feels subordinate to a power greater than himself  

and stands apart from the act of creation. However, not all works of art come into  

being in the same way. Some are created  deliberately, with the artist consciously   shaping the material to express a specific  intention. In these cases, the artist is fully  

identified with the creative process, and his will  and skill are inseparable from the work itself. 

Two Modes of Artistic Creation

Jung distinguishes between two modes of  artistic creation: the psychological and   the visionary. The psychological mode draws  its material from the personal unconscious:  

crucial experiences, powerful emotions, suffering  and passion, in short, the stuff of human fate.  

In the visionary mode, by contrast, the  material is no longer familiar. It derives  

its existence from the hinterland of the human  mind, as though it had emerged from the abyss   of prehuman ages. These are the archetypes of the  collective unconscious. Jung gives the example of  

Goethe’s Faust as an illustration of these two  extremes. Part I belongs to the psychological  

mode, while Part II belongs to the visionary. In the psychological mode, we rarely question the  

meaning of the material. In the visionary mode,  we are unsettled and search for explanations.  

We are reminded of nothing in everyday life, but  rather of dreams, night-time fears, and the dark,  

uncanny recesses of the human mind. Because of  this, such works are often rejected by the public.  

Yet works that are symbolic fascinate us and  grips us intensely, because a symbol remains  

a perpetual challenge to our thoughts and  feelings, as we are unable to unriddle its  

meaning to our entire satisfaction. However,  a work that is manifestly not symbolic appeals  

much more to our aesthetic sensibility because  it is complete in itself and fulfils its purpose. 

Visionary or archetypal art contain primordial  images that are true symbols, that is,  

expressions for something real but unknown. When  an archetypal or mythological situation emerges,  

it hits us with intense emotion, transporting us  far above the challenges of everyday life. At such  

moments, we are no longer individuals, but the  race; the voice of all mankind resounds in us. 

Formation, Transformation, Eternal Mind’s eternal recreation. 

The visionary artist transforms personal  experience into the shared destiny of humanity,  

turning the everyday into the eternal,  and awakening the forces that have,   from time to time, enabled us to find refuge  from every peril and to endure the darkest times. 

What is essential in a work of art is that it  should rise far above the realm of personal  

life and speak from the spirit and heart of the  poet as man to the spirit and heart of mankind. 

This is the secret of great art. The creative  process activates an archetypal image in the  

unconscious, which the artist shapes into a  work that speaks to the present. By drawing a  

primordial image up from the unconscious and  transforming it into a form the present can  

accept, the artist compensates for the  one-sidedness of the age. In this way,  

art becomes a process of self-regulation in  the life of individuals, nations, and epochs. 

We tend to assume that strange archetypal  visions come from deeply personal experiences,  

as if the artist were hiding their  source. This easily leads to the   idea that such art is pathological or  neurotic, especially since visionary  

material can resemble the fantasies of  the mentally ill. Yet, at the same time,  

psychotic works often contain a depth of meaning  usually found only in the creations of a genius. 

Reducing a vision to a personal experience makes  it seem unreal and inauthentic, turning it into  

a mere symptom rather than a true creation. The  chaos is reduced to a psychological disturbance,  

which reassures us and we turn back to our picture  of a well-ordered cosmos. The truth is that it  

deflects our attention from the psychology of the  work of art and focuses it on the psychology of  

the artist. While the artist’s psychology matters,  the work of art exists in its own right as an  

autonomous complex and cannot be dismissed as just  a personal association. At times, we must even  

defend the seriousness of the visionary experience  against the artist’s personal resistance to it. 

Artists who have fallen out of fashion are  often rediscovered when our consciousness has   evolved enough to understand them in a new  way. Their meaning was always in the work,  

hidden in symbols, but only a renewal of the  spirit of the age allows us to perceive it.  

Fresh eyes are needed, because the old ones  could see only what they were used to seeing. 

Obstacles in Creative Work

In The Way of the Dream, Jungian analyst  Marie-Louise von Franz recounts the case   of one of her patients, a painter specialised in  highly accurate and realistic portrait paintings  

and who strongly rejected what he called modern  art, which he saw as destructive and senseless.  

Night after night he dreamt that he had to abandon  his habitual style and begin painting inner,  

abstract realities. Whereas he had always worked  in dark colours, the dreams insisted that he paint  

in bright ones. At the same time, he had, among  others, one very disagreeable physical symptom;  

he was impotent. But as soon as he began  to obey the dreams, his physical symptoms,  

including his impotence, disappeared.  He was cured by completely changing  

his artistic style. He did not have to change  his vocation. He had only to change his style. 

People who wish to start a creative endeavour  often encounter an inner critic that insists  

they are not good enough, or that they will  never improve. This voice can be paralysing,  

leading many to give up before they even start,  or to live vicariously through the creations   of others. As a result, one may spend years,  sometimes a lifetime, haunted by self-doubt.  

This inner critic is a manifestation of the  shadow, containing one’s repressed aspects.  

Rather than escaping from its criticism, one  must listen to it and acknowledge it. What  

we resist persists; what we embrace transforms. The act of creation is not about making something  

completely new out of nothing, but the act of  setting free and expressing the potential that  

already exists within us. By taking what  inspires us and shaping it in our own way,  

filling it with our personal experiences, our  latent potential is brought into actuality,  

which leads to the formation of our own myth. What is your myth? It is your role on the world’s  

stage. Through it, nature expresses herself  in you, and as your consciousness grows,  

it contributes to the evolution of human  consciousness, of nature, and of God. Therefore,  

one should follow the path that nature has carved. Another obstacle in creative work lies in creating  

merely to please others or to meet aesthetic  expectations, without the work having any personal  

meaning. This is pseudo-creativity. It is a game  in which the persona or social mask is being  

mistaken for the true self. Without engaging with  one’s personal life, there can be no authentic  

encounter with reality, leading to neurosis. Jung writes: 

Neurosis does not produce art. It is uncreative  and inimical to life. It is failure and bungling.  

But the moderns mistake morbidity for creative  birth—part of the general lunacy of our time. 

Those who rely on their creativity to earn a  living face a harsh reality: they often have  

to set aside what is personally meaningful  in favour of work that is less fulfilling  

but popular and socially approved. At times, they  have no choice but to sacrifice their own desires,  

simply to make a living and survive. Moreover,  unpredictable and prolonged uncertainty leads to  

despair. At times one feels abandoned by the Muses  and unable to work. Society adds to the burden,  

often judging those who do not earn a living in  conventional ways as lazy or worthless. Over time,  

this pressure leads to isolation and a  decline in mental health. The artist,  

like any human being, needs the support of others. The substance of a creative work does not come  

from the artist, but from the unseen forces  that inspire it. The task of the creative  

individual is to awaken and give shape  to what is already present in silence. 

Chinese writer Lu Ji writes: We [poets] struggle with Non-being  

to force it to yield Being; we knock  upon Silence for an answering Music. 

The ‘Being’ which the poem is to contain  derives from ‘Non-being’, not from the poet.  

And the ‘music’ it is to own comes not from us  who make the poem, but from the silence; comes  

in answer to our knock. The poet’s labour is to  struggle with the meaninglessness and silence of  

the world until he can force it to mean; until he  can make the silence answer and the Non-being be. 

Creative people are distinguished by  their ability to live with anxiety,   even though a high price may be paid in terms of  insecurity, sensitivity, and vulnerability, for  

the gift of “creative fire.” They do not run away  from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling  

with it, force it to produce being. They pursue  meaninglessness until they can force it to mean. 

The true artist puts something of his own  personal life experience onto the page,   whether good or bad. Something that has moved  him and carries meaning. This is authentic  

creativity. The unconscious does not care as  much as what we come up with aesthetically  

as our intention behind what we do. What the  unconscious appreciates is our attempt to bring  

its contents into the light of consciousness. Art is not just about attaining unrealistic  

aesthetic perfection. There is beauty  in imperfection. In Japanese culture,  

wabi-sabi sees imperfection as a form of art, a  kind of flawed beauty, recognising that nothing  

is perfect. This is wholeness: an acceptance  of the full spectrum of the human condition. 

Creative people are archetypal Wanderers,  navigating through the unconscious to bring   its contents into consciousness. At times they  may follow this process without difficulty, but  

eventually they encounter creative blocks, periods  when new ideas or work seems impossible. These  

blocks can arise from overthinking, perfectionism,  self-doubt, fear of failure, burnout,  

or pressure from deadlines and expectations. Just as land must lie fallow to become fertile  

again, so too must we pass through  a period of rest and barrenness.   We are so accustomed to doing, that we  have forgotten the art of simply being. 

Not one care in mind all year I find enough joy every day in my hut 

and after a meal and a pot of strong tea I sit on a rock by a pond and count fish 

quiet untroubled days nothing to do or change… 

With 36,000 days why not spend a few staying still? 

Time makes us uneasy, for we regard it as our  enemy in our insatiable striving for progress,  

fearing the changes it brings and the death  that awaits us all. So, we find ways to “kill  

time.” But if we distract ourselves every time  we feel even slightly bored, we make it harder  

to find meaning and stunt our creativity. It often happens that during idle moments,  

ideas simply come to us. We do not have  ideas, ideas have us. Inspiration can come  

in a sudden flash, completely absorbing us.  This state of being carried away describes  

both the creative person and someone fully  engaged in play. We say a thought “pops up”,  

an idea comes “out of the blue”, or it  “suddenly hit me.” All describe the same thing:  

ideas rising from the unconscious into awareness. When the creative spirit is absent,  

yet the desire to create remains, the artist  may become deeply frustrated, blame himself,  

and sink into despair—sometimes unable to create  for weeks, months, or even years. But creativity  

must grow at its own pace. To force the ego’s  desires upon a natural process is like planting  

a seed and watching it obsessively, whispering,  “Grow, grow, grow,” only to become frustrated when  

it does not. Great things take time to mature.  Creativity demands both patience and passion,  

which share the same etymological root, pati,  meaning “to endure”, “to suffer” or “to undergo.” 

The creative spirit is far more likely to  respond when we prepare for it, rather than   blaming ourselves and daydreaming about endless  could-have-would-have-should-have scenarios.  

Such behaviour acts as a defence mechanism: it is  tempting because it relieves us of responsibility,  

projecting it onto some imagined Other who, we  believe, for reasons unknown, refuses to help us.  

What we fail to realise is that this Other  is unable to help precisely because we do  

not allow it to express itself. In this way, we  escape from the growing anxiety that comes from  

taking responsibility for our own lives. Yet,  ultimately, it is we who must decide to bring  

our creative life into being. Rollo May writes:  But let it be said immediately that unconscious  insights or answers to problems that come in  

reverie do not come hit or miss. They may indeed  occur at times of relaxation, or in fantasy,  

or at other times when we alternate play with  work. But what is entirely clear is that they  

pertain to those areas in which the person  consciously has worked laboriously and with  

dedication… We cannot will to have insights. We  cannot will creativity. But we can will to give  

ourselves to the encounter with intensity  of dedication and commitment. The deeper  

aspects of awareness are activated to the extent  that the person is committed to the encounter. 

The encounter does not happen merely because  we have changed subjectively; it represents,   rather, a real relationship with  the objective world. Genuine  

creativity is characterised by a heightened  consciousness. The artist experiences joy,  

in contrast to fleeting happiness. Joy is the  emotion that goes with heightened consciousness,  

the mood that accompanies the experience  of actualising one’s own potentialities. 

Courage is not the absence of despair, but rather,  the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.  

If you do not express your own ideas coming from  yourself, if you do not listen to your own being,  

you will have betrayed yourself. Creativity takes  great courage, because an active battle with  

the gods is occurring. We must always base our  commitment in the centre of our own being, or else  

no commitment will be ultimately authentic. The  emptiness within corresponds to an apathy without;  

and apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice. Creativity must arise from your innermost self,  

The Unlived Life

not from fulfilling the expectations of others.  You must follow your own path. A common regret  

expressed by those close to death is not having  had the courage to live a life true to themselves;  

instead, they lived a life others expected  of them. Moreover, they often speak not of  

deep regret over what they did, but over what they  failed to do—dreams left unpursued and potential  

unrealised. This is the unlived life. One of the most destructive things,  

psychologically, is unused creative power.  If someone has a creative gift and, for some  

reason (fear, laziness, or conformity),  does not use it, the psychic energy turns  

inwards and becomes poisonous. That is  why we often see neuroses or psychoses  

as expressions of not-lived possibilities. After Jung’s paranormal experience in 1916,  

when the dead appeared to him and told him, “We  have come back from Jerusalem, where we found  

not what we sought,” he wrote the Seven Sermons  of the Dead, after which they vanished. He later  

remarked, “From that time on, the dead have become  ever more distinct for me as the voices of the  

Unanswered, Unresolved and Unredeemed.” Jung writes: 

Perhaps there is after all something to the idea  that one chooses one’s life before birth. In this  

case there would be a connection between  previous fantasies and a specific life.   You may harbour a yearning for something during  your life and have fantasies about the unlived  

aspect right up until you die. People often  regret not having done something or other. If  

there were a continuation, according to the laws  of the psyche an impulse would arise to realise  

these compensatory fantasies. In order to bring creativity forth,  

Understanding Oneself

one must understand oneself, and the  meaning and purpose of one’s life. But   to seek one’s true vocation is like entering  a forest where it is darkest and no path is  

visible. Authenticity requires uncertainty. In the midst of such uncertainty, one may feel  

a hunch to do a particular thing, yet be unable  to explain it rationally—not even to oneself,  

let alone others. Nevertheless, one feels  compelled to follow it, for it may manifest as  

a visceral feeling accompanied by strong emotion.  Intuition is a non-rational faculty. As a result,  

one is often seen as a fool or madman, for not  only does one go against social expectations,  

but one is also unable to fully articulate why.  This can create self-doubt, and eventually, one  

may give in and do what others believe is best. The great decisions of human life have as a  

rule far more to do with the instincts and other  mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious  

will and well-meaning reasonableness. The shoe  that fits one person pinches another; there is  

no recipe for living that suits all cases. Many of the difficulties we experience  in life have their roots in childhood.  

Every child is creative, but the challenge  is remaining creative as we grow up. For  

those who endured a difficult upbringing, the  wounded child does not vanish—it carries on  

into adulthood, often causing struggles. What are the earliest memories you have  

of your life? What is the earliest dream you  can recall? There is a reason why they became  

imprinted in your mind. They have affected or  shaped you in some way. We often assume that  

we know little of our childhood, but suddenly  a particular smell, image, or moment triggers  

a long-forgotten memory, bringing with it a  profound sense of nostalgia. Such memories  

do not disappear; they lie below the threshold  of consciousness and can emerge at any moment. 

Unacknowledged patterns often pass down the  family line, which makes it equally important   to understand our parents and ancestors, for in  doing so, we come to understand ourselves. Jung  

confessed that a decisive factor in choosing his  path was the knowledge that if he did not respond  

fully to his life’s purpose and challenges,  then they would be inherited by his children,  

who would have to bear the burden of his unlived  life in addition to their own difficulties. 

We must examine the cards we have been  dealt in life, and the peculiarities of our   upbringing. For example, someone may have been  involuntarily isolated from society for years,  

and the card life has dealt is that of the Hermit.  Rather than regarding this as a misfortune,  

it can be understood as the constellation of  an archetype, of which the person has become a  

living embodiment. Such a person may possess  a rich inner life, yet struggle to adapt to  

the outer world, which is just as essential. The point is not to speculate on how things  

could have been different, but to accept them as  they are, then life will flow well. Otherwise,  

we suffer more in imagination than in reality. It  is like placing heavy stones to block the natural  

flow of the river. Thus, the secret of life  seems to be to accept it as it is. Paradoxically,  

the more we think about the meaning of our  life, the more we fail to live life fully. 

Towards the end of his life, Jung wrote: Much might have been different if I myself  

had been different. But it was as it had  to be; for all came about because I am as  

I am… I know only that I was born and exist,  and it seems to me that I have been carried  

along. I exist on the foundation of something  I do not know. In spite of all uncertainties,  

I feel a solidity underlying all existence  and a continuity in my mode of being. 

Most of the time, when people say that life  has no meaning, it is because they feel their   own life lacks meaning and unconsciously  project this emptiness into the world,  

constructing a philosophy out of their wounded  self. It is not about finding the meaning of life  

in general, but one’s own subjective meaning.  For this, it is essential to rely on intuition,  

emotion, dreams, and visions. One should treat one’s fantasies   as just as important and real as  so-called “real life”. Jung writes: 

The best way of dealing with the unconscious is  the creative way. Create for instance a fantasy.  

Work it out with all the means at your disposal.  Work it out as if you were it or in it, as you  

would work out a real situation in life which you  cannot escape. All the difficulties you overcome  

in such a fantasy are symbolic expressions  of psychological difficulties in yourself,  

and inasmuch as you overcome them in your  imagination you also overcome them in your psyche. 

For Jung, one of the most powerful means  of accessing unconscious material is   what he calls active imagination, a  technique that involves visualising  

various spontaneous scenes and engaging  in dialogue with different aspects of   yourself while fully awake. By dealing with  the struggles that arise in your fantasies,  

the issues that would have been presented  in dreams are confronted and worked out.  

In this way, dreams become more focused  and concentrated and less repetitive. 

The key lies in the “active” component: one must  write down the session to prevent it from becoming  

mere passive fantasy. Though it demands deep  concentration and solitude, active imagination  

is among the most effective methods for creative  work and for the formation of one’s personal myth. 

However, some people are not psychologically  prepared for such a task and may become too  

absorbed in the flow of images, temporarily  losing touch with the ordinary world.   For this reason, one should be cautious. During his confrontation with the unconscious,  

Balancing Inner world and Outer World

Jung knew he had to plunge fully into his  fantasies. He needed to gain power over them,  

for he realised that if he did not do so,  they might gain power over him. Moreover,  

he could not expect of his patients what he  was not willing to do himself. He writes: 

To the extent that I managed to translate  the emotions into images—that is to say,  

to find the images which were concealed in the  emotions—I was inwardly calmed and reassured. Had  

I left those images hidden in the emotions,  I might have been torn to pieces by them. 

The unconscious can lead to creation or  destruction. The more grounded one is, the better  

one is prepared to delve into the unconscious. As  is often the case, one needs balance. Some are too  

lofty, immersing themselves in the unconscious  and becoming possessed by it, while others are  

too grounded, denying its existence and  yet still falling under its influence. 

Nietzsche, who proclaimed himself the hermit of  Sils-Maria, wrote in a draft of his final work,  

Ecce Homo, “I am solitude become man.”  Lacking a firm anchor in the outer world,  

he possessed nothing more than the inner  world of his thoughts—which incidentally   possessed him more than he it. He succumbed  to irreality, the quintessence of horror,  

and suffered a mental breakdown. Jung writes:  Particularly at this time, when I was working  on the fantasies, I needed a point of support  

in “this world”, and I may say that my family  and my professional work were that to me.  

It was most essential for me to have a normal  life in the real world as a counterpoise to  

that strange inner world… The unconscious  contents could have driven me out of my wits. 

Only by attending to everyday duties can one gain  a sense of sanity and liberation, which opens the  

door to a creative mood. Equally essential is the  presence of others. Individuation occurs through  

relationships, not complete isolation. von Franz states:  We are now discovering that the dream world  is the most beneficent thing on earth, and  

that attending to one’s dreams is the healthiest  thing one can do. But the dream world can also  

devour a person by way of daydreaming, spinning  neurotic fantasies, or chasing unrealistic ideas.  

You only have to go into a lunatic asylum  to see the victims of the dream world…   The dream world is beneficent and healing only if  we have a dialogue with it but at the same time  

remain in actual life. We must not forget living.  The duties of real living must not be neglected…  

We call that dangerous aspect of the dream world  the devouring unconscious, or the devouring  

mother. It can suck us away from reality and spin  us into neurotic or even psychotic unreality. 

Solidifying one’s fantasies can make a big  difference, whether through writing, music,  

painting, ceramics, or other creative forms.  Otherwise, they remain vague and float aimlessly  

in the unconscious. Even if their meaning  is unclear, paying attention to your inner  

contents influences the unconscious, which  may respond with a dream. The dream is the  

voice of nature or the voice of the instinct. Sometimes, your inner world appears to have a  

correspondence in the outer world, which  are called synchronicities or meaningful   coincidences. These events are acts of creation  in time, that are somehow linked to your personal  

development. It is as though the universe itself  acknowledges your effort towards self-realisation. 

Suffering, God, and Meaning

Our conscious attitude is crucial. Those who  refuse to pay attention to the unconscious  

are influenced by it nonetheless, albeit in a  negative way. In both cases, one may suffer, but  

in one case one suffers authentically and grows,  while in the other case one suffers neurotically  

and remains stagnant or withers away. One unites,  the other splits. Life leads the willing and drags  

along the unwilling. It makes a difference whether  we say yes to our fate and fulfill it positively,  

or say no and are dragged by it against our  will. The Self or God-image wants to become  

conscious through us. God wants to incarnate  in us, and called or not, God will be present. 

If you bring forth what is within you, what  you bring forth will save you. If you do  

not bring forth what is within you, what  you do not bring forth will destroy you. 

To speak of suffering is very different from  actually experiencing it. One cannot merely   intellectualise it and say, “Suffering is  indispensable for growth, and ultimately good  

for me.” No—when you suffer, it fills your whole  being. You want it to end, and when it does not,  

you struggle and fight against it. Then, you grow. Jung writes: 

Now and then it happened in my practice that a  patient grew beyond himself because of unknown  

potentialities, and this became an experience of  prime importance to me. In the meantime, I had  

learned that all the greatest and most important  problems of life are fundamentally insoluble.  

They must be so, for they express the necessary  polarity inherent in every self-regulating system.  

They can never be solved, but only outgrown. It is helpful to view life’s trials not as  

misfortunes that cause meaningless suffering,  but as lessons life teaches you. Whether this  

is objectively true or not is beside the point.  What matters is whether this perspective allows  

one to move from being a passive victim to  an active agent in one’s own life. If it  

grants renewed energy to face challenges, and  the courage to confront them, let it be so.  

And if one cannot accept a misfortune because  it feels absurd or unjust, let that be so as  

well. One must follow one’s inner convictions. An illness, whether physical, psychological  

or spiritual, may take away everything we once  considered valuable. Most respond with despair,  

yet few consider that perhaps it is nature’s way  of re-educating the person. As though the illness  

were nature’s way of saying, “You must become  whole; only then will you be well.” Those who view  

illness as an opportunity for re-education often  emerge healthier and more fulfilled than before.  

Perhaps God uses such trials to open  our eyes, to show us a deeper truth  

beyond the fleeting things of this world. Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl writes: 

We must never forget that we may also find  meaning in life even when confronted with a  

hopeless situation, when facing a fate that  cannot be changed. For what then matters is  

to bear witness to the uniquely human potential  at its best, which is to transform a personal  

tragedy into a triumph… When we are no  longer able to change a situation—just  

think of an incurable disease such as inoperable  cancer—we are challenged to change ourselves. 

It is the meaning of life that keeps us alive  against even the most unfavourable conditions.  

If one continues to suffer and consciously  accepts this suffering, and understands that  

one is doing something for the eternal in oneself,  then one has made a conscious realisation that is  

essential. Consciously lived suffering seems to  have a redeeming effect on the past and on the  

future of humanity’s collective consciousness. von Franz recounts being consulted by a woman  

who had a schizophrenic episode and  was in a state of profound despair.   The woman said to her: “What is the meaning of  my life? I am ruined. Even the medication isn’t  

helping me anymore. What meaning can you give to  my life?” Von Franz replied: “You are suffering  

for God.” The woman immediately understood  and responded, “Thank you, now I can live.” 

Three weeks before his death, Jung wrote: Nothing can be created without indebtedness,  

and only one who bears the cost can create.  The person without indebtedness who renounces  

the world and refuses to pay life’s  dues does not achieve individuation,  

because the dark God would find no place in him. Creation always comes at a cost, a sacrifice  

that brings about suffering. Growth requires  enduring inner conflict and moral burden. Without  

confrontation, there is no transformation, and  hence no individuation. As Jung explores in Answer  

to Job, it is the guilty and burdened individual,  not the guiltless one who avoids life’s demands,  

who is best suited to carry the continuing  incarnation of God. In someone who seeks   only light, the dark God would find no room. The encounter between conscious and unconscious  

demands that the light not only illuminates  the darkness but also understands it. Only if  

we wrestle with reconciling these opposites in  our own unique way can we become whole and allow  

God to incarnate in us—not as pure light,  but as the union of light and darkness on  

a higher level of consciousness. In this way,  we contribute to the collective consciousness  

of humanity, nature, and God. This may  be described as the supreme creative act.