Dr. James Hollis

That's what polarizes societies, polarizes groups, and so forth.

It's comforting to find like-minded people, but then they're both caught in the same complex is another way of putting that.

So ultimately, whatever reality is, it's going to wear through that and reveal something that's going to be pretty disconcerting to individuals who are caught in a collective identification that way.

You know, the shadow comes because our human nature is thrust into various social situations.

We can't help but have a shadow.

You know, we have to socialize a child.

We learn to use a knife and a fork and not take our siblings' food and that sort of thing.

You learn to look both ways before you cross the street.

There's socialization that's important, and yet...

The greater the socialization, the more likely there's going to be an interruption.

I mean, think about those cultures where people are forced to dress alike for some form of unity or conformity.

Think about where a person might have a special gift or talent, but it's not appreciated in family X or Y.

Well, where does that natural form of expression go?

It pathologizes as depression or it comes out in compensatory dreams or projections onto someone else or it makes the person ill.

The unlived life can make a person ill.

There's a sickness unto death, as Kierkegaard talked about it.

It's that sickness where the human spirit is being repetitively violated.

And much in our culture violates our spirits.

And spirit is not something you will.

It's something that is the quickening of life's energy in service to something.