Chicken Little: The Inside Story (A Jungian ... - Inner City Books

Philosophers’ Stone 83
circled his neck. Holding this position he spoke, so softly that I
could hardly hear.
“Men deal with reality in any number of clever ways, all of
which prove nothing. Reality is no challenge, exacts from man
nothing more than the will to survive, which is possessed by the
lowest animal. What is more important in the making of a man is
how he copes with the unreality of his life, how he handles the abstract,
the unknown, the merely possible.
“Here is where one’s highest abilities are brought into play. Here
is where the individual is separated from the group. In this area
man explores the intellectual, philosophical and spiritual side of
himself, contemplates the dark side of the moon, opens the atom,
probes the microbe, seeks the very answers to life itself. The man
who opens these doors transcends his own mortality in a very real
sense. For behind them lies a compelling reflection of his own potential.”
This was pretty exciting stuff. It seemed to me his eyes had
taken on a, well, maniacal look. D. was mesmerized.
“You may recall the words of that eminent pessimist Céline: ‘To
philosophize is only another way of being afraid and leads hardly
anywhere but to cowardly make-believe.’ 87
“Well,” said Brillig, “it was no secret to me that he who would
construct a world of dreams risks living in a nightmare. The more I
had become concerned with ideas, the less tolerant I was of those
immersed in what I considered to be petty things. The longer I
sought the meaning of life, the reasons for it all, the more jealously
I guarded my personal truths and the more vulnerable I became to
the cruelty and harshness of the world.
“But, I asked, the man who seeks protection in himself, through
philosophy, is he really a coward? While exploring his own sense
of a deeper reality, is he not retreating, but, on the contrary, preparing
to advance? Philosophy—which I was, and still am, inclined to
characterize as the awareness of, and search for, ‘something
else’—is more than a day-to-day refuge from the humiliation it can
mean to be a social animal. It is also the way in which one builds
87 Journey to the End of the Night, p. 126.