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

Philosophers’ Stone 85
fours and crept up to Sunny. She licked his face and he licked hers.
They grappled and almost rolled into the fireplace, which fortunately
wasn’t lit.
D. was looking pensive.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“I was trying to remember,” said D., “something Aldous Huxley
wrote.”
He went to the bookcase and ran his fingers along the spines.
After a moment he pulled out an old paperback.
“Here it is”—
Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best
so monotonous, poor and limited, that the urge to escape, the longing
to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always
been one of the principal appetites of the soul. 91
“Yes,” said Brillig, plucking off dog-hairs, “and that’s certainly
quite as true of me as of anyone else. But think of this: when you
lose the impact and personal immediacy of your dreams and ideals,
when you’re no longer inclined, or able, to invest your mundane
history with the grandeur of a personal evolution, then might you
not just as well be dead?”
It came to me then that the old guy must have led a pretty lonely
life. I said as much.
He inclined his head.
“Birds, animals, fish, and all manner of fruits and vegetables,
have their prescribed cycles for growth and decay. They may be
counted upon, with few exceptions, to adhere to a pattern as sure
and predictable as the movement of the stars. One’s art, on the
other hand, is fitful and unpredictable; it cannot be relied upon at
all. Or, as Rilke says, ‘Friends do not prevent our solitude, they
only limit our aloneness.’ ” 92
There didn’t seem much to say after that. My mind felt like a
pretzel. It was late and it looked like everyone was tired. I took
Sunny out in the snow for a few minutes. When we came back they
91 Doors of Perception, and Heaven and Hell, p. 16.
92 The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge, p. 85.