The duality of man…is in the mind.
This is the concept that is as old as time which finds it way into the symbolic and borderline metaphysical world of work within Analytic Psychology, particularity Jung. I won’t try and interpret what it means, could mean or is in terms of an isolated object, but what it means to me within my own psyche. However, to just set the basic underlining theme; the duality of man pertains to the two opposing sides of the nature of man.
A question was posed to me a couple of weeks ago which to this day I still feel a level of inadequacy about my answer. “What is your brother like; is he like you?” My answer, like most of my answers left my questioner more perplexed than had been intended. “We are pretty much one and same except, if there were a symbolic scale of say compassion at one end, and mercilessness at the other. If my brother were closer to the compassionate end, then I would be in the exact opposite position…”, “…my brother is more accepting of people, where as I am not”. If this is true, it can only be a subjective truth, and if it is true, it concerns me that my concept of my brother [at that time] was not my brother at all, but my own sense of duality.
Now more than ever, I picture my thoughts, feelings and beliefs in a perpetual conflict. This conflict is fuelled by a notion of self which seeks not to find resolution as such, but a kind of balance. Are these not one in the same? Perhaps. My self is comprised of forces which seek to strike a balance between my symbolic heart and symbolic head. Classical emotionalism and rationalism played out like a ballet upon a stage which neither exist in space or in time.
Does this duality exist? Am I simply a system of dyadic processes and impulses, of thoughts and feelings? Or is it a defence, a creation of my psyche, employed to act as an opiate and a buffer from the secrets of my unconscious too harmful to my ego?
The duality of man…is in the mind.
