In Puer Aeternum

One of the most interesting Jungian archetypes is the Puer Aeternus, the "eternal boy," often perceived as a maladaptive outgrowth of a childhood condensed by chronic maternal overcorrection of emotional development. 

There are a variety of speculative causes for how the archetype possesses an individual, characterized by an unusual blame in some online circles for the "emasculation" of society through the Industrial or Sexual Revolution, or for the lack of non-modern initiatory principles that allow the archetype to separate from the circumstances that generated it. The reality is that these are ineffective intellectualizations of the root problem, which is ironically a very "Puer" way of dismissing what might be necessary change to integrate the archetype in a healthy manner. The relevance of this archetype to my own life is one of the reasons I need to write about it and analyze its impact on my life.

Marie von Franz's work is notable for expanding on the causes, effects, and behaviors of the archetype, but I find it not only boring to read but also ineffective, since it psychologizes the archetype into a personality pattern that requires moralization to correct, which presents a subjective quality to her work that is not always applicable. Franz assigns a reduction of the Puer to the behavior of the mother, which benefits the Puer in encountering itself by avoiding the consequences of its own actions. It finds appeal in the circumstances of a parental figure, not in its own circumstances, which reinforces its belief that its agency is irrelevant; that reality cannot be really impacted or transformed by the Puer because it is born of something it had no control over. The talk of "escaping the womb" is fanciful and sensible to the Puer because that is the exact kind of addictive dissection it needs to remain in its current state.

The assigning of "routine" to encounter the Senex is also another ridiculous reduction and intellectualization of the problem. No amount of discussion regarding discipline or commitment will appeal to an individual possessed by the Puer beyond mere entertainment, because this kind of behavior cannot be willed into existence from nothing. Thus, any analysis of inaction is a sedative for the Puer, because it idealizes a future that it still thinks it has no control over. It seeks analysis, explanation, dissection, and discussion because it allows the conscious to prove its superiority by reasoning about its own functioning without influencing reality.

The Puer, at its root, is an addict. It is addicted to the stimulation of its own thoughts, but more so toward the stimulation of anything that breaks apart a structure that requires it to confront consequences. This is not an intentional avoidance of consequence, but a pattern of behavior that it engages in because it has not had any proof that its actions can shape or influence the reality it is part of. It detaches from routine because it sees it as characteristic of people deemed mediocre, and it is the definition of mediocrity that the Puer finds the principal issue with. 

The perception of mediocrity to the Puer is the bane of existence. It finds solace in performance, either in entertaining fantasies without commitment, in redirecting energy to inactionable thoughts, or in gratifying emotional sensations through instant stimulation. It is the natural result of a dissonance that comes with being told that there is a "specialness" to the Puer, but with which there is no worthy achievement to compare that specialness to. It knows it is of a higher intellect, or of a different disposition than other people, but the lack of proof that it has changed or influenced its own reality contributes a heavy sense of shame. Attempting to influence reality, such as routine, becomes humiliating and suffocating because of this shame, so it disregards any attempt to do so because it associates these feelings with how it has encountered mediocrity in other people.

Jung has extrapolated on everything I have already said, and his solution to the Puer (the encounter with the Senex and its integration into the self) always takes the same form. The shame of association with unworthy achievements and the perception of mediocrity as humiliating typically result in a cycle of abuse that codifies how the Puer sees reality: as a vehicle for aestheticized self-hatred. The Puer necessitates a realization that its behavior is indeed self-destructive, but it must also further this realization that its self-harm inevitably begins to hurt others in a way that cannot be intellectualized or romanticized. By inflicting pain and suffering on others through the pursuit of its own pattern of self-abuse, it encounters a consequence or loss that is deeper than its emotional association with mediocrity, where mediocrity is recognized as no longer humiliating but beneficial.

 In this recognition, a transformation takes place, which is characteristic of the same realizations that drug addicts inevitably have. The recognition is not an achievement (of which the Puer does not really want to look for), but it is considered an achievement anyway because it proves that reality is changed and influenced beyond intellectualization and escape. This proof begs a question: whether the pattern of self-abuse and escape through stimulation is worth the pain it incurs on others, or whether it is not.

The question demands a new capacity for thought: that mediocrity is not a form of humiliation but a way to contain self-hatred through renewal. That engaging in what is considered mediocre is grounding, and the shame of any kind of self-hatred pales in comparison to the consequences of losing someone or something. The ideal of seeking escape from this mediocrity is shattered, as the consequences of a loss so profound serve as a reminder of accountability. What the Puer did not receive in childhood, regardless of circumstance, is revealed in that its environment did not demand boundaries sufficient to acknowledge that it is capable of consequences co-contaminated with a higher purpose, and that the indication of this purpose is a desire to exceed its own self-harm.