Irresponsible, cruel, selfish, infantile, but at the same time surprisingly charming, romantic, creative personalities – the people around speak so contradictory about men who keep their teenage view of the world for too long. In their 30s and 40s, they act like they are 17. Can they eventually grow up?
Puer (from the Latin puer aeternus, “eternal youth”) does not like to burden himself with anything – perhaps this is his key characteristic. In real life, there are always rules that limit a person. For pu-erh, this means a miserable existence, being tied hand and foot.
Everything that other people create with their labor, overcoming limitations, is insignificant compared to the fantasies that are born in the head of a puer when he lies on the couch and dreams of what he would do if he could only!
Pu-erhs have great difficulty in finding a suitable job – what they find is either not good enough for them, or not exactly what they would like to have. The pursuit of money, an attempt to make a favorable impression on people – for them, this is the loss of the true essence of a person.
Such people have difficulties with social adaptation, they are extreme individualists.
“Being a special person, I do not consider it necessary to adapt in society, because this is impossible for such a modest genius as I,” they say. Arrogant: This behavior is due to both an inferiority complex and a false sense of superiority over others.
Pu’er tends to look overly suggestible, too weak, and too “good boy” in relationships with other people. He does not show, where necessary, an instant reaction of self-defense.
Inclined to believe everything and be a naive idealist, unwittingly attracting all sorts of deceivers and scammers. Eternal youth have a destructive attachment to women of dubious behavior, choose as friends people about whom it is difficult to say something good.
In relations with women, pu-erh is in the eternal search for the ideal
The woman with whom he is in connection is not the one he needs, she temporarily replaces the ideal. If they throw a scene at him, subjecting him to criticism, then at first he takes it too seriously, and then, suddenly deciding that enough is enough, he leaves the woman – rudely and ruthlessly, without even bothering to answer.
On the other hand, Pu-erhs are willing to make contact, as a rule, they are interesting interlocutors, creative personalities with a subtle understanding of art, the gift of an artist, musician, writer, and can easily inspire the listener.
They ask difficult questions and seek answers to them. They are constantly in search of true faith – a state typical of young men of older adolescence. As a rule, youthful charm is preserved in male pu-erh for life.
When it is necessary to take seriously what is happening in the outer world or in his inner world, he makes several feeble attempts, and then impatiently stops them.
Such a man experiences mortal fear in situations that require taking responsibility. He is horrified at the thought of having to bind himself with promises, forever remain in the earthly boundaries of space and time, and eventually turn out to be an ordinary real person – who he, in fact, is.
Pu-erhs are constantly toying with the idea of leaving life if life turns out to be too difficult for them. They live only on certain conditions – “okay, I’ll try to do something, but if it doesn’t work out, I’ll kill myself.”
The Puer will never dare to stake everything he has: they take risks little by little here and there, they cheat to avoid suffering. The disadvantage of such an attitude is that in this way he loses the possibility of a full-fledged existence, slows down the process of life and, as a result, feels himself living, as it were, by half, under duress.
In fact, he does not want to accept his mortality, and therefore does not want to plunge into reality.
After all, then you will have to admit both your own weakness and your own mortality. Puer identifies with the immortal gods and does not want to accept his mortal counterpart.
All this causes a special form of neurosis – “life on a draft.” A man suffering from such a neurosis develops a strange attitude towards reality, a feeling that in real life he does not yet exist.
Whatever searches he leads – women, work – he always has the feeling that this is not yet what he needs. And the illusion that someday in the future everything will be as it should be.
If the attitude becomes protracted, the pu-erh develops a firm internal refusal to live in the present, and he embarks on self-destruction — he becomes addicted to alcohol or drugs, suffers from phobias, bouts of uncontrolled aggression.
How to get out
Neurosis is, in a sense, a positive symptom. It indicates that something within you needs development, that you are doing something wrong. If a person rejects his own development, it turns against him – the destructive process of internal maturation and growth proceeds unconsciously and instead of healing the personality, it destroys it.
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Pu-erh men must learn from their own experience – without acquiring it, they will never become mature people. Puer must go through serious trials and disappointments, then he will begin to understand women and himself and become emotionally mature.
As long as he only pretends to be reasonable and suppresses his infantile feelings, no development takes place.
It is better if a person behaves like a child and gets hit in the neck by others – this makes him suffer, but also grow. Pu-erh must convince himself that it is possible to overcome life’s difficulties without sacrificing his ideals, but testing them for strength with the help of real life.
Work
Puer must learn to do work that he does not like. He must learn to do not only what fascinates him and what he undertakes with great enthusiasm – each of us can work this way.
Healing for the eternal youth is to kick yourself out of bed on a gloomy rainy morning and again take up boring tedious work due to the obvious efforts of your own will.
Jung once said to a pu’er, “It doesn’t matter what job you do. The task is that you do something carefully and conscientiously… Just commit yourself to the part of the earth that is in front of you. The mystery of being is hidden in the banal.
Feelings
In fact, the criterion is simple: do you feel that you are alive? People who don’t feel like they’re living describe their lives as being in constant pretense, as if they’re playing a role all the time. Even for themselves.
If a man wants to develop, he should start taking his feelings seriously. It is feelings that make life, relationships, work unique, give value to the present. Without feeling, a person cannot associate himself with the situation “here and now”.
Feeling gives rise to responsibility, and thanks to this, a person comes to realize his own individuality, he understands who he is. If the feelings are true, you are able to say to yourself: “Yes, this woman is not an ideal, she is the same as everyone else, in terms of statistics, but for me, in my life, she has the highest value.”
Relations
If someone erases their relationship from memory too quickly, you can be sure that he will also erase himself. Sitting down and writing a long letter accusing an ex-girlfriend of stupidity and misunderstanding is an attempt at belonging to another person, albeit based on errors and projection. An attempt to show genuine interest in a partner.
A person who is deceived in his expectations should continue the relationship for a while in order to realize what is happening.
Why haven’t I seen this before? Why did I expect other relationships? Why did I have a different image of this person? This indicates a desire to grow above oneself and part with illusions.
Bravery
The one who goes towards fear overcomes fear. The one who runs away becomes a victim of the fear generated by the imagination. Heroism is not about not being afraid.
Many people are extremely courageous just because they are not sensitive and impressionable, they cannot imagine what can happen, and therefore they are not nervous. Very excited, impressionable people, of course, suffer much more.
The real problem of courage is whether a person is able to endure suffering, or at least retain the desire to fight, without losing a sense of self-defense and without losing dignity. According to Jung, less is sometimes more. If I burn with idealistic love for all mankind and desire to do good, it is still less than just being human in any situation.
About the Author: Marie-Louise von Franz is a Jungian analyst and author of The Eternal Youth Puer Aeternus.