The Owl and the Pussycat: On the Senex and the Puer

Two small ornaments sit atop my computer screen: an owl and a cat. Recently I thought of how well they represent two aspects of myself: the one that loves to play (with cats), and the one that enjoys diving into the wisdom of philosophy, spirituality, and psychology. In Jungian terms, these aspects reflect two archetypes influencing the embodiment of our personality. One is the Puer/Puella Aeternus, the eternal child, the other is the Senex, the wise old person.

The Puer is the part of us that enjoys self-abandon, such as when playing, or immersed in the collective intoxication of a partying crowd. With the forgetting of the self comes the forgetting of that very adult word, responsibility. We could add a few more: commitment, stock-taking, restriction, control. If we are stuck in Puer identification, commitment (to a person, course of action, career… ) feels too constricting. We want the freedom of childhood.

On the other side of the scales, we have the Senex, the wise old person representing discipline, control, responsibility, order, rationality. If we are stuck in the Senex pattern, we become out of touch with our spontaneity and instinctual life; that which lies beyond the intellect.

The wholeness of our personality lies in a balanced relationship between the Puer and the Senex. And when we inhabit one aspect of ourselves to the detriment of the other, it takes on an antisocial tinge. For example, when playing with wild abandon we can lose perspective of what is going on around us, such as how our play is affecting others. And if we pride ourselves on being rational and responsible, we can easily become judgemental around the ‘right’ way to behave in certain circumstances; the ‘right’ course of action. Our idea of what is acceptable is crisp and clean, with no room to move.

The Possible and the Necessary

The Puer and Senex relate to philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s discussion of possibility and necessity in his book The Sickness Unto Death. We are, says Kierkegaard, a synthesis of the possible and the necessary. To live too much in either is to be in despair (the ‘sickness unto death’), though we might keep ourselves from this awareness with various distractions.

To be stuck in possibility is to be carried away, imagining the possibilities of life, without accommodating the actuality of who we are in the present, the ‘necessary’. Consequently, as Kierkegaard writes, we don’t experience a strong sense of self:

‘Now if possibility outstrips necessity, the self runs away from itself in possibility so that it has no necessity to return to. This then is possibility’s despair. Here the self becomes an abstract possibility; it exhausts itself floundering about in possibility…

… more and more becomes possible because nothing becomes actual. In the end it seems as though everything were possible, but that is the very moment that the self is swallowed up in the abyss’.

There is something in us that wants to give us direction, limits. That something, says Kierkegaard, is our authentic self, the self that God created us to be. Our flight into possibility may therefore be a refusal to ‘obey’:

Nor is it merely lack of strength that makes a self lose itself in possibility, at least not as usually understood. What is really missing is the strength to obey, to yield to the necessary in one’s self, what might be called one’s limits… the misfortune is that he did not become aware of himself, that the self he is is a quite definite something, and thus the necessary. Instead, through this self’s fantastically reflecting itself in possibility, he lost himself…

In contrast, to be stuck in necessity is to not see anything but our current condition. We lack the imagination needed to see beyond the necessities around us, the present limitations in our circumstances and ourselves. We feel bogged down in life. Says Kierkegaard:

‘The person who gets lost in possibility soars with the boldness of despair; but the person for whom all has become necessary strains his back on life, bent down with the weight of despair…’

The Integration Express

Life has a way of giving us what we need to become more balanced — thereby embodying our innate personality — and often this comes in the form of challenging circumstances which test our habitual ways.

Where the Puer is called to a commitment they can’t avoid, the Senex is summoned to open their mind to something beyond their own authority — rationality won’t give them an answer to the problem before them; there won’t be a solution they can come up with. It’s only by connecting with the Puer-like appreciation for possibility that they can go on without falling into despair. As Kierkegaard says of the person stuck in necessity:

‘the decisive moment only comes when man is brought to the utmost extremity, where in human terms there is no possibility. Then the question is whether he will believe that for God everything is possible, that is, whether he will have faith…

… The manner in which he is to be helped he leaves wholly to God, but he believes that for God everything is possible…’

That for God everything is possible, means that things will be resolved in ways we needn’t be able to conceive. This also means that we’ll grow in ways we couldn’t imagine; we’ll become more of the self that has always been ‘possible’, but also ‘necessary’.

Where the Puer needs to make a commitment, acknowledging and respecting their innate characteristics and releasing their emphasis on the possible, the Senex needs to open their mind to a reality beyond the world of necessity and the limitations of their psychological and physical self. Says Kierkegaard:

‘to be aware of his self and of God, a man’s imagination must whirl him up higher than the dank air of the probable’.

In both cases, a meaningful shift requires us to dig deep, drawing on inner resources to face our resistance to meeting the world without our habitual ways. And as always, being stuck in an extreme represents a wound. For some reason, we don’t want to accept who we are (stuck in possibility), or what we can become (stuck in necessity). Forgiveness will therefore play a large part in navigating this time.

Returning to the owl and the cat atop my computer screen, I think it’s fitting that they occupy a place overseeing my work. In writing, my inner Puer and Senex achieve a friendly dialogue: Remaining open to possibilities whilst determining limits, play and study, are needed to help me find my way.