Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Even now, with rows of laptops facing me, I know I’ll have difficulty tearing many of them from their screens. Except for Phillip, already in the middle row, who’s been staring at me with uncanny eye contact from the moment he sat down.
Isaak’s taken the seat my TA sometimes takes off to the side so he can still see the student’s faces.
“Good morning, class,” I say with a big smile, trying to make up for their disinterest with manufactured enthusiasm. Usually, I like teaching. I always thought this would be the scariest part of getting my degree, but it surprised me when I was able to settle into it without much anxiety. Because it’s just the rest of my life that gives me so much anxiety, I’m regularly popping pills for it.
Talking to students about concepts I find endlessly fascinating is usually my most low-key activity. Everything else in my head becomes quiet for once, and I’m finally able to be fully present.
Before the stalker anyway, and realizing it could be one of my students.
Now, I find my heart thumping as I continue our unit on Jungian psychology. I start by asking the students what they remember from last week’s session on the mind and the subconscious. I don’t get a lot of takers, but Dae finally speaks up without raising his hand.
“That there are conscious and unconscious parts of our psyche,” he says, his answers as astute and intelligent as always, “but the unconscious can only be reached through dreams and the symbolism of archetypes.”
“Very good, Dae,” I say, and I can all but feel Isaak’s displeasure at me giving a student on the list any praise. But I won’t change my teaching style out of paranoia. For all I know, all the students in this room could be innocent.
“And what are archetypes?” I ask the class.
“Universal symbols that live in the collective unconscious of a society,” says Phillip, also speaking up without raising his hand. But this is the familiar rhythm of how class goes between these three. They all start to answer as if one-upping one another, the most talkative even though the class is composed of mostly women. I can’t tell if it’s about a triangulating rivalry amongst them or if it has to do with jealousy in impressing me. “Images or stories from myths that have resonance for the collective and the individual.”
“Excellent summary, Phillip,” I say and feel Isaak bristle again from my left.
It takes all my effort to ignore him and focus on the lesson at hand. “Today, we’ll be interrogating these ideas further as we look at the persona and shadow to tease out the interplay between our conscious and unconscious selves. To put it simply, our persona is the self we put on to interact with the outside world.
“My persona, for example, is who I present to you from this podium, smiling and friendly, welcoming you. It’s a social mask.” I lean a little over the podium, smiling sideways. “Do you think this is who I really am?”
A mixture of yesses and nos come from the crowd. I—and I’m sure Isaak—note that Phillip is especially loud in calling out no.
“Those of you who’ve said no are correct, at least according to Jung. Because the other side of the careful social mask I’ve crafted to present to the world as the self I’d like you to see is my shadow. Who can tell me from the reading what the shadow is?”
When several students start talking at once, I remind them, “Hands.”
Phillip’s hand shoots up, as well as several others. I look over at Zachary, who’s scribbling in a notebook, no laptop today. He’s usually one of the first to have a hand up like the others. His hair is rumpled and matted on one side like maybe he hasn’t showered in a couple days.
“Zach? What do you think?”
He glares up at me. “The shadow is the darkness. The part everyone hides.”
I feel a little chill shiver down my spine, but then Zach stares back down at his paper and starts scribbling again so hard with his pen that it looks like he’s chewing through the paper with the tip.
“T-that’s right,” I say, swallowing and standing straight as I look at the rest of the class, trying not to show how unnerved I am. “The shadow is what we repress in our subconscious. Jungian therapy is a holistic approach that suggests we can begin to encounter the shadow in safe spaces without being afraid of it. It dwells within all of us, and we don’t have to repress it.”
“But shouldn’t some people repress it?” Phillip asks. “Like psychopaths and serial killers?”
Some people laugh.
I give the same spiel I always do when the subject comes up. “Psychopaths are a much smaller percentage of the population than all the police procedurals would have you believe. And even then, violent psychopaths an even smaller percentage.”