Hello.

My friends, today I try to use Analytical Psychology to pick apart DJism. It seems to me that although there are numerous posts here about the mindset of a DJ, there are few to none posts actually explaining the importance of mindset.

Many people think, “reading the bible” or saying, “I am king” to yourself is more than enough to be a successful DJ. I think it is more than enough to be a successful AFC. I would like to introduce some terms that I will be using through-out my thread, and I think it is important for you to know their definitions, or how I use those definitions through-out my thread.

TERMS

Libido - is natural energy, and first and foremost serves the purposes of life, but a certain amount in excess of what is needed for instinctive ends can be converted into productive work and used for cultural purposes. This direction of energy becomes initially possible by transferring it to something similar in nature to the object of instinctive interest. The transfer cannot, however, be made by a simple act of will, but is achieved in a roundabout way. After a period of gestation in the unconscious a symbol is produced which can attract the libido, and also serve as a channel diverting its natural flow. The symbol is never thought out consciously, but comes usually as a revelation or intuition, often appearing in a dream.

The extraverted attitude - characterized by an 0utward flowing of libido, an interest in events, in people and things, a relationship with them, and a dependence on them; when this attitude is habitual to anyone Jung describes him or her as an extraverted type. This type is motivated by outside factors and greatly influenced by the environment. The extraverted type is sociable and confident in unfamiliar surroundings. He or she is generally on good terms with the world, and even when disagreeing with it can still be described as related to it, for instead of withdrawing (as the opposite type tends to do) they prefer to argue and quarrel, or try to reshape it according to their own pattern.

The introverted attitude, in contrast, is one of withdrawal the libido flows inward and is concentrated upon subjective factors, and the predominating influence is 'inner necessity'. When this attitude is habitual Jung speaks of an 'introverted type'. This type lacks confidence in relation to people and things, tends to be unsociable, and prefers reflection to activity.

Each type undervalues the other, seeing the negative rather than the positive qualities of the opposite attitude, a fact that has led to endless misunderstanding and even in the course of time to the formulation of antagonistic philosophies, conflicting psychologies, and different values and ways of life.

There are four functions, Jung considers, which we use to orientate ourselves in the world (and also to our own inner world): sensation, which is perception through our senses; thinking, which gives meaning and understanding; feeling, which weighs and values; and intuition, which tells us of its possibilities and gives us information of the atmosphere which surrounds all experience.



Jung, after much careful research work, has described as some of the principal archetypes affecting human thought and behavior, and has named the persona, the shadow, the anima and animus, the old wise man, the earth mother, and the self. Here again we need to remember, when speaking of archetypes of the collective unconscious, that there are no watertight compartments in the mind, and that even the archetypes can have a personal aspect. The anima image, for instance, is conditioned both by the age-long experience men had of woman, and the actual personal experience a man has with a woman or women. Some archetypes are, however, more collective than personal, and others, like the persona and the shadow, have a larger personal element.


The persona - is a collective phenomenon, a facet of the personality that might equally well belong to somebody else, but it is often mistaken for individuality. The actor or artist with long hair and casual clothes is looked on as someone unique - a personality - while often in fact he has simply adopted the dress and habits of all the other artists of his group. The friendliness and hospitality of Mrs. So-and-So the vicar's wife seem to spring from her boundless good nature, but in reality she adopted these ways when she married her husband believing that 'a vicar's wife should be the friend of all who need her'. To some extent, it is true, people choose the roles for which they feel best fitted, and to this degree the persona is individual, but it is never the whole man or woman. Human nature is not consistent, yet in filling a role it must appear so, and is therefore inevitably falsified.

Jung calls that other side of us, which is to be found in the personal unconscious, the shadow. The shadow is the inferior being in ourselves, the one who wants to do all the things that we do not allow ourselves to do, who is everything that we are not, the Mr. Hyde to our Dr Jekyll. The shadow is the personal unconscious; it is all those uncivilized desires and emotions that are incompatible with social standards and our ideal personality, all that we are ashamed of, all that we do not want to know about ourselves. It follows that the narrower and more restrictive the society in which we live the larger will be our shadow.

ANIMA - 'An inherited collective image of woman exists in a man's unconscious,' says Jung, 'with the help of which he apprehends the nature of woman.'
But it is only woman as a general phenomenon that man apprehends in this way, for the image is an archetype, a representation of the age-old experience of man with woman, and though many women will conform, at least 0utwardly, to this image, it in no way represents the real character of an individual woman.
The image only becomes conscious and tangible through the actual contacts with woman that a man makes during the course of his life. The first and most important experience of a woman comes to him through his mother, and is most powerful in shaping and influencing him: there are men who never succeed in freeing themselves from her fascinating power. But the child's experience has a marked subjective character; it is not only how the mother behaves, but also how he feels she behaves that is significant. The image of' his mother that occurs in each child is not an accurate picture of' her, but is formed and colored by the innate capacity to produce an image of woman - the anima.

Old wise man - This archetype represents a serious danger to personality, for when it is awakened a man may easily come to believe that he really possesses the 'mana', the seemingly magical power and wisdom that it holds. It is as if the fascination of the anima had been transferred to this figure, and the one Possessed by it feels himself endowed with great (perhaps esoteric) wisdom, prophetic powers, the gift of healing, and so on. Such a man may even gather a following, for in extending his awareness of the unconscious up to this point he has in fact gone farther than others; moreover, there is a compelling power in an archetype which people sense intuitively and cannot easily resist. They are fascinated by what he says, even though on reflection it often proves to be incomprehensible. But the power can be destructive and can compel a man to act beyond his strength and capacity; he does not really possess the wisdom, which is in fact a voice from the unconscious, and needs to be subjected to conscious criticism and understanding for its true value to become accessible. If a man believes he is voicing his own thoughts and expressing his own powers, when really some idea is emerging from the unconscious, he is in danger of possession and of megalomania. (The lunatic who thinks that he is king or is in communication with the great ones of the earth is an extreme example of the same kind of thing.) If, however, the man can quietly 'listen' to the voice of the unconscious and understand that the power works through him - he is not in control - then he is on the way to a genuine development of personality.

Jung calls possession by these archetypes 'inflation', indicating that the person so possessed has been, as it were, blown up by something too big for himself, something that is not really personal at all, but collective.


The feeling of godlikeness, of being a superman, which comes through inflation, is an illusion. We may for a brief time possess phenomenal courage, or be infinitely wise or forgiving, but this is something 'beyond ourselves', and something that we cannot muster at will.

Suppression – Holding back a desire so that one may fulfill another action. For instance, when a person realizes they need to go to the restroom, they hold back their desire to urinate while they walk to the restroom. Suppressing an urge is temporary.

Repression –Holding back a desire as if one had no desires in the first place. Another restroom example, you have an urge to urinate, but instead, you pretend you don’t need to urinate at all. So you just walk around like you don’t need to relieve yourself. It is fairly obvious about the drawbacks of this, eventually that desire will keep building up pressure and using your libido until finally the floodgates open.

The natural movement of the libido is forwards and backwards - one could almost think of it as the movement of the tides. Jung calls the forward movement that satisfies the demands of the conscious, progression, the backward movement, satisfying the demands of the unconscious, regression.

Progression is concerned with the active adaptation to one's environment, and regression with the adaptation to one's inner needs. Regression therefore (contrary to some points of view) is just as normal a counter pole to progression as sleeping is to waking, so long as the libido is functioning in an unhindered manner, i.e. according to the law of enantiodromia, when it must eventually turn over into a progressive movement.
Regression may mean, among other things, a return to a dream), state after a period of concentrated and directed mental activity, or it may mean a return to an earlier stage of development; but these are not necessarily wrong', rather can they be looked on as restorative phases 'reculer pour mieux sauter'.
If there is an attempt to force the libido into a rigid channel, or repression has created a barrier, or for one reason or another the conscious adjustment has failed (perhaps because outer circumstances became too difficult), the natural forward movement becomes impossible. The libido then flows back into the unconscious, which will eventually become over-charged with energy seeking to find some outlet. Perhaps the unconscious will then leak through into consciousness as fantasy, or as some neurotic symptom, perhaps it will manifest itself in infantile or even animal behavior. It may even overwhelm consciousness so that there is a violent outburst, or a psychosis develops; when this happens it is as if a dam had burst and all the land was flooded.

NOW, I feel as though after reading all of that you have some understanding of Jungian/analytical psychology. For many of you, it isn’t hard to see why I am making this thread on these forums. Many of you have already guessed the purpose of each of the terms I elaborated upon.
I still urge you all to read the rest of my thread, especially those who don’t particularly understand where I am going with this. (Besides, after reading all those definitions, no doubt you are bursting with a desire to read more knowledge. It would only make sense that you hunger for information I present. )

Let me begin by stating the problem as I see it. AFC’s are the problem no doubt. But why should that affect me? I am a DJ; I don’t care about AFC’s. More fish in the see for ME to choose from, lest some loser AFC take them.
However, just as males have an ANIMA, females have an ANIMUS! Or, they have a collective interpretation of “man,” in regards to the global interaction of man & woman. Overall, this has worked towards our advantage. Males have been the dominating species of the human race, and females have been the “sub-class.”
However, recently, I noticed that females are becoming more and more dominant and males are becoming more and more inferior. As of right now, it’s not so large a problem that a global alarm be raised, but it IS a big enough problem for me to worry about my great great grandkid.
Who knows, by that time females might consider the average man an AFC loser, and we will not longer have benefit of the doubt working for us. (Of course any descendants of mine will be DJ’s, but none the less its extra hassle for my seed.)

Its true that the ANIMA/ANIMUS depends a lot on the person’s own experience with the opposite gender; especially the opposite gender of a parent. But as more and more men become AFC’s, is it not possible that your great grandkids date will have an AFC father?

Speaking of AFC’s, I would like to take a few moments to talk about THE AFC, as an archetype perhaps, but even more so as YOU, The guy who came to this web page.


In regards to personality types, an AFC can be extroverted, or introverted. The most common type referred to as “AFC” on these boards are however introverts. As most of the so-called “DJ’s” are extroverts naturally, they tend to reject introverted qualities as “AFC” and shun those who posses such qualities.

AFC stands for “Average Frustrated Chump.” In no way does that title imply that someone who is overjoyed at buying flowers for a girl he likes is an AFC. Therefore an “AFC” must be an archetype within our own unconscious. It isn’t simply a person who is average, who is frustrated, and who is a chump, but it is also a person who performs actions that could lead to feeling frustrated and average.(Even if those actions have subjective meanings.)

This brings us to the Shadow. The shadow is all of our weaknesses. It’s necessary at times to suppress the shadow, but you mustn’t repress it. From now on I will only refer to “AFC” as to an archetype, and I will now call the former meaning of the word “Pre-Don” (PD), also added are “Current-Don” (CD) and “After-Don” (AD). I will discuss each of those meanings a little later on.

The Shadow is also all of the things, which I don’t want to accept about myself. Often I even notice these as “faults” in someone else. For instance, Paul (from the Christian Bible) spoke of homosexuality and how much it was a sin SO MUCH, that some researchers believe he himself was gay, and hated him for it. Or maybe it’s that one person who constantly blabs about how annoying people that start rumors are. While they are sitting there telling you that “Suzy told me so and so, jeez, I hate people who spread rumors about others! That blasted Suzy! She’s no good.”

The PD has a shadow, just like every one of us, but before I talk about him more, I need to address the psychological factors which make one a PD.

A PD probably started off as an introverted child, being such he had a strong emotional attachment to his mother. (Even if this was at a small age.)
It doesn’t matter WHAT exactly the emotion being directed at his mother was. It could be love, hate, lust, or any other emotions. All the while they are forming an image of the ANIMA in their unconscious. This anima has been alive more then the child’s consciousness (since its from the collective unconscious), but he has now been forming and molding it to his specific details. What eventually happens is the libido isn’t allowed to progress sexually like that of a normal child. Repressed feelings of sexuality arise, and the anima is repressed as well. (Ewww girls have cooties!). Then, because of the society most of us live in, the actual frustrating feelings that the young man might have are even further more repressed.
This is the common psychic root - the fact that men conceal things, and in so doing alienate themselves from the community. What is concealed tends to be everything 'dark, imperfect, and stupid in us' and so the secret is laden with guilt, whether or not it is something really wrong from the standpoint of ordinary morality. In fact one form of concealment, which can have a most damaging effect, is often practiced as a virtue - that is the concealment of emotion.

By the time the boy hits puberty and gets a surge of hormones he has already some troubling psychological values. The emotional side is repressed, which makes it even harder for the sexual side to come out because liking someone is an emotion. If I remember correctly back in elementary school kids got made fun of for liking each other.
Then he does hit puberty and he has all sorts of urges for girls. If he is introverted then its even harder for the libido to progress into a sexual relationship with a female, add to that the fear of showing emotions, the image of the anima set by his mother, and we have here one confused and frustrated boy: The Pre-Don, not the AFC.

The PD is however aware of his “AFC” side, more or less. He notices he has trouble with girls, or perhaps his libido finally overflowed and he just burst out with a flood of emotions, got himself the dreaded ‘one-it is.’ Either way, this inferior way of feeling is like the shadow-side of the real man.
He becomes aware of his AFC, and he comes to this forum. There, he finds out what to call his shadow. Everyone knows what an AFC is, when I first came here and I read 2threads that mentioned AFC’s, I immediately figured out what an AFC was. It was a part of me, and now on this web page, I was able to face it better.
Then, the PD after labeling his shadow “AFC” thinks that he can become a DJ by repressing his AFC. This person is now called the Current Don. This forum is filled with them. I don’t want to name people, but I’m sure if you look around you’ll see plenty of guys who are afraid to do anything that smells AFCish.
This of course doesn’t help them at all. The DJ is also an archetype, not only the AFC. And the CD inflates himself with the DJ archetype. He might go out with extreme confidence, bag chicks like crazy, come here and write half of the DJ Bible. And yet he is still a CD. Repressing his inner AFC.
Eventually the CD realizes he is still unhappy, he might not even be that successful with women anymore. A lot of people are so worried about not being an AFC that they give off that vibe of being unconfident.
You cannot repress the AFC, because that is just like repressing your urge to urinate. You might suppress the AFC to perhaps achieve some other goal, but you still have to face him.

I want to talk about the AFC, and why exactly is this guy so important. Why would a DJ even have an AFC side? The AFC is there for you to use. USE HIM as a tool. It is how you can better yourself. The AFC is your shadow. Your conscious ego/persona mind is like a “light,” and wherever it shines, it drops shadows.

You can look at this shadow side in two perspectives. You can realize and accept your imperfection, and then move on, or you can deny them, and wait for a psychosis to occur. Remember, your libido flows back and forth, progressing and regressing. If you repress your fears and concerns then the libido isn’t allowed to flow freely.
In extreme cases, where there is a complete failure of the libido to find an outlet, there is a withdrawal from life, as in some psychotic states; this is a pathological regression, arid is unlike normal regression, which is a necessity of life. A man is not a machine who can continually and steadily adapt himself to his environment; he must also be in harmony with himself, i.e. adapt to his own inner world; Conversely, he can only adapt to his inner world and achieve harmony with himself when he is adapted to the environmental conditions.
When this happens, the man is now the “After-Don.” The Self. I haven’t talked about this yet. The self is the complete “whole” you, the persona/ego, the anima, the shadow, etc.
And all of these aspects are balanced, in harmony with each other. You aren’t overwhelmed with only gaining intellect and appearing a certain way in front of people (persona/ego), you aren’t only focused on women, and you aren’t only focused on your small imperfections, you are introverted, and extroverted. You are aware of all of these things, but also, a whole new you has emerged.

Jung used an analogy that I am going to tweak. He said when two personalities interact, its like a chemical reaction, both are changed.
I say, when all of the different parts of YOU interact, all are changed, and they combine to create a completely new chemical.

The Self, The After-Don, The real Man.

hey arent you Oreo Renegade?

Originally posted by Boricua_33015
hey arent you Oreo Renegade?

Click to expand...

who is this "Oreo Renegade" you speak of?

shorter version

look for the shorter version now

damn this is deep, but very insightful.. both this and the short.
btw this is my 1st post as a lurker for several months

bump