Your Acorn
Hillman’s purpose in writing is to reawaken people’s sense of destiny or calling that he feels has been lost, due in large part, to contempory theories of psychology. This is not an argument of nature versus nurture. This is an argument against giving either nature or nurture full power to define our uniqueness as individuals. Hilman argues that, “The more my life is accounted for by what already occurred in my chromosomes, by what my parents did or didn’t do, and by my early years now long past, the more my biography is the story of a victim.� The “Acorn Theory� is much more mystical and spiritual; that the soul of each of us has attached to it a companion that guides us in our calling and that we are all “invisibly watched and watched over.� Like the acorn that has a unique oak tree within it even before it sprouts, people have a unique calling within their soul that exists before they are born.
Hillman also argues that children, less affected by the theories of contemporary psychology and feelings of victimization are impulsively attempting to find a place and way to exhibit their calling. Adults, who are influenced by dysfunctional theories of contemporary psychology tend to label the impulsiveness of children into words such as “self-destructive, accident prone, and hyper.� Rather than trying to understand the child’s labeled behavior, adults tend to send the child off to therapy and/or medication. The point is that the process of becoming attuned to one’s calling is an intuitive, emotional, romantic, and imaginative one, and it necessitates understanding and nurturing.
Hillman provides many examples of children who found their calling and, as a result, went on to become prominent figures in the world history including Ella Fitzgerald, Ghandi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jackson Pollack and others. He compares two existing theories that try to answer the question of how people come to be great and exhibit their calling: Compensation Theory and Motivational Theory. Compensation theory is most popular in contemporary psychology for attempting to answer this question. It theorizes that people who have traumatic and potentially debilitating events occur early in their lives use huge fantasies of empowerment to compensate for their reality of hopelessness. Hillman argues that this “kills the spirit, by robbing extraordinary persons and acts of their…authenticity.� Motivational theory states that people who do become prominent in life have one dominant characteristic that is present within all of them: motivation. It is not their intelligence, talent, lack of traumatic events in early childhood, or genetic make-up. Hillman argues that this motivation is the oak tree’s urge to sprout from the acorn.
Hillman concludes the chapter encouraging people to love their calling and to live with the demand of their calling. Stop worry and fretting. Be imaginative, be sensitive, be romantic, be emotional. The manifestation of your calling will come.
I really appreciated this writing. Hillman is certainly fighting an uphill philosophical battle. Personally, I believe that we as a society have never been at a point of so little spiritual foundation and focus in our lives. I am not referring to any specific religion or belief system. I simply feel that people have lost touch with much of their intuition, motivation, and adventuresome, out-of-the-box thought – which I believe comes from a sense of being invisibly watched over. What I think is encouraging, is that people have choice. The can choose to unlearn what has been assumed and taught. They can remember to love, dream, be imaginative and nurture their calling. What is your acorn?
- Nick Deffley
Comments
Nick,
I'd love to hear more of what you mean by being invisibly watched over. How do you see elements of that perception inhibiting motivation, intuition and out-of-the-box thinking? Is there a way to turn this around?
I unexpectedly enjoyed the reading. I found myself smiling at Hillman’s 'flowery prose.' What a Romantic read! Rejecting norms of contemporary analysis in favor of beauty, mystery and myth was a breath of fresh air. Normally, I'd write off talk of mystery and myth as some "New Age" theory; superficial and self-indulgent. However, I believed Hillman expressed himself in a way that encouraged hope and thoughtfully challenged the domain of Psychology. Oddly, I felt no desire to be "academically critical" like I was this week in my reading reflection of the Csikszentmihalyi chapter. I was thankful to try to wrap my mind around this different perspective.
Where is the beauty in psychology? Why isn’t it there? Or, why doesn’t beauty and mystery have a stronger foothold with academia in general? I would speculate that these are not ‘common values’ of academic institutions. However, I’d love to see an adaptive shift toward this view in education. If a quest for beauty and mystery were common values of academic institutions – imagine the possibilities! Beauty in Chemistry, Mystery in Mathematics. These topics are already built into every domain, but sadly, not mentored as a common value in academia.
When I signed up for the Intro to Innovations class at the U, I expected a modicum of creativity to be included, but this topic was never discussed - however, I ended up loving the class anyway.
I also took a Creativity class with similar expectations of lively discussions. I imagined a classroom much like the Parisian musicians and artists of the Impressionistic Period, sipping Absinthe, evolving and creating, living and breathing Art and Beauty. A silly fantasy. Art and Beauty were never discussed in this class. Creativity was watered down to a series of linear steps an individual must go through to get a final product. A reason, an analysis for everything. The class was dull and stifled any individual abstract perceptions on the topic.
Posted by: liz kuivinen | February 18, 2008 12:27 PM