Book Notes: Living An Examined Life

Book: Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey
Author: James Hollis

The Swiss psychoanalyst Jung has had a remarkable afterlife. His concept of archetypes, popularized by Joseph Campbell as the Hero’s Journey, is the foundational narrative structure for many movies, ranging from Star Wars to Thevar Magan to MCU. Jung’s ideas are central to the academic study of mythology and folklore. This is aside from his impact on the field of psychology and therapy.

James Hollis is a therapist in the Jungian tradition, with over 25 years of practice. For 26 years before that, he was a lecturer and professor. This book was recommended by Oliver Burkeman on Twitter years ago. It was only now that I got to it, during my trip to India, trying to come to grips with a family situation. Given Hollis’s extensive experience and the Burkeman recommendation, I approached this work with more openness than I might typically extend to the genre. If you are in the self-help swamp, it may not have anything new to say. The bull case I can make is that we don’t read such books because of their originality. We read in order to be reminded on occasion what matters. Some notes:

1. Take responsibility for your life - "Our life begins twice: the day we are born and the day we accept the radical existential fact that our life, for all its delimiting factors, is essentially ours to choose."
   • You cannot blame circumstances. You must accept that no matter how bad things are, your choice matters.
2. Break free from patterns - We repeat behaviors from our past because we're wired for security. Growth means challenging those patterns.
   • Hollis sees patterns, such as habits, as protective complexes that were originally formed to help us survive or adapt to our early environment, but which often outlive their usefulness. Patterns maintain their grip on us because they feel safer than confronting uncertainty, and operate largely unconsciously.
   • One must be aware of these patterns in the first place. Therapy helps I suppose, but the next best thing is journaling. Now that we have LLMs, use Claude or ChatGPT to find patterns from your journal entries. The lowest friction option is to create a Claude project for journaling.
   • It still takes enormous training to not repeat the patterns though. When in the act, one must remember that one is stuck and make a different choice. That is not easy! Hollis doesn't suggest one eliminate patterns (though I certainly want that). He wants us to become aware of them, understand their origins, and make more conscious choices.
3. Face your shadow - Acknowledge the parts of yourself you'd rather not see. This gives you more energy and authenticity.
4. Seek meaning over happiness - "Happiness is transient, but meaning abides."
   • Do what matters to your soul, not what provides temporary comfort. Meaning is a function of the soul, he says, and I interpret that to mean it's different for everyone. So look toward yourself, not others.
5. Move beyond others' expectations - Stop living someone else's script. Your purpose isn't to fit in or make your parents proud, but to be yourself.
   • As befits a Jungian, Hollis spends some time on parenting and the constraints it imposes on your relationships.
6. Embrace uncertainty - Real spiritual growth happens when you get comfortable with not having all the answers.
   • This section was particularly insightful. Modernity means that for the first time, a large portion of the population has been forced to be accountable for their spirituality as individuals rather than deferring to external authority. Many people find this choice overwhelming and retreat to the safety of rigid belief structures.
   • By existing structures, Hollis meant religious institutions of one's parents. I would add that people find safety in disenchantment too, since it's easier than ever to be an atheist. It is much harder to maintain openness to mystery when being an atheist is part of your identity, when mainstream discourse frames religiosity as naive or misguided.
7. Show up authentically - "All we are asked to do by history, the gods, nature, or fate is to show up as who we really are."
   • "... the meaning of our life will be a direct function of the degree to which we became more nearly ourselves, showed up as best we could in the face of the difficulties that life presented."
   • Authenticity is aligning external choices with what feels true internally, even when uncomfortable. It is expressing genuine thoughts and feelings rather than what you think the other person wants to hear. It is pursuing one's curiosity over what impresses others.

Aside from the quibbles I have noted above, I feel a larger dissonance with Hollis's approach. The focus on individuality and personal choice feels disconnected from the reality of how humans have historically found meaning and stability. The modern emphasis on radical individualism ignores how social frameworks and shared obligations create contexts in which meaningful lives can flourish. Traditional structures automate certain choices, freeing up mental and emotional bandwidth. Yes, these traditions come with their own costs: one often ends up following predetermined paths like taking up one's father's profession, while women disproportionately shoulder household responsibilities. A cop out would be to say the middle ground is the best, and the middle ground is people exercising their choice and finding ways to embed oneself in community and tradition. That may not be an entirely wrong approach.