Images, Instincts and Emotions

     It makes sense to me that each and every one of us, always and everywhere, responds or reacts from within to the images, instincts and emotions of self/Self, others and otherness.  (I differentiate between responding and reacting with the idea that responding comes from an internal Perception of choices and safety whereas reacting comes from an instinctual or conditioned internal Perception of being unsafe.)  In other words, we all respond or react to others and otherness via the images, instincts and emotions of the ego-self and the deeper psychological Self (i.e., Internity).  This is because all conscious and unconscious formulations of ego and Self are internally rooted in the Life of the collective yet from there branch-out to absorb, filter and behave in symbolic expressions of individual purpose and internal motivation.  Therefore, all the images, instincts and emotions of "How I Am: Being Human" can only be accurately discovered, expressed, connected and made meaningful with this reality as the guiding concept: all behavior is purposeful and internally motivated.
     Fully comprehending and practicing this immutable reality of behavior completely shifts the discovery of consciousness, the expression of challenges, the practice of choices and the meanings of change.  In effect, the moment one refuses to explain behavior using the stimulus-response fantasy (blaming this or that person-place-thing from the recent or ancient past for "making me" do this or that behavior) one begins a more intentional experience of being alive.  But please don't misunderstand me.  I am not for a moment suggesting that one's past Relationships, Experiences or Perceptions can simply be ignored as if they didn't happen.  On the contrary, I think the archetypes of the collective unconscious and the emotions of the personal unconscious will independently demand attention (in dreams, physical illness, psychosis, neurosis and every other symbolic outcome).  Likewise, the powerful emotions and symbolic values/feelings and beliefs/thinking patterns of ego and persona cannot simply be cast aside, especially when there has been some level of trauma to one's fulfillment of the human needs.  I am convinced, however, that the "nature via nurture" Potential of all these internal realities can only remain open to the natural images, instincts and emotions of Life's yearnings by nurturing an understanding of all behavior as purposeful and internally motivated.