the puer and puella aeternus
on eternal childhood, accepting responsibility, and the irony of seeking freedom
I’ve generally tried living life with a “don’t think too much and just do the things that you enjoy” mentality. I’ve always had a resistance to making plans and routines; they’ve never worked for me. Even when I’ve put in effort to make them, I’ve really struggled to stick to them. So I’ve just tried to go with the flow, trusting that just being spontaneous and doing the things I enjoy will naturally bring me closer to my goals, or at least help me refine my goals to bring them more in line with who I am and what matters to me.
It’s certainly been a lot of fun! Living in Manhattan over the past year, there’s been no shortage of things to do spontaneously and people to do them with, and I’ve had many treasured experiences and memories.
Recently, however, I’ve started to become aware of certain inherent hypocrisies in this way of living. I’ve been unable to answer either of the following questions:
What do I do when I’m drawn to do things or enjoy things that run counter to my goals and intentions? Example: Why does drinking irresponsible amounts on random weekday nights feel so good when it messes up my morning routine the following day?
What do I do when acting in line with my goals and intentions doesn’t feel great? Example: Why do I struggle so much to build and follow an exercise routine or a running routine when one of my core goals is to be in peak physical shape?
It’s become self-evident that my modus operandi is naïve and incomplete.
As I’ve begun more deeply investigating how and why my impulses are leading me astray, I’ve found a lot of value in understanding the archetype of the puer and puella aeternus, meaning “eternal boy” or “eternal girl” in Latin. The following paragraphs will cover:
Description of archetypes
The puer and puella aeternus
Dangers of positive-only messaging
How to move forward
archetypes
[A]rchetypes are images and concepts that transcend time and culture. They’re icons that impregnate the myths and legends from the past, and the movies and tv shows of our present. - Source
A common and familiar archetype is the “Wise Old Man” or the “Wizard”, as seen through the myth of Merlin, Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings, and Dumbledore in Harry Potter. Additionally, each card in a Tarot deck represents an archetype.
The reason it’s interesting to study archetypes is because archetypes help illustrate patterns of behavior that exist within all of us, offering us better insight and self-awareness, especially in our subconscious conflicts and motivations. The energy behind each archetype exists within us all, and archetypes give us a blueprint of how they can be expressed. The most relevant question when studying archetypes isn’t whether your behavior and psyche are influenced by the archetype (because they influence us all), but a question of how.
the puer and puella aeternus
Here are two wonderful descriptions of this archetype that I believe capture the essence:
The condition of the Puer or Puella Aeternus can be easily described as a general fear of life and avoidance of responsibility. They are the child of the promise and are full of potential, however, they refuse their task. There’s a poignant illusion that the fantasy world is better than reality, even though they secretly know that this is just a maneuver to remain childish…Everything that resembles responsibilities and commitments seems terrifying. They feel trapped, but it’s only because this confronts their childishness. The result is a provisional life…There’s a constant longing for the perfect thing and waiting for the perfect condition. …
They refuse to pay the price to achieve any kind of greatness, and as soon as it gets difficult they abandon everything. But this shouldn’t matter, after all, they’re constantly substituting reality with their fantasies. And in fantasy land, they can continue dreaming about everything they want to achieve and never do anything. Everything is a maneuver to stay in this stagnant endless loop and avoid dealing with reality. …
A lot of them are extremely smart and love “deep conversations”, but there’s a huge problem. They only understand things on an intellectual level. There’s no action and experience behind it, it’s a half-knowledge that has no life. Deep down, they are huge hypocrites, because their ideals do not hold up in reality and they’re too afraid to face the world and actually live by them. - Source
A man like this is so wildly attractive, so maddeningly alive, that he is absolutely irresistible. In the Tarot deck, he is the Fool …
In the picture on the card, the Fool, like a hobo, carries a sack tied to a stick. They leave you, these men, but they never said they were staying, never said they were committed, or purposeful—or responsible, even. All they want is to have a good time. And what’s wrong with that? Nothing, except you begin to wonder how interested you are in just having a good time. …
The joy of being with these men is the giddy return, through them, to a child’s world, where there are no clocks and no claims on your time, no clothes to be kept clean, and no consequences to be considered. Days and nights are filled with the silliness, the spontaneity, the conspiratorial privacy, and all the breathless secret pleasures of life in a tree house. …
They don’t always come home, and they won’t even apologise for it; won’t help around the house because they like it all messed up. They won’t work very hard because they don’t want to get trapped by success. And they won’t work at the relationship because it’s not supposed to be work, it’s supposed to be fun. If you don’t want to play with them, they don’t mind. But that isn’t going to stop them from playing.
Somehow, they make you feel very old, these men. They turn you into their mother. - Source
Peter Pan and James Bond are classic representations of this archetype in action. There are a few defining characteristics of this archetype:
Avoidance of responsibility, fear of commitment, and rejection of boundaries/limitations - those under the influence of the puer avoid responsibility and commitment because that would require time and effort, which don’t fit with the desire to experience eternal and constant pleasure and spontaneity.
Pleasure-centricity - think of Peter Pan; they constantly want to experience pleasure in all its forms, sprinting along the hedonic treadmill.
Living a “provisional life” - the current parts of their life all feel like “placeholders”, temporary attachments until their real life comes. However, they’re constantly in a holding pattern, never able to get off the ground or put in the effort to make their real life come about.
Feelings of grandiosity and entitlement - they have fantasies of being a hidden or misunderstood special genius, meaning they have no responsibility to adapt; they feel entitled to having things given to them once the world recognizes how special they are.
It’s ultimately hypocritical and ironic because, in the puer’s search for freedom and boundless pleasure, he exhibits patterns of behavior that keep him stuck in his current life, unable to take action and fulfill his dreams. In his pursuit to escape all limitations, he’s unknowingly bound himself in a cage of his own creation.
The influence of this archetype can clearly be destructive, and we don’t have to think too deeply to find examples in our lives of ourselves or people around us acting in line with these behaviors. This isn’t just a problem for youth; lots of literature has been written about how many psychological problems for people across all ages stem from the refusal to grow up.
However, the path forward doesn’t involve shutting off the energy that feeds this archetype. The descriptions above only show what happens when this energy is exerted out of balance; without the correct structure and boundaries. It is also the basis of our youthful spirit of creativity and possibility; it’s the seed of new life and renewal. The challenge is to put in the work to harness that energy effectively.
dangers of positivity-only messaging
A lot of modern mental health and spirituality discourse focuses on emphasizing our energy and maintaining positive states of being, referencing pure positivity as the engine that will transform our reality and experience. There’s almost a promise that our desires will inevitably manifest as long as we focus on feeling good.
The thing that I’ve started to appreciate is that it’s really hard to determine exactly what feels good! If we’re not careful, a lot of the practices designed to help us elevate our energy and let go of past burdens and repressed emotions will instead just feed our delusions and give us the justifications to cling to our current state of being.
Affirmations, visualizations, and other exercises can feed our sense of grandiosity and entitlement, preventing us from taking responsibility for our own lives and accepting boundaries and limitations. We can permit ourselves to maintain destructive habits like binge drinking or gluttony under the pretense that it feels amazing at the moment and is giving us a higher energy state.
At some level, it feels like modern discourse almost gives people at an adolescent stage of development (I’m firmly putting myself in this camp) the language needed to justify their lifestyles without actually having to grow up and change. It’s pushing individual transformation further away. And we’ve seen already how feeding those delusions is incredibly dangerous and can give the puer archetype free rain to dictate our behavior.
This is not at all an argument that those practices or ideas are themselves dangerous or incorrect. I just think they need to be paired with practices that give individuals a healthy appreciation of the role they’re playing in the creation and perpetuation of their circumstances. They should help people accept responsibility, not run away from it. They should be rooted in reality, not delusion.
moving forward
The first step to reducing the hold of the puer archetype is just by being aware of how it may influence you. It may be difficult (I am constantly encountering difficult pills to swallow), but it’s the only way to stop thinking of yourself as a victim and start actually taking charge of your life.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. - Carl Jung
The biggest way to channel the energy effectively is through meaningful and purposeful work. This will naturally bring forth the recognition that dedicating creative energy towards bringing your dreams to life is far more satisfying than the pleasure attained through any other means. It will require you to confront the tendency to fantasize and intellectualize; to stop living in the clouds and get your hands dirty.
For me, this means finding more discipline, structure, and focus. This also means letting go of the tendency to only focus on building up my knowledge base surrounding psychology, as this will only feed into my habit of over-intellectualizing everything. While enjoyable and intellectually stimulating, building knowledge isn’t a replacement for meaningful work. I can’t use it as an excuse to run away and stay curled up in a corner of my room. I need to continue exploring, putting myself out there, and taking risks, whatever that may mean.