My name is Jonah. I create cyanotype photographs and write about the quest for a meaningful life through art and mythology. On this journey, I hope to inspire you.
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To complement my cyanotype photography, I blog to help and inspire. The latest blog excerpt:
The Cure for the Jonah Complex
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And from a pinnacle of that dome perilously he dared
To essay, like Icarus, the unstable air,
Leaping, with waxen wings, into the welkin;
Down to the bottom he fell, and battered out his brains:
A warning to the wise to beware of hubris.
Ever heard of the Jonah Complex? Me neither, and my name is Jonah! I stumbled upon this term while researching a term paper, and I thought, “Hmm, what is that?”
The Jonah complex is the “evasion of one’s destiny” or the “running away from one’s own best talents.” In other words, the Jonah Complex is the fear of success.
In this article, I define the Jonah Complex and suggest ways to identify and cure it. Maybe you suffer from this complex and don’t know about it!
Follow Your Bliss
Now, I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: sat-chit-ananda. The word “Sat” means being. “Chit” means consciousness. “Ananda” means bliss or rapture. I thought, “I don’t know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don’t know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.” I think it worked.