Ideas remain impractical when we have not grasped or been grasped by them. When we do not get an idea, we ask “how” to put it in practice, thereby trying to turn insights of the soul into actions of the ego. But when an insight or idea has sunk in, practice invisibly changes. The idea has opened the eye of the soul. By seeing differently, we do differently. The how is implicitly taken care of. How? disappears as the idea sinks in – as one reflects upon it rather than how to do something with it. This movement of grasping ideas is vertical and inward rather than horizontal or outward into the realm of doing something. The only legitimate How? in regard to these psychological insights is How can I grasp an idea?
James Hillman
