The Message of Otto Rank

My Five-Minute Version

In studying every major thinker of the Jazz Generation (born 1883 to 1901), I concluded that the thinker who has the most meaning to convey to us today was Otto Rank (1884-1939).  A lot of you agree with me, because my most popular Substack post to date (with 29 likes) was about how Otto Rank calls us to the ongoing heroic act of self-creation.

Rank had a great deal to say about the creator of cultural works, most notably in his outstanding 1932 book Art and Artist.

And Rank had a great deal to say to all of us.  Let me try to sum up Otto Rank’s message — written in the late 1920s and early 1930s — to every human being in the 2020s in just five minutes:

It’s perfectly all right to be different and unique.  And it’s perfectly all right to merge with another individual, to yield up our mortal ego and receive it back, even richer.

Both experiences are beautiful.  I, by myself.  And I and Thou.

Maximum individuation and maximum connectedness.  That’s psychological health: Accepting our need to individuate and our need to connect – and balancing the two. 

We can navigate the ebb and flow of these two currents.  We can keep a harmony and a balance between autonomy and unity.  In fact, creative living emerges out of solving, again and again, this challenge.

Every day, back and forth, individuality and connectedness.

Every day, back and forth, relationship and personal freedom.

Give and take, surrender and assert, merge and individuate, unite and separate.  In the present.  In the reality of the moment.  In the here and now.

Sounds easy.  Sounds like a dream.  It’s neither. 

The tension between individuating and connecting is ever-present in life, to the end.  We can get whipsawed from one pole to the other, from autonomy to union and back again.  This makes life painful.    

Individuating our separate self makes us feel guilty and anxious.  Immersing ourselves too much with other people makes us feel guilty and anxious.

Each of us is going to feel some guilt every day whether we exercise our positive individual will or deny it.  But denying our positive will restricts our primal life force. 

We are afraid of becoming ourselves – afraid of individuating – because we fear separation, isolation, being alone, and loneliness.  At the same time we are afraid of the opposite: we are afraid of the melding, disappearing, and dissolving of our independent self into others.

Love is important, but love is not sufficient.  Totally immersing oneself in another person is not psychologically healthy.  That comes at the expense of affirming what is unique about our best self.

We develop through relationships, very much so, and even through some relationships in which we are dependent.  But ultimately our individual autonomy and our social connectedness are complementary.  We need to develop both to the maximum extent that we can.

Sometimes we need attachment, intimacy, and unity.  Sometimes we need separation, solitude, and individuation.  This is life, this rich and ceaseless interplay between the individual and our social milieu, between autonomy and union, between I and Thou, between our own will and our love for other people.  Everyone must navigate this.

As we navigate this, guilt is inescapable.  Guilt accompanies both willing and refusing to will. 

This is a universal problem.  It’s a fundamental problem of the reality of existence.  And sometimes it leaves us standing there, emotionally paralyzed.

It’s difficult to take responsibility for our unique self.  And it’s difficult to unite with others in tenderness, compassion, and love.  It’s difficult because there’s no solution, once and for all.  We wish for and fear separation.  We wish for and fear union – merging into the other or into the collective.  Separating is difficult.  Uniting is difficult.  Every day, throughout our life.  But neither can be denied if we are to be a whole person.

So how will we handle it?  Will we go our whole life feeling guilty about expressing or holding opposing goals and views to the people close to them?  And go our whole life feeling guilty for betraying ourselves, for refusing to develop our unique potential, by remaining too embedded in relationships or society?  Will we let our creative will remain buried under and struggling to emerge from guilt, anxiety, and inhibitions?

Since it’s the only way out of the dilemma, we might as well affirm, develop, grow, express, and fully live out our unique positive individual self.

How?

Accept yourself.  Accept your will to individuate.  And accept your will to merge.

Strengthen your will when you need to individuate.  Soften your will when you need to merge.  But see that you are a whole person with one will.  Fully own what you are willing.

On a deep existential level, accept and affirm your will, accept and affirm your own individual self.

Open a space deep inside yourself, at the center of your being, where you can accept yourself – the part of your being that is different from others and the part of your being that unites with others in love. 

Then live out the dance of creative will and loving connection.

Psychologically healthy people exercise their will positively.  They are capable of love – and maximize their connectedness – and they accept, affirm, and maximize their individuality.

It’s important to choose your own moral and ethical ideal.  Don’t take it second-hand.  Arrive at your own ideals, your own values, your own ethics, freely, without social compulsion. 

From within your own being, define your moral and ethical ideal – your ideal for yourself and your ideal of human well-being.  Decide who you aspire to be.  Define your ideal. 

Then act in freedom as you develop yourself in accord with your personal and social ideals.  Live in harmony with your ideals and your powers.  Let your essential self become one with your ideal self.  Let your ideals and your new self coincide.  With all your powers, be at one with your ideal.

You’ll be a strong person with an autonomous will and you’ll be at one with yourself.  When you form that moral and ethical ideal for yourself, and then affirm yourself and your will, you affirm your will on the moral and ethical level.  So your will becomes positive.  You become moral and ethical in a much stronger and more powerful way.

That’s the goal: to become a self-creating, creative, and productive individual with a positive will.  To become a constructive, productive person who has positively accepted and affirmed your will, your individuality, and your ideals. 

So do what is essential to your growth.  Meet the challenge of human individuation.  Deep within yourself, accept yourself as a real, independent, unique individual being. 

After you’ve developed your new self from your own will, you have a fullness, you have a surplus.  And you can creatively produce from that fullness, from that surplus.

The first creative work of all productive individuals is the forming of their new self.  And this remains, fundamentally, their chief work.  Creativity begins with the individual – with the self-making of the self.

Create yourself.  Actively, consciously create your new self.  Exercise your volition in shaping and reshaping yourself.

Consider the heroes of our literature.  What do heroes do?  Heroes convert their conscious will into deeds.  And heroes do more than this.   Heroes always leave behind their passivity and become active creators, even active self-creators.  Be a hero.

Self-creators are people who actively, consciously create themselves – people who exercise their volition in shaping and reshaping themselves.

You have the creative power to form your new self.  Devote your creative force to life itself.  Place your creative force directly in the service of your new self.  Form and reform yourself, then affirm yourself.  Continually build yourself anew as the person you desire to be.  Manifest your ideal self.  Live your outlook.  Let the ideal self you’ve formed in your mind seek your goals and set your goals. 

Unfetter your positive will.  Let your moral and ethical ideal – the one you’ve chosen for yourself – drive your goal-setting.  Manifest your ideal self.  Live your ideal.  Form and reform your new self in accord with your ideal.  Devote your ideal and your creative force to life itself. 

That’s the whole approach:  To fully accept and affirm your presence in this world – your unique presence.  To accept your own individuality, to affirm it, develop it, cultivate it.  To rediscover your positive, creative will.  To own your feelings and your willing.  To liberate your capacities. 

Day after day, keep forming and creating your new self.  Continually build yourself anew as the person you desire to be.

Each day, take your new self into one situation of life after another.  Respond to situations from your whole will and bring your intelligence and creativity to bear.  Fear is the main problem, so keep overcoming your fear.  Stop denying or blocking your ideal self.  You are equal to each situation of your life.  Know it.  In each new situation, free your ideal self and all your creative powers to intend, think, and act.

Day by day, you feel and engage in your experiences with full intent, with full purpose.  You build up something new within yourself to meet the situations of your life.

The experience of discovering, creating, and re-creating our new self is a sublime experience.  The only thing more sublime is two people helping each other grow and develop by realizing the fullness of each person’s unique self.

And that, my friends, is what Otto Rank has to say to us today.

Heroes Are Active Self-Creators