Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about transformation—how we move from chaos to clarity, from the overwhelming swirl of emotions and ideas to something solid we can stand on. It’s not just a personal question for me; it feels tied to the bigger mess we’re all in—this metamodern meaning crisis where old certainties have dissolved, and we’re left grasping for something real amid the fragments. I stumbled across an image from alchemy that’s been rattling around in my head: the way salt is drawn out of water, turning the fluid into the fixed. Carl Jung saw this as more than chemistry—it’s a map for the psyche, and maybe even for how we find our way forward together.
In alchemy, salt is a symbol of crystallisation—something tangible emerging from the shapeless. Picture seawater evaporating under the sun until those white grains appear. It’s a slow, patient process, often bitter in its essence (salt isn’t sweet, after all). Jung, who spent years decoding alchemy’s psychological depth, saw this as a mirror for how we wrestle with our inner world. The water is the unconscious—murky, fluid, full of unprocessed feelings or forgotten dreams. The salt is what comes when we work with it, when we let the heat of attention or the pressure of life distil something solid: insight, purpose, a piece of ourselves we can hold on to.
I’ve been reflecting on this as I try to understand my own neuroses—those nagging patterns that trip me up, like second-guessing my role in the world or feeling paralysed by the scale of collective problems. Jung would say these aren’t just flaws to fix; they’re signals, invitations to dig deeper. For him, neuroses come from a split—between the polished “me” I show the world and the messy, hidden currents underneath. The alchemical process—water to salt—offers a way to bridge that gap, to turn the chaos into something I can use.
So what does that look like? Jung’s take is practical, in its own symbolic way. First, you face the water—those swirling fears or questions (What’s my purpose? How do I fit into a society that feels so unmoored?). Then, you endure the heat—sitting with the discomfort instead of running from it, maybe through writing, talking it out, or just letting the dreams speak. Eventually, something crystallises—a realisation, a small truth. For me, it’s been noticing how my indecision often hides a fear of letting others down. That’s my “salt”—bitter, yes, but solid enough to build on.
This isn’t just about me, though. I keep circling back to the collective—how we’re all fumbling through this meaning crisis, where modernism’s grand narratives have crumbled, and postmodernism’s irony leaves us hollow. Metamodernism, if I’m getting it right, asks us to oscillate—to hold sincerity and doubt together, to find something real without pretending it’s absolute. Jung’s alchemy fits here: it’s about integrating opposites, not picking sides. My neuroses, your struggles, our shared confusion—they’re the water we’re all swimming in. The work is figuring out how to distil something from it together.
Take my role in society. I’m not a leader in the classic sense, but I’m part of networks—friends, colleagues, strangers online. If I can transform my own chaos into clarity, maybe that’s a ripple. Not a grand solution, but a step. Jung called this individuation—becoming whole by embracing all of yourself, light and shadow. I wonder if there’s a collective version: a society that doesn’t banish its messiness but learns to work with it. Imagine us pooling our “salt”—our hard-won insights—and building something, not perfect, but real.
For now, I’m still in process, as we all are. The water’s still evaporating, the salt’s still forming. But Jung’s lens gives me hope: that our personal and collective challenges aren’t dead ends. They’re raw material. My next step is to keep reflecting—on my own patterns, on how I can show up for others—and to share what I find. Maybe you’ll join me in this alchemical experiment. What’s your water? What’s your salt? And how might we turn it into something we can stand on, together?
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