Thinning Niche

Thinning Niche is a developmental dynamic I have come to recognize as vital with moving through middle life.

Karl Jung explains that the aims of the second half of life are different from those of the first and to linger too long in the youthful attitude can produce a division of the will. Consciousness is still pressing forward "to its own inertia, but the unconscious lags behind, because the strength and inner resolve needed for further expansion have been sapped." Hence there is a disunity with oneself that breeds discontent. A critical atmosphere thus develops, the necessary prelude to conscious realization. There is a natural progress of thinning of one's niche. As Samuel Manashe concisely wrote,

The niche narrows
Hones one thin
Until his bones
Disclose him

Samuel Menashe, “The Niche” from Samuel Menashe: New and Selected Poems, edited by Christopher Ricks, published by The Library of America, 2005.

There is a deepening sense that one must in their middle life embrace the conscious awareness and cultivate generative practices that promote human flourishing while the end consciously appears closer.