Going it alone?

How can we know ourselves by ourselves? We can be known to ourselves through another, but we cannot go it alone. That is the hero’s way, perhaps appropriate during a heroic phase. But if we have learned anything from the rituals of the new life-form of the past seventy years, it is just this: we cannot go it alone. The opus of the soul needs intimate connection, not only to individuate but simply to live. For this we need relationship of the profoundest kind through which we can realize ourselves, where self-revelation is possible, where interest in and love for soul is paramount, and where Eros may move freely – whether in marriage and family, or between lovers and friends.

James Hillman, A Blue Fire