>>1404252>>1404539>>1404545"If one is not capable of solving a conflict, one expects that 'in time' the conflicts will solve themselves, without one having to risk a decision. People comfort themselves, not only by doing nothing, but also by not making any preparation for what they have to do, because for such things there is plenty of time and therefore no need to hurry. Such a mechanism is illustrated by the case of a very gifted writer who wanted to write a book which he thought would be the most important book in world literature, but he did not do more than have a few ideas as to what he would write and enjoy in fantasy what the effect of his book would be and tell his friends that he had not nearly finished it. In reality he had not even written a single line, not a single word; though, according to him, he had already worked for seven years on it. The older such people get, the more they cling to the illusion that one day they will do it. In certain people the reaching of a certain age, generally at the beginning of the forties, brings a sobering effect, so that they then begin to use their own forces, or there is a neurotic breakdown which is based upon the fact that one cannot live if one does not have that comforting time illusion."
Marie-Louis Von Franz, "The Problem of the Puer Aeternus"
