Metanoia v. Habit: May the Best (Wo)Man Win

In response to my sharing with friends the news of my upcoming presentation, titled “Metanoia, Meaning, and Migration: Finding the Self through Lifestyle Migration,” at Georgetown University’s academic conference on “Passages” next month, many have asked me to explain the concept of metanoia.  As part of my Folklore post-graduate studies, last spring I conducted ethnographic research into and wrote a final paper on the stories of individuals who made a drastic geographic relocation, motivated by retirement or simply the desire for a lifestyle change, or both.  I chose to examine those stories through the lens of metanoia, a concept first used widely by Carl Jung.  Jung paid special attention to times of acute change in an individual’s life, writing prolifically about the transformation of consciousness that occurs.  He called this type of passage metanoia.  This Greek word has two roots:  meta meaning both “great change” and “beyond,” and noia, a derivative of nous, a word of complex and multiple meanings, including “higher consciousness.”  The experience of metanoia involves a transformation that can range from a minor change of consciousness to a dramatic psychic or spiritual transformation.  My research focused on the metanoia experiences of a sampling of Americans and Canadians who made the decision to migrate to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, from as early as the 1950’s, because they believed San Miguel offered the potential for a more meaningful quality of life.  My final paper related these immigrants’ stories of re-imagination and journeying beyond their previous limitations, not to mention the enormous spirit of adventure and independence which led them to craft an entirely new life and identity in Mexico. 

This subject was not an accidental one.  As my own retirement looms on the horizon, my husband (already retired) and I have engaged in an ongoing discussion—part fantasy and part practical—that asks, to quote The Clash:  should we stay or should we go?  Will we stay put in our cherished and familiar community or will we strike out into the unknown, relocating somewhere totally new and different, perhaps where we know no one?  While not giving short shrift to the pragmatic reality that our retirement income will stretch further elsewhere, we have also, like the San Miguel immigrants, given serious consideration to the possibility of experiencing our own metanoia in making a drastic geographical shift.    

One of the most striking statements that I heard over and over again from the San Miguel immigrants was that the decision to relocate inaugurated the arrival of a “new self,” or that finally, in Mexico, they were able to bring forth their “authentic selves.”  What is it about the confines and demands of the quotidian and the familiar, with their endless cycle of responsibilities and expectations, which suppresses the emergence of our “authentic selves”?  Is it merely habit?  Recalling how my beloved Proust frequently took Habit to task, I did some research and came up with this, from my much underlined and dog-eared copy of Remembrance of Things Past: “As a rule, most of our faculties lie dormant because they can rely upon Habit, which knows what there is to be done and has no need of their services.” Yes indeed.  Habit, that hobgoblin of creativity, has no need to draw from my more authentic, richer self to enter into my daily routine. It is well equipped to carry the day on its own. 

This is not to say that I cannot experience my own metanoia, here in my familiar realm, by initiating dramatic lifestyle changes once I have finally broken free from the shackles of a 40-hour work week, where the dragon’s breath of Habit is especially fiery.  But then again, the tantalizing specter of new horizons, my own San Miguel de Allende or Shangri-La you might say, seems to beckon me more urgently than ever before.  Will I heed the call?