Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be

Host: The evening mist rolled in slow waves over the quiet harbor, blurring the line between sea and sky until the two became one vast uncertainty. A small lantern swung from a post, its golden light trembling against the wind. The air carried the scent of salt and rust, of ships long departed and others waiting to be reborn.

Jack sat on the wooden pier, his boots dangling over the edge, eyes fixed on the black water below. Beside him, Jeeny wrapped her coat tighter, her breath clouding in the cold. Between them, a small folded page fluttered — an excerpt torn from a worn philosophy book.

On it, Carl Jung’s words glowed faintly beneath the lantern’s light:

"Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own."

The sea whispered, as if listening.

Jack: “You ever notice how philosophers make it sound easy? Like all you have to do is know yourself, and the rest just… falls into place.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Maybe that’s because they know it never does. The words are simple so the journey can’t be.”

Jack: “I’ve been trying to follow something for years — a dream, a calling, whatever people call it. But all I’ve really followed is confusion. Experience doesn’t confirm anything. It just complicates.”

Jeeny: “Maybe confusion is confirmation.”

Jack: (glances at her) “That’s a riddle, not an answer.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s both. Confusion means you’ve stopped living on someone else’s map.”

Jack: “And started wandering without one.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. That’s where your own way begins.”

Host: A distant foghorn groaned through the night — long, low, melancholy. It seemed to echo through both of them. Jack took the folded page, rubbing his thumb over the printed words as if hoping the ink itself would yield a direction.

Jack: “Jung talks about finding ‘your own way’ as if experience is a compass. But mine just keeps spinning. Every time I think I’ve found my north, life changes the coordinates.”

Jeeny: “Maybe north isn’t fixed. Maybe it’s not a point on a map, but a feeling in the soul.”

Jack: “A feeling doesn’t pay the rent.”

Jeeny: “No, but it pays the truth. And that’s the currency of purpose.”

Jack: (chuckling) “You talk like truth’s affordable.”

Jeeny: “It’s not. It’s the most expensive thing we ever earn — because we buy it with illusion.”

Host: The wind shifted, pushing the sea’s breath into their faces. The water rippled under the lamplight, each wave glinting like a fragment of broken glass — or memory.

Jack: “You ever wonder if maybe we’re not meant to find our own way? That maybe it’s safer to walk the road that others already paved?”

Jeeny: “Safer, yes. But never freer.”

Jack: “Freedom’s overrated. It sounds poetic until you realize it’s just another word for being alone.”

Jeeny: “Then loneliness is the birthplace of authenticity.”

Jack: “That’s a beautiful way to describe suffering.”

Jeeny: “Suffering’s not the enemy, Jack. Conformity is. We lose more of ourselves pretending to belong than we ever do chasing solitude.”

Host: He turned to her then, her face half-lit by the lantern’s glow. There was no arrogance in her words — just conviction born of surviving her own doubts. The kind of quiet courage that can’t be performed.

Jack: “You talk like someone who already found her way.”

Jeeny: “I haven’t. I just stopped apologizing for being lost.”

Jack: “That’s your secret, then?”

Jeeny: “No. My secret is I listen — not to what the world expects, but to what my heart keeps repeating in the background noise.”

Jack: “And what does it say?”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “That every step toward yourself feels wrong at first — because it breaks someone else’s rules.”

Host: The tide lapped against the wooden posts below, steady, patient, eternal. A seagull cried somewhere in the fog — unseen, but heard, like an echo of choice itself.

Jack: “When I was younger, I wanted to be a pilot. My father said it was reckless. ‘You’re not the flying kind,’ he told me. So I studied engineering instead. Safe. Predictable. But every time I hear an engine overhead, something in me — something small — still looks up.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe that’s the voice experience’s been trying to confirm.”

Jack: “You think I can just quit everything and start over at thirty-five?”

Jeeny: “No. But you can start listening again. That’s how starting over begins — not with a leap, but with a whisper you finally answer.”

Jack: “And what if it’s the wrong whisper?”

Jeeny: “Then it’ll teach you why it wasn’t right. That’s still movement. Still experience. Still you.”

Host: The fog thickened now, wrapping the harbor in soft darkness. Their breaths clouded the air between them, like twin ghosts of the same unspoken fear — the fear of wasting time.

Jeeny’s voice came gently, but with an undercurrent of strength.

Jeeny: “Jung wasn’t asking us to follow any particular path, Jack. He was saying the only way to live truthfully is to follow what your life has already shown you about yourself. Every heartbreak, every wrong turn, every regret — they’re not mistakes. They’re breadcrumbs.”

Jack: “Then why do they always lead back to pain?”

Jeeny: “Because pain’s the only teacher we can’t ignore.”

Jack: (bitterly) “That’s a cruel design.”

Jeeny: “It’s a human one. The soul doesn’t evolve in comfort. It evolves in confrontation — with its own reflection.”

Host: Jack’s eyes followed the slow movement of the waves, the light from the lantern painting trembling paths across the surface. For a long moment, neither spoke. The silence between them was heavy, but alive.

Then Jack spoke, his voice quieter than the sea.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why most people never follow their own way. Because it means admitting the one they’re on isn’t theirs.”

Jeeny: “Yes. That’s the first death — the death of pretense. But what’s born after is worth it.”

Jack: “And what if there’s nothing born after?”

Jeeny: “Then at least you die honest.”

Host: A sudden gust swept across the pier, making the lantern sway violently. Its light danced wildly for a moment before steadying again — smaller, but still burning.

Jeeny watched it, her eyes softening.

Jeeny: “You see that? Even the smallest flame fights to stay upright in the wind. That’s what it means to follow your way — to keep standing when everything pushes against you.”

Jack: “You think everyone’s capable of that?”

Jeeny: “No. Only the ones who decide to stop imitating the wind.”

Host: Jack laughed — not mockingly, but with something like release. He pulled the paper from his pocket and read the quote again, this time out loud, his voice steady:

"Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own."

He folded it slowly, placed it inside his jacket.

Jack: “Maybe the problem isn’t that I don’t know my way. Maybe I’ve just been afraid it’s smaller than I imagined.”

Jeeny: “There’s no such thing as a small way. Only a silent one. Walk it long enough, and it becomes a road.”

Jack: “And if it leads nowhere?”

Jeeny: “Then you’ll still have walked as yourself. That’s further than most.”

Host: The fog began to lift. The sea shimmered faintly as the moon broke through the clouds — pale light spreading across the water like revelation.

Jeeny stood, her shadow stretching long over the pier. She turned to him with a quiet smile.

Jeeny: “You don’t find yourself in books, Jack. Or in plans. You find yourself the moment you stop running from the lessons you’ve already lived.”

Jack: (nodding) “Then maybe I should stop pretending the sea isn’t calling.”

Jeeny: (grinning) “Then follow it.”

Host: He stood beside her, both looking out over the endless horizon. The moonlight glittered on the waves — an infinite road without signs, without certainty, without guarantees.

But in that uncertainty, something inside Jack settled — not peace, not clarity, but permission.

As they walked away from the pier, the wind carried Jung’s words one last time through the air — soft, echoing, eternal:

"Follow that will and that way which experience confirms to be your own."

And for once, Jack didn’t look for directions.
He just walked — into the dark, into the unknown —
and for the first time in his life, the path felt like home.