Imagine you’ve spent your whole life chasing after something you think will complete you — success, beauty, knowledge, the ultimate experience. You finally grasp it, but instead of bringing you the fulfillment you dreamed of, it almost destroys you. That’s what happened to Faust, and nearly lost his soul in the process.

In Goethe’s Faust, the main character makes a deal with the devil, quite literally. Faust is a scholar who has learned everything there is to know, but none of it satisfies him. He’s restless, bored with life, and ready to throw it all away. Enter Mephistopheles, the devil, who offers Faust everything his heart desires — power, knowledge, beauty — so long as he does not become attached to any of it. Otherwise he loses his soul, and Faust agrees.

One of the most intense moments in Faust’s journey comes when he meets Helen of Troy, the very embodiment of beauty and perfection. She represents the feminine ideal, inspirational and archetypal. Faust is initally enamored by her, and believes if he can embrace her he can keep the vision of her. In a symbolic act, Faust takes a piece of her clothing, as if trying to hold onto a part of the divine.

“Faust embraces Helen of Troy but she slips out of his grasp. Mephistopheles whispers to Faust, “Hold onto her garment, which will carry you above the commonplace.” Helen of Troy vanishes, the great archetypal vision fades away, but she has left enough of herself to activate the artistic, visionary faculty in Faust. And this lesser way of possessing Helen is not too much for mortals to bear. ” — Transformation by Robert A. Johnson

Faust’s attempt to claim a piece of her nearly destroys him, as no human being can sustain contact with such pure perfection without losing themselves. His obsession with the ideal leads him to the brink of annihilation, a stark reminder of the danger of trying to grasp what can never truly belong to us.

Faust is a human being, and like the rest of us, he can’t actually live in the realm of perfection. Trying to hold onto something so perfect only tears him apart. It’s as if you finally get that dream job, that perfect partner, that unattainable ideal, and it leaves you feeling empty — or worse, wrecked. Faust’s encounter with Helen shows the danger of trying to live outside the bounds of what’s possible for humans. We aren’t made to exist in a world of pure ideals.

And this is where Mephistopheles, the very devil who tempted Faust in the first place, does something surprising. He brings Faust back — back to his study, to the ordinary, everyday reality that Faust had despised. It’s a moment of reckoning. After brushing up against something too big for him, Faust is brought home, so to speak. He returns to the simple, familiar world, and it’s here, in this ordinariness, that he has the chance to recover.

This might sound counterintuitive. How could the ordinary save someone who’s just had a taste of the extraordinary? But that’s exactly the point. In chasing perfection, Faust lost sight of what it means to be human. The extraordinary is intoxicating, sure, but it’s also unsustainable. It can break you if you’re not careful. The ordinary, though? That’s where we live. It’s what grounds us, keeps us sane.

Now, here’s where it gets really interesting: Mephistopheles, who we might think of as purely evil, is actually playing a crucial role here. In Jungian psychology, he’s what we call the “shadow” — that dark, hidden part of ourselves we don’t want to face. The shadow isn’t just about evil; it’s about the parts of ourselves we reject but need to integrate. And in this case, Mephistopheles, as Faust’s shadow, does something essential. He drags Faust back to reality, forcing him to confront his limits and his humanity. Sometimes, it’s the darker parts of ourselves that pull us back when we’re going too far, too fast.

This lesson resonates deeply with Zen philosophy as well. In Zen, enlightenment isn’t found in chasing grand, impossible ideals, but in appreciating the simple, ordinary moments of life. Drinking tea. Sweeping the floor. It’s in the little things that we find true peace. Zen warns us that trying to force transcendence only pushes it further away. Sound familiar? Faust, like so many of us, thought that reaching for something extraordinary would bring him peace. The striving towards an ideal is a never a place one can arrive at. Although admirable, the cure from trying to become an archetype yourself -possession by an archetype, is in the very ordinariness he had tried to escape.

So, what does all this mean for us? We live in a world that tells us to chase the next big thing, to always aim higher, to never be satisfied with what we have. It’s not the flashy moments that will save us — it’s the everyday, grounding experiences that bring us back to ourselves. Like Faust, we might just find that what we’ve been running from is exactly what we need.