“At Bollingen I am in the midst of my true life, I am most deeply myself,” Jung wrote. “… I have done without electricity, and tend the fireplace and stove myself. Evenings, I light the old lamps. There is no running water, I pump the water from the well. I chop the wood and cook the food. These simple acts make man simple; and how difficult it is to be simple!”
“You know that all I desire and demand of life is to feel an urge to work!”
Before bed, if his eyes weren’t too tired, he would sit up and read until 11:00 or midnight, which, he found, “very much enlarges the day.”
“The morning is the best time, there are no people around. My pleasant disposition likes the world with nobody in it.”
My day’s work is very simple; I get up at 8 o’clock, have a bath and breakfast; 3 eggs, tea; then I go for a stroll for half an hour by the Nile in the palm grove of the hotel, and work from 10 till 1; the orchestration of the first Act goes forward slowly but surely. At 1 o’clock I have lunch, then read my Schopenhauer or play Bezique with Mrs. Conze for a piastre stake. From 3 till 4 I work on; at 4 o’clock tea, and after that I go for a walk until 6 when I do my duty in admiring the usual sunset. At 6 o’clock it gets cool and dark; then I write letters or work a bit more until 7. At 7 dinner, after which I chat and smoke (8–12 a day), at half past 9 I go to my room, read for half an hour and put out the light at ten. So it goes on day after day.