I believe that these archetypes exist within all of us, to greater and lesser degrees. If not, they certainly do in myself.
The Dionysian Man's goal is pleasure. We can never satisfy our desire for pleasure: More pleasure leads to less pleasure because every time we reach a higher octave of pleasure we may never reach it again, making every bit of pleasure lesser than that seem pointless. Our response to pleasure becomes numbed, so we need more and more of it, like any drug addict knows. This is called desensitization. Also, our memory of the pleasure sticks out in our mind very powerfully, making us feel more motivated to pursue that than other things, and our willpower erodes as we are unable to deny ourselves and do not expel nearly as much energy doing other things.
So self-denial leads to more pleasure in the end, weirdly. If we control pleasure we are not controlled by it, and instead of roiling in the grosser aspects of life we can learn to appreciate the inner, subtler pleasures. The suppression of the flesh is the empowerment of the spirit!
"Ever fed, never satisfied. Never fed, ever satisfied"
- Paramahansa Yogananda
The Apollonian Man's life is goal-oriented. The dark side of this is that it feeds our insecurities and we must all live up to non-existent ideals. Our inner critic tells us that what we do is not good enough. But it never is. We get too wrapped up in ourselves and can never satisfy our own or society's ideal of perfection that we are all trying to reach. You end up feeling envious of others and worthless even if you are something of a prodigy, because there is always a "bigger fish", and you can't be great at what you are great at all the time.
I am not saying you shouldn't strive for betterment, but it can sometimes be like a dog chasing his own tail. Are you always looking for something new to be better at, or the newest self-improvement, self-help strategy? Do you always want to be the perfect you? If so, you are chasing after a goal that will never exist.
Self-acceptance is the cure for this and leads to more self-betterment in the end, since it is better for us and we can make improvements in the areas of life that are more really important.
"If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete" - Jack Kornfield.
Because these two different deities represent two of what may be our greatest drives, we want to experience them both. We like to think that these two people in ourselves can be balanced. but unfortunately by thinking that we receive only the worst of both and the best of neither: we get the erosion of willpower that comes with being chaotic but without the full explosive pleasure of hedonism, and we get the pressure that comes with being orderly but without that heartening "pat yourself on the back" feeling. So I don't think many people can live without having one archetype dominate over the other.
After all, in a sense they are almost mutually exclusive: In order to put in the effort that Apollo demands of us we must deny ourselves and concentrate. But if we want what Dionysus wants then you must let go of those Apollonian inhibitions.
In light of that opinion in the paragraphs above, though, I think that in the end the best of both comes out when they are reconciled as opposed to balanced. I mentioned how Dionysus and his pursuit of pleasure is self-destructive, and corrected with self-denial, which is of course an Apollonian trait. Then, Apollo and his desire to be the biggest and the best is cured with self-acceptance, which is an emotional trait of the playful Dionysus.
So, in light of all this information, which archetype think dominates in yourself? Having experienced the extremes of both in my life I think my personality has settled on the Apollonian. But I'd love to hear from people who comment what they think of both the dichotomy and which archetype is stronger/better.
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