Carl Jung answers: Where do you get the incentive for your creative work, Professor?

Emil A. Fischer: Where do you get the incentive for your creative work, Professor? One is always in the dark about one’s own personality.
One needs others to get to know oneself.

Having said this—I actually started out by simply doing routine scientific work.

I always followed the motto that it is worth doing something only if you do it right! The incentives for my creative work are rooted in my temperament.

Diligence and a strong desire for knowledge accompanied me throughout life.

I do not derive any satisfaction from knowing things superficially: I want to know them thoroughly.

When I came to the conclusion that I had only hazy notions of the primitives, and that it was not possible to acquire full knowledge about them through books, I started traveling in Africa, New Mexico, and India.

For the same reason I also started learning Swahili. Carl Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking: Interviews and Encounters, Pages 164-167