Prayer
Oh my God. Why does this hurt so much? Please--anything to stop this pain.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Destructive Diabolical Death Drive
White hot pain--not red, that would imply passion. No, red is too cool. At the time when I wrote this (I'm typing, reciphering this, reinscribing, rewriting from a thin, white bit of paper that I found/placed/stored in my jean pocket) the pain was white and it was white hot. So hot that all color melts away. This is the only description I have. I close my eyes and see white hot white hothot why aren't there any words?
allconsuming-ripping regenerating flooding
And it's all me. I betray myself. When I least expect it, I am tortured by visions, visions that I make up, that I torture myself with. How sick is that? And yet, when I try to push these thoughts away, that white hot pain grips at my center and I anguish away.
I do this. I do this to myself. And yet it is not I. Not in any real conscious sense. I torture, I betray and yet not by choice.
The white hot pain is me, and it is/isn't out of my control.
This does not make it "other"--for it is entirely me, composed and composing (by) me
It's laughable, really. Freud was right. The death drive is destructive; it is diabolical; it is evil--and what is more, it is a strong part of me. Derrida describes the impulse in reading Freud as two instincts in constant competition, while at the same time, in constant corroberation.
In understanding this, the white hot pain subsides. Thanatos is overtaken still smiling with the threat/promise/inevitability of perpetual resurfacing.
allconsuming-ripping regenerating flooding
And it's all me. I betray myself. When I least expect it, I am tortured by visions, visions that I make up, that I torture myself with. How sick is that? And yet, when I try to push these thoughts away, that white hot pain grips at my center and I anguish away.
I do this. I do this to myself. And yet it is not I. Not in any real conscious sense. I torture, I betray and yet not by choice.
The white hot pain is me, and it is/isn't out of my control.
This does not make it "other"--for it is entirely me, composed and composing (by) me
It's laughable, really. Freud was right. The death drive is destructive; it is diabolical; it is evil--and what is more, it is a strong part of me. Derrida describes the impulse in reading Freud as two instincts in constant competition, while at the same time, in constant corroberation.
In understanding this, the white hot pain subsides. Thanatos is overtaken still smiling with the threat/promise/inevitability of perpetual resurfacing.
Monday, February 06, 2006
On debunking a notion of self as a solitary creature
A man whom I acknowledge as one of the best friends I have ever had and will (though it be difficult) continue to have as my friend, has written:
"Because as solitary creatures born alone who die and live mostly alone, we want desperately to connect with something and/or someone else."
It makes me sad to see this type of thinking -- maybe because I happen to have another view of humanity. While I see us as solitary creatures, I do not think that we are born alone or die alone. I see the "self" as solitary-afterall, it would be difficult to have a "collective of selves." We are solitary in that way, I suppose, but we are not born alone; in fact, being born--and especially before the birth--is perhaps the most connected we can ever be to another individual. We are, literally, attached to our mothers. Our very existence, our being, our self owes itself (funny) to that symbiotic relationship between our unborn selves and our nurturing mother. When we are born, it is true, we enter into the world in crisis. In fact, we are always, then, after birth, trying to connect and re-connect with someone. But, even from the beginning, for most of us, at least, we are bombarded by people, society, and a social structure. So that we are never alone for more than a few hours. We are fed, clothed, played with, awed at, enjoyed. We learn, we talk, we walk, we communicate all in order to connect to others. It isn't surprising, then, that we would create a mythology of "the other," or "a significant other" or "my other half."
We are lucky, to find one whom we wish to spend "the rest of our lives with" but, as my dear (if no longer soul-mate, then intellectual mate) says, friends become the family we are able to choose for ourselves. And while the term "friend" gets just as overused and corrupted of meaning as "my love" does, a friend is chosen. It is my belief, then, that we choose our friends based on connection. When one self recognizes aspects of itself in another, then we can acknowledge that we are very lucky indeed.
"Because as solitary creatures born alone who die and live mostly alone, we want desperately to connect with something and/or someone else."
It makes me sad to see this type of thinking -- maybe because I happen to have another view of humanity. While I see us as solitary creatures, I do not think that we are born alone or die alone. I see the "self" as solitary-afterall, it would be difficult to have a "collective of selves." We are solitary in that way, I suppose, but we are not born alone; in fact, being born--and especially before the birth--is perhaps the most connected we can ever be to another individual. We are, literally, attached to our mothers. Our very existence, our being, our self owes itself (funny) to that symbiotic relationship between our unborn selves and our nurturing mother. When we are born, it is true, we enter into the world in crisis. In fact, we are always, then, after birth, trying to connect and re-connect with someone. But, even from the beginning, for most of us, at least, we are bombarded by people, society, and a social structure. So that we are never alone for more than a few hours. We are fed, clothed, played with, awed at, enjoyed. We learn, we talk, we walk, we communicate all in order to connect to others. It isn't surprising, then, that we would create a mythology of "the other," or "a significant other" or "my other half."
We are lucky, to find one whom we wish to spend "the rest of our lives with" but, as my dear (if no longer soul-mate, then intellectual mate) says, friends become the family we are able to choose for ourselves. And while the term "friend" gets just as overused and corrupted of meaning as "my love" does, a friend is chosen. It is my belief, then, that we choose our friends based on connection. When one self recognizes aspects of itself in another, then we can acknowledge that we are very lucky indeed.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Derrida Again
I'm on a Derridian high. I had my first meeting with Dr. B-L today about Derrida's _The Post Card_. Things went fairly well, I suppose. But the aftermath of the meeting compiled with my first dose of caffeine today has sent me reeling.
Is it possible to be in love with theory? To be in love with an idea of a man? I would never say that the man "Jacques Derrida" would make me swoon but the idea of him, the thoughts of him, that is what sets me in motion, always pondering, always searching, always seducing. Yes, philosophy is hot. And I surely don't mean to make this into some sort of erotic message, it isn't, but the fulfillment that comes from learning and slowly making my way to understand his theories is itself a sort of charm or entrancement.
Here's my thoughts on love after reading just 21 pages of Derrida:
Love--it says more about the self expressing the love than it does about the other but without the other upon whom we impose this reflection, we would never come to know our "selves." Thus, to be in love, we must, as Narcissus, fall in love with a reflection (our own it turns out)--a reflection currently unmarred by our own imperfections, that is, the flaws are lovingly hidden and absorbed by the gleaming reassurances given to us by our others.
Is it possible to be in love with theory? To be in love with an idea of a man? I would never say that the man "Jacques Derrida" would make me swoon but the idea of him, the thoughts of him, that is what sets me in motion, always pondering, always searching, always seducing. Yes, philosophy is hot. And I surely don't mean to make this into some sort of erotic message, it isn't, but the fulfillment that comes from learning and slowly making my way to understand his theories is itself a sort of charm or entrancement.
Here's my thoughts on love after reading just 21 pages of Derrida:
Love--it says more about the self expressing the love than it does about the other but without the other upon whom we impose this reflection, we would never come to know our "selves." Thus, to be in love, we must, as Narcissus, fall in love with a reflection (our own it turns out)--a reflection currently unmarred by our own imperfections, that is, the flaws are lovingly hidden and absorbed by the gleaming reassurances given to us by our others.
