On Illness

Assumption: I am ill.

Jacqueline Winter Thomas: "Many live their entire lives without this shadow."

Psychoanalysis made me question my condition as mentally-ill. I learned how to find concrete causes for my emotional distress. I learned to recognize patterns in my behavior: I am self-destructive and, thus, I push others away.

I did not have a happy childhood. I was not a cheerful kid. My first memory is the taste of sadness.

Freud, when he quit smoking: "I feel better, not happier".

It took me a while to learn that significant others are not meant to mend the gaps within my narrative.

Perhaps life is about learning how to narrate oneself. It is unlikely.

Modernism, broadly put, wanted truth and beauty—capitalized: Truth, Beauty—through struggle. These are not to be found naked in nature—capitalized. They are to be attained through the systematic cleansing of the spirit—capitalized and so on. χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά.

To be a modern self means to be a thing that is somehow aware of its condition; its thingness. It means being this dust in the shape of flesh and bones and history. Dust attempting to describe itself, attempting to convey meaning and sense.

Postmodernism sees truth and beauty—uncapitalized—in everything. Everything is beautiful and everything holds truth within itself. Truth and beauty, therefore, are not at the core of things nor beyond appearances: they are stuff.

A postmodern self wishes not to be a thing; needs not self-consciousness; needs not itself. A postmodern self demands to be narrated, not described; a tale, rather than a modernist dissection.

What am I? Where/when did I go wrong?

I trust some of my dreams. This borders on neurotic behavior.

T. S. Elliot: "And in short, I was afraid".

Fear was the bridge from my childhood to the outside world. I felt safe inside. I do not remember how security feels like.

My eyes are violently silent; yet they speak.

I used to write poems. Now I am terrified of words, imprecision, vagueness.

Poetry, (Gr. ποίησις, creation): to make something; an attempt to create. Invocation.

I do not know if I am ill. I do not know how to think of myself as no-longer-ill.

I have failed. I want to go home.

Reactions on Goethe's first Faust

Opposition: romanticism is a reaction to the enlightenment. They do not stand as

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

—T. S. Elliot - The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

tú
fiebre
la sombra de mis palabras

habría muerto en el frío
ya no puedo hablar

no words,
no thoughts
soy ruido todavía
mis colores cambian
antes éramos color
o palabras
o sombras

traté de escribir la sombra
fiebre
la canción perfecta
la palabra como piedra
romper la nube
o la sombra
o el ruido

quise decir
¿si te mostrara la palabra
podrías creer?
la palabra
el hilo que nace en mis costillas
el peso de mis huesos
la carga de mis dedos

quise decir
fiebre
escribir mi nombre en el libro de la vida
alguna vez fui círculo
y mano sobre la llama
ahora soy color

quise decir
cómo procesar el destello
la ausencia
o el ruido
decir "tú" e invocar la imagen
que sigue todas
y cada una de mis palabras

Reactions on love

A thunderstorm in which one finds shelter amongst the trees.

Colorful noise: breathe it in.

One has to borrow words from poets. Words do not convey properly.

Massive Attack: "love is a verb; love is a doing word".

A word that acts.

Metaphorically, love takes place within hearts. The vitality of organs.

Heartache, heartbreak. Psychosomatic representations of emotional states.

Being struck by it. One is no longer in control.

Control. In love, one no longer craves it. One craves unity.

L. Sott: "Love will tear you to pieces. This is a good thing".

Being torn to pieces and reconstructing oneself.

Love for different objects is never the same. The one who loves changes through time and so does the object.

Divine love: it is usually assumed that the divinity is able to love. Should the divine be loved as well? How could anyone reciprocate?

An old cliche claims that the divinity will ask every individual how much they loved before admitting them to heaven. There is only one possible answer: "as much as I could". If an individual never loves, it is because they were unable to do so.

One does not choose to love, nor hate. Deliverance is only possible through the overcoming of fear, but humans are not able to control how much they fear.

Heartache breeds fear.

Martin Luther: "Imperfect piety or love on the part of the dying person necessarily brings with it great fear; and the smaller the love, the greater the fear."

But is it so? Is fear of death something I can choose? I cannot choose to have faith, to be pious or to like something. Can I choose to love?

Luther wants faith to be a supernatural gift. Grace is not attained through actions: it is given. No amount of human endeavors will suffice to earn it.

Love is never earned. How can anyone deserve it? There is an inextricable element of gratuity.

I know love like a shadow.

Edición

Oh, there has only been one time where we fucked

And I felt like a bad memory

Like my spine was a reminder of her

And you said that you felt sick

—Daughter - No Care

your uncertainty made me silent,
I asked
if you wanted me
or anyone at all
and you didn't answer.

I would not know
if your silence made sense.

I was that book
you couldn't put down;
you wanted
to know everything
about me;
you held me
when I told you
what she did.
then you put down the book,
figured out the ending
and I became irrelevant.

you took me roughly,
violently, like
I wanted you;
I wanted you
madly, under my covers;
I wanted you
to throw me around
like her.

she made you sparkle;
I could only make you angry.

your hands are terrible machines.
like claws, you marked my waist
and bruised my ribs.
I wanted you to hit me
like her; to hurt me.
she was yours by choice,
I wanted you to take me.

you said your bed was small,
and that you would hurt me
on purpose.
I said you sounded numb,
unsurprised,
dissociated,
unsullied;
I wanted more words to describe you
just so you would stay between my lips.

I sang the world,
you bruised my ribs.
I adored your brutal demeanor,
your calm cruelty,
collected indifference,
calculated aggression;
how you knew
I wanted pain.
I cherished my bruises
like tiny reminders
of you pulling my hair,
throwing me
against a wall,
making me
look up at you:
so mighty,
collected,
cruel,
tarnished by the idea
of ever loving me.

—L. Sott

Reactions on Freud

Drives may become conscious by means of its representation. The development of language allows for some knowledge of unconscious content. But knowledge is hardly a cure.

Words designate things and events. Judgment is the composition of things and events. Judgments may describe complex states of affairs.

Language develops as a means of revelation for any conscious mind. For conscious mind does not understand itself.

To reveal: to see what was once clear, but then was not. Re-veal. The idea of reflection as a means of self-understanding.

I do not understand myself. I do not think it is possible to do so.

The godhead, should it exist, cannot be self-conscious in the sense that I want. For self-consciousness implies the necessity of an other that may reflect. What could possibly reflect divinity?

Drives are obscure. The analysand works in tandem with the analyst to bring the obscure into words.

Pizarnik: "I have forced myself, kicking and screaming, into language."

To be a consciousness entails the necessity to be into words. I say to-be-into in the most radical way. I cannot narrate myself, for I cannot see what I am.

What I am is always in development. I develop through words and through actions. I am not clear to myself.

That which is divine may be clear to itself. There is no way to know if it is not.

To find love: to narrate a succession of events. To choose a particular set of events to make sense out of other events.

Making sense through words: I cannot make sense of a particular set of events. I talked about them, but I find myself unable to find an ending for the narrative. Particular things do not fit into words.

I do not fit into words. I cannot narrate myself.

Anger, hate. I feel the words. Events resonate through my utterances.

I hate you. This is not a performative utterance. I do not hate by saying I do. I can only narrate because I hate.

When I utter the words, I am through my anger. I ramble. I become self-destructive.

Blake: "Cruelty has a human heart". To be cruel: to make sense of events through a univocal interpretation of events. I attach the word to a thing.

BTBAM: "We can speak obsession; we can love the endless".

Repression: the dislocation of drives. I find myself unable to properly face my anger. I cannot speak.

To speak requires a listener. I have not spoken in months.

In my view

I kissed a flame. What did I expect.

—Rosanna Warren

Lo que no cabe en palabras se convierte en repetición. Insistencia en nombrar los eventos; ponerlos en palabras. Repito lo que no entendí en su momento. Me he despedido varias veces de la misma persona. Sé en el momento que se trata de una repetición, pero no puedo detenerlo. No puedo nombrar.

Orfeo y Eurídice: Orfeo pierde a Eurídice por mirar antes de tiempo. H. D., Eurydice:

"so for your arrogance
I am broken at last,
I who had lived unconscious,
who was almost forgot;

if you had let me wait
I had grown from listlessness
into peace,
if you had let me rest with the dead,
I had forgot you
and the past."

Hay una especie de paz en la idea de la muerte. Vivir es campo de flores; morir es una pared austera. Eurídice reclama perder la vida en el umbral. Lo que se pierde duele más que algo que no se tiene. En algunas narraciones, Lilith —la primera pareja de Adán— se convirtió en un demonio tras ser expulsada del paraíso. No es para menos. Eurídice recorrería la tierra y clavaría sus garras en el pecho de los hombres. Si pudiera.

Parte del problema: tratar de construir una narrativa para encontrar sentido en los hechos. Eurídice puede señalar al culpable. Pero rara vez se puede. Algunos demonólogos medievales recomendaban que no se nombrara a los demonios porque eso implica su invocación. Pero el exorcismo es posible precisamente por la posibilidad de nombrar.

Quien señala a un culpable puede conocer la falsedad de su acusación. Pero encontrar sentido en los hechos no depende de la verdad. Me señala como culpable porque eso tiene sentido. Quizá volteé la mirada demasiado pronto. No hay forma de saberlo.

H. D., Eurydice:

"what was it you saw in my face?

the light of your own face,

the fire of your own presence?"