Brief Thought On Suffering

Prometheus's Wish

“If I suffer, I do not therefore wish that as many as possible should suffer too; Far from it.”

This sentence is remarkable. In one line Aeschylus shows us what seems to me to be a problem we have faced for a long, long time. Perhaps it is just immature lashing out that causes us to wish our pain on others. Whatever it is it really must stop.

People get hurt. They think their hurt is unique. They think others have not suffered as they have. They become grandiose and heroic. They become unwilling martyrs to pain. Among other things they become annoying.

You've all met someone like that. Likely, you have all been that person at least once in life. It can feel quite embarrassing to realize the brutal honesty of your less-than-special pain. But who cares? You move on from it as you have to. You live through it or with it.

I had a friend one time who got really angry at me because she thought I was trying to fix her. I hadn't even known she was broken, especially considering I don't view people as broken or unbroken. She was going through a divorce. She became friends with some creepy jerk she spent months bad mouthing for being a creepy jerk. Turns out he had been divorced so he understood what she was going through better than I ever could, according to her. How do you compete with that kind of 'logic'? You don't. You walk away. It would have been easy to pick a fight and ask at what point in time did I lose my ability to empathize with pain, hurt, suffering? To what end though? The problem certainly wasn't mine. And there is absolutely nothing you can do with someone who thinks that way. I encounter it all the time working with addictions. People will only work with people who have had addictions issues before. Go for it, I say. And I don't even say it with tongue in cheek or negative thoughts.

When my father died I was very upset. I still get sad about this. I had a friend one time who asked me point blank: Are you going to grieve forever? This was actually about my answering a harmless question about having time booked off and I said I probably won't have my head in the game for the anniversary week so I booked it off. Now, I could have pointed out that her father wasn't very healthy, he wasn't going to be around forever, stuff like that. I could have even wished he would die so she would understand and not be so mean-spirited. What did I actually do in response to this? I got hurt, that's what. But more importantly, I wished she would never have to know the depth of loss and hurt I felt. I wished nobody in the world would have to feel it. Knowing that this isn't possible I also wished that people could be resilient enough to continue living with that pain, and secretly wished that I was resilient enough. Because that's life. There is no reason for me to wish pain on others. Arguably this could ultimately be wishing more pain upon myself. And I am far from a martyr.

When I reconnected with my birth mother I was a fire-driven teenager. I should have hated her guts for giving us up, I should have used that opportunity to blame her for everything bad that happened in my life. That would have been easy. Instead, when I first saw her, I cried. We cried together. What else is there to do? I cannot blame her for anything, in fact, I ought to thank her because if she had never sent us to someone who could take care of us statistically I would be in a very bad place right now. I understand her decision and more importantly I understand her hurt. What good would it do to hurt her more? To hurt her unnecessarily? That would be a particular kind of evil.

Prometheus, chained to his rock, destined to live out his immortality in excruciating pain and agony, can explain that he has no desire to increase suffering in the world. We all could learn a lesson from that.

"The Great Encounter"

A Giant Ass Quote From Someone Who Said It Better Than I Ever Could

Every so often I come across a quote that just smacks me in the face. I could sum it up for you or use just a portion of it and surround it with my own thoughts. I don't mind using other people's brilliance to spearhead my agenda. What I'm going to do here is just reproduce an entire section for you. It is something I think should be read. This quote has inspired me, on more than one occasion it has roused me from my contented slumber.

Some time ago I picked up a book called "The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles". This is the entire trilogy: Oedipus The King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. The translation was done by a man named Paul Roche. This was published in 1958. The Foreword is the section I am leaving below. Everything in bold is as it appeared in the book.

I consider this to be a timely and timeless observation, holding relevance as long as human beings roam the earth.


THE GREAT ENCOUNTER

Sophocles, who died at the age of nearly ninety, two thousand three hundred and sixty-four years ago, was one of the world's greatest poets and dramatists, and he speaks to us today with a message no less necessary and elevating than it was to the Greeks of the fifth century B.C. We too need to be told that man is but a limited and contingent creature, subject to sudden disrupting forces. Success is not finally to be measured by fame or material prosperity. Human greatness consists ultimately in nobly accepting the responsibility of being what we are; human freedom, in the personal working out of our fate in terms appropriate to ourselves. Though we may be innocent, we are all potentially guilty, because of the germ of self-sufficiency and arrogance in our nature. We must remember always that we are only man and be modest in our own conceits. Our place in the total pattern of the cosmos is only finite. That is not to say that it may not be glorious. Whatever our circumstances, we can achieve and endure through to essential greatness. It is not what fate has in store for us that matters, but what we do with it when it comes. There may be suffering, but no abiding hopelessness. No power, no imposition, no catastrophe, can uproot the personal dignity of each human being. The seeming caprice and unfairness of life, striking some down and pampering others, is only the beginning of the Great Encounter. Both the choice and the destiny are ours.

Paul Roche
Smith College
Northampton
May 1, 1958

Freud's Somewhat Gentle Side You Never Read About

It Wasn't All Penises and Penis Stuff?

I recently attended a symposium at SFU. The link for this is here. This was a wonderful symposium. There were, of course, large parts where I had no idea what was going on. But I tried to keep up. I'm not sure I did so well but whatever.

It was nice to be in a room with people who had an admiration for Freud. A realistic respect for the man and his works. So often you find yourself surrounded by people who hate Freud. Often, those same people are the ones who have never read a single line of his work. A glance at introductory psychology texts does not do justice to the huge mind that Freud was. They all have agendas.

The jokes about Freud are numerous and quite funny. The memes out there with him or his quotes are always good for a laugh. The motherfucker remarks are cute and sometimes witty. The average person, or lay person as he would say, does not read him though. And this is really at their peril. They then become victim to specialized agendas who are nothing more than vultures picking the meat from bones, vultures and scavengers who will attack each other hoping for more scraps. Seems like a reliable source..

Christopher Fortune presented on Saturday morning. He presented on Russell Jacoby. He referred to a book called Social Amnesa. Of course, on the lunch break I found the book and last night I read it. Luckily for me a used copy was kicking around. This is a wonderful book. I am going to skip through a lot of good stuff and quote a few parts here to show a side of Freud you don't always see.

"Not in any beyond, but here on earth most men live in a hell: Schopenhauer has seen that very well. My knowledge, my theories and my methods have the goal of making men conscious of this hell so that they can free themselves from it." - Frued quoted at the beginning of chapter 6.

"I do not know if you have detected the secret link between The Question of Lay Analysis and The Future of an Illusion, in the former I wish to protect analysis from the doctors and in the latter from the priests. I should like to hand it over to a profession which does not yet exist, a profession of lay curers of souls who need not be doctors and should not be priests." - Freud in a letter.

"Given the vast amount of neurotic misery 'the quanitity we can do away with is almost negligible'. For this reason Frued backed the idea of state psychoanalytic clinics for the poor." - Freud's words in italics. Freud said that poor people "suffer from neuroses no less than the rich." Next time you pay for treatment remember that quote.

In this selection of quotes I don't see Freud talking about penises or mothers. Where are these quotes when people are pushing their anti-Freudian agendas? I don't care how arrogant or strange Freud was or was accused of being, he seems to be on our side. As much as someone in his shoes can be.

But then again asking people to read a text before forming an opinion hasn't worked so far. The path of least resistance has always been to go with the flow, don't make up your own mind. What happens when you are forced to make a decision all on your own? You get a taste of responsibility. Freedom doesn't taste so good when people have to own what they do. They would prefer to scapegoat something or someone, some idea, or globally entire countries, cultures...

The Anatomy of a Byron

Searching My Very Being For...Stuff, Yeah Stuff

Everyday Enlightenment is the title for this semester's class. I love this title. Putting enlightenment on a pedestal is something for annoying hipsters to do, or the philosophical/intellectual equivalent. Heesoon Bai, our instructor, has pointed out that she is trying to normalize the word. This is wonderful to me.

The more I read our books and the more I think about them the more I realize that this course is really a dissection of myself. Well, I'm not going to shy away from this. I'm not going to pretend its uncomfortable. I'm rather happy about this. I might even learn something about myself. How about that? I've been doing this for a while, its nice to have some help.

Tension was present before class even began. I have always been fascinated with the topic of evil. Big E evil also. This means I am fascinated with bad guys. But, I am equally fascinated with good and good guys. But I don't think you can completely understand one without the other. Hell, they are used in eachother's definitions most times.

My personal experience as myself gives me my thoughts and ideas. So this is based on me being me. Does that make sense? I believe myself to be a good person. I'm not judging others here. I'm not saying that I'm something special that others could never be. I'm just saying that I'm a good person. In fact, perhaps this is my arrogance speaking, I believe that I am a great person.

I don't think that my ability to be good can be separated by my ability to be bad. I think they go hand in hand. I don't think I could have been such a good person if I did not have a part of me that was either bad once upon a time or capable of being bad. I see humans as potential. What makes my potential for good so great is what makes my potential for bad so great.

The choice is mine. And I feel like it is made all the time. In any given situation I could choose the asshole approach or the nice guy approach, I could choose anything in between. I am inclined to choose the nice guy approach. But this does not necessarily exclude at least the possibility of an asshole approach.

I guess what I'm getting at is the idea that I'm not going to pretend that the 'good' people of history aren't capable of evil. I would more readily argue they could perform the most evil deeds imaginable.

Two sides of one coin. Double-edged sword. Whatever you want to call it, that is what I think about human potential and 'the good'.

Also, I'm not going to give exaggerated amounts of praise to those we consider 'enlightened', that would be insulting to the rest of us who are every bit as capable of achieving this life.

The Problem of Perfectionism, or, Your Shit Stinks Too Bro (and Bro-ette)

Poopy, Poopy, Poopy Perfectionism

We all know someone who is a perfectionist.

This is rather unfortunate. For, what is perfectionism?

Self-hatred. Inadequacy. Shame. Guilt. To name a few characteristics driving perfectionism.

The perfectionist is a rather hideous creature behind their thinly veiled mask wishing 'things would be better' when they're actually just hating things as they are. The world is not perfect. Human beings are not perfect. So who are we to think that things ought to be perfect? Who are we that we are so special we expect perfection in a world that cannot provide it? How unreasonable is this? How offensive is this?

The perfectionist is further doomed to be continually let down. And this state of let-down-ness  is yet another unattractive characteristic of the perfectionist. The inadequate nature of the perfectionist causes them to see inadequacy in everything else in the world. The perfectionist typically lacks self-reflection. This is key to remaining a perfectionist. Instead of admitting they are let-down with and by themselves, the perfectionist claims to be let down by others, let down by people and things outside of their control. Because, after all, if it were in their control it would be perfect.

The perfectionist will always try to place themselves above others. They also claim not to be doing this as they do it.

So, my question, as always, is: who told us we aren't good enough?

I don't have this problem because I do think I am good enough. I do not think I am better then people or above them and more valued than them. I just believe in my heart that I am good enough.

To the perfectionists out there: who told you that you weren't good enough? This seems a much more productive pursuit than self-hate riddled distaste of human beings driven by a false sense of moral certainty. That is what the core of perfectionism looks like.

Re-Considering The Environment, Not That One Though

The Other Environment

The Environment I'm referring to is the environment a child grows up in. There are some strange beliefs in the world. Some remarkably strange ones with regards to genetic factors and genetic contribution. I am rather entertained by these thoughts. That is, until I realize they have a driving force of their own and they are actually believed.

Of note: Schizophrenia, suicide, depression. Some Mental Health Fruit Salad, otherwise known as comorbidity but that is another topic entirely. Each one of these has an area of study entirely dedicated to learning the genetic contributions to/of ____ (fill in the blank).

If a person's parents have schizophrenia it does not necessarily follow that that person would have schizophrenia. Otherwise, we would know who would and who wouldn't have schizophrenia. Same goes for suicide: I knew a guy who went to Adler School of Professional Psychology in Vancouver, now, I am uncertain if this was his belief, the school's belief, or the person who relayed the message to me was mistaken, but I was told that people are genetically predisposed to suicide, just at they are genetically predisposed for schizophrenia.

Oddly, nobody considered the environment in making a statement like this. If you are growing up in a house where life is particularly sucky and then one day your father commits suicide, then you probably are more likely to commit suicide as an adult, if you make it that far. But suicide is typically a result of sucky life circumstances, nobody commits suicide because they are just too fucking happy to be alive. The sucky life the suicidal father provided is likely sucky enough that the child would consider suicide an acceptable solution. Is that genetic? No.

Depressed people shouldn't be parents. Children deserve unconditional love and a healthy enough environment to thrive. Depressed people cannot provide that. So if a depressed person provides a life for their children it is likely to be a sucky a life. A common cause of depression is, oddly enough, sucky stuff happening in life. The problem in these situations is depression and suicide, those are the solutions to much greater problems...sometimes related to sucky life circumstances. I don't need to go to Adler to figure this out. This is introductory logic. This is jaded cynical perspective. I certainly don't have a PhD in that, do they offer one though?

Schizophrenia is a bit trickier to understand but I would not put too much weight into the genetic factors. Considering there really is no evidence. It is mostly hocus pocus. So remember: What type of world did the child grow up in? This seems like a more important question, if you are going to ask one.

Simple Approach To A Complex Problem

...By No Means A Solution, But A Healthier Approach

Colin Ross is one of my heroes. I had the great opportunity to listen to him speak on two occasions now. In his presence I recognized how much a force he truly is. One of his books I am currently reading is The Great Psychiatry Scam. This cute little section I will quote reminded me about something that is very important to me and after the quote I will tell you why:

"Chapter 1: True Memories of Early Amnesia

I was born in a class-five
hurricane, and I howled, at the
night, the rain and the driving
mediocrity. But it's all right now,
in fact it's a gas. Jumping Jack
Flash, it's a gas. Jumping Jack
Flash, it's a gas, gas, gas.

Which reminds me of Aunt Jemima, Mexican jumping beans, and flatus. Which reminds me of psychiatry.

Which in turn reminds me of a patient I interviewed as a psychiatrist in Winnipeg in the 1980's. He said that he had been persecuted by Greyhound Bus Line for 2,000,000 years and that the RCMP had decapitated him several days previously. When I asked how he could be talking to me when he had been decapitated, he shrugged, raised his hands as a disclaimer, and said 'I'm just telling you what happened.'.

If that philosophy is good enough for him, it's good enough for me..."

The reason I love this is because it so very true when dealing with what has been labeled 'Mental Health Issues'. I hate that label but I don't get to decide things like this.

If a person is hearing voices, I don't care that that person has some disease and that the voices aren't 'real'. For that person they are real. That's the starting point for working with them. You can't just tell them they are crazy and need to get better and maybe give them medication and lengthy expensive treatment that doesn't work. Why not start by accepting what they are telling you?

I went to this really terrible suicide prevention training through work, it was terribad. We did role playing, which is almost a complete waste of time, and my coworker and friend had a card that told him the following: you have been hearing voices and they are telling you to kill your sister and you love your sister very much as she is the only one in the world who is there for you and so you want to end your life to protect her, you don't want to talk about the reason because of your shame so you are hard to communicate with. I received a card that said: your patient wants to end their life because they are hearing voices. That's all the information you get to work with.

So, bright eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to save the universe, I started asking questions of my 'patient'. He replied he heard voices. So I asked how many voices, male or female, curious exploratory questions to find out what I'm dealing with. The 'specialist' in charge of the training interrupted and said: so, the voices aren't real, this is a suicide risk assessment, your job is to find out if they are a risk or not. Well, no shit lady, in order to find out I need to know the story. The person ended up talking to me anyway so I'm assuming a legitimate risk is involved on some level.

I continue. He says: they tell me to do things. I say: what kind of things? He says: stuff. I say: what do you mean by stuff? He says: well, you know, just stuff. So I decide it is time to corner him into narrowing down the story and giving me details. I say: good stuff or bad stuff? He says: both. I say: ok, can you give me some examples. He says: Well, it is just stuff. I say: do they tell you to go buy groceries, do they tell you to clean the house, to drive around, day-to-day stuff, what kind of stuff? The lady interrupts and tells me I'm mocking the patient. Actually, I'm working with a difficult human being who doesn't trust me. It is different. But I didn't say that to her, she would be unwilling to learn anyway.

She reminds me one more time that the voices aren't real. At this point I give up, I realize what I'm dealing with and let her give me advice, put on her big shit-eating grin like she's accomplished something, and walk off. Then I turn to my coworkers and say: was I mocking? All three in the group said: no, that was a good approach I thought. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. The voices were real for the character. Why is that so hard to accept?

Therein lies a major un-humaning involved in mental health services today. I don't hear the voices but they do. That needs to be accepted.

If the philosophy was good enough for him, what makes me so special it is not good enough for me?

Do You Think Your Dues Are All Paid Up?

Giant Quote From One Of My Favourite Human Beings I Have Never Met:

Gordon Livingston is someone I consider to be a hero. His website is here: http://www.gordonlivingston.com/

I have read the following books of his:
1: Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart (Thirty True Things You Need To Know Now)
2: And Never Stop Dancing  (Thirty More True Things You Need To Know Now)
3: How To Love

I am currently reading:
The Thing You Think You Cannot Do (thirty truths about fear and courage)

The brackets are the subtitles. These books are amazing. Gordon is amazing. If you ever want to learn valuable lessons on life read these. If you have ever felt pain, heartbreak, sorrow, or loss, read these. If you have ever experienced happiness, joy, laughter, togetherness, read these. If you are a human being: read these.

I could write for days about why I think this man is so fantastic, and I would love it, but what I'm going to do instead is type out a giant quote from his book on courage and hope nobody sues me for copyright infringement!

Here goes:

Chapter 4: You have never suffered enough.


'The truth will set you free, but not until it is finished with you.' - David Foster Wallace

"Those who have suffered a catastrophic loss, such as the death of a child or spouse, often take slender consolation in the idea that they have 'paid their dues' to God or to the universe and that no more sacrifices of this magnitude will be required of them. I indulged this fantasy for a time after my twenty-two-year-old son Andrew killed himself in the grip of bipolar illness some years ago. Sure, I thought, no further misfortune could befall me that would approach this. Seven months after Andrew's death, my six year-old-son Lucas was diagnosed with a particularly virulent form of leukemia. Six months later he too was dead.

What can we learn from such apparently random devastation? That there is no defense against the vagaries of chance in this life? That we are being tested by having our worst fears realized? That we need more lessons on powerlessness and humility? I couldn't figure it out. Then it began to dawn on me that there is nothing to figure out, that as Robert Frost (who lost four of his six children) said in his old age, 'In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life - it goes on.' Such a conviction is at once both defenseless and liberating.

Nobody tells us when we are young that there are no limits to pain. Instead, most of us are allowed to indulge the fantasy that if we do well in school, work hard, and respect authority, we will be spared the crushing grief that is the fate of other people, those we don't know. It is doubtless just as well that we are not burdened with the gift of foresight. In the yearbook marking my fiftieth college reunion, I closed my brief autobiography with the paraphrase of a favourite song, 'I wish somehow I didn't know now what I didn't know then.'

A subset of the category we label 'courage' is resilience, the capacity to respond to adversity with a determination not to be defeated by it. Anyone who has attended a meeting of The Compassionate Friends, an organization of bereaved parents, learns that people vary widely in their reactions to grief. About one-third of those who have sustained such a loss appear defeated by it. Their best hopes have been burned to ashes and they will never recover. For another third, time will do its work and they will struggle back to some semblance of their former selves. How long this process takes is individual and unpredictable. A third group manifests the reality proposed by Ernest Hemingway: 'The world breaks everyone, and afterwards, some are strong at the broken places.' These are the people who plant gardens, establish the memorial funds, accompany others in their mourning. They are more than survivors; they have prevailed."

The chapter goes on but that's a big enough quote. Now tell me, is it possible to read this and walk away like it had no meaning and no relation to you or your life?

Poetic Interlude on Time

Time

I'm told there will be time.
I don't agree.
There won't always be time to do the things we want to do.

A time will come when we can't taste snowflakes falling toward us.
A time will come when we won't have to bundle up from the cold.
A time will come when we are the cold.

A time will come when we can't hear the raindrops.
A time will come when we don't watch the rain hit the ground.
A time will come when we no longer feel the raindrops beating down.


A time will come when we can't stand on the grass, can't walk on that grass barefoot.
A time will come when we can't feel the breeze of fresh air.
A time will come when we won't hear birds sharing the latest gossip.
A time will come when we won't be able to close our eyes and let the sun kiss our eyelids.

And a time will come when we can't kick pine-cones as we walk along,
Can't kick pine-cones around with no other end in sight.

So I guess there will time.
But not the way we imagine,
Not the way we hope,
Not the way we desire.

And when that time is upon you, will you have been happy?

Freud's Footnote And Our Unwillingness To Learn

How We Purposely Set Our Kids Up For Failure

In Civilization and its Discontents Freud makes a few handfuls of good points. This post is specifically on one of his footnotes. The note is from Chapter 8. It is as follows:

" 'Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all..' That a modern upbringing conceals from the young person the role that sexuality will play in his life is not the only criticism that must be levelled against it. Another of its sins is that it does not prepare him for the aggression of which he is destined to be the object. To send the young out into life with such a false psychological orientation is like equipping people who are setting out on a polar expedition with summer clothes and maps of the North Italian lakes. This reveals a certain misuse of ethical demands. The severity of these would do little harm if the educators said, 'This is how people ought to be if they are to be happy and make others happy, but one must reckon with their not being like this.' Instead, the young person is led to believe that everyone else complies with these ethical precepts and is therefore virtuous. This is the basis of the requirement that he too should become virtuous."

This is what is called: truth.

I touched on how we prepare our children for the role of sex on a previous post. If you haven't read it go and find it, if you don't care to then don't worry, just know this: We do not do very well at all.

Aggression is a huge deal in life. We have many different types of aggression. If we tell our children that the world is a wonderful place then we are setting them up for huge failures in life. And, as they have gotten their dreams smashed to pieces and enter into the oh-so fun life of the disillusioned, they will blame themselves. They will see themselves as failures. Why? Because the world is wonderful and they must have screwed it up. This will eventually turn to the world being at fault and aggression rises to the surface like a beach-ball held under water.

People shy away from the important stuff. Parents shy away from the important stuff. Parents may not want to talk about it, may feel uncomfortable talking about it, may feel they would be corrupting the children by bringing it up. Well, newsflash, you do not have superpowers, you cannot will that shit into being. Sorry. Also, maybe you shouldn't be a parent if you are lacking the maturity to discuss important topics pertaining to your child's well-being. But hey, hurt them all you want they're you kids.

Educating children on sex has never, to my knowledge, necessarily led to a pandemic of sexual deviance. It appears, if I may be so bold, as though the greatest level of sexual deviance and acting-out actually came shortly after we all started being uncomfortable talking about it...

Teaching kids about what aggression is and how one will face it and how to respond to it is actually just preparing them for one reality of life. Not training them for widespread warfare.

Adults: grow up. You aren't doing anyone any good. Sure, you tuck yourself in at night thinking wonderful things about yourself but the comedy, well, tragedy, of it all is that your children are acting out sexually and violently, overtly or subtly, but remember this: you can just pretend Freud was whack-job, it saves you the time of reading him, understanding him, and realizing how right he is, and most importantly, how he is on your side. His fight for better living includes you so maybe, just once at least, stop excluding him.

Stop sending your kids out into the wilderness with their 'false psychological orientations'. If their compass is broken how can you expect them to go in the right direction? Perhaps I am jumping ahead, stop going out into the world yourself with your false psychological orientations. The reality isn't as bad as you fear, your fear only makes it so.

Fix yourself first.

Why Marx Lost The Battle But Not The War

The War Aint Over Yet, Bitches

Marx and Engels' fundamental argument in their manifesto was that there would inevitably be a revolution to overthrow capitalism. As capitalism is still going and Marx has been pushed to the fringes, we can say that this argument has not panned out. But that is what I like to call the chicken-shit easy solution, you don't have to put any thought or energy into this.

Marx's appeal lacked the poetic gusto necessary to spark fires.

The revolution hasn't happened because people have remained rather oblivious to some stuff. We do this out of selfishness. We complain about our minimum wages while we wear clothes made by dying women and children in third world countries working for a fraction of what me make in an hour spread over a whole day...But let me tell you how I really feel.

Our society is set up to trick the worker bees into thinking they aren't living worker bee existences. I took a class once on Occupational Psychology. I was told by scientific research that people prefer praise for the work they do over a pay increase. Sorry scientific papers, you need to give me a fucking break. People don't sit there looking at their overdue bills thinking: good thing my boss congratulated me on doing my job, too bad I'm behind but hey I feel so good about work I can handle this tiny little bit of money stress. Money stress never killed anyone, right?

The capitalist machine is only winning at present because we are ignorant to what is going on. If people really understood the roles they actually play they would be asking for costume changes. If we understood the bigger picture about how the way we live our lives effects the way other people live theirs we should be driven by basic human compassion to stop doing what we are doing and find a more human-friendly approach.

Our cushy existences are cushy because they are built on the congealed blood of the underprivileged, the lesser-than-thous, and worst of all: the forgotten. We need to wake up soon and realize that we will be that class so that others may live cush-ily.

How's that for a call-to-arms Marx? I'm riding shotgun with you. Let us wake these bitches up, so to speak. (PS: Sorry about the language Mom, I don't think we are all bitches).

Marx Lost Does Not = Marx Is An Asshole

My Defense of Something I Don't Buy Into, or, Discussing a Topic Bigger Than The Idea I'm Not Buying Into Which Is Prompted By The Thing I'm Not Buying Into

I cannot say for certain that Marx was an asshole. I can say that some other assholes in history have done some bad things with what Marx was trying to start. The core of Marx and Engel's The Communist Manifesto is the issue of separation, I think.

Whenever we insert dividing lines between human beings we are setting ourselves up for trouble. Humans are a resilient creature. Humans are really good at surviving. Surviving sometimes requires nasty and bloody affairs. (Everyone loves to misquote Hobbes on life being "nasty, brutish and short". Hobbes was a real asshole though. And its easy to quote that without working your way through the rest of the book.)

The separation of one human from another is the root of these types of evil. When we think we are different from someone we eventually conclude that we are better than them. If we did not conclude this we would have to undress ourselves from our idea of self and take on theirs. If we saw each other as human beings and did not quickly draw lines in the sand then I suspect we could actually get along. But we like to competitionize everything. We are too vain.

Marx pointed out a dividing line, examined how unfair it was, and called for revolution. Marx's examination of the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, etc., seems to be mostly accurate. We have created this division and someone like Marx is then necessary to deal with the anxiety human beings as a species has created for itself.

If we didn't start the problem in the first place we wouldn't have to deal with the consequences of it. But hey, that's just my opinion and you are probably more right then me and we should engage in survival battle over imaginary divisions in the sandbox...

World Trade Centre Survivors, Bessel van der Kolk, No PTSD?

What Actually Works:

I went to a two-day workshop with Bessel van der Kolk, basically a leading specialist in anything trauma-related, and one of the interesting things he noted was as follows: World Trade Centre survivors, people who escaped the building during the 9/11 attacks, exhibited almost zero symptoms of PTSD after the attack.

When asked what they did to take care of themselves the number one treatment sought was...Acupuncture. Massage came next. Third was yoga! And fourth, and only 'scientifically'  recognized form of treatment: EMDR (which still struggles for significance despite research supporting its effectiveness).

Bessel recommends that any type of treatment facility that does not incorporate yoga into the care plan is not doing anybody (perhaps also any body) any good.

Next time the intellectuals want to run all over you and label you sign yourself up for acupuncture, massages or yoga. It works better than what the 'specialists' recommend (which is CBT, or cognitive behavioural therapy, which is a joke in and of itself, and psychoanalysis, which I like and think is interesting but I'd rather do yoga).

If anyone recommends otherwise, tell them where to go. Just watch a clip of the plane flying into the second tower and then the towers collapsing, imagine yourself escaping barely and having to run for your life down the street after, and think: acupuncture, massage and yoga was good enough for those people. You're not so special that they aren't good enough for you.

Cheers.

I'll Have Seconds of the Suffering Please

Paradoxing Ourselves Into Self-Harm

Adam Phillips is fantastic. I never heard of him until Darwin's Worms in this class. I am sad that I have missed so much of him up until now in my life. On the same note, I am happy that he found me.

This quote really stuck with me when I read it:

"Indeed the implied paradox, if we were to generalize from these two reports, would be: sometimes we suffer most from being unwilling to suffer enough." (124)

This idea of suffering is endlessly fascinating to me. I'm not outside of suffering, I'm not above and beyond it in anyway. I suffer just like anyone else. The fascinating part is that I have learned quite a bit about it, experienced it a lot, and have found different ways to deal with it as well as different ways to prevent myself from causing myself more harm, but I still do it.

Knowledge is not a shield. Knowledge is not armor here. Knowledge is not a weapon. Knowledge is not even a guarantee of better preparedness. Knowing that we cause our suffering to multiply does not stop us from doing it to ourselves.

I'm certain culture plays a part here, as do upbringing and environment, perhaps even genes. I'm certain that suffering is selfish, ego-centric, all about the I. How else could it be? This is how suffering works:

Something bad happens. Pain is felt. [INSERT SUFFERING NOW AS THIS WAS A DEEPLY PERSONAL OFFENSE, whether it was or not it is treated as such].

Most times the bad thing is over and the pain is gone. Suffering is what we do with the pain. Suffering is not letting it go. Suffering is our childish grasp, our mine-ness, our ownership. If you call me a name it hurts. When I keep running that name or that moment over and over and over and over and over (see what I did there?) in my head then I am suffering. The name calling was done. Its long gone by the time I realize I have been hurting myself almost the whole time. Somebody hurt me but I suffered me.

Suffering I think appears to be a uniquely human thing. Animals feel pain, I'm not arguing what they used to argue about animals only responding to stimulus, that's ridiculous. I do not know for certain that animals don't sit around brooding and wallowing in self-pity but I suspect they don't. Perhaps I am I wrong. Until then, I'm calling suffering a uniquely human thing.

We don't choose pain but we, consciously or otherwise, choose suffering. Maybe this has to do with our Western culture (if one wishes to call it that). Maybe it relates to the over-abundance of guilt and the willingness with which we feel guilt in our society. We have been primed to self-harm it appears.

Unfortunate beasts.

Funny thing about pain, if there is such a thing about pain, is that typically if we feel it and let it pass it does precisely that, it passes. We keep choosing suffering though. We take it very personal as if the wrong-doing has occurred on some fundamental-being level, and not only that but it was meant as an attack on that fundamental-beingness of us.

But what good is this knowledge about suffering if we still do it? Good question. I don't have any scientific or erudite response. But I can say this about knowledge of what suffering is:


After my self-induced agonizing and torment, knowledge allows me to laugh at myself. That has to be worth something.

Dancing Naked and Charred Amidst Our Failed Ideas

Intellectual Fire Bug

Derrida is what I refer to as an intellectual barn burner. He shows up to the already spectacular barn dance, sets the barn on fire and walks away. Sometimes I am uncertain if he is starting the fire or just pointing out that the fire already happened and we missed it in our delusional joy...and we are now dancing naked and charred amidst our failed ideas.

Derrida is the intellectual badboy. He does his own thing. It does not matter what you say or do Derrida is Derrida. He is hard to sift through. I tried very hard to read and understand every line of  The Animal That Therefore I Am. I failed horribly a few pages in (and I'm certain I cheated through a few sentences). I'm also certain I am in good company at least.

I have a couple things in common with Derrida: 1-I love cats, 2-I love Alice in Wonderland. Derrida, however, goes somewhere entirely different with both of those commonalities. His reference to that damn cat eventually confuses you. But I think he consistently argues his same point. I'm not sure though as it is Derrida after all. I try to understand the linguistic genius of Alice but I fall very short of Derrida.

What I liked most about Derrida was that he pointed out (at least) two things I had never completely considered. First, he pointed out the dominance of man over animal in the Bible. I have read a few translations of the sections he references and I can honestly say I never thought twice about the violence and mayhem directed to the animals, the devaluing of their being, their essence. Now I can't help but think of it in this light. Second, he pointed out how violent our language and ways of life are toward the animals. I never considered the act of calling ourselves the rational animal (or the thinking animal or the human animal) something dominating. We managed to separate ourselves from the entire animal kingdom, not only are we separate but we are better. How absurd an assumption is that? We are not that special. Well, we are equally special with the rest maybe. But because I've had 29 years of feeling one way I'm going to go radically in the opposite as I feel I have been tricked! (Even though I likely tricked myself).

Another great thing Derrida does is openly discuss shame. He discusses shame about shame. An oddly human thing it appears. I see shame-about-shame as an emotionally immature thing, it is only natural to develop this though depending on your environment and upbringing. Derrida does a pretty good job calling it out how it is.

He says: hey, I respect all these guys...and here is where they went wrong. By the end of his episode of stirpping them bare, as bare as he is to the cat, he moves on like nothing happened. It would be really easy to call Derrida an asshole, but then he'd launch into a 10-hour lecture on that word and in the end you'll have died from boredom or you'll be hiding from shame at what he did to you.

Don't invite Derrida to your party is my closing message. Pray he doesn't find your barn dance either. He'll show up and set it ablaze. Or, more scary, he'll point out it burned down around us. And where does that leave you? Does that mean you have to do some actual work? Heaven forbid.

More Antigone, You Gotta Be Fucking Kidding Me?

3 Tellings

We have 3 different versions of Antigone for the last two seminars. The first was a straightforward translation. The second was Jean Anouilh's Nazi-Occupied France version. Finally, Bertolt Brecht's retelling. In all 3 books I take Antigone's side. I never falter on this. Antigone fights for what is right. Her understanding of the world is pleasantly attractive. She is trapped in a world of pragmatism. She believes the stories of deities and believes in punishment and reward. She stands for honour and virtue. She's also kind of a silly girl. But whatever.

The biggest difference amongst the three versions is the character Creon. In our first telling Creon is a cold bastard and nobody should like him. I don't anyway.

In Anouilh's version we have a bit more sympathy for Creon. We have this sympathy because we have a better understanding of his situation. He gives Antigone the freedom to stand on her own and he urges her to make a choice that will have a better solution for her. She still does not take it. She stands in defiance to Creon even though Creon explains that he knows what she is saying and he tries to calm her youthful fire with aged wisdom. Creon is by no means a good person in this version. He is a good leader though. He thinks and acts like a leader. So it is hard to judge him if we don't see where he is coming from.

In Brecht's version we get back to a colder Creon. He is slightly more worthy of our sympathy than the original Creon. This Creon gives us some really badass observations that make him right if not likable: "Ingrates! You'll eat the meat but you don't like to see the cook's bloody apron!" (57) and "so far no one has sent back the bronze-plate that I brought you from Argos, but you huddle together and babble about the blood-baths and complain of my crassness" (57). It is easy to criticize but people should consider their role in a situation before speaking up about the morality of it all. If we benefit from the wars on the middle east we should consider these benefits before speaking up about morals and equality. Even if you drive an electric car you probably bought it from a company that sells regular gasoline cars. Not to mention oil is used for more than just fueling cars. After all people, someone has to stand on the walls and someone has to get their hands dirty so we don't. Until we find a way to live without requiring these forms of evil we really can't condemn the evil-doers.

What I find changes the most from telling to telling is the degree to which we can relate to Creon. This is important because the Antigone character remains relatively stable throughout. As stated, I always take Antigone's side. This play is her play, it is her story. She will always do what Antigone does for the reasons Antigone has. She will always die for what she does. The difficult question is not about whether we take her side but whether or not we understand Creon.

If we understand the evil that he does we may feel like forgiving or permitting it. But we don't have to do that. And, I can scream bloody murder as long as I want it doesn't change anything. The hardest thing to do with Antigone is understand the hopeless inevitability of it all. The real problem started long before the action of the play. We are really just watching the end play out as it must.

The degree to which we can sympathize with the devil is the topic of interest then. So, how much do you have? Do you dare to investigate Creon's character, or, is it easier to call him a prick and walk away? Isn't it more valuable to understand the things we call evil? We can at least have fun with it, so listen to this song instead of thinking about it:

Big Words, Brain Stuff, Remembering Plato, Striving On...

Antonio Damasio

The thing I took out of Descartes' Error was something I already knew. You cannot separate the person from emotion. The brain is very complex. We can at least try to understand it. Whether it is where our emotions begin or where we process emotions, it is worth looking at.

Damasio uses big neuro-schmeuro words. But he helps us understand the brain rather easily I think. And he shows us what these words mean. He explains what he is talking about. What I like best is that he includes these little sections in the text to further our understanding or to bring up an important point.

Damasio tells us on more than one occasion that he is having a discussion with us. This is an important distinction to make from different types of books. He is not on his pulpit giving us golden specks of dust for our intellect. He is engaging with us, not engaging in battle against us.

If you thought that Reason and Passion were opposite ways to live by the time you reach this book you should have changed your mind. Damasio takes a well respected area and explores the often neglected area, he uses reason to explore passion.

Who we are, fundamentally, may not be a blank slate and may not be predetermined. Who we are can be explained by a lot of brain science and, at the same time, cannot be broken down and explained totally by brain science. Who we are is very complicated. It only makes sense to use our gift of reason to understand out instinctual passion.

The important message from Damasio is about relations not distinctions. He says "I am not attempting to reduce social phenomena to biological phenomena, but rather to discuss the powerful connection between them" (124).

We ought to stop dividing topic headers arbitrarily and try to understand how they operate, whether together or on their own. The charioteer and horses from Plato is best understood by considering not just the horses and not just the charioteer but by considering what each wants and how they interact, and ultimately what they are striving for.

Damasio is just a current reminder that the horses aren't separate from each other or us. And his book does a nice job of putting things back into context. Remember: the powerful connection is more important than the individual parts. I should note that I am not arguing against exploration of the individual parts when I say that, neither do I think Damasio would do that. It is simply that the bigger picture should be kept in mind.

Reason and Passion need not be separate. Drive on charioteers.

The Ugly Movementeers Killed Beauty...The End?

On Beauty and Being Just

Elaine Scarry goes a long way to explaining why we should get back to aesthetics in education. She gives a fairly accurate account of how we have killed the search for beauty. I would personally blame the movementeers for this kind of treason.

We can fight all day long about beauty and subjectivity but if you want to have that discussion with me just bugger off. I have no time for boring nihilism. My argument would be that each person's subjective view is capable of finding Beauty, that is because the idea of the beautiful is universally present.

We walk along. Something grabs our attention. It puts us in a different state. We are enraptured. We are at this moment connected to something eternal. Something greater than ourselves. We cannot place it. But I call it beauty.

That is my understanding of 'the beautiful' in as concise an explanation as possible. With beauty we have connected other ambiguous terms: truth, justice, the sublime. We can find a place beautiful, a face beautiful, a poem beautiful, a song, the sun, a scenery... We never run out of places to find the beautiful. Why, then, have we stopped appreciating it?

The movementeers arrived and robbed us of aesthetics. They wanted instead to focus on gender, race, class distinction. What about the beautiful? That's my question. What about the eternal appeal of great works of art? Can't we appreciate the beautiful while acknowledging the validity of movements? I certainly choose to study beauty over movements but that is in direct reaction to passing through the education system's movementeer-guided digestive tract. I would pursue beauty with less hostility but our training institutes (read: Universities) have jaded me.

Scarry reminds us that the beautiful still matters. I would argue that through 'the beauty' we matter.

Throw The World A Good Fuck And Everything Else Will Work Itself Out

Lady Chatterly's Sexy Message, I Mean Lover

I think Professor Grieve's comment in class is correct. I think that D. H. Lawrence wanted us to consider the possibility that good and true sex can save the world. I'm not 100 percent sure that this argument will win but there is something to it.

Lady Chatterly is on her own journey of discovery and she finds it through sexual awakening. I think that if society makes sex a taboo topic there ought to be someone like Lawrence arguing the exact opposite. I think that Lawrence's stance on sex and its impact on the world is more correct that the stance of taboo-ism.

We do a lot of things wrong as people. One of them is not educating children properly on sex. This breeds (pun intended) risky practices. Example:

I have a friend who teaches Grades 7 and 8. They had a condom program due the number of pregnancy scares...among children! A prudish and silly principal arrived and in true administrative fashion cut the program as it was offensive and promoted sex. Pregnancy scares showed up again, big surprise? I always consider asking the boots-on-the-ground about what goes on on-the-ground, rocket science right? One man, one principal, took personal offense and I would argue placed those children at risk, not just a risk of pregnancy but a risk of safe sexual practices. What good did prudish offense produce in the end? None. Quite the opposite. The teachers didn't get together and dream up a sexy and scandalous program out of their own perverse delusions, they did it for safety after observing the state of the school.

I'm not arguing elementary and middle school aged children should explore their sexuality. What I'm saying is that they are going to do this anyway and as adults we have a duty to have them prepared for at least their own safety.

Back to adults. We are a sexually immature culture. I do not mean that we don't have enough sex. I mean that we don't understand sex. Really, what is it, after all? Is it Leonard Cohen-ly two beautiful greedy bodies colliding to fight loneliness? Is it spiritual? Is it a combination of the animal and the divine? I'm not entirely sure what it is. But it is worth our consideration. Look at what happens when we don't consider it. Look at what happens when we try to fight it. That should be evidence enough to consider Lawrence and Grieves: can a good fuck make the world a better place? It seems a healthier approach than what we're doing right now.

More research is needed...

A Poem Explaining Why Jane Eyre Sucks At Life

Live, Damn You, Live!

This is a lovely little ditty. I have always liked re-reading this. I thought I should include it as Jane Eyre lives her life based on everything she has read in books. Is that really living?

The First Kiss of Love

by George Gordon, Lord Byron 

 

                      Ha barbitos de chordais

                      Er ota mounon aechei.

                       —ANACREON 

 

Away with your fictions of flimsy romance,

    Those tissues of falsehood which Folly has wove;

Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,

    Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love. 

 

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with fantasy glow,

    Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;

From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,

    Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love. 

 

If Apollo should e'er his assistance refuse,

    Or the Nine be dispos'd from your service to rove,

Invoke them no more, bid adieu to the Muse,

    And try the effect, of the first kiss of love. 

 

I hate you, ye cold compositions of art,

    Though prudes may condemn me, and bigots reprove;

I court the effusions that spring from the heart,

    Which throbs, with delight, to the first kiss of love. 

 

Your shepherds, your flocks, those fantastical themes,

    Perhaps may amuse, yet they never can move:

Arcadia displays but a region of dreams;

    What are visions like these, to the first kiss of love? 

 

Oh! cease to affirm that man, since his birth,

   From Adam, till now, has with wretchedness strove;

Some portion of Paradise still is on earth,

    And Eden revives, in the first kiss of love. 

 

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past— 

    For years fleet away with the wings of the dove—

The dearest remembrance will still be the last,

    Our sweetest memorial, the first kiss of love.

Poetic Interlude

Keats Appreciation Time

I love this poem. It is delicious.

 On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again

O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!

   Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!

   Leave melodizing on this wintry day,

Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:

Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,

   Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay

   Must I burn through; once more humbly assay

The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.

Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,

   Begetters of our deep eternal theme,

When through the old oak forest I am gone,

   Let me not wander in a barren dream,

But when I am consumed in the fire,

Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.

                                            

                                                -John Keats (~1818)

I once had a late night discussion with a dear friend of mine on poetry, philosophy, life. We had some drinks and it was inevitably followed with talk about this stuff, who isn't a philosopher when they deprive their brain of oxygen? After our discussion he went to bed and I wrote a poem. That's something I do. I write good poems and bad poems, funny poems and serious poems, alcohol induced poems and flaming passion induced poetry. What the following poem is I don't know. I just know I wrote it because our conversation had included Keats, well, I included Keats in it. Enjoy, or not:

Fierce Dispute
Oak forests which I’ve only read
What paths have you for such as I?
And am I thus supposed to dread
What’s only met with my mind’s eye?
Am I to quiver, or to shake
When I’ve no reason to be frightful?
Or is this fear a mere mistake;
My mind is simply something spiteful?
What lies beyond I do not know
Nor do I claim in any fashion,
And though onward I cannot go,
I’ll go and fight with fired passion,
What good may come, and come it may,
Of my great angered indignation?
I’ll not digress to kneeled pray
Against my foe of cursed damnation!
I’ll hold up my arms tho they are clay
And proudly stand against the grain,
And when I’m through with you they’ll say: *
He did his best. His works remain.
                                         -Byron (2005)

The email included a footnote where the second last line could be more hopeless and read instead: "and when I'm through I hope they say". I prefer to not be so hopeless but I'm not about to argue that we stand a lick of chance either. The message also had this sentence in it: there is more room in the bottle for oxygen now than when you left. If that is any indication of my muse. Scotch: fueling foolish ambitions for a really long time.

That Feeling Sort of Like Loneliness, Only Worse

A Student-of-the-Human-Condition's Note on Alienation

This is a big theme in our texts. I'm fairly certain that is because this is a big theme in life. But what does it actually mean to be alienated? Is there a clear definition? Or is this one of those things that can only be 'best described' by a word instead of defined with one?

The problem of alienation comes from our problem of being socially motivated individuals. We are our own persons but we also are drawn to being social, we are herd animals. I suggest that being an individual and being social are not on opposite ends of one spectrum. I think they go hand in hand.

We must be individuals but we must also to some extent conform. We have to play nice while in the sandbox. I think we have to go from being in the sandbox to wanting to be out of the sandbox and ultimately back into the sandbox. We need to stop polarizing in and out of the sandbox. We need to view it as one process.

I think that our idea of alienation has two distinct variations: Alienation from an 'other' and alienation from oneself. The 'other' could be any type of thing other than yourself, concrete or abstract; family, friends, the community, country, culture, nature, a deity. Alienation from oneself is precisely that, not knowing anything about who you are.

Whenever I'm asked what I study I reply with: the human condition. I think this is what matters most, to me anyway. As a student of the human condition I wish I could explain how we got to where we are but what I really do is look at where we are. From there we can possibly see how we got here and hopefully see the future with a perspective which can endorse the good things and prevent the bad things. Even if I am right and we excel at this you can't beat chance. Chance: in case you thought you had things figured out.

That being said, the worst form of alienation I think is alienation from oneself. If you are alienated from who you are then you cannot participate in any social setting successfully. The problem we have is that we collectively suffer from this mass dissociation and we pretend we don't. The average person out there does not ever have to ask who they are in great detail, they can typically identify with one label or another and carry on. Life doesn't let you simply Keep Calm and Carry On.

The average person also doesn't necessarily play well in the sandbox. I think they give off the impression of playing well in the sandbox. But there is an thirst or hunger that cannot be ignored. Whether it takes a mid-life crisis to notice it or whether it is forced upon you from unfair circumstances it eventually pushes its way to the surface. Vacations are a funny example of this: a lot people will feel a need to escape or get away from it all for some reason or another, but really there is nothing to escape from, and you can't escape yourself no matter how hard you try. Would it be better for us to explore ourselves instead? I don't know. And probably not all the time. I like drinks and relaxing and friends and family. I prefer spending my vacations with people I love and care about and who love and care about me, regardless of the geographical location of the gathering. But I have not felt like having to escape from something for at least a decade.

Why run from this? Why hide from this? It is not doing us any good at present. Not completely understanding something does not give us permission not to try, nor does it mean we aren't capable. I am also not arguing that we spend our lives trying to understand this, we do, after all, have to get back in the sandbox.

If we are alienated from ourselves then we cannot honestly interact with 'the others' so alienation from the other is seemingly a guarantee. Why not refocus? Why not see that the individual and the social are part of the same thing? That thing is us. Perhaps this is just wishful thinking, romantic dreaming, drama-queenism. But I suspect there is something in it. Where do you search for yourself when that overwhelming feeling best described as alienation takes over? Where do you look? How do you look?

Beautiful and Beastly Daemon

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Round 1 a Brief Warning Note on Beauty and Ugliness

This is one of my favourite books. I love the unnamed daemon which Hollywood has us call the monster. The real monster is Victor Frankenstein. As a creation story Victor is a real bastard of a creator. He breathes life into a being only to run away in terror at what he had done. I read this as an interpretation or expansion of William Blake's poem The Tyger:

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?


In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?


And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?


What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?


When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?


Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?


The reality of this creation is that Victor abandons a completely innocent being out of fear. This is Bad Parenting 101. Victor had a creative force strong enough to will another being into existence yet he lacked the ability to understand what was right in front of him. Victor is a strange man. We can hardly blame him, considering how he pieced the daemon together and how it looked, it does appear quite hideous...but I blame Victor because I have that liberty.


The monster educates himself. He learns how to be a good person. He learns language rather quickly. He has a naturally compassionate approach to human beings. But he is ugly in appearance. And this is where we can blame society.


We are taught that ugly is bad. Somehow unattractive equals evil. We can blame Hollywood, but really, in the end, we ought to blame ourselves.We did this to ourselves. Nothing throws us off quite as much as a horrible looking person being kind. It is a weird phenomenon of our era. We are not generally attractive beings, and attraction is subjective, so we should really try to change this. Our own ugliness, which we try to impose on the daemon, ought to be motivation enough for a revaluation of values. (Perhaps we need to have more love for the ugly people, give ugly a chance and all that).

We need to stop being such a surface-level herd. But there is some survival instinct backing our quick judgements. Our ability to reason, what we vainly consider higher cognition, should be able to hold the reigns of our instinctual passion long enough to decide if ugly really is evil.


Ultimately, the energy or force driving the daemon toward connecting with other beings does not extinguish when you attempt to annihilate him, instead, and unsurprisingly I think, the energy or force is driven to another goal: revenge. The warning here seems clear: our capacity for what we consider 'good' is matched by our potential for 'bad'. We will will  toward something so choose carefully which goal you dump your energy into.