I had to write an article on Lacan for a Greek magazine recently. In the past couple of months that I’ve been reading all related literature, I was impressed by the way Lacan tried to solve the riddle of human psychology. At the root of every want/desire that we feel, he said, there is a primary want which can never be met: the want to re-connect with our mother, like when we were in her womb. Now, this primary want cannot be met, so it changes faces all the time (like with metonymy in language). But, alas: even if some individual wants are eventually met, we can never feel satisfied and fulfilled, as our primary want will never be satisfied…
Besides wants, there are fears too. Our utmost fears are those of pain and death. What has threatened our security, our individuality, our attempts to meet our wants in early childhood is destined to be our companion forever, changing faces all the time, just like our wants do.
Now, both scientists and esotericists agree that the personality of a human being, which is the sum-up of our reaction to what is happening in the present moment, in our endeavour to satisfy our desires and/or avert potential threats, is completed around the 7th year of age. This means that our childhood wants and fears are its key determinants: we shape our personality in just these few years. After that, we are like a CD player, playing the same CD over and over again. Overwriting is possible, but it takes huge amounts of conscious effort.
The catch in this whole mess is that there is really nothing we can do. It’s not our fault. Even under optimum conditions, a child will always find something to be dissatisfied with, to be let down, will undergo a traumatic experience or will feel threatened – if not by anything else, by the comparison of sizes alone (his/her little body compared to the adults’). And all these determine the quality and depth of the fixation: how fearful, how weak, how incapable of loving we will become. It’s just how it is. And it’s not our fault.
8 comments:
"It's not our fault. Even under optimum conditions, a child will always find something to be dissatisfied with, to be let down, will undergo a traumatic experience or will feel threatened"
Are you trying to say that the way we ruin our children is not our fault? Maybe they indeed come out bad no matter what, but then our fault was to make them in the first place, wasn't it?
Not really. I am trying to say that no matter how we love them and what we do to comfort and console them, there will be occasions of discontent and discomfort which we can do nothing about. These occasions however will have a bearing for their life as adults.
And we can't say it is faulty to have children either. If your parents didn't want children, you wouldn't be here. Or: now that you have your children, would you rather they weren't alive?
Children is a chance at life. Parenthood is a chance at maturity and wisdom.
PS I also had in mind New Age literature on "returning/honouring one's inner child" when writing this post. Well, there is actually no child to return to. We are the child all along; we are fixed in the mechanisms we develop from childhood. What a wiseman tries to do afterwards is discredit the stories (of fear and pain) behind the mechanisms and meet them.
"We are the child all along; we are fixed in the mechanisms we develop from childhood. What a wiseman tries to do afterwards is discredit the stories (of fear and pain) behind the mechanisms and meet them."
Any way you look at it, distinctions make someone worse and someone better. Somebody becomes the wiseman and someone else remains the child. Somebody takes responsibility and someone else remains in his faults or his denial thereof.
With distinctions, everything is relative. But we cannot speak at all without making the distinctions.
OK, let's explore this point a little. Suppose you were drowning and someone offered to help you, would you rather it be a wiseman? Would you refuse help from someone less wise?
In the end of the day or at a moment of crisis, it's always the result, not the journey, that matters.
Distinctions, then, are relevant only when generalising, ie out of context.
"In the end of the day or at a moment of crisis, it's always the result, not the journey, that matters."
I'd argue that both the journey and the result are tightly wrapped up in the crisis. They have no distinction there. Crises are a step on the way. They have both their static and their dynamic aspect.
Crises are tests of both virtue and vice, of both wisdom and stupidity. Everything has its opportunity there. Crises happen as long as we haven't definitively established ourselves on one side. Well, it is more likely meant that we transcend both sides.
As long as there are hurdles, there is the fault of not having cleared them. This is the way I see it. My focus has been on the concept of fault all along.
As long as there are complaints, some fault is implied, some blame is hanging over somebody's head, right? If yes, responsibility is better than denial. If no, then we have no reason to be angry with our children when they act stupid and break things.
Crises happen as long as we haven't definitively established ourselves on one side.
No. There’s also the X factor, what cannot be anticipated beforehand.
As long as there are hurdles, there is the fault of not having cleared them. This is the way I see it.
You think, therefore, that by clearing and clearing the hurdles, you will eventually arrive at a place without hurdles. This is a fallacy, though. There will always be hurdles, even when you least expect them. Once you understand that there will always be hurdles, you can then decide to gear yourself up to assuming a stance that will defy any hurdle. That’s what I mean when I invite everyone “to be as space”. To let life be, reflect it as it comes, accept it as it comes without trying to fight it or assign faults around or to yourself. It’s nobody’s fault. Shit just happens.
As long as there are complaints, some fault is implied, some blame is hanging over somebody's head, right? If yes, responsibility is better than denial. If no, then we have no reason to be angry with our children when they act stupid and break things.
No. There are always complaints. Complaining is in our nature. That’s what this post is all about. Complaining starts when we feel the desire to return to our mother’s womb, ie from birth. And then we build our personalities according to this initial complaint and any other complaint that arises in our childhood - and how they are met or not met. Not all desires and subsequent complaints can be met. This creates the sense of deep un-satisfaction with more and more things, eventually with life itself. All these are standard issues, ie are in us by default. Can we stop giving them credit? That’s the real issue. But assigning fault is altogether irrelevant. It’s nobody’s fault. Is it our mother’s fault for giving us birth? Should she keep us in her womb for eternity? Is it God’s fault for making us this way? Do all these have any point?
"You think, therefore, that by clearing and clearing the hurdles, you will eventually arrive at a place without hurdles."
No, I'm not thinking linearly. The fact of hurdles shows the fact that we are on a road with hurdles. This is so regardless of what we may think, because thinking is not the same as being/doing.
When we realise the need to get away from that road to someplace else, it happens in thinking first. Thus the thinking leaves the linearity and other limits of the body, but this change in our mentality does not mean that the rest of our being has followed automatically. The rest of our being will still stay stuck with the hurdles.
Now we have arrived at the same point: "All these are standard issues, ie are in us by default. Can we stop giving them credit? That’s the real issue... Is it our mother’s fault for giving us birth?"
There are two ways of stopping to give credit to a hurdle. One is to clear it, the other is to sit in front of it and think it into non-existence. In both cases, the hurdle has to be faced. In either case, we cannot look away from facts.
For example, there are two ways to handle the hurdle of procreative instinct. One is to bring up the child properly, as well as you can. This is clearing the hurdle. The other way is to suppress the instinct entirely (it can work, if it isn't too strong or wrongly stimulated, i.e. does not work for most people). These two are responsible means to handle the hurdle. Responsibility implies duty/guilt/fault, I see them as inseparable.
The third way is denial, such as abortion or giving birth to the child and leaving it to an orphanage (it's nobody's fault???). Denial only serves to miscomprehend the hurdle, it introduces additional complications.
Hopefully I was clear enough. Of course, I'll be glad if someone points an easier way to me. I sincerely hope we are not talking past each other.
When we realise the need to get away from that road to someplace else, it happens in thinking first. Thus the thinking leaves the linearity and other limits of the body, but this change in our mentality does not mean that the rest of our being has followed automatically. The rest of our being will still stay stuck with the hurdles.
Excuse me, are you talking about escaping reality? There are easier ways to do it, you know. Take drugs, start drinking, …
In both cases, the hurdle has to be faced. In either case, we cannot look away from facts.
Clearly, I can’t understand what you’re saying. How can you face the hurdles and at the same time get away from the road with the hurdles to someplace else?
I sincerely hope we are not talking past each other.
It seems like that, unfortunately…
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