Dear friends,
As time passes it is getting harder and harder for me to keep the English part of my blog. I will therefore have to stop it here. Thank you very much for reading it and commenting. Special thanks to Meow, ersi and James for their insightful inputs. It was my honour to receive them.
I wish everyone all the best,
C.
2010-08-09
2010-08-03
Not our fault
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)