When I typed “psychoanalysis” as a tag in my last message, I saw the “anal” morpheme in the word for the first time. My analyst (there, it happened again, I never noticed the “anal” in “analyst” before) is called Brooke Maddux. For the first couple of years I babbled on about the Brooke part, unable to cross the great divide of the space between the two components and cast my mind upon the first three letters of the surname and their possible relevance to me.
I took a picture from their first concert last summer and spent quite a lot of time creating a CD cover for Billy to give to Ryan, the singer.
I suppose I expected him to be pleased, or maybe even slightly impressed (!) but he pulled it out and binned it with hardly a cursory glance.
"I went to a lot of trouble to make that cover” I wailed.
“That photo’s no good, wait till April 7th and take a real photo” he retorted.
Hmmmmph.
That would have been a good excuse to go in the huff, if I needed one, but I don't feel that the world is deliberately trying to offend me anymore. I can't swear that the opposite is not true. Yes, psychoanalysis is expensive. It is a long-term undertaking. It is not for the fainthearted. It is an investment in the not-for-profit enterprise of well-being.
Under capitalism, people who do not own capital spend all their time struggling to survive, and find themselves lacking when they can't quite reach the carrots being dangled at them. Those who fail completely blame themselves. People who manage to survive think the system is ok. Those who profit from it defend it to the hilt. All of these postures are part of the human psychic configuration. We’re living in a winner takes all world.
I see psychoanalysis as a way of toppling the inner, materialistic tyrant, and giving a voice to the altruistic, spiritual side of life. As a way of achieving individual democracy, which is necessary for peace within the individual, which is a requisite condition for peace between individuals, groups, countries, generations, etc.
This plant is known as L'amour en cage in French; Physalis or Chinese lantern plant in English. Above is the cage on its own.
Below is the cage with the love in it.
Oedipus solves the riddle of the sphinx and the said enigmatic creature promptly vanishes. Almost immediately, a wild beast starts to terrorise Thebes, killing livestock and even babies. Fortunately, Diana had given the fastest running hound in the world, Laelaps, to Cephalus' wife, who gave it to Cephalus. When the local people can stand the situation no longer, they ask Cephalus to lend them his hound to track the wild beast.
The hound easily picks up the scent of the beast and gives chase, across a vast plain. Cephalus watches the scene from a hilltop. The hound catches up with the beast, but the beast is cunning and starts running in a circle, so that the hound can't quite catch it. While Cephalus is watching the race, he has a moment's inattention, which allows the gods to intervene. The gods petrify the two creatures into a statue.
Talking about boats, here are some quotes:
“A central theme in Lacan's work on the gaze is the notion of the gaze as being a pre-existing staring at the subject by the outside world. He recounts the story of being out in a boat with a fisherman and seeing the glint of a sardine can floating in the water. His companion, an old salt, asks: ‘Do you see that can?’ and, without waiting for Lacan's reply, states: ‘well, it does not see you’.”
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
Which takes me to (all roads read to lhome):
“o wad some power the giftie gie us tae see oorsels as ithers see us!”
