July 21st, 2008
Harlequins, Part 1
Have you ever been drawn to something destructive, lost, or hopeless?
Transcriptorial: we'll break the world into pieces / die in the arms of a hopeless cause
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In destruction, we preview the death we shall one day experience.
And aren’t we all drawn to that concept like moths to a flame?
I certainly feel drawn towards it, sometimes.
Forlorn hopes are sometimes the only source of hope we have. But then many humans seem to be masochistic by nature.
I’ve just been thinking how this past month the “drama quotient” on some of the websites I frequent has risen drastically. Some of the participants don’t seem to realise that the more you caress depression, the bigger it grows–because it’s feeding on your soul. They have reached a point where they’re enjoying their misery.
But to take a forlorn hope and give it life that transforms it into something positive is not quite the same as living off your scars.
You’re right, OW. The universe gives you what you give energy to. If that is feeding your depression, or searching out happiness. It thinks that, whatever you pay attention to, you want. There are many many people who enjoy, revel in, thrive on their misery, and want to drag everyone into it with them.
orinoco womble, I think there is insight in these observations, however I would like to point out that they rely on a relatively familiar bird’s eye perspective on what is meant by the terms “drama” and “depression.” Breaking reality involves receiving entities like “drama” and “depression” anew, as if, or in fact, for the first time. Dying in hopelessness; dying to hopelessness; a courageous leap out into the truly unknown. What is there besides life and death? Where was the butterfly I saw the other day heading?
None of this is new, either. Still, I think I can feel things moving within and beyond me just writing it.
I have plenty of scars all over my body. Would anyone other than me really want to kiss them? How can I “transform” my actual, physical scars–the ones on my skin? They’re real, aren’t they?
As a survivor of clinical depression myself, I am well aware of the difference between a true depression in the real sense, and the drama-induced sort.
Many have scars, and often the deepest are those that don’t show–the scars on our hearts, souls and minds. But scars should not become trophies, and the wounds that caused them should not be allowed to become our identity…because if that happens, the person or event which wounded us has the ascendant on our lives forever. I have often wanted to kiss the scars of others, to show my understanding of the pain that made them. But after many years of walking backward into the future, I have learned the truth of what Viktor Frankl said: you may not be able to choose your situation, but you can always, at least in some measure, choose how you will react to it.
It may take practice, however.
You reveal that you have often wanted to kiss the scars of others. Are you speaking of invisible scars, or physical scars, or both? I ask because I have often involved myself in fantasies about kissing someone else’s scars or wounds. I wonder if doing this hasn’t been a way of distancing myself from the person around whom I have constructed the fantasy. Kissing another person’s real scars with my real lips would not be easy for me to do. Perhaps pursuing this fear would be a kind of constructive, if hopeless, breaking to pieces.
I think the term “depression” helps us come up with managable ways of responding to groups of people, or else of making oneself conveniently intelligible. I think attributing to oneself the identity of a depressive is a way of avoiding the task of confronting the meaning and particularity of one’s experiences.
I’ve never felt certain that remembering a lost love object necessitates giving that person ascendancy over my life.
Thank you so much for replying to my response to you. Questions like these have always been huge for me.
Kissing physical scars isn’t easy to do but if it will heal the invisible wounds of a loved one, it’s a decision worth my while.
I remember that time clearly. Feeling the pain, the insecurity and confusion of the person I once loved, I had to show him I wasn’t sickened of his wounds, or his fresh scars.
I’d rather not describe this in detail for it’s quite awkward but suffice it to say, in that act of kissing his scars, in that act of cleaning his wounds - I wanted him to know I was there for him, no matter what… (and that i was willing to ignore “the wounds” so he’ll “heal” - we’ll both heal).
That was back then. Now, I believe I’d have to think twice if I’d do that again for anybody…. No kisses for one who’s prone to having recurrent scars… Not when he’s the one asking for them.
‘Blow up the outside world?’ Only if you’re using construction explosives and build something better with what’s left…
yes, i have.
everyone i’ve ever loved fits that description, and that was, i’m pretty sure, exactly why i was drawn to them.
I wanted to help him. I don’t know if i loved him, but him tearing himself apart was too much for me to take lying down.
I wanted to save him, and that’s why I was drawn to him. I don’t know what this says about me.
Some would call it being a good friend. Others would call it being codependent. I think it depends on how much you allow him to tear apart in you.
We can’t save other people; we can only help them save themselves.
you can’t save anyone till you save yourself.
I know that now. Back then I didn’t. I had this habit of not noticing myself falling until I had hit the ground, if you know what I mean. Thank heavens for learning experiences, right?
that’s my life.
i was.
now no longer.
Ohoho, boy do I have a response for this!
Did anyone ever notice how easier it seems to repair something that’s breaking down, than to build something new? In fact, it is within our very nature to assume anything broken was once whole, and can, with proper skill and enough effort, be returned to its original, whole state!
Think of a time bomb. Surely, it has a clock on it, and if you disable the clock, you disable the bomb, returning it to its stable, non-corroding state.
What if the clock is not attached to the bomb at all?
What if these “lost causes”, ideas that are self destructive, were CREATED to be destroyed? Like a firework, a chemical and mechanical contraption the very beauty and purpose of which is in the process of its destruction?
Did anyone ever notice how it makes them feel better to share their pain? Did anyone ever notice how it makes them feel worse when someone shares pain with them (feeling a bit better for helping someone out notwithstanding)? Some people share pain for a living. A sick addiction to wrong pleasure.
Humans are the eternal creators. Once we see a chance for it, we hop on it.
Sometimes, to our deaths.
“Some people share pain for a living; a sick addiction to wrong pleasure.”
I once commented on this to a friend who is a psychologist; I told her it seemed that some therapists are codependent; they have to be “saving” people all the time. The need to be needed, and yet be superior within the parameters of the relationship.
Silence fell. I do believe it had not occurred to her.
Unfortunately, our friendship deteriorated after that. I have learned to keep some of my insights to myself.
why did you learn to keep some of your insights to yourself?
is it because you regretted what you said to her?
or is it because you discovered that some people can’t take a dose of their own medicine ? (and that person just happened to be your friend?)
Don’t you think you’ve been a real friend by telling her the truth? Isn’t friendship founded on learning about each other’s strengths and peculiarities- be it through joy or pain?
Doesn’t friendship sometimes mean you have to save her - even from herself?
(well, just my take… if she can’t understand that, there’s nothing to regret… not her, if “your friendship deteriorated” just because you told her the truth… and definitely not what you said for it’s a reality so prevalent it’s quite saddening.)
I learned to keep insights to myself when dealing with people who talk about “being frank and honest” and yet respond with hostility, anger and resentment when you express home truths, diplomatic as you may try to be.
I know what I think, I know who I am. I don’t need to be right in anyone else’s eyes anymore. But I don’t see any reason to allow someone to berate me gratis.
BTW, I wasn’t speaking of her particularly when I made the comment about codependent therapists. But if you holler you feel hit, I guess.
A secondhand cap may fit somebody’s head but it doesn’t mean it was made for that person.
BTW, I wasn’t speaking of her particularly when I made the comment about codependent therapists. But if you holler you feel hit, I guess.
- you mean, if she hollers then she’s been hit?
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I know what I think, I know who I am. I don’t need to be right in anyone else’s eyes anymore. But I don’t see any reason to allow someone to berate me gratis.
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– where’d this come from?
Created to be destroyed? a firework whose “very beauty and purpose is in the process of its destruction?”
are you destroying the firework when you’re making it more beautiful? or are you allowing it to fulfill what it was made to do, in the first place?
Sometimes people would destroy existing definitions of things, scatter the pieces, choose the bits that they think will make THEM (not the thing) whole, and “rebuild”, now validating their own version.
Sounds like Sylar, doesn’t it?
I once commented on this to a friend who is a psychologist; I told her it seemed that some therapists are codependent; they have to be “saving” people all the time. The need to be needed, and yet be superior within the parameters of the relationship.
This has always been my take about psychology as a profession (or to be exact, psychologists considering themselves as professional therapists.
Psychology as I see it isn’t a science, it isn’t maths. You can’t have an exact answer for everything nor a formula solution for even two similar situations.
If you treat a person’s mind (his soul, his very being, - the thing that sets him apart from his fellow being - his heart err. the hypothalamus) like it was some miniscule object you can control and fit in a box, then you shouldn’t even consider yourself a psychologist at all.
The essence of psychology is understanding people - and that, that can’t be learned from school at all.
Real understanding comes from within. It comes from the heart (or again, should I say the hypothalamus?).
Concern, Empathy - the real essence - you can’t learn it in school.
I agree. Psychology isn’t a science–it’s an art.