Λ-Εγώ

Ο Πέτρος Πατούνας είναι Ψυχαναλυτής που εκπαιδεύτηκε στο Λακανικό προσανατολισμό στο Λονδίνο, στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο, και στο Παρίσι, στη Γαλλία. Είναι μέλος του Σχολείου του Φροϋδικού Γράμματος που εδρεύει στο Λονδίνο (The School of the Freudian Letter), όπου και ο ίδιος εξασκεί τη ψυχανάλυση, παράλληλα με τη ψυχαναλυτική πρακτική του στη Λεμεσό, στη Κύπρο. Τακτικά παρουσιάζει σεμινάρια στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο σε σχέση με την εκπαίδευση ψυχαναλυτών, με πιο πρόσφατες τις σειρές σεμιναρίων, «Η Ψυχαναλυτική Πράξη», και «Η Άσκησης του Ψυχαναλυτή», που παρουσιάστηκαν ή παρουσιάζονται στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Λονδίνου.

 

Είναι συγγραφέας μυθιστορημάτων, αρκετών ψυχαναλυτικών και κοινωνικών άρθρων, μερικά από τα οποία έχουν μεταφραστεί σε άλλες γλώσσες, μεταξύ αυτών, Πορτογαλικά και Ρωσικά. Πρόσφατα έχει εκδώσει το πρώτο του συλλογικό έργο για την πράξη της Ψυχανάλυσης, «The Psychoanalytic Act:  On the Formation of the No-Body», μιας συλλογής γραπτών, εκ των οποίων αρκετά, με τη μορφή διαλέξεων, παρουσιάστηκαν σε διάφορα σεμινάρια και ψυχαναλυτικές ημερίδες στο Ηνωμένο Βασίλειο. Το δεύτερο του βιβλίο σχετικά με την Λακανική κατεύθυνση και εξάσκηση της ψυχανάλυσης αναμένετε να κυκλοφορήσει εντός του 2015, με τον τίτλο «On the Ascesis of the Psychoanalyst», βασισμένο στην προαναφερθέντα σειρά παραδόσεων.

Περί Λακανικής Ψυχανάλυσης

Τί είναι η Ψυχανάλυση: το Αντικείμενο της Ψυχανάλυσης.

 

Η ψυχανάλυση ασχολείται και απευθύνεται στο υποκείμενο του ασυνειδήτου, το τι δηλαδή, σημαίνει το ανθρώπινο ον, ή, καλύτερα, το ομιλούν ον, αντί να αντιμετωπίσει κάποιον σαν ένα ον άρρωστο, παράλογο, τρελό επειδή παρουσιάζει συμπτώματα “ψυχολογικά” ή όχι, τα οποία είναι συμπτώματα μόνο εάν συγκριθούν με μια εικόνα του τι είναι νορμάλ. Οπότε, αντί να γίνεται μια διαδικασία απαλλαγής του συμπτώματος, η ψυχανάλυση εξερευνεί τις υποβόσκουσες αιτίες και αιτήματα αυτών των συμπτωμάτων, αυτών τον ιδιόμορφων τρόπων, μέσο των οποίων το κάθε υποκείμενο υποφέρει και απολαμβάνει- ζει. Αυτή η κίνησης προς την αιτία είναι μια προσπάθεια για συγκεκριμένη δουλειά, που αν ακολουθηθεί, η διαδικασία της ευθύνης των προσωπικών ανακαλύψεων, θα έχει σημαντικά και συγκλονίστηκα αποτελέσματα στο πώς αποφασίζει το υποκείμενο να ζήσει τι ζωή του, με την ευθύνη και το τίμημα που φέρει η πράξη προς την επιθυμία και παράλληλα προς την υπέρ-απόλαυση. Μέσα από αυτά ο κάθε αναλυόμενος καλείται να δημιουργήσει τη δική του ψυχανάλυση και τα μοναδικά σημεία αναφοράς του. Με άλλα λόγια, η ψυχανάλυση, αποτελεί ένα προσωπικό δημιούργημα που δεν υπάρχει από πριν στο μυαλό του αναλυτή αλλά ούτε και του αναλυόμενου, εφόσον αυτό που διαδραματίζεται στις συνεδρίες είναι ψυχανάλυση.

Γιατί Ψυχανάλυση;

Τί είναι η Ψυχανάλυση- τί είναι η Λακανική Ψυχανάλυση;

Η Λακανική Ψυχανάλυση ανταποκρίνεται στο ανθρώπινο μυστήριο, ένα αίνιγμα που ίσως διαφαίνεται ελειπές μέσα από ερωτήματα όπως «Τι μου συμβαίνει;» «Τι γίνεται;», ή, ακόμα, «Γιατί αυτό να συμβαίνει σε μένα;». Τι στιγμή που ο άνθρωπος κάνει το πρώτο βήμα και επικοινωνεί με τον ψυχαναλυτή, θα μπορούσαμε να πούμε ότι το μυστήριο του αινίγματος, η απάντηση του οποίου βρίσκεται στη προσωπική εμπειρία του καθενός, αρχίζει να ξεδιαλύνεται. Η δυστυχία και ο τρόπος που ένα υποκείμενο υποφέρει δεν είναι θέματα ξεκάθαρα. Η αξιοπρέπεια, η αγάπη και η επιβίωση – όλα αυτά τα σημαντικά συστατικά του τι είναι άνθρωπος – περικλείουν σε αυτά τη δυστυχία, οπότε ο διαχωρισμός του υποκειμένου από τη δυστυχία δεν μπορεί να είναι παρά ένα θέμα πολύπλευρο και ευαίσθητο.

 

Η σημερινή κουλτούρα, στη διαρκή κίνηση και αστάθεια που βρίσκεται, παράγει απότομες και τρομαχτικές αλλαγές που επιδρούν στην ταυτότητα και στα σταθερά σημεία αναφοράς κάθε πολιτισμού. Καθώς οι παραδοσιακές πυξίδες και συντεταγμένες των ταυτίσεων χαλαρώνουν, με μερικές να εξαφανίζονται, το άγχος γίνεται απεριόριστο και το υποκείμενο υποφέρει από αυτή την ασυδοσία με τη μορφή συμπτωμάτων. Παρόλο που το «υποφέρω» μπορεί να διαφέρει στο αίτιο και το μέγεθος, το άγχος προσφέρει – με το ανάλογο τίμημα – και μια οδυνηρή σταθερότητα στο υποκείμενο που υποφέρει. Οπότε, για την ψυχανάλυση, το σύμπτωμα είναι μια προσπάθεια για λύση, και πράττει έτσι ώστε να δέσει και να σταθεροποιήσει ταυτότητα και αγωνία.

 

Επιστημονικές και τεχνολογικές εξελίξεις στην εποχή μας, έχουν μεταμορφώσει την ικανότητα μας να θεραπεύσουμε τις αδυναμίες του σώματος – ο Νους, όχι της βιολογίας αλλά του «βίαιου λόγου» που διαμορφώνει το υποκείμενο του ασυνειδήτου, έχει μείνει μετέωρος σε αυτή την εξέλιξη περιμένοντας να φτιαχτεί από το έξω – έτσι το υποκείμενο θεωρείται «άρρωστο» και «ανισόρροπο» που χρειάζεται να γίνει ισότιμο με ένα κανονικό σχέδιο, δηλαδή ένα πρότυπο συμπεριφοράς ή κουλτούρας. Η «γιατρειά», η «θεραπεία» του Νου δεν είναι μια διαδικασία ή ένα «φάρμακο», ούτε μια τεχνική που μπορεί να δοθεί ή να χορηγηθεί στο υποκείμενο από κάποιον άλλο – δεν εμπίπτει στη φόρμουλα του γιατρού, ή του μάγου, ή του θεραπευτή, που θα δώσει την κατάλληλη θεραπεία την οποία δεν γνωρίζουμε.

 

Ο ψυχαναλυτής, αντιθέτως από ένα γιατρό, δεν υπόσχεται θεραπεία, ούτε θαυματουργική μεταμόρφωση του πόνου σε ευτυχία, και παρόλο που η κλινική εμπειρία δείχνει ότι η ψυχανάλυση έχει θεραπευτικά αποτελέσματα, η διαδικασία δεν μπορεί να στοχεύσει σε αυτά χωρίς να ενδυναμωθεί το σύμπτωμα: ούτε τα αποτελέσματα μπορούν να προβλεφθούν, σε σειρά ή κατεύθυνση. Επίσης, ο ψυχαναλυτής, για να «θεραπεύσει» το υποκείμενο που υποφέρει, πρέπει να ζητήσει από το ίδιο το υποκείμενο να περάσει πέραν της ευχαρίστησης της άγνοιας του, και να ξεκινήσει ένα έργο φιλίας με τη δική του γνώση. Αυτή η γνώση δεν είναι ένα πράγμα απλό – το υποκείμενο δεν γνωρίζει ότι γνωρίζει – ίσως την ώρα που θα απευθυνθεί σε ένα ψυχαναλυτή να έχει μια ιδέα ότι το σύμπτωμα της/του είναι σημείο για «κάτι» χωρίς να γνωρίζει όμως τι. Για να αποκτήσει πρόσβαση σε αυτό, όχι μυστικό αλλά μυστήριο, το υποκείμενο μιλάει – άρα η ψυχανάλυση γίνεται μέσω ομιλίας κατά βάση, μια πορεία από την ομιλία στη σιωπή: διαφορετική από εκείνη του συμπτώματος.

Ζακ Λακάν και Ψυχανάλυση

Η Λακανική Ψυχανάλυση και η επιστροφή στο Φρόυντ.

Είναι μετρημένοι οι ψυχαναλυτές που άγγιξαν το ύψος της διαύγειας του Φρόυντ, και ένας από αυτούς ήταν και ο Λακάν που πρόσφερε σημαντικότατες ανακαλύψεις, και μοναδικές, στο πεδίο της σεξουαλικής διαφοράς, και έδωσε νέες πτυχές στο περιβόητο Οιδιπόδειο σύμπλεγμα. Ο Λακάν, ερευνούσε με πάθος  και προσοχή διάφορα θέματα και πάντα η δουλειά του στηριζόταν σε πραγματικά παραδείγματα, και μέσω αυτών ανάπτυξε την θεωρεία του. Στην εργασία του, γραπτή και προφορική, αναφέρονται οι «μυστικοί» και πολύπλευροι τρόποι του ασυνειδήτου στηριζόμενοι από την κλινική πρακτική του. Ανάμεσα στα έργα συνεισφοράς του, πολλά εκ των οποίων δημιούργησαν αντιδράσεις, αλλά και αξιοποιήθηκαν από άλλους τομείς εκτός ψυχανάλυσης, είναι η Οπτική Απόλαυση στις κινηματογραφικές σπουδές. Επίσης, αρκετοί διανοούμενοι και πολιτικοί φιλόσοφοι έχουν σαν βάση της ανάλυσης των θεμάτων τους τις θεωρίες του Λακάν, βέβαια με ένα τρόπο διαφορετικό από εκείνο της κλινικής εμπειρίας.

 

Ο Λακάν έδωσε νέα πνοή στον Φρόυντ, αναφέροντας ότι η ψυχανάλυση είναι η επιστήμη του πώς ένα υποκείμενο, ένας άνθρωπος, δημιουργείται μέσα από την κοινωνικότητα και την επίδραση του λόγου.

 

Η Λακανική Ψυχανάλυση διαφέρει από την κλασσική ψυχανάλυση του Φρόυντ, και βέβαια από το τι θεωρούν ως ψυχανάλυση άλλες ιδεολογικές κατευθύνσεις. Ο Λακάν ανέφερε ότι σε κάποιο στάδιο της ζωής τους, εκείνο που ονόμασε Στάδιο του Καθρέφτη, τα άτομα γίνονται «σε κομμάτια» σε σχέση με το σώμα τους και με τον Άλλο. Σε αυτό το στάδιο, βρίσκεται η «στιγμή» που το βρέφος κοιτάζει – και κοιτάζεται – στο καθρέφτη και αναγνωρίζει το Είδωλο σαν εαυτό. Όμως το είδωλο είναι ξεχωριστό και ξέ-χώρο, αλλά διαμέσου αυτής της άχρονης στιγμής γίνεται το ιδανικό του υποκειμένου, και δημιουργεί μια σχέση δυναμική με την εικόνα του και τον Άλλο: πλάθεται, δηλαδή, ένα σχίσμα, με το υποκείμενο να προσπαθεί να φτάσει την τελειότητα που φαντασιώθηκε μέσα από τον καθρέφτη.

 

Μια άλλη διαφορά βρίσκεται στην ετυμολογία του ασυνείδητου. Ο Φρόυντ ανέφερε ότι το ασυνείδητο είναι η αληθινή ταυτότητα του ανθρώπου που βρίσκεται βαθιά μέσα του, πέραν, δηλαδή, του συνειδητού. Με βάση τον Λακάν, το ασυνείδητο δημιουργείται διαφορετικά από την εξέλιξη του ατόμου, σαν αποτέλεσμα της γλώσσας και των διαπροσωπικών του σχέσεων. Η σεξουαλική επιθυμία, εν συνεχεία, δεν είναι η βάση όλων των επιθυμιών. Ο Λακάν επικεντρώθηκε στον «τεμαχισμό» του ψυχισμού σε εαυτό και Άλλο, ένα Άλλο που υπάρχει έξω από τον εαυτό. Οι ψυχαναλυτές στην Αμερική δουλεύουν με βασική ιδέα, ότι το Εγώ, μια συνειδητή επίγνωση του εαυτού, είναι σημαντική στη διαμόρφωση της προσωπικότητας. Ο Λακάν θεωρεί τον εαυτό διαφορετικό από το υποκείμενο του ασυνειδήτου. Ο εαυτός είναι η ιδεώδες εικόνα που κάποιος βλέπει, όταν σκέφτεται το πώς θα ήθελε να ήταν σε σχέση με τον άλλο κόσμο.

Περί Συμπτώματος

Τραύμα, Άγχος, Κρίσεις Πανικού, Κατάθλιψη/Χάσιμο Κίνητρου για ζωή, Θέματα με τη Σεξουαλικότητα, Δυσκολίες στη δουλειά ή στις σχέσεις, Εμμονές, Σύγχυση, Απροσανατόλιστος, Αυτοκαταστροφή, Εθισμοί, Μεγάλα ερωτήματα όπως «Τί σημαίνει να είσαι άντρας ή γυναίκα,» «Πώς είναι να έχεις ένα παιδί,» «ή πως είναι όταν χάνεις κάποιο κοντινό και αγαπημένο» – ανθρώπινες ερωτήσεις που χρειάζονται προσωπική ανταπόκριση και εγράφη.

Περί Ψυχαναλυτικής Συνεδρίας

Η ψυχαναλυτική συνεδρία είναι ένας χώρος, όπου είναι δυνατό το υποκείμενο να μιλήσει για το τι τον/την προβληματίζει με ένα Άλλο, και αυτό μπορεί να γίνει σε επανάληψη όπου η υπεραξία αυτών των λέξεων να χαθεί. Με την προσφορά της συνεδρίας, ο ψυχαναλυτής προσφέρεται να ακούσει τον αναλυόμενο, και επιτρέπει σε εκείνον που μιλά να ακουστεί – ο κανόνας της ψυχανάλυσης είναι ο ελεύθερος συνειρμός. Το υποκείμενο καλείται να μιλήσει για ό,τι περνά από το μυαλό του, ανεξαρτήτως αν είναι άσχετο, άρρωστο, τρελό, ανόητο. Με αυτόν τον τρόπο, αυτόν τον απλό κανόνα, ξεπερνάει το κοινωνικό όριο του να δίνει νοήμα σε ότι λέει. Αυτά δεν είναι όλα, μα είναι μια αρχή.

Με Εικόνες

Από τη διάλεξη στο Πανεπιστήμιο του Λονδίνου, 5 Ιουλίου, 2014: Η Ρηματοποίηση του Ασυνείδητου Υποκειμένου.

ψυχαναλυτής, ψυχαναλυση, λακανικός, λακανική, πετρος πατουνας,

University of London Petros Patounas Psychoanalyst London Lacanian ψυχαναλυτης

University of London Petros Patounas Psychoanalyst London Lacanian psychoanalysis

University of London Petros Patounas Psychoanalyst London Lacanian

The Boy from Syria Speaks

syrian boy

 

The Syrian boy speaks in a language that is not his own because it was not received:

“Let me rest in peace because I have seen this confusion and turmoil around me, which the bigger ones called war, killing, leaving the country; for me there was a playground, a few toys, at least for a few moments. I have seen my father crying, my mother very worried and not because of what I would have called later in life as everyday worries, if I had the chance to experience these anxieties that the living people have. Let me rest in peace and you go and act, do something about it- I do not care who is to blame, do something about it because I would have liked to have a few meters of land to play, not even ten square meters; these I assume would have been enough so to have my mother’s hug and to wait for my father to return home from work and to see that look of his, because he could provide as a man. The only land I will have now is that thing they describe as grave and I have not even had a word for “Death” although it was all around me. These other men about us had guns and they were angry; they were like those monsters, like the jinnis I have known through the stories before I go to sleep, stories that my culture is full of, but these stories always included faithful heroes who have won these monsters and that is why I could go to sleep: in this evil fairytale of life there are only bad monsters and this is what makes them even more scary: even to this new land that my father wanted to take us to escape from these very strong sounds that these bombs and guns made- away from the even worst sounds, those of kids and women crying because some of these jinnis used the silence of knifes; still as they were and silent, they could make others shout and scream. Let me rest and I can only rest if you do something about it- and if I do not rest I will become a jinni myself. That is what keeps me awake because this is my greatest fear: I was born dead and I speak in the language that humans seem not to be capable of understanding.”

The young Syrian boy.

 

 

The Domain of Shadows: The Giant

facing the giant

 

The boy threw the first eying on the colossal phantom, a giant- he was made of mud, in all odds a nonentity of double negation not to be compared with that divine mud by which God, integrating sand and saliva, has fashioned the protoplasts, the first one, Adam and not the madam as the word play has it. Between the giant’s toes he could play, the boy, within these obese extensions of a figure, brown and blue and with intentions not surely vicious; but a boy of this size and at this age perceives everything bigger, bigger, “Much much bigger” than himself as he used to sound in an echolalia, somehow scared of his own voice because a world, the world, is nothing more than a space of sensitivities and of a fantasy been repeated when these sensitivities have not faith to “A love without a name but not without a letter;” these were the boy’s words, and yet he played hide and seek with his gloomy shade flanked by the vacant seats of those corpulent toes- how erroneous is this statement: this, the misguided of this amusement and proclamation, the boy will determine alone much later in life, not during that time of his distraction because he was equipped with a sword, handmade and of good metal and embraced together, metal and flesh, by a strong handle suitable for a warrior or a knight without an armour besides his bravery and soul. He was not afraid of the creature’s size: he was heroic enough to encounter his nightmares, those sharpened and murdered into the, let us write, domain of the real world- that true and horrific actual horrendous liberty for those who still believe in myths of devotion and concern; and he was walking and running upon that small mournful prominence resembling a hill, from abaft which, in his dream, the giant has materialized his being but there was nothing excluding the sunlight darting invisible rays affecting one’s body, mostly at dawn or during the few moments of a dismal sunrise, and if this one in question was not a ghost; and the boy was not, not yet, a ghost- he will become one later when he will encounter the consecrated breath through which he will receive the map of the mission to use the spear of Longinus in opening living spaces for humanity, as part of his deal with one of the fairies who protected him- his own part of the symphonic covenant was to return his gift to the world.

 

Never, never; never had he saw the gigantic figure and yet he was always there, dust till dawn, with the sword at hand and ready for the challenge, until one day and moment the fairy called his name and posed the question why he was marching this same distance every single day when around him there were so many beauties of nature and of life, and most importantly herself, waving her being so many times in his passage akin to a fresh delightful inhalation: perhaps it was mandatory to eavesdrop his name, it is not certain, as of course the waves and duties of life; and the sword in hand was not stiff at the moment of the calling and not part of his hand, and his spirit calmed and became milder- the voice of the woman who knows how to whisper in the forests ought to have this affect on a man’s body and, from that incident and to the fore, he would seek this experience that he would forget for the times to come until the shadows will become fierce in the territories where he will choose to articulate the message, that which he will decode for those who have no bodies but can dance because they are twirling around the sceptre of the wind itself: he acknowledged, nevertheless, without any provocation and comparison and beyond any measurements of gallantry, that, although they were dancing they could not breathe not even a single phoneme and this is the reason they were unqualified of putting their bodies in the service of knighthood: as the boy did: “Slaves,” he mumbled, and tightened his weapon in his fingers once again until the next meeting with the fairy. And this is how he has killed the giant- by cognominating him a slave and deep inside him he had made a choice for bearing the cost of been a human: the Things of the domain of shadows command one to be courageous in order to love, to be fearless- this is the true birth of a hero: love is an act of bravery because it never redeems one from the angst of the cataclysm’s emptiness as it is cataclysm itself that forges one to tolerate its own love; this orientation is the one been initiated with the boy’s utterance as if in and within the chambers of a ominous mystery cult, and, from those sunlight hours frontwards, he would fade away in a long passage through the years and the Scene, in becoming the shade of himself, with, of course, disbursing the exact amount of the earth’s distance worth that each pilgrim has to pay: when it comes to these sort of expeditions, both Caesar and God ought to have their obols.

On Eat and been Eaten


image

 

The truths revealed from the encounter with this cartoon drawing in an almost apocalyptic manner are bitter to one’s palates, besides the fact that several of the objects to be consumed or are consumed by the obese extraordinary being are full of sugar; and these truths, in plural, are bitter because it is this type of food and objects that are consuming the, what used to be, a human being, eating its subjectivity and freedom and leaving behind, from their behind, a mass of meat in irregular shape as a mathematician might have described this bodily schema: to start with, the typical procedure of buying a couch has changed, and, from the searching to find a perfect space for one’s body or bottom through catalogs or visits to showrooms with the almost everlasting dealing with the sales’ person, has become a pitiful fictional story because, as this picture corroborates, it is the couch that seeks for its body, a body which, as the figment of imagination divulges us, will assist in what the couch has not yet been able to possess despite the extravagant technological advancements in the field of furniture: that is a mouth: it is the only organ that it lacks so to expand its invading forces and occupy further territories. This body, most likely belonging to a man, although its gender has been accumulated partially by the couch, might experience the classical Freudian fantasy of returning into the mother’s womb and caught ecstatically by that Oceanic feeling of the Nirvana principle, anyway, this “man” has been fed without adopting its own hands because they are used, at least one of them, to hold the smartphone; the other electrical appliance, once upon a time in the forgotten past denominated as the king of all appliances, the grandiose then television, now a mere decorative object perhaps to assist in the geographical positioning of the couch within the square meters of the room just for the sake of the living room’s stereotypical arrangements, those arrangements marked by language at the past era of having visitors in the house and actually using the mouth for talking, “This is our living room,” “Yes I know, I am not an idiot, I can see the TV.” This type of living rooms where people used to approach each other’s body via the medium of speech should be situated in museum exhibitions, and children could heave through a virtual experience of forgotten items and paraphernalia of how bodies functioned on those times of the grandfather’s grandfather: nowadays, it could have been much better to label this space as something else, someone has to do it anyway, for living rooms have no blood relation with the verb living.

 

Never mind, back to the cartoon icon that we avoided in mentioning here as picture because the same word follows soon, so, in the same picture, once again as viewers of a peculiar phenomenon, as spectators hopefully and not as reflections of a mirror, we can admire the imposing symbols of various fast food chains, literally chains and metaphorically, on the walls of this living room. They are works of art- no doubt about it, because only the manipulative precision of a great artist could have been able to elevate manure into the status of “eatable shit.” The picture however is unable to depict the factor of smell and the different types of Pour Hommes or De Perfumes mingled with sweat, exuding from the irregular shaped body and habitually resting on every possible surface of the room: the very popular and possibly impolite, certainly politically incorrect question when there is a tete-a-tete of one’s nose with such smells, “What have you eaten,” or, “Have you eaten shit,” would have been perfect here, if we were experiencing this whole phenomenon from the place of the smeller and not from that of the viewer: but, at the current time and as far as what is known to us regarding scientific inventions, smelling a picture or a drawing through the smartphone’s screen has not been technologically achieved. Until the moment of the later technological discovery’s nobel price public announcement, the couch-man is doomed to remain unscented even by his own excrement.

ΑΠΑΤΗ ΚΑΙ ΦΑΝΤΑΣΙΩΣΗ

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Και σαν απλή, ανθρώπινη απάντηση πέραν της φαφλατοποίησης που θα έφερνε ένας καθαρά επιστημονικός λόγος, απάντηση και αθέτηση ταυτόχρονα στο ερώτημα σου: Αν θεωρείται απάτη το ότι σκέφτεσαι άλλες γυναίκες ή άλλους άντρες την ώρα της σεξουαλικής πράξης: όχι βέβαια, δεν είναι απάτη- είναι καθαρά αυνανισμός· δεν απατάς αλλά αυνανίζεσαι- ιδιωτική, πολύ ιδιωτική η σχέση με το σύντροφο σου, μια σχέση με την ερωτογενή ζώνη.

 

 

 

The Domain of Shadows: The Manners of the Snake

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And the evil wolf was not always a wolf, one of those vampiric creatures with which, for better or for worst, as they say- those who know how to speak, with which the oral object received its heaving personification, a violent allegory certainly not Aesopian but surely didactic if one has the strength and the valour of an archangel to learn and reargued his position in life; the young man, almost at the age where a man separates from the boy, which is almost never and with accuracy not in the evolutionary customs of time by which parents or cultures mark the position of the man and his own naming into the social order, no more than the Hammurabi’s laws within the context of another tribe’s hierarchy: at that tender age the snake has appeared as a living and moving symbol within a dream, once again, and then it became part of the visionary world, a thought, an idea, but it was there, shaking his head disgracing the boy like those evil parents who show not direction to their children and only move their heads because they expect from them to be the objects in their fantasy of been good parents, never listening to the demand, leave aside supporting their desire; and this was indeed a demand, an “indeed” sound in the accent of the British, with that emphasis on the “eed,” “eat, eat, eat dear boy”- “or you will be eaten.”

 

And the first time the evil manifested its protocols and ventures, the revolting dimension that later will be an above suspicion victim of good and of an anagrammatism so to transubstantiate into l-i-ve, was when the boy was around four years old, at that pure and inconvenient time certainly not suitable to glimpse at the domain of shadows from where these unfathomable apparitions loom their dim masks: it was under the calming hands of an illness and the suffering from fever; the ceiling melted, they said it was the forty degrees of temperature, some sort of a doctor must have said that because he did not listen to what the boy said, mumbling his syllables: oh, but he was suffering a hell, and the forty degrees Celsius should have been a million, not a number for the thermometer’s scale. The healer, the doctor, was incapable to enumerate agony, in the same way he could not listen to the boy who counselled to utter in his lamentation “an elephant,” “I see an elephant:” a signifier to context the authoritative and compulsion of the oral object situating him in the position of the been eaten. This moment has been the very first time the wolf and the phantoms of its sort were made visible, one way or another, and their constant presence in the boy’s life from now on would mark his being and destiny- they would be there for the years to come: a long story to be said, in another structure, besides what has been written in the boy’s body and fortune; this snake threatening from the ceiling without a form like the infamous sword of Damocles, one that it received in a dream years later and that it would zoom into the young man’s life, hissing its voice in the language of serpents, this Sshhh sound ordering one to remain silent for the things and matters of the domain of shadows. And yet instead of the sword and although he has been equipped to be a warrior, a weapon with which he would chase the giants in the fields of his dreams and reality of life, not so much of a difference between the two worlds unless one is a donkey, the boy has chosen the s-word, because it is with love that one deals with sadism: this is what he had said once when he was in front of the priestess of an oracle accompanied by the fairy who deals with desire and not anxiety.

ΔΕΝ ΘΕΛΩ HAPPY

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Κάθε μέρα η ίδια ιστορία- και πρόκειται για εξιστόρηση που για χρόνια ήταν ανίκανη να τοποθετήσει σε μια παράγραφο, μια πρόταση, έστω μια λέξη∙ μια σκηνή, τρομακτική αν την συνειδητοποιεί το κάθε υποκείμενο που, για να υπάρξει σαν ενότητα και εαυτός, τουλάχιστον σαν οπτασία στη ζωή, επαναλαμβάνεται με διάφορους τρόπους και πλάθεται αυτό που λέμε ζωή, παραλαμβάνοντας σαν τίμημα αυτής της απόλαυσης για επανάληψη την επιθυμία του ιδίου του υποκειμένου∙ τη νεαρή σχετικά γυναίκα, από το απόγευμα την έπιανε αυτό που αποκαλούσε κρίση, που, μετά από το βάφτισμα από τον παθολόγο της σαν κρίση άγχους, θα το «μετονόμαζε» με δανεικές λέξεις σαν πανικό: «Είναι κρίση πανικού»∙ έτσι είπε ο γιατρός και συναγογράφησε τη γιατρειά- το χάπι: ρώτησε αυτή για κάτι άλλες μεθόδους, κάτι ψυχοθεραπείες, ψυχαναλύσεις, γνωστικές και άγνωστές, γιατί φοβόταν το χάπι και αυτός της είπε σαν καθαρός καπιταλιστής ότι τα φάρμακα θα την βοηθήσουν πολύ πιο «γρήγορα» από όλα αυτά που ανάφερε, χωρίς να διακρίνει τίποτε άλλο στο λόγο της και στην ιστορία της- και αυτή δεν μίλησε∙ το ίδιο σιωπηλή ήταν και προς τον ψυχολόγο της αργότερα, στον οποίο δάνειζε μια δυο ώρες από τον εβδομαδιαίο της χρόνο για να μιλούν- να μιλά χωρίς να μιλάει, να μιλάει και να απολαμβάνει το μίζερο λόγο της και ότι κάποιος τον άκουε, σαν μάρτυρας- τουλάχιστον αυτά εξιστόρησε αργότερα, λίγα χρόνια μετά, αφού το «γρήγορα» είχε γίνει τρία χρόνια σε φαντασιακό χρόνο, αυτό δηλαδή του ρολογιού∙ και, κάθε τόσο ξαναπήγαινε στο γιατρό, στις διαβαθμισμένες συναντήσεις με εκείνα τα τυπικά πως είσαι, πως ένιωθες αυτή τη βδομάδα, και τα, δώσε λίγο χρόνο, και άλλο χρόνο, για να δουλέψει το χάπι, ή το θα πρέπει να αυξηθεί η δόση των χαπιών σου: πάντα να δουλέψει κάτι άλλο, ποτέ το ίδιο το υποκείμενο λες και το σύμπτωμα δεν είναι δικό του, λες και το σύμπτωμα δεν είναι το ίδιο το υποκείμενο.

 

Κάθε φορά, είχε λίγη ώρα συζήτηση με το γιατρό κατά τη διάρκεια της οποίας του έλεγε ότι δεν μπορούσε να δεχθεί ότι έπρεπε να πίνει το χάπι για να είναι καλά, δεν το δεχόταν, μα τελικά πείστηκε: και, έτσι με το στανιό, άρχισε τα χάπια, δειλά δειλά, και καλά έκαμε κάτω από τις περιστάσεις, γιατί το σώμα της υπόφερε και μόνο αυτή ήταν υπεύθυνη για το πώς θα θεραπευτεί- δεν ήταν θέμα ποια «μέθοδος» είναι η καλύτερη- ο καθένας έχει την ευθύνη του συμπτώματος του, της «θεραπείας» του, και φυσικά του λόγου του, της ζωής του- αυτό το τελευταίο είναι και το δυσκολότερο, δύσκολο, πολύ δύσκολο πράμα να αναληφθεί η ευθύνη της επιθυμίας ή της απόλαυσης. Στο γιατρό είπε μια φορά πως σκεφτόταν να αυτοκτονήσει- αυτό κατά της περίοδο λίγο πριν αρχίσει ψυχανάλυση- εκείνη τη παρεξηγημένη πράξη ζωής, που αποκαλείται λαθεμένα ως ψάξιμο προς το παρελθόν, ότι δηλαδή, δήθεν πρέπει να πάς πίσω και να θυμηθείς: όλα ήταν μπροστά της, και μπροστά στο γιατρό που χωρίς να το καταλάβει είχε κάνει σωστή διάγνωση- ότι αυτή η γυναίκα χρειαζόταν το happy, αφού απολαύανε τη μιζέρια της. Enjoy.

On the Object of Zombies

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Within the topographical invariant of this picture, which is not an actual picture with the proper meaning of the word but closer to what it may be named as a cartoon poster in all possibility crafted with the assistance of a computer, the eye of the beholder can glimpse at a number of human figures, which the same eye was not bothered to count, resembling zombies, these sort of zombies that the ability of filmmakers and directors has not yet been able to place, as very secondary actors, in any motion picture so that they, as characters in a given horror movie, would hold smart-phones in their hands; they are aligned in an, almost we could say, polemical phalanx but nothing to remind of the Spartan warriors, although one or two of the figures, those on the left of the picture, appear to have some hair on their faces, however, not enough to the viewer’s judgement to categorise them stereotypically as men in that almost extinct category of the sexes; they are ordered, not only the men in question but the zombies as a group, and commanded by an unknown master and they have achieved that aligning without looking neither at their own feet nor at the “bodies” around them but at the screen of the object in their hands- this sort of object that is called Smartphone or mobile phone or “phablet” and it seems to have the ability to exercise a peculiar gravity and move these bodies without strings, perhaps with some kind of technology using laser or with the assistance of the infamous Bluetooth. The creatures’ eyes are not concentrated on the world around them, not even on an object of the world, at least this is what we can say by looking at this static moment of time, but on what they already possess in their own hands which, if we would have liked to be a bit honest with ourselves, they are not actually possessing it because this object possesses them: it holds their gaze on its own time, on applications, on other topologies and spaces called social media- these social media nevertheless, have accepted in their loving arms these creatures in return of surrendering their bodies, because they are not needed in this computerised social arena: this is the work of a different sort of a devil, or, we could even mumble with some scientific creation of a new signifier, that this new devil is not the classical one who gives you anything in return for your soul but, a modified and biologically harvested devil who does not deal with the soul but with the body- he wants bodies instead of souls and instead of waiting to carry them in hell he has decided to do so on the earth.

 

The expression of the creatures, which it is not yet certain if they are human beings, perhaps because of the bad qualities of the picture or because to be a man or a woman is an enigma beyond the biology of the body, is similar, and the creative and daedalic imagination of the artist has captured them with their mouths open- their jaws dropped as the universal expression has it, nothing shocking or gossipy on the social media’s topology but because they are actually eating, not the Nothing but the Everything: the lovers of these kind of movies will tell you that zombies eat people, but these sort of creatures, these modified species of zombies, are eating from the object in their hand, have friends, create new characteristics, they can be and have different faces, with imaginary interests, can alter their bodies, looks- they are absolutely captured by this signifier and object. That is reality, I mean in the form of the exchange between them and the modified devil who, as we were just been informed, is a devil-vegan that is why he denies to take souls and prefers bodies; he functions aphoristically by giving to the soul whatever it needs but he wants to take the body and, therefore, what used to be called human body becomes a body producing and consuming for the “world” but living not there, for, its spirit lives in the geographical realm of the social media. This is the evolution of an old word, a character we could call him, of the celebrated “couch potato” who is also, along with the men mentioned earlier, extinct, not even holding a pitiful place in history by been listed in Unesco’s index of protected species- this is due to the historical now fact that the Mr or Mrs Couch Potato has been formed in a stasis, whilst these new-fangled creatures are in motion, walking, eating, hyperactively walking around without knowing where and not even wondering what is their place in the world.

 

The creatures’ postures are similar, and the same eye of the beholder can distinguish a few minor differences on one of them, on one of the creatures, that is, the manner his body bends gently towards this hand-object, not because he is a weirdo or not following the trends of the time but because, due to divine will or biological variations, he is left-handed: he is still one of them, actually a front-liner of the zombies’ march towards the same object, one for each and private, because he has more to prove than the others who are right handed and thus he has become a Zealot. There is in fact another left-handed creature on the far left corner of the picture, from the position we are looking and not from the position the creatures could throw an eye on us if have they not been occupied with their objects. This one, in case we want to practice a few seconds of wild analysis, as Freud perhaps would have called it, and thus to become masters who interpret everything according to the mother and the father, this one as we were saying, me and this Other who speaks through me, anyway, this one must have had a mother who was all over him, even overlooking his private moments in the toilet, and that is why he is choosing to be hidden behind the others; in, yet, another context these bodies could have been nominated as athletic, had the imagination of the graphic-designer been more flexible, and these bending forward bodies could have been perfect for ping-pong players in the midst of an Olympic tournament.

 

The woman on the right of the picture, next to the first left-handed man discussed and analyzed, whose face is probably dehydrated because watering farms in the social media or giving water to PC game characters, forced her to forget to consume the infamous seven glasses per day- she is not the typical blonde of the generalized expression indicating and identifying blondes with stupidity: we can say she is not stupid and that, perhaps without her knowing it, she has proven the proverbial expression concerning the mental ability of the everlasting blond wrong, because this one is indeed technologically literate.

Life after the Other

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The subject can earmark itself with its own voice when it is apportioned from the fantasy of the Other’s horror, in times experienced as a nightmare and in space as a logical reality- of that Herculean and imperceptible hand that, in all its caring and lovable ways and seductions, forms a body which is of language and not flesh: this is not a square meter of skepticism against the ability to walk, for, it takes really long legs to strode the fastest way when it comes in crossing a mountain chain- that is, from peak to peak: this was said by Nietzsche. What actually surrounds a newborn subject is language, a skeleton of signifiers and reliance, before and after delivery, and a language that, in all possibility is not articulated but within the gaps of the Other’s speech- of that desire that is repressed and gives shape to a space to be taken over by the newborn body that will speak but, perhaps never, does not know how to Act according to his own desire because it has been conceived, delivered and raised according to the Other’s aspiration – which, it could have been better to nominate as an enjoyment of responsibility’s denial.

 

Responsibility of one’s freedom is an act of bravery; let us remember the novel “The children of the Alley” by the Nobel prize winner Naguib Mahfouz, where a scientist at the end achieves in killing God, the Other: it is then, in the period following that killing, when the subject, unable to handle the price and orientation of its freedom, presented not within the realm of the Other, but as a flowing breathing hole where desire functions as a limit and direction in synchronicity with the heart’s murmur: and thus the subject becomes a paragon of susurration, crying and not acting because the Act of life requires recognition of one’s responsibility, and so the characters in the novel cry out “It was better with the Other.” It is better with the Other and it is better to have a life before delivery- it is true: it is honorable: when one is a slave: a new sort of a dictionary could have explained that a slave is he who has a silent heart and in all his denial of life after delivery, a different sort of an Unfaithful Thomas who, in this case, does not even ask for a wound to place his finger, he actually empowers the presence of the Other by sacrificing his own position- one ought to be crafted and not delivered readymade- one called life. Yet again, it is to think who would have bought this sort of dictionary- something to bother the publishers, not the writers.

On the Woman of Misery

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Devotedness – what you have chronicled among the pentagram of your lamentable roar is not affliction, for you are only veritably devoted to the divine misery yet, never before, have you said “I adore my misery- I enjoy my suffering:” an all too human of a being, one of the many, and although a consumer, this creature has never tasted what you are describing; and, though you are hugging yourself, and never walking but alone, you have never shined a mere glimpse of light towards the earth’ soil where you conceal your feet, not the firmament of a fool’s paradise of rejecting your own cerebration.

And the Letter has spoken: dear lady of misery: love, love does not deceive – it is deceived: because your kind has been versed to betray by embracing- and once again a soul is conquered by an apple.

The Things of the Domain of Shadows

It took him a few decades to reach to an agreement with what he was seeing and what he was listening- these were messages from another dimension, elements of perception and reception, not illusions or delusions, for he was aware of them, at least later in life; in the beginning, as a boy he was fainting against what he was experiencing and the doctors said that he might have not eaten well in the morning, perhaps a poor diet, or that he might have had myopic eyes, however, the bodily organs were healthy, more healthy than what you might have expected under these circumstances and anxieties of this realm of a boy’s life. And so the parents have tried magic, these elementary exorcisms with water and basil leafs and the witch uttering “Now your fears are gone,” yet she had never said where, or that they have rehearsed their habitat in his body, in his body until they wake up again, as if his flesh was a fragile tombstone for his destiny because of what one should christen as some sort of evil chewing on his desire; and, without his knowledge, the boy’s knowledge, at least as they say consciously, he had tried throughout his life to obstruct their roaring, to act as normal people do as if his eyes were blind and his ears deaf, in linearity and within a dimensionality that is imaginary, on the level of normality- normality and healthiness, the bread and butter of those people who do not accept the responsibility of utilizing their gift’s endowment: suffering, too much suffering to cross the threshold for such people, when they situate the human body in the registers of time, logic and of that Other who is observing and looking, of what manure remaining, but never  transubstantiates into fertilizer, from language and thus receives the carcass of the critic, who is dead but does not acknowledge it, for he assumes that, been the king of the underworld, is a beautiful life: what a polite lie- let us subtract the “F” and create a hyperbole for the human existence.

 

The wolf was forever and a day, according to the immemorial expression, staring at him, as the crow flies in the eyes; sometimes it was revealing its violent actions setting the boy at the agonizing rest of a witness’ muteness and ordering him “Do not speak for what you see,”- and he, the boy, when he was actually a boy, has never dazzled back to what has been excogitated from the void of the abyss and has kept himself unvoiced: unvoiced because, truth be told, who could have receive and summon such an ecclesiastical discourse, to listen to he who listens the voices of the world and the roars of the domain of shadows? Who would dare to estimate the berth of a new Lazarus to communicate with the boy and to exchange the values and jokes of life and death? “Speak,” they could have said to him if only they would have ever confined some centimeters within the topology of faith, “Speak for the things of the earth and of Hades,” but how could one even dare to ask from a young boy to ascent his head upwards and leer back to this menacing seething creature, this embodiment of malevolence with the dark immaculate eyes? And that mouth, dripping the saliva of an illness, of the divine anguish– that is why the boy was throwing his glances downwards whilst walking, to hide, to hide not as a part of an obsessional’s ceremony of been the object of the gaze’s drumming, defeated in a private space to control the omniscient coercion of that which sees it all: it was not an issue of been hidden but of hiding it, that inhuman It, and to deal with this Real, which was reality for him, hearkening constantly to these ever known words of adults who have never been children, “Stand up straight; you will become like the celebrated Hunchback of Notre Dame:” they knew half of the story’s plot, and they have been relentlessly forgetting that the notable hatchback has had a heart of gold and was time-honored by the love of the most beautiful, of she who represents destiny in a man’s orientation. The wolf did not retain the colors of a visage, mysterious and anonymous like those oedipal dreams- it did not obtain a face until later in the boy’s life, until, let us say, when he was already a man, a man of honor, a macho with the original meaning of the word who has been that man protecting his family by all means; and, when he cultivated his being and matured into a man, through this perplexing one by one metamorphosis of a masculine subject’s Ousia, the anxiety educing from that blemish of sightlessness veiling the beast’s face became even stronger, until the immense gloominess of the beast was determined, precisely because the, now young man, has been ranging himself away from the evil’s attempt of labeling: it disclosed its face. It was there, all along his life, talking to him, as much as what we call a guardian angel in a white and pure form, a form as the fairy tales have it- and which, as Bruno Bettelheim could have said, obscure and state at the same time the child’s truth- an angel with another voice supporting his position, not to be accumulated by this half-human and half-beast: to be alone is impossible, but there are exceptions; such kindness of a language has been avowed by great philosophers: Aristotle said that there are two kind of beasts that live alone- animals and gods, to where Nietzsche added another kind, the philosopher. Both great minds have been wrong, because there is another, a more atypical type, both divine and demonic who is the honorable sufferer of his own Ethic of the Real, he who resists the call of that same wolf mentioned earlier.

 

And the boy has been reciting a prayer since his childhood, one that has been sometimes forgotten in the path of his life, and the same one that has received his faith once again, and has been altered as much as the anxiety and the revelations of the wolf because, even the prayers’ forms and mannerisms ought to transform their conducts according to the evil’s attendance: it was the prayer who made him a man, that is, to accept to deal with the difficulties of the path he has chosen, one path for one man, which none else can follow because it is made to measure; one body, one desire, one path, one price, one destiny- too much for any other proverbial someone, who does not own any access to the dimensions of shadows, to recognize. And the story goes further, not much will be said, not out of fear, but because those belongings of shadows ought to be kept discreetly in their place, in their valuable graves, not much to be articulated through ink and paper, not more than what a human ear can acoustically receive: and thus the boy has become an ascetic of life, a man with a direction of his choice, not in the form and meaning people might find in the dictionaries’ etymological physiographies, or, to these infamous paragraphs supposedly including and explaining words, words without the subject’s context- he has become ascetic for the service of a cause, one to support what he nominated, baptized in other words, and this included the dedication of his body, through his own suffering, as the cause of freedom and kindness. It has not been a religion to him- he denied the position of the master, for, free speech, cannot be directed to the earlobes of the master who enjoys the vernacular elocution of the mirror, unless there is a hysteric discourse who wants to establish more than anything, a new master, so to enjoy the war itself without the revealed truth been embodied with the subject of the Act- that which has been entitled elsewhere, but not too far, as an ΈργΟν.

 

And it took the young man a dream to see the face of the wolf and yet he has been able to look at him, this time, to look at him straight in the eyes without fear, to look back and not with the loom by which the abyss gazes back in the shape of the return of the repressed, but in a form inimitable and irregular to the eyes and sensitivities of those who have not seen the hand holding the key of Solomon opening doors with an ease; it had to gaze back to support his ethic and because it was the alleyway he had to stride through, that infamous passing of the threshold, to win the attendance of the fairy of destiny, who have been holding for him the golden throne from where a man stares and deciphers the mysteries of the domain of shadows, responds to them, now devoted and cherished, and mark, at this moment that he acts, by what has been aligned as the calligraphy of random kindness and senseless acts of beauty, the body of the subject, not as signifiers, but as the Letters of Love: and those who have the knowledge of good and evil are responsible to choose their own stigmata. Amen.