Old age self centredness

The usual definition of narcissism is self-love. We tend to think of this as intrinsic to the personality or temperament of an individual; in which case context is irrelevant. But in old age temperament cedes to context.  What is common in old age, as friends and family members die, is self-absorption. It is as if survival is the greatest achievement and this is always the topic for the self. What is it to be absorbed in oneself in this way?

The consequence of this absorption for some is the creation of a paranoiac system. That is one based on hostility, hostility towards others as a way of still feeling special.    For example, “ The nurses here are stealing things from me.” This ensures the centrality of the self. Erecting a system like this is seen as the only way to maintain the survival of the self-image in a contracting personal world.

There is an alternative process, which can be thought of as narcissistic depletion. Here over time the narcissism diminishes as the individual does. He/she may give up, lose energy, feel abject and hopeless. This may take a long time, but it is the image of someone dying as you witness their leaving. They are here, and then gone. Without a word. No fuss!
“Slipping away” as Billy Connolly says.

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Ruminating on an illusion

"Life can only be understood  backwards; but it must be lived forwards." - Kierkegaard
Is one of the abject aspects of old age, of retirement, a re-evaluating of one's past? Ruminating on a life lived professionally in an environment that subsequently appears a fundamental mistake leads to what? Freedom, despair? If the response is freedom, is it a real freedom? Might that be an illusion?

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Ruminating on an illusion

"Life can only be understood  backwards; but it must be lived forwards." - Kierkegaard
Is one of the abject aspects of old age, of retirement, a re-evaluating of one's past? Ruminating on a life lived professionally in an environment that subsequently appears a fundamental mistake leads to what? Freedom, despair? If the response is freedom, is it a real freedom? Might that be an illusion?

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The perils of distraction

One of us, K, thinks that a lot of what we do is done to distract us from the fundamental tragic aspects of life. The other, R, is not sure about this.

R. What do you mean by distraction?

K. I think we have a need to distract ourselves from the lonely waiting for death, which can begin early in life, and which depresses some  young people so much that they elect   to suicide.   We have a need to pretend that we are not just helplessly subject to the life cycle. Distraction starts early with fairy stories and adventure stories and cartoons, which are all about super human powers.

R. Hmm. Distraction sounds very judgemental to me. What would it mean to not pretend that we are helpless? What would it be like to bear death in mind all of the time?

K.  I think of Buddhism, and being in the present without the grandiose intrusions of fame and fortune. Being less distracted would mean being less grandiose and wanting to be special in the eyes of other people - parents, peers, social media.

R. I think you might be confusing distraction with denial in your position.

K. To me denial is the precursor of distraction - one follows the other.

R. I think they are quite different and distinct. Denial is just that, a refusal to acknowledge the truth. Distraction for you seems to be the impetus for culture, so it is all pervasive. But as such there is no outside. To me there is no necessary connection between the imagination and the denial of death - for example.

K. I think we use imagination in the service of denial of the inevitable, by finding or creating things to distract us.

"But the fear of death grew ever darker upon them, and they delayed it by all means that they could; and they began to build great houses for their dead, while their wise men laboured unceasingly to discover if they might the secret of recalling life, or at the least of the prolonging of Men's days. Yet they achieved only the art of preserving incorrupt the dead flesh of Men, and they filled all the land with silent tombs in which the thought of death was enshrined in the darkness. But those that lived turned the more eagerly to pleasure and revelry, desiring ever more goods and more riches;...." (The Silmarillion-J.R.R.Tolkien)

To be continued

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The perils of distraction

One of us, K, thinks that a lot of what we do is done to distract us from the fundamental tragic aspects of life. The other, R, is not sure about this.
R. What do you mean by distraction?


K. I think we have a need to distract ourselves from the lonely waiting for death, which can begin early in life, and which depresses some young people so much that they elect to suicide. We have a need to pretend that we are not just helplessly subject to the life cycle. Distraction starts early with fairy stories and adventure stories and cartoons, which are all about super human powers.


R. Hmm. Distraction sounds very judgemental to me. What would it mean to not pretend that we are helpless? What would it be like to bear death in mind all of the time?


K. I think of Buddhism, and being in the present without the grandiose intrusions of fame and fortune. Being less distracted would mean being less grandiose and wanting to be special in the eyes of other people – parents, peers, social media.


R. I think you might be confusing distraction with denial in your position.


K. To me denial is the precursor of distraction – one follows the other.


R. I think they are quite different and distinct. Denial is just that, a refusal to acknowledge the truth. Distraction for you seems to be the impetus for culture, so it is all pervasive. But as such there is no outside. To me there is no necessary connection between the imagination and the denial of death – for example.


K. I think we use imagination in the service of denial of the inevitable, by finding or creating things to distract us.


“But the fear of death grew ever darker upon them, and they delayed it by all means that they could; and they began to build great houses for their dead, while their wise men laboured unceasingly to discover if they might the secret of recalling life, or at the least of the prolonging of Men’s days. Yet they achieved only the art of preserving incorrupt the dead flesh of Men, and they filled all the land with silent tombs in which the thought of death was enshrined in the darkness. But those that lived turned the more eagerly to pleasure and revelry, desiring ever more goods and more riches;….” (The Silmarillion-J.R.R.Tolkien)


To be continued

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The denial of death

Ernest Becker grasped the insight that a primary motive of mental life is the denial of death. The mechanism for this denial is the construction of a fictional, tragic-heroic self which is the center of our lies, delusions and immortality projects. - Ernest Becker Foundation Newsletter: April 2000.

According to Becker, "everything that man does in his symbolic world is an attempt to deny and overcome his grotesque fate. He literally drives himself into a blind obliviousness with social games, psychological tricks, personal preoccupations so far removed from the reality of his situation that they are forms of madness."

Now what stands out for me is the idea that the symbolic world, which I imagine is another term for culture, is a form of denial. What is denied is the ineluctable fact of death. To many existential philosophers this fact points to the fundamental absurdity of the world. And by absurdity is meant inherent meaninglessness. In which case meaning, the symbol, is a projection and that is all that is available. There is nothing else, nothing else that can protect us from this meaninglessness. If the symbolic construction is all there is and we provide it, we alone, then we have total and ultimate responsibility for it. Another way of putting this is that the symbolic constructions we make are the meanings of the world. But they can not in any way protect us from death or indeed from contingencies.

Ron.

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Gender imbalance

When we thought about the blog, we ignored gender issues. One of us came upon the following and realised the significance of our mistake.
"Looking at John it seemed to her that men are forever alone. Men,she said to herself, are not like women. Their aloneness is in their souls. In their deepest place, men remain solitary all their lives. No matter how well loved they know themselves to be by a woman, men are always on their own. We never touch them in the place of their solitariness. John is alone now, lying here beside me sleeping. And when he reads his books, then he is also alone. He looks in those old dead books for the answer to his own aloneness, seeking a confirmation of his solitariness in the thoughts of other men, hoping to hear in their thoughts an echo of his deepest aloneness. And when he meets it, he says to himself with satisfaction, There! I knew it already. And when he drinks too much wine he embraces his aloneness as if it were a punishment that he has deserved. And when he goes out on the Seine at night with Andre in his boat and they fish together and share their friendship, then they are alone in their hearts and they know it and it afflicts them, and they can't be honest with each other. And their dishonesty twists their thoughts around each other and around their friendship and makes them dissatisfied, and they withdraw into themselves and into their solitariness for the grain of solace that is there for them. Solitariness is man's only truth. And that is the difference between us and them.But the woman who has a child growing inside her body is not alone. The man has no companion for his soul. He is always looking for something he can't have. He is always discontent. But the woman who is a mother has a companion for her soul. Woman is not singular, she thought. Man is singular and always remains so." Miller writes elsewhere in the same book that the woman who does not have a child has a 'magical daughter' who is with her always.
From Alex Milller - Lovesong pp287-8

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Magic voluntarism

Is this an example of what Mark Fisher calls 'magic voluntarism'? He defines it as "the belief that it is within every individual's power to make themselves whatever they want to be." 

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Magic voluntarism

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjHnWz3EyHs]

Is this an example of what Mark Fisher calls 'magic voluntarism'? He defines it as "the belief that it is within every individual's power to make themselves whatever they want to be."

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Euthanasia

This letter was published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age on 31 July:
 
Indignity of suffering
 
One small but crucial aspect was ignored in your editorial on euthanasia (''Legalise the right to choose assisted death'', 28/7). It is not only terminal illness which may justify a decision to end one's life. Unrelievable existential suffering is just as real as unbearable pain, and may be present when death is not imminent. This is the suffering associated with some severe conditions and may include an unbearable loss of dignity, complete absence of autonomy, and persistent crippling fear, among others. Because it may seem less tangible than terminal illness, including it in the debate could be just too hard for some people. But the relief of all kinds of suffering needs to be talked about for the subject to be considered in full.
Paul Laycock, Malvern

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