No way to progress

What I want to say this time is a bit complicated, ‘though it is very easy as well.

In some of my previous theoretical writing, I have come to sketch the human psychodynamic structure with its double narcissism, as the functioning of a robot, a machine. I have tried to argue that the psychic apparatus as analyzed by Freud and Lacan has three levels in his make-up, that distinguish themselves by the level of operation.

At first, there is the steel, the pure raw machine arm or the robot leg. This is the real of the psyche. On this is attached a whole structure of pneumatics and hydraulics, whereby the arm or the leg is animated, brought to move. This is the level of the primary narcissism, the ideal ego, the realm of the imaginary. By the ego, the real of the body is subjected and manipulated, it dominates the real by overlaying it with its oppressive structure of tensions. So, to speak of narcissism, the body looks to the tensions as to how to behave, the real looks to the imaginary, the child looks in the mirror.

On a third level of the psychological structure, we find the symbolic. The symbolic is like a language, it is said, and I would offer the suggestion, to whomever fancies it, that it is like a computer language, a programming of the ego with prescriptions of behavior. It is the culture that offers prescriptions, do’s and don’ts as to the cramping of the tensions in the body. Move your arm this way, speak that way, salute as I do. So the structure of the tensing looks at the social programming as to how it should tell the body to behave itself. The imaginary mirrors itself in the symbolic, the ideal-ego becomes the inspiration for the narcissism of the ego ideal. This is called the secondary narcissism, for it is the mirror for the mirror.

We can see that in being organized in such a layered make-up, the human being is far from home, estranged from its nature and its instinct. We are proud of this, and call it culture.

The problem arises, however, when two cultures meet, or should we say, when two cultures clash. For one, the prescribed behavior, enforced by the instance of the ego, is this way, for another, it is that way. And it will be a war, it will be a struggle, a wrestling match, as to which culture will cramp its ways onto the body of the people. Because, according to my program, the body should act this way, so why does your body not act according to my prescriptions ? I must enforce my ways upon you then, I must make you tense and cramp according to my culture. This may be called a process of civilization, it is what every child goes through in its upbringing, pedagogics let us say, and it is what the children of so many places in the world have gone through in the process of being conquered and colonized, agogics let us say.

We always find nice ways to name the process of cramping people.

It is big brother, selling his prescriptions with a nice smile.

But it is a struggle and a tension nonetheless.

So in these days, we see a lot of this. People are moving from all around the globe, refugees, immigrants, foreign workers, businessmen… and they are all bringing their culture with them. This gives rise to war, to struggle, to wrestling matches between prescriptions of behaving and modes of being.

I believe there is wisdom in the ways of the martial arts. In the martial arts, we also find a lot of prescriptions as to how to behave. But it is said, by the best and by the greatest masters, that you are nowhere as long as you are functioning in the line of any form of programming. It will slow you down and make you inauthentic, it will compromise your victory and make you lose.

To master the art, you must transcend the program, you must see it all, learn from it all, and then find your own soul flow.

Like in music ! These days. I listen to music all day, and I listen to a lot of different music. Some music I especially like, because it is new. It has arisen from a world of opportunity where instruments and influences from around the globe are being brought together. So, for instance, in Africa, they play the djembe, and they have quite some tradition and prescription for that. In Morocco, they play the darbuka, in India, the sitar, in Australia, they play the didgeridoo.

So now there are people let us say, perhaps western people who are brought up playing the piano or the violin or the guitar. But their mind is not fixed upon enforcing their own body language upon another being. They are not bent on being teachers, they remain open minded and stick to being students. So they encounter this world full of cultural diversity, and they learn to play the djembe, and they learn to play the didgeridoo.

And one day, they just throw all the programming away, they just leave it all behind, and they start anew. This is the meaning of creativity, that you create something new. So they make a song. The play the djembe, they add some guitar, add some didgeridoo, some darbuka and some sitar, and perhaps they even throw in a Sioux songline. So they are prophets of the new world, the world the world is growing into.

They are students who drop the way, who drop the instance of culture and prescription, they are creators who invent something new. The rebels and the misfits Steve Jobs talked about and praised.

And is that not the opportunity for mankind these days ? That we would all become such musicians ? That we all mix some Thai cuisine with some Chinese food and perhaps add some Mexican beans with that ? That we take the Japanese dresscode and mix it with some Peruvian trousers ? Where are the borders, on this one planet ? Are they not transcended so frequently these days, that we may ask ourselves if they should even remain there at all ? Why not get to know the world, and make something new of it every day ? There is so much to see ! There is so much to learn ! And will those few tensions we have learned to obey keep us from getting to know the other, to explore the myriad possibilities of music, clothing and cuisine that the world is so full of ?

Why would we keep on defending our own Big Brother ? Why should we remain machines ? Why should we adhere so strict to the notion of border and culture ? Let us ALL get to know each other. And let us find something interesting and surprising in each brother and sister we encounter. And let us never copy, but let us all remain original, children of creativity itself, that has shaped this wonderful and diverse planet in our cosmos.

Let us not remain slaves to our narcissism, let us not forever each defend our way. Let us drop the way, for only by leaving behind the way, can we find progress. Only by leaving behind the trodden path, can we explore the beauty of nature. Let us be adventurous, and undertaking. Let us be open and learning. Who knows what clothes we may enjoy wearing, who knows what spices we may love to taste, and who knows what musical instruments may bring delights unknown yet to our ears.

I know we are preoccupied. We are occupied in advance, by the ego and its tensions, and by the machine that rules us all. But let us be anew, let us be divine, let us be close to nature once again, let us just be bodies living all together, so enthusiastic about all of life, so eager to learn, as open as a flower is to the sun.

So I say, there is no way to progress. Progressing is dropping the way. Progressing is where you explore form after form, culture after culture, and become a master of life, a master of the world. Progress is where we are slaves no more, when we stop being robots. Progress is for the ones of tomorrow, the ones of a new age, where there is one love, one world, one planet, one people. A people so rich, in music, in culture, that they would never go back to the tiny holes they live in today.

So when we meet form after form, culture after culture, way after way, we will feel when the time is ripe, and we become authentic, original, creative children of a world that can flower without borders, that can prosper without war, that can find acceptance and know peace, joy and celebration, in the histories of all. Let us live for that world, let us live for that flowering, and let us never mind about the way.

To return to the dry matter of psychoanalysis, I believe that in the end, in giving up our identifications, we will drop the prescription of the hydraulics and the pneumatics as such, we will drop the system of tension and cramps that houses in our being, we will drop the program of suppression and oppression, which is the prescription that grounds all others, the master signifier, which is an imaginary one. But in a world so full of beauty, who will care still about the self in a mirror ?