Mary Jane, me and the Apocalypse

So, this morning, I was checking out some tunes. Some dub, mostly. The cosmic vibe, the sweet soothing pulsing of the kicks and the mellow interplay with pads, fx and some percussion. This always puts me in a good mood. It makes me dreamy, especially when it’s 2 a.m. and black as hell outside.

I love the night.

And a vision came to form. A vision that is centered around Lacan’s image of the metaphor as the basic functioning of the unconscious.

Lacan says that the original inspiration that life evokes in our soul, is darkened by the ego, replacing it with a substitute. He says that in our discourse of thought and reflection, some signifiers are pushed down because they are unwanted, they don’t fit in the ideals of the ego, and the ego replaces it with a false word, one that is more desirable, more politically correct. So our ego polishes itself, so that it may shine and be attractive to our awareness. The devil gains some attention that way, and becomes more important. Politics, you know.

So, this substituting one signifier, which means word, basically, for another signifier, or word, is what Lacan calls the operation of the metaphor. He presents this as S1/S2. The second signifier (S2) replaces the first signifier (S1) and comes to stand above it, keeping the original down and rendering it un-conscious.

So he cautions us to be critical of our politically correct thinking. He argues that a lot of polishing may be present, and what we think we feel or think, may only be a disguising of our original and true heart and intent.

The replacing of one signifier with another is thus a linguistic act, but it is at the same time an act of energetic oppression, it is a quick substitution killing the life and being present.

He makes a distinction between the original repression, which is the primary fixation of the drive by the instance of the mirror, characterized by brute and primal fear (a/S1), and the successive repression that takes place in the afterglow of this big bang, in the further substitution of one expression of the real by a fake confabulation (S1/S2) that is possible because of and through the installation of the primary illusion, the mirror.

So he basically says, as I see it, that the drive is first clouded by the mirror, and through the instance of the mirror, which is the resisting actor of the ego, every other further act of clouding and obscuring truth becomes a possible reality.

So I thought, really, if it is so simple as to substitute one term of the inner discourse for another, because we don’t like the original and true very much, could this not be the secretive creeping of what we call civilization ? I will explain.

Today, many people make a living processing and manufacturing the original and true being of the earth. For example, we have clay, we have minerals, we have water, gold, diamonds, we even have plutonium and uranium.

To take that which is original, and to turn it into something else, can be seen as a metaphoric action. We make ‘a ring’ from ‘gold’, we make ‘a bottle’ out of ‘crude oil’, we turn ‘a crystal’ into ‘a laser’.

Of course, there is energy involved in this, as it is in the mind. The ego, or man in this case, acts on the original, to turn it into something more desirable.

This can be art, or it can be science. In both cases, it is a matter of economy.

So what about the ego and economy ?

The ego is rewarded with attention, the more it profiles itself as adapted perhaps, to the environment. To fit into the principles of reality, to be a part of the social structure, is to be approved of by Big Brother, by the discourse the world around us has evolved unto. When we are ‘perfect’, it means we have an image that is approved of and is hailed and rewarded with love. So we suppress in full fear what damages the ego, because we fear we would receive less of the love. But in so doing, it is remarkable, that we are killing the love of god that lives within our essence, our souls, and exchange it for the love and approval of the world around us. To win a bit of this, we are prepared to sacrifice all of the other. And suppressing the soul, love, can we ever truly find it ? Is there a future structurally in these ways ? Or are we missing the point by design ?

So when we turn some original material into something socially approvable, we gain love. It may be money. We may win a prize, for an invention we made. For a chemical reaction we discovered and can now use to heal or to destroy. So making something artificial out of an original matter, is an operation by which we are gaining. We are gaining love, we are gaining well-being, we are gaining money.

Could it be that we are sacrificing a smaller or bigger part of the original well-being here as well, a part of the original richness ? Are we not, creating in this way, in truth destroying ?

I think it is a question of which we should be mindful. As we look upon the state of the world, have we not, in making so many things, been taking away much of the wealth of nature, and destroying the abundance that was already present ? Have we not been putting things down more than we have been lifting them up ? Are we not becoming poorer the more we rely on our science, our economy, our capitalist dream of making ‘more’ ? Does our economic ideology produce really something ‘more’ other than ‘more’ poverty ? Less love ? Less well-being ? It is a question that should not be too quickly dismissed, I believe.

For to psychoanalysis, it is a point that the lies, there where the ego is trying to establish its perfect image, a very primitive battle for the love and presence of the nurturing mother perhaps, the lies should be given up, for the rebirth and revelation of the original and the true nature.

So to psychoanalysis, the surplus value must be sacrificed, for us to become sane and healthy once again.

That is all there is to it.

We must sacrifice our illusions and accept the true reality.

It is both Buddhist, and a matter of the native. The native is the only way health can sustainably prosper, the original nature is the only way to fulfillment, love and true well-being.

This is something that can be extracted from psychoanalysis I believe, and infused into our economics, our science and our capitalism.

And with Freud, we may ask what is the future of this illusion.

Disillusion ?

For when the whole discourse has become a thorough and multi-levelled lie, a web of lies, a whole structure of repression and politically correcting, who is going to love it any more ? Is god going to reward us because we have been tearing down all that was authentic and real ? Are we gonna get a bonus at the end of our lives, saying you twisted that very well ? And, more and more twisted as we become, are we growing into sanity ? Are we growing towards sanity ? Can we picture sanity at the end of our illusions ?

Perhaps after the death of them.

Perhaps after letting go of the clinging to them. Perhaps after saying goodbye to the false and the made-up. Perhaps when we have come to embrace our pure existence and celebrate our naked being. Perhaps after we have matured into beings that lovingly accept themselves and their world surrounding. Perhaps when we come home, every one a child in the cradle of the Mother.

So the future of capitalism is the future of the metaphor. It is the future of an illusion. The future of many an illusion. It is the question as to the future of the ego, the illusionist himself.

For when we see a magician on the streets, and he is pulling all of his tricks out of his hat, we may applause and love him, and put some money in his hat. We may overwhelm him with money if he is not just a magician on the street, but a magician in a company, who can pull out many a trick from his hat, and make the magic for the shareholders. We may spend lots of money on the chemist or the biologist who makes entire populations disappear through the military-industrial complex. We may give a huge applause to someone blaming the Jew or the Arab for problems of prosperity or security. Anyone who makes things from other things, receives attention.

So that means, probably, that the only one who doesn’t get the love, the money and attention, is he who lets things be. Who leaves people alone. Who accepts nature and the phenomena appearing in the realms of truth.

Nobody pays the jungle native, nobody pays the Buddhist monk.

But it may be, that one day, the human race would spend all of its money on a way to free itself from the lies and the illusions, one day, when the suffocation gets too much, when death is all around and winning, when the killing seems to never stop. For if there is a profit I believe, there is a corpse, there is a body. Murder. Profit, is murder.

And the ego gains attention, the ego gains love, the devil becomes an important agency.

Why do we all bow to such illusion ? Why can we not love reality ? Is life so bad ?

Why… are we… so mad ?