A Light Without Representation

[evensong]

For those who are racked by melancholia, writing about it would have meaning only if writing sprang out of that very melancholia. I am trying to address an abyss of sorrow, a noncommunicable grief that at times, and often on a long-term basis, lays claims upon us to the extent of having us lose all interest in words, actions, and even life itself.

Comments

[oh_marvelous]

wow. I loved this.

[evensong]

aw, & i love you...

kristeva is brilliant, really, she's my favourite theorist because she writes about simply everything--language and literature and religion and love and depression. she explores the meaning(s) of life, i believe. and her prose is always amazing. i'm really glad you like it :)

[winterspulse]

i think you and i need to have a little rendezvous soon! maybe end of this coming week if my ankle allows me to go out? :)

[evensong]

oh c, i'm sorry, please don't take my ramblings too seriously. i go through all sorts of fits and moods these days (mostly i blame it on the process of coming off of anti-depressants, this being the first week i've done without them completely, but who knows--that may just be an excuse to act mental) :P

i meant to comment on your last entry; and sympathise with your poor ankle! how did it happen? (was it at work?) you need to be careful... and how goes the bed rest? when does the dr say you can go out? (not that drs are always to be trust, but still, better having a professional opinion than none i suppose.) i hope to be in better spirits by june; so yes, do let us hope that this summer weather lasts and have a little rendezvous.

♥

[winterspulse]

don't be sorry, i know how it can be. i didn't mean for you to read too much between the lines. all i was saying is that i've been working for a while and now cooped up and it would be nice if i went out and wandered around with someone.

missed a step on the stairs at work. my doctor was vacationing last week, the doctor on call had me get xrays done and told me to ice it. i can go out whenever i want provided i can walk. it's still healing so i don't want to injure it again but i'm thinking in a few days i can probably go out. i'll probably stay off work for the remainder of this coming week, though. better safe than sorry though: too many injuries with too many workers' compensation weeks and the hotel will not be impressed. aha. :p

[sandragolightly]

I love to read your words.
Let's be friends.

[evensong]

certainly, if you'd like :)

[woodydespair]

I'm so glad you posted this. I needed to read it, hear this subject addressed with such tender yet brutal eloquence. I'd never thought to look into Kristeva much, not being big on psychoanalysis, but you have prompted me to look past that categorisation of her work, to look deeper. Because this passage was just amazing... beyond words... and I suspect you know what I mean (or feel) without me needing to find those elusive words to describe it.

xo.

[evensong]

this is such a beautiful, touching comment; and i would like to think that both of us know about this 'black sun'--how it feels, even when we fail to properly convey what we mean. i can understand the aversion to psychoanalysis, having shared it myself, but kristeva does truly transcend that categorisation--especially in her later works. and i think what moved me most when i first read this passage was her willingness, her refreshing honesty perhaps, to write it in the first person. it had so much emotional impact...beyond words. exactly. thank you, deeply, for understanding that. somehow, not being alone in this gives me more hope than anything else.

take care. xo.

[deadstar_1]

for some bizarre reason, this reminded me of keats' 'ode to melancholy.' I love the idea that he thought you should make the most of melancholy/depression&be creative with it. but with this passage, its the last line: The depressed person is a radical, sullen atheist. I've never even considered that depression is radical, but then I guess in my field of academia (psychology), dpression is a mental disorder&should be treated as an illness, not something which you can learn many lessons from.

[evensong]

oh! are you in psychology? i didn't know that...though i should have :) i'm curious about the scientific empirical turn the field seems to have taken in recent years (is it that way where you're studying as well?)--i'm not in it but i do have a close friend who is--and i wonder whether things like psychosis, depression, and mental disorders should be treated as illnesses to be cured. there seems to be an invisible standard of 'normality' that therapists and doctors are pushing their patients to reach--but who's to say what's 'normal'? perhaps these things are simply a part of the human condition? i don't think anyone wants to live in such a state permanently, and indeed that may be impossible; but, as you said, i'd like to think that the state of melancholia is something other than merely an illness to be treated--that we can learn from it, grow from it, become more compassionate and creative in having experienced it.

[deadstar_1]

psychology has taken such a scientific turn, though I'm doing a particular course thats very heavily immersed in the scientific side of psychology, so no freud or jung for me! it seems to me that the therapists want to push this state of normality when the patient is in visible distress, often when they want help, thats when the doctors&therapists intervene. occasionally the theories some of these scientific psychologists are wild stabs in the dark&you wonder whether they really have ever spoken to a real human in their life, but most of the time their theories make sense, even if you do wish they weren't so reductionist.