Semesteranfangsbilanz

Ich muss anfangen, mit meiner Energie hauszuhalten; geizig und egoistisch damit zu sein. Wenn das Semester so weiter geht wie diese ersten beiden Tage, dann bin ich bald wieder reif fürs Burnout.

Tief durch atmen. Und 3, 2, 1...

Two of a kind...

Okay. So I've been writing these past couple of days/weeks; for work, not for fun that is. (Well actually also a bit for the fun of course. But I'll come back to that in a minute.)
I've also been having a very intense and emotionally disturbing time in my analysis (and that is: in my life). Not really a lot of fun, but kinda satisfactory nonetheless.
Both of which made me sort of incapable to write something here. So now I'm wondering if I have a sort of limit of writing/creative capacities (and also whether that exists in general, and not only for me). It seems that because I was busy with academic writing on the one, analysing my life in therapy on the other hand, I didn't feel the urge to write something here.
It's amazing how both of these activities are about analysis and interpretation; and this might be one of the most important reasons for my sympathy for psychoanalysis. I feel a very similar degree of satisfaction (or fun, as I would have it above) both in analysing a text and analysing myself; the pleasure culminating in the moment when you gain insight into something previously unclear or unknown to you. Things - almost suddenly and arbitrarily, out of the blue - fall into place, and you realize something you haven't realized before. Although this gnostic moment is of course no coincidence, but - in terms of psychoanalysis - the doing of the unconscious, revealed by the process of free association.

Both are processes of sense-making, but without you yourself really knowing where that process will lead you. I believe the most pleasure is gained precisely from the fact that the insight somewhat surprises you. That way, even if you realize a negative thing, you still have some sort of "pleasure in knowing".

It's the same, finally, with this little piece right here; I started writing without know that this is where I would end. Right. Here.

I'm lovin' it

Great music, choreography, editing, colours... I particularly like the snap at 0:23.
(NB: I think I want to have my hair cut like this.)


Vincent - tu viens me voir quand tu veux!

Small compendium of the swimming ethnologist

Recent activities in the enhancement of longevity have brought me back to the cultures of sport. Like any other community and/or discursive dispositive, sports have a set of specific subject positions that you must comply with in order to become a legitimate or accepted member. Judging from my particular swimming experience, they are the following:

(Note that the categories can be - with slight adaption - transferred to any other kind of sport.)

- The absolute beginner: With his/her unassertive look and habitus, the absolute beginner is easily identifiable by his/her assigned domain (reigned by total chaos), that is: everything that isn't the lanes visibly marked as for swimmers only. You will also easily recognize an absolute beginner by the lack of the very basic accessoire of every serious swimmer, the so called goggles. Some daring beginner will, after having bravely absolved a considerable amount of time in his/her region and familiarizing with goggles, trespass into the swimmer lanes, upon which he/she is either doomed to drown, die of a heart attack after a lane swum at the limits of his/her physical capacities (while being outdistanced by at least 12 other swimmers), or survive and henceforth be an officially accredited, serious swimmer.

- The desperate: A hounded look and slighlty despairing manner, the body of the desperate swimmer will have "I want to go home" written all over. Clearly, the desperate swimmer is overstrained, yet he/she will do everything to keep up with the norms of the swimmer lanes, and that is mainly because he/she likes to think of him-/herself as athletic. The obvious split between outer appearence and inner being (that is: capacities) will consistently be ignored by the desperate swimmer, although apparent to every other. Usually, the desperate will swim a maximum of two lanes at a time, after which he/she will retire for a 20min "stretching" break at the edge of the pool.

- The do-or-die: To call his/her look determined would be the understatement of the century. The do-or-die swimmer is clearly not here for fun or relaxation or entertainment; he/she is here to do business, that is: break a world record, or at least the national one. He/she will mercilessly floor everyone and everything that dares to come into his/her way. After 2 hours of swimming, he/she will usually go on to absolve another countless kilometres of jogging or cycling, because - obviously - the do-or-die is training for the next Ironman.

- The pro: Former or active swimming professional, the pro will with a single tempo cross half the length of the lane. He/she is able to do a professional turn even at the shallow end of the lane and without swallowing half the water of the pool. He/she will also use different, variously shaped foamed rubber accessoires (and while using, say, only the arms, he/she will still be faster than most of the others). The ultimate and foolproof indication that you really are seeing a pro is that he/she is the only one in the whole pool doing the dolphin butterfly strike.

- The senior: You will recognize the senior swimmer immediately, because her/his skin looks like dried fruit already before he/she enters the water. The senior swimmer clearly has seen better days, but nevertheless, he/she wants to keep in shape, and he/she does so in a pool because swimming, for whatever reason, is considered a particularly gentle kind of sport. The senior swim style is best characterized as ballet of the whales meets the dying swan.

And finally, the category I consider myself to belong to...

- The elegant fish: What strikes the eye first is a certain, nonchalant laissez-faire attitude. Every part of the elegant fish will tell you that if he/she wanted to, he/she could easily make the effort and outdo most of the other swimmers. But that would be unelegant and kind of popular, and elegance is the prime principle of the elegant fish (hence the name). The elegant fish easily blends into his/her element and has a swimming style best characterized as water camouflage. Understatement is the elegant's fish second principle.

The same but not quite

So there is is. You wake up one morning, and feel - not completely different, but slighty off track. As if slightly unhinged. It is not a big deal, all in all. Your perception of the world just a wee bit changed, as if hearing through clogged ears. And it's not even that you mind it that much. That may be the most surprising thing about it all: the amount of indifference felt. No drama.

Images past and forgotten resurge.

And it seems that all of a sudden, you can feel the weight of your own body.

Quote of the day

When a psychic structure is objectively determined by economics and political relationships, it cannot be dealt with by means of purely pschyological therapies; yet it is equally impossible to deal with it by means of purely objective transformations of the economic and political situation itself, since the habits remain and exercise a baleful and crippling residual effect.

Fredric Jameson World Literature in an Age of Multinational Capitalism

Dressing fantasy

I wish I could wear one of Hussein Chalayan's dresses for my PhD defence.

Beckett's Waiting for Godot meets Orwell's 1984. Or: North Korean Theatre of the Absurd.

After launching a long-range missile today, North Korea claimed it had successfully shot a satellite into space. A satellite that, besides registering some sort of space data, was supposedly playing revolutionary songs in praise of dictator Kim Jong-Il.

Dear Barak Obama and all you other super military power people. Do not worry about a space defence shield against aliens to protect the earth. North Korea found the solution. Motto: Communism or death; even for you alien buggers.

H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S, I say.

Who the Facebook are you?

So half my class turned up on Facebook in these past couple of week.

It's the oddest thing. All of a sudden being confronted with your past. People you once spent most of your time with, everyday, in my case for 9 (very long) years. You're confronted with the person you once were. And the person you might have turned out to be.

But do they really care who you are now (or, as a matter of fact: did they care who you were in the past)? For the most part, I don't think so. I mean, I'm not really interested in what most of them have done, or are doing right now, or - as a matter of fact - I wasn't even interested in them back in the days when we were in school together. It just so happened that we shared the same classroom, whether we liked each other or not.

I don't mean to be snobbish or anything. It is a matter of pure indifference, actually. And frankly, I don't really know why I should feel in any way connected to those people, just because we once accidentally decided to go to the same school.

It's a bit like with your family; classmates are people you can't really chose. And high school reunions, too, are a bit like family reunions; certainly feels that way to me.

Fab's words of wisdom

Erinnern und Erleben sind, physiologisch betrachtet, beinahe dasselbe.

Womöglich hat Proust sich deswegen die zweite Hälfte seines Lebens zurückgezogen, um zu schreiben; und schreibend von seinen Erinnerungen zu leben.

Womöglich ist das auch der Grund dafür, dass wir Träume so intensiv erleben.

Und der Grund dafür, dass Lesen Abenteuer im Kopf ist.

So gesehen, wäre womöglich - physiologisch betrachtet - schreiben, träumen, lesen, erinnern und erleben beinahe dasselbe.

False consciousness or something of the likes

You know, compulsory heterosexism is a powerful tool. It makes people see what they want to see; it makes people believe what they want to believe.
Love is blind? Heterosexuality is too.

Quotes of the day

Ich erinnere mich daran, dass ich ihr sagte, dass es für den überwiegenden Teil unserer gemeinsame Zeit ihre Aufgabe sei, mir körperliche Gegebenheiten bewusst zu machen, in den Vordergrund zu rücken, die wir unsere ganze Kindheit über lernen zu ignorieren, um überhaupt leben zu können. Und dann gab sie mir eine Antwort, die mir einleuchtete: Dass nämlich das 'Lernen' in der Kindheit falsch gewesen sei, sonst hätte ich es nicht nötig, ihr gegenüber in einem Sessel zu sitzen und dreimal in der Woche um Hilfe zu bitten.

Werde ich die naheliegende Feststellung machen, dass das Wort 'neurotisch' vielleicht den Zustand eines Menschen bezeichnet, der in hohem Maße bewusst und differenziert ist. Der Kern der Neurose ist der Konflikt. Und der Kern des Lebens heute, eines Lebens, das sich allem stellt, was vorgeht, ist der Konflikt. Tatsächlich habe ich die Stufe erreicht, wo ich die Leute ansehe und behaupte - er oder sie, sie sind überhaupt nur intakt, weil sie sich entschieden haben, auf dieser oder jener Stufe abzublocken. Die Leute bleiben gesund, indem sie abblocken, indem sie sich selbst begrenzen.

Doris Lessing Das goldene Notizbuch