leaving this up for a while
David Gale: We spend our whole life trying to stop death. Eating, inventing, loving, praying, fighting, killing. But what do we really know about death? Just that nobody comes back. Then there comes a point - a moment - in life when your mind outlives its desires, its obsessions, when your habits survive your dreams, and when your losses... Maybe death is a gift. You wonder. All I can tell you is that by this time tomorrow I'll be dead. I know when. I just cannot say why. You have 24 hours to find out.
What is it that you fantasize about?
Lacan's point. Fantasies have to be unrealistic because the moment - the second - that you get what you seek - you dont - you cant want it anymore. In order to continue to exist, desire must have its objects perpetually absent. Its not the 'it' that you want. It's the fantasy of 'it' . So desire supports crazy fantasies
This is what Pascal mean when he says that we are only truly happy when daydreaming about future happiness, or why we say the hunt is sweeter then the kill. Or becareful what you wish for, not because you will get it, because you're doomed not to want it once you do
So the lesson of Lacan is, living by your wants will never make you happy. What it means to be fully human is to strive to live by ideas and ideals, and not to measure your life by what you have attained in terms of your desires, but those small moments of integrity, compassion, rationality, even self sacrifice.
Because in the end, the only way we can measure the significance of our own lives is be valueing the lives of others
No comments:
Post a Comment