Tag: melancholy/nostalgia
Sadness in a transcendental form. Dreaming. Remembering. Memories. Nostalgia. Saudade. Madeleine de Proust. Anemoia. Sehnsucht.
Links about the concept of Wahnstimmung. Here, too, beyond the context of schizophrenia, in the sense of a state of dissociation and free-floating anxiety. Continue reading
The Suffering of the Everyday Banalities of Life
r/Pessimism, u/forestofdoom2022 Continue reading
How sad it is to be illā¦ knowing so much about your own illness and yet being unable to do anything about it.
Be critical of those who paint vice in nostalgic light, or youāll normalize confinement, and call it home.
āRational depressionā is the worst kind, because it simply acknowledges the truth of the cesspit that is oneās existence. The other kind, yes, reaches deeper abysses, but one holds on to the knowledge that itās like a passing wind. Lucidity, instead, makes the soul suffer with truth.
In his āAnalysis Terminable and Interminable,ā which was written in 1937, two years before his death, Freud expresses his deep frustration with the futility of the therapeutic attempts to cure self-destructive tendencies, āIn no phase of oneās analytic work does one suffer more from the oppressive feeling that all oneās efforts have been in vain and from the suspicion that one is ātalking to the windsāā (p. 404) The death drive reveals itself as incurable, it is a constitutive obstacle beyond which therapy is not capable of progressing. One can say that since the curse of the negative psychoanalytic insight, psychoanalysis has functioned as a breakdown of itself. It is a disappointment, a negation and rejection and a failure of itself. Psychoanalysis has thus become negative, an empty, meaningless huskāthe living dead.
The negative insight undermines psychoanalysis from within. Like a black sun that shines with darkness instead of light and, with this, dismisses its essence. A practical therapeutic dimension of psychoanalysis is its outer shell that remains from its original positive framework. As long as psychoanalysis maintains functioning in its therapeutic dimension, it betrays its negative insight and inner breakage, making the psychoanalyst a fraud. The psychoanalyst, in this case, is like a priest who lost his faith in God and fell into deep despair but still preaches, attending to the demand of the parish.
This internal breakdown can be considered a defeat of psychoanalysis, its failure, and its disability. From this, one might conclude that psychoanalysis should be relegated to the basement of history as a failed project, Freud should be declared a charlatan, and that various more empirically validated methods of comprehension and treatments that really help should now rightfully declare their victory over psychoanalysis, or that psychoanalysis has to be fixed, for example, by combining it with modern research. Such attempts have been made many times.
However, to me, this inner breakdown of psychoanalysis, its internal tragedy, which many adherents of psychoanalysis, including Freud himself, try to cover up, is the dearest in psychoanalysis. In this tragedy of the impossibility of psychoanalysis, in its curse, one can feel something painfully dear, absurd, and therefore sincerely human, and for the same reason, unbearable and repulsive. Perhaps in this personal tragedy of Freud and the tragedy of the breakdown of psychoanalysis, in their wretchedness, they coincide the most with the more profound deep pathetic and tragic truth about each of us. In this rupture with itself, psychoanalysis coincides with us, with our inner rupture, and with the inner rupture of the world.
Plunging into a black night of its soul, it meets the soul of each of us since the darkness of the soul is the only thing we genuinely hold in common. Our internal breakdown, brokenness, malfunction, tragedy, and absurdity encounter who we most genuinely are. This psychoanalysis coincides with life as such, as something doomed to failure and, in its essence, is nothing but a failure.
Julie Reshe, āNegative Psychoanalysis for the Living Deadā
In case you miss the Internet. Continue reading
William Shatner: my trip to space filled me with āoverwhelming sadnessā
William Shatner (Captain Kirk in Star Trek), after his trip in Jeff Bezosā Blue Origin space shuttle on Oct. 13, 2021. Continue reading
(On the romanticization of suffering)
[ā¦] And itās all beautiful and captivating, but sadly, itās also true.
There are some women whose face radiates light, emanates happiness. Just meeting their eyes, even before close interaction, you are hit with a transcendental contentment. Continue reading
Umberto Galimberti ā Interviews and conferences (excerpts)
Schopenhauer is considered a pessimist, of course: every time you donāt praise or exalt āthe individualā, you are pessimistic, of course, right?ā¦ ā¦ Even poor Leopardi is pessimistic, isnāt he? Those who say āpessimismāā¦ Iām like: are you looking at reality, goddammit, or do you really not want to see it? Read the full page
Chained To this feeling Into something There are no words for
Stranded in thoughts
Shape of Despair ā Solitary Downfall
These are the kind of people who live on the edge of life, so to speak, who are thrown into uncharted waters by their melancholy, and somehow manage to find the surface right before they are lost to the high tides. Anyone who has gone through debilitating bouts of depression knows what the feeling is like: you stand at the cliff of a mountain and gaze right into the abyss, whose gravitas is irresistible. During those times, it really helps to have something; anything at all to grab onto ā your job, your spouse, a family member, a promise made to someone, even a pet. As the years pass, however, you start to lose those things, everything feels old, repetitive, and it is not the case for melancholics to be friendly or even easy to be around to keep relationships. This results in the loss of personal meaning, and the fundamental truth of life hits the hardest when personal meaning is non-existent, for there is no cosmic one. The abyss pulls you in; you wade into the cold, uncharted waters, lost in its deep oblivion. This, to me, is suicide par excellence, and only a very contemplative few get to carry it out.
Selim GĆ¼re ā The Occult of the Unborn
And all the parties they fade And yes, my looks, theyāll go away Iāll just be left here in America But she never had a home for me
London Grammar ā America
Horace and Pete ā How do you find love?
A sad girl after a bad online date, another girl, a guy, Leon, and an old man at the bar. Continue reading
Approaching form Approaching a deeper meaning
My fragments lay scattered Buried deep Never awaken
Still dreaming of life
Shape Of Despair ā The Distant Dream of Life
Windows 95, youāre long gone but Iām still alive [ā¦] Windows 95, is only a metaphor for what I feel inside And although Iām older now Thereās still an emptiness Thatās never letting go somehow [ā¦] Have you ever walked into what seemed To be somebody elseās dream? And though the time wonāt let you pass It keeps you looking through the glass
Molly Nilsson ā 1995
Fritz Maisenbacher on YouTube commenting Feinbergās transcription of Bachās āOrgan Triosonata in C major BWV 529, mvt. II. Largoā played by Feinberg himself.
For me, the greatest Bach player of all time. He works only on the total sadness of Bach. Bringing in full light the absolute despair of Bach. And with such elegance! Strange and mourning voices in the darkness. Inviting you to their dark evening.
ā»
No āthumb downā and so goes further this holy way to express Bach, and further the ultimate singing of Feinberg, oh the nightly climax between 2:24 and 2:44ā¦ this is beyond my own possible emotional capacityā¦ and the last lights at about 5:33ā¦ adeā¦ adeā¦ and the last chord at 6:36, not to be commentedā¦
ā»
Last week, I was in the hospital for another surgery.
Upon me, before and after the operation, I saw faces. I heard voices. Looking at me, talking to me.
And this evening, listening to this music, I understand all of it.
Ill or not, young or old, all these persons, kind nurses, charming anesthetist, competent doctors, royal surgeon, all of them, all of them, with no exception, faced also their terrible destiny, on the Titanic of earthly lifeā¦ Their eyes are full of love and anguish, in a pathetic mix between life and death.
I came home now, bleeding and suffering, in the tiny hope of a good convalescence, and I listen to Feinbergās Bach.
He is not an Angel, but he speaks for all of us.
In his hands, our destinies. Pain and sorrow, love, kisses, incandescent lips of desire, and always these dark evenings, and sudden lights, all together.
A complete life.
Bach knew it, Feinberg knows it, all these faces, these smiles, these eyes full of sadness and hope, all of usā¦ all of usā¦
The Crazy Woman Next Door ā Conversation with Alda Merini
Unfortunately, the soul, which by the way is what then writes and survives [ā¦], is the part that flies over matter and is the one thatās the most attentive and the most painful: namely, seeing the deterioration of the body, this soul distress itself, itā¦ above all, it loses its way. Continue reading
This is how it always ends. With death. But first there was life, hidden beneath the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Itās all settled beneath the chitter chatter and the noise. Silence and sentiment. Emotion and fear. The haggard, inconstant flashes of beauty. And then the wretched squalor and miserable humanity. All buried under the cover of the embarrassment of being in the world. Blah, blah, blah, blahā¦ Beyond there is what lies beyond. I donāt deal with what lies beyond. Therefore, let this novel begin. After all, itās just a trick. Yes, itās just a trick.
Jep, āThe Great Beautyā, ending
I want a simpler network, newborn, with few people living there. I want it monochromatic. I want that only a few are able to browse it. I want for it to hide something that only a few chosen ones can and want to find. Internet is boring instead. Thereās everything and so there is no curiosity. Even though thereās everything, there is nothing really metaphysical. Years ago I was dreaming of drifting with my body inside the cables. Continue reading
When youāre walking down the hallway, or in class, how many of you have ever felt the weight pressing down on you? Hmm? I have. Everyone? Wow. Poe wrote about these things over a hundred years ago. So, as we read, we can see that āThe House of Usherā is not merely an old decrepit castle in disrepair. Itās also a state of being.
Ā«During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was ā but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I looked upon the simple landscape of the domain ā upon the bleak walls ā upon the white trunks of decayed trees ā with an utter depression of soul. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart.Ā»
Detachment; Henry teaching āThe Fall of the House of Usherā by Edgar Allan Poe
Never play by the stairs, youāre bound to fall down, Never play by the hillside, might slip and break your crown Never play by the fire, itās a danger to your health Never play by the wall, might fall and break yourself.
Never play by the river, you might tumble in and drown, Never play by the field, get filthy, dirty and brown, Never play by yourself, itās a danger to be alone, Never stray too far away, itās not safe outside of home.
I didnāt ask to be born, And I donāt think Iāll ask to die. I didnāt ask for the ground beneath my feet, I didnāt ask for the sky.
Emily & the Woods ā Never Play
An embracing sadness, soft, that fails to pierce me, to kill me.
Where are the hopes, where are the dreams? My Cinderella story scene
Avril Lavigne and Butch Walker ā The Best Damn Thing
Do I need to be in love? What is there otherwise from loving? Just takes a face To make everything else eraseā¦
Trespassers William ā My Hands Up
Big city life Here my heart have no base And right now Babylon de āpon me case
People in a show, All lined in a row. We just push on by, Itās funny, How hard we try.
[ā¦]
Soon our work is done, All of us, one by one. Still, we live our lives, As if all this stuff survives.
[ā¦]
I find myself in a big city prison Arisen from the vision of mankind
Designed, to keep me discreetly Neatly in the corner
[ā¦]
Mattafix ā Big City Life
Are you lost or incomplete? Do you feel like a puzzle, you canāt find your missing piece? Tell me, how do you feel? Well, I feel like theyāre talking in a language I donāt speak And theyāre talking it to me
Coldplay ā Talk
I saw your face in a crowded place and I donāt know what to do ācause Iāll never be with you
James Blunt ā Youāre Beautiful
Arisen in vain to a life, Bleeding inner to suffer with time. Endlessly lost and still searching For something; somedayā¦
Obsession & deceit
To burn a mark for a lifetime.
Boundaries to brake,
Reached from the edge of time.
To rebuild the past
For something that will everlast.
Just searching for to find itself
In still-motion.
[ā¦]
Serve the frail mind, Escape through the lifetime To glance for your dismal youth.
Get closer, Closer to your own faith.
Shape of Despair ā Still-Motion
I used to feelā¦ I used to sense what were Inside of me To feel waves of difference Waves which brought me to live I enjoyed this life in me Breathing and feeling Burning and suffocating Didnāt curse the hour Which gave birth to me Didnāt curse another life When bearing death inside
Now all things I do bear Are all gone and free This, myselfā¦ Now fleeing around death Cursing the hour And another lifeā¦ Which whom I used to care Nowā¦ Watching myself My own life Fading to afarā¦ Listening these voices And trying to tell them That I will soon be gone
Shape of Despair ā Curse Life
Old people, they look back at the good old days, and it was good because they were young. But they act like it was āthe dayā. No, it was ācause youth is good: thatās gone, youāre fucked; itās not the day. And then they reject anything thatās new, itās like we do with fucking hip-hop, if youāre in your 30s: Ā«Oh, fuck that, that aināt music, we had music back when 38 Special was aroundā¦Ā» What? No. Letās all fucking kill ourselves for the hypocrisy, right?
Doug Stanhope ā Deadbeat Hero
The worst thing that can happen to a man who spends a lot of time alone, is to lack imagination. Life, already dull and repetitive in itself, becomes, without fantasy, a morbid spectacle.
The Consequences of Love, Paolo Sorrentino
While my heart is sinking I do not want my voice to go out into the air
The Innocence Mission ā Tomorrow On The Runway
When youāre all alone in the lands of forever, Lay under the Milky Way, On and on, itās getting too late out, Iām not in love this time this night.
Canāt help it if I space in a daze, My eyes tune out the other way, I may switch off and go in a daydream, In this head my thoughts are deep, Sometimes I canāt even speak, Would someone be and not pretend? Iām off again in my world
Avril Lavigne and Clifton Magness ā My World
What if I forget your face? I couldnāt even dream of you
Trespassers William ā Flicker
You say the drinking is better than a woman And you say the thinking takes too much time Well God save your children should you have them For, to you, thereās nothing if thereās no wine
BĆ“a ā Drinking
[ā¦] every living creature on Earth dies alone.
Donnie Darko
We live with our dreams, but in the end, only the truth remains. And unfortunately we understand it only when we are gone.
Family Pack / Que faisaient les femmes pendant que lāhomme marchait sur la lune?
For living on in others, in memories and dreams Is not enough You want everything Another world Where the birds always sing
The Cure ā Where the Birds Always Sing
Fishermans Horizon ā A tribute
Music and pictures for the nostalgia of that place. Read the full page
Anyway, I can try anything, itās the same circle leading to nowhere, and Iām tired now. Anyway, Iāve lost my face, my dignity, my look, everything is gone and Iām tired now. Donāt be scared: Iāve found a good job and I go to work every day on my old bicycle you loved.
I am piling up some unread books under my bed and I really think Iāll never read again. No concentration, just a white disorder everywhere around me, you knowā¦ Iām so tired now. Donāt worry: I often go to dinners and parties with some old friends who care for me, take me back home, and stay.
Monochrome floors, monochrome walls; only absence near me, nothing but silence around me. Monochrome flat, monochrome life; only absence near me, nothing but silence around me.
Sometimes I search an event or something to remind me, but Iāve really got nothing in mind. Sometimes I open the windows, I listen people walking in the down street; there is life out there.
Yann Tiersen ā Monochrome (ft. Dominique A)
A womanās shoulders are the front lines of her mystique, and her neck, if sheās alive, has all the mystery of a border town. A no-manās land in that battle between the mind and the body.
The Devilās Advocate
Translated from Italian by me (WTFPL).
Flaming, astonished souls When torn is the veil of blindness
[ā¦]
Beauty appears, never intrusive nor lazy Languid when itās time, strong, light, and austere The air serene, brimming with strength
C.S.I. ā Brace (Ember)
Angels of the Universe ā Einar MĆ”r GuĆ°mundsson
No, this grave is not deep enough to accomodate the feelings of us all. Read the full page
And so with just a touch of our fingers We could make our circuitry explode All we ever wanted Was just to come in from the cold
[ā¦]
We really thought we had a purpose We were so anxious to achieve We had hope The world held promise For a slave To liberty
[ā¦]
When I thought life had some meaning Then I thought I had some choice (I was running blind) And I made some value judgments In a self-important voice (I was outa line) But then absurdity came over me And I longed to lose control (into no mind) Oh all I ever wanted Was just to come in from the cold
Joni Mitchell ā Come In From The Cold
All around me are familiar faces worn out places, worn out faces Bright and early for their daily races going nowhere, going nowhere Their tears are filling up their glasses no expression, no expression Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow no tomorrow, no tomorrow
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad The dreams in which Iām dying are the best Iāve ever had I find it hard to tell you ācause I find it hard to take When people run in circles itās a very very mad world
Children waiting for the day they feel good happy birthday, happy birthday Made to feel the way that every child should sit and listen, sit and listen Went to school and I was very nervous no one knew me, no one knew me Hello teacher, tell me whatās my lesson look right through me, look right through me
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad The dreams in which Iām dying are the best Iāve ever had I find it hard to tell you ācause I find it hard to take When people run in circles itās a very very mad world
[ā¦]
Tears For Fears ā Mad World
To love is to tire of being alone; it is therefore a cowardice, a betrayal of ourselves.
Fernando Pessoa ā The Book of Disquiet
Solitude devastates me; company oppresses me. The presence of another person derails my thoughts; I dream of the otherās presence with a strange absent-mindedness that no amount of my analytical scrutiny can define.
Isolation has carved me in its image and likeness. The presence of another person ā of any person whatsoever ā instantly slows down my thinking, and while for a normal man contact with others is a stimulus to spoken expression and wit, for me it is a counterstimulus, if this compound word be linguistically permissible. When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Yes, talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial, and in them intelligence gleams like an image in a mirror.
The mere thought of having to enter into contact with someone else makes me nervous. A simple invitation to have dinner with a friend produces an anguish in me thatās hard to define. The idea of any social obligation whatsoever ā attending a funeral, dealing with someone about an office matter, going to the station to wait for someone I know or donāt know ā the very idea disturbs my thoughts for an entire day, and sometimes I even start worrying the night before, so that I sleep badly. When it takes place, the dreaded encounter is utterly insignificant, justifying none of my anxiety, but the next time is no different: I never learn to learn.
Fernando Pessoa ā The Book of Disquiet
If on a winterās night a traveler ā Italo Calvino
The ultimate meaning to which all stories refer has two faces: the continuity of life, the inevitability of death. Read the full page
The unforgettable days in a manās life number only five or six. The rest just fill up space.
Ennio Flaiano, Autobiografia del Blu di Prussia (āAutobiography of Prussian Blueā)
Two useful lessons, of course: loneliness, isolation, exclusion on the one hand, then the continued distrust of the other caused by the loneliness, the isolation and the exclusion. And this as a child alreadyā¦
My mother gave me away. I lay on a fishing cutter with a woman in Holland, in Rotterdam, for one year. My mother visited me every three or four weeks there. I donāt think that she cared much for me then. This changed, however, later. I was one year old, we went to Vienna, but the distrust even continued when I was brought to my grandfather who really loved me, in contrast to my mother. Then the walks with him, all these figures, male figures; in my later books, this is always my grandfather on my motherās side. But beside my grandfather, again and again, you are alone. You can only develop alone, you will always be alone, the consciousness that a leopard canāt change its spots. Everything else is deception, doubt. It doesnāt changeā¦ During the school days, completely alone. You have a neighbor at school and you are alone. You talk to people, you are alone. You have views, strange ones, your own, you are always alone. And if you write a book, or as I write books, then you are even more aloneā¦
It is impossible to make oneself heard. Solitude and loneliness become increased loneliness, isolation. Finally, you change the scenes more and more quickly. One puts his trust in bigger and bigger cities, the small town is not sufficient anymore, not Vienna, not even London. You have to go to another country, you try to go here and there, foreign languages, is it Brussels? Or maybe Rome? And there you go. And you are always alone with yourself and your increasingly dreadful work.
Thomas Bernhard ā āThree Daysā, documentary
Aldrin: Beautiful view.
Armstrong: Isnāt that something? Magnificent sight out here.
Aldrin: Magnificent desolation.
Also see William Shatnerās trip to space.
Time Stood Still ā Ermanno Olmi
Peopleās feelings have changed. Read the full page
The Little Prince ā Antoine de Saint-ExupĆ©ry
All grown-ups were once childrenāalthough few of them remember it. Read the full page
Short Stories for a Year ā The Wheelbarrow ā Luigi Pirandello
When thereās someone around, I never look at her, but I feel that sheās looking at me, sheās looking at me without taking her eyes off me for a moment. Iād like to make her understand in private that itās nothing, that she should relax, that I couldnāt allow myself to perform this brief act in front of others, that for her itās of no importance, but for me itās everything. I perform it every day at the right moment in utmost secrecy and with frightful joy because, trembling, I experience the delight of a divine, conscious madness that for an instant frees me and allows me to get even with everything. Read the full page
Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and strangle it, out of jealousyāah, they know only too well that it will flee from them!
Friedrich Nietzsche ā Beyond Good and Evil
Joyās recollection is no longer joy, while sorrowās memory is a sorrow still.
Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) ā Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice (actāÆII, sceneāÆI)
There is no greater pain than to remember the happy time in wretchedness; [ā¦]
Dante Alighieri ā Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto V