Tag: life

Norman Bates and his Mother

Psycho is a fascinating film that explores the inner-workings of a mental illness pertaining to a man whose sense of self is dominated by a mother figure. His mother had died long ago but the ‘ghost’ of her remained within Norman. He compensated for this death by going into episodes where he would take on her role. The role was a defensive mechanism towards what Norman felt as a threat towards himself through the perspective of an over-protective simulacrum of his mother.

At the end of Psycho 2, we find the truth. Normans real mother appears and we learn his dead mother was actually the real ones sister. Norman, showing no sign of distress and operating with an erie calm, strikes his real mother in the head with a shovel after she reveals the truth. Why would Norman kill his actual mother when, for what it seemed, he so desperately needed a mother figure in his life? This end scene provides a startling revelation.

For Norman, it was never about the reality of the mother, it was always about the fantasy. The mother signified the highest authority figure, who would look after and give orders to an insecure and scared little boy. The outside world was taught to be impure and dangerous by the mother figure, this led Norman to live a reclusive life that depended on the mother for safety. After her death, through the years, living alone in the house his mother once occupied, Norman created the perfect mother figure, the perfect bringer of peace and order in a world of chaos and evil. This imaginary mother figure engendered by the death of his former mother was the culmination of all that Norman desired in a paternal figure. The appearance of a living mother that would replace this imaginary matriarch is a stoppage of the fantasy.

Fantasy dissolves when coming face to face with reality, it no longer works because fantasy finds life within a realm of death (a void) where the virtuality of imagination is free to set itself up whatever it can possibly desire, unconstrained by any shortcoming of actual reality. The real mother that presented herself to Norman had to be killed and from her body and the actuality of her death; Norman found the sustenance to perpetuate the virtuality of fantasy. The mother lives on but only through death. She lives on in the all-encompassing spirit of Normans most primary desires. It was never about a mother, it was what a mother signified and the signification was suited so perfectly for him that he wouldn’t let the real sully it.

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ocean in my head (freeverse)

 

there is an ocean in my head
filled with shipwrecks, 
they sink slowly 
carving the bottom with their dead weight 
scarring the earth 

encumbering the surface beneath the waves,
they fill this ocean with empty vessels
holding a vestige of what once was 
or maybe what could've been 

they sink far, 
into the darkness 
where there is barely any life, 
they slowly disappear from sight 
but are never gone and never fully forgotten

in this vast expanse in my head,  
regret is boundary-less 
anger is free to swim 
and every moment leaves scars, 
every ship loses to the storms 
and ventures into the bottom

 

dissociate (freeverse)

holding hands
you place mine close to your heart
keeping it there 
you caress 
squeezing harder as you hold 
massaging the fingers

first time you've done this
i look at you, shocked 
words flow through 
trying to attach a meaning  
to feel more
to be more 

you look at me with glowing eyes,
filled with emotion, 
i am here, too busy, 
scattered
trying to put value into this
struggling and working 
to get a deeper meaning

you feel a whole world 
open in front of you
merging you in serenity 
getting the meaning immediately 
while im here
feeling nothing 
but a hand

Ego is everything

I know of a person who has tyrannized the ego, abolishing it from his very existence. Turning it into a symptom of all human evil and labeling it as an enemy to mankind. He proposes we need to rid ourselves of the ego to achieve a higher state of being human but it is the ego itself that gives us our humanity. He has set himself on a path of struggle to attain a greater goal for himself and others that he believes will usher in a divine human purpose. Without knowing it, he is acting directly on his ego. The ego wants to live for something greater than itself, it wants a higher purpose and a higher meaning so it can elevate itself to this greatness and it wants to suffer and to struggle for this greatness because in suffering is how we achieve greatness. Human beings who express the highest form of ego are willing to die just for an idea or cause, just for something outside of the self that is greater than the self; these are the people who sacrifice themselves for the greater good and suffer for what they believe is right. This is how the world is formed. The world is inherently meaningless, mankind cannot come to grips with the nothingness so we extend our power over it and shape it like it is clay and we mold this world to our desires. This is how religion has started. Man through living in a world with no purpose and no meaning wants to elevate himself to something greater so they create a God to create a world of meaning and divine purpose that can satiate the desires of the ego and make their existence important. The abstractions man creates from the ego are formulated because the ego desires suffering, it wants to struggle and it craves action to spark its progress.  The desire to help others is also part of the ego. Through helping others we extend our power onto them, the power of our ego, and from this we gain recognition and feel like we matter in a world where we are looked at as human beings deserving of respect and dignity and our existence is meant to be appreciated. Helping others is the highest purpose of the ego because it increases its power and extends itself among others which sublates its desires into a greater whole. This is our humanity, this is what separates us from animals. This is where our spirit comes from. Without this, there is no passion, there is no reverence for life, there is no creation. Growth and progress of self and others is only possible through an ego that views such things as important and necessary, without this ego there would be full nihilism where the desire for growth and the struggles that it brings would seem utterly pointless because it serves no end, it has no meaning. Animals live with no meaning, they live for nothing higher than themselves and negating the ego is a progression into animal life. As the individual gathers experience and builds their identity, they project onto the world their values and morphs the world to suit those values. The greatest works of art and music is built on the egos of the artist. The ego creates kingdom and empires, it instills on the world its truth and it spreads affecting other egos through its power.

Ego has laid the foundation for every meaning in this world. 

The ego is what makes us who we are. Without ego, the self disintegrates, without the self, there is a hinderance in consciousness and a hinderance in human desire. One desires to fulfill the self. Desiring brings something to the self, where it can fulfil and nullify the longing for it. Without ego, there is no desire. There is no creation, everything is meaningless, mankind does not possess any power, they have no respect for self and others and are alienated in the world and deprived of their very humanity. Through ego, all creation is formed, all the good and the bad, it is part of the whole, the whole of what makes us human and what creates meaning in the meaningless.