Exploding Head Movie.

I feel uncomfortable associating people with things and sounds. And things with people. I think it's unfair to the people, and unfair to the objects.

My favourite prof, sexy Loebel, was comparing Descartes' and Hegel's versions of the Self in relation to Other. He described Hegel's Self as a cubed prison; portions of the Other, of alterity, are embedded in the walls. The construct of the Self cannot exist without the Other encased within it as an essential component of its form. Yet we try to pretend that the Other does not exist within us. And occasionally, we hear the Other screaming at us, hidden from sight within the walls.

He said that this is the root of paranoia and anxiety, when we hear these noises and are forced to confront the fact that the Other is a part of us. We are not safe and self-contained within this prison of Self, although our whole existence is occupied with perpetuating this illusion. The Self is a prison of our own construction that simultaneously limits and preserves us. He said the entire pharmaceutical industry is based on this collective desire to keep the Other at bay, separate from the Self we construct. He also said that paranoia is pure consciousness, not limited by self-consciousness. Everything comes at us, and we are unable to filter what is harmful to the construct of Self. Self-consciousness is awareness of consciousness. Consciousness is purely receptive, not reflexive. When we are reflexive, this is when the editing occurs, we start to monitor. We can choose what to believe or what not to believe about ourselves and other people, we can start forming an identity. But this identity is a fiction. We attempt uniformity of self, when in reality we are a multiplicity. We contain multitudes. Who said that? Walt Whitman. Is there any reason to feel afraid?

Anyways. This image has been floating in my head since yesterday's lecture. And I dreamed that I was trapped in a cube with a former lover. The walls were covered in little drawers. The cube would rotate and we were forced to adjust our bodies accordingly. The drawers would all slide open as the sides moved and the objects they contained fell on us. There were so many different things, covering our bodies, filling the cube. In one drawer there were tiny pieces of glass that got stuck on the top of my feet, and I picked each one out and ate it. The cuts made a pattern that I found beautiful. I eventually escaped. I cried because I knew the man never would.

This dream is a combination of that Hegel analogy and this ridiculously awesome but poorly-acted pseudo philosophical movie called The Cube. My psyche works in ridiculously obvious ways. At least I'm not dreaming about luggage that is too heavy for me to carry alone anymore. That went on for three months. Ha.

My dreams are the only thing that hinder happiness. It always takes me a few hours to recover, and usually they set the tone of my day. Anyone who has ever slept/napped with me knows this.

"And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel'd universe,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed
before a million universes."

"This hour I tell things in confidence,
I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you."

Bon soir, lovers.

xo