Posted by Tom Grimes on March 22, 2004, at 10:13:49
In reply to Re: Life imitating art imitating life » Tom Grimes, posted by DSCH on March 21, 2004, at 23:10:09
God, I've lost a really long response to your post. So, maybe just the end of what I can remember.
I agree with much of what you said. I do believe that chaos theory -- which as Lorenz would say finds "order masquerading as disorder" can help us find a new image for the "river" of long term memory, the "stream of consciousness" that seems to masquerade as our "self." Hume and Kant atomized Cartesian unity. Yet, we cling to the image of the unified self.
Who wouldn't? It's our illusion of security. And to bring this back to simple human suffering I mentioned that in the novel my character Will realizes when he can't save his mother's life that we're all essentially contingent, that we're here by chance, and that we're powerless to do anything about it.
And the sad and dispiriting thing about mental illness is that we have to observe our powerlessness as we lose, or tentatively hold on to, the one thing that gave us the illusion of power, that is, our sanity, our sense of self, our sense of inner continuity, stability, and familiarity.
And that's why it's so unnerving. We have to comprehend what's being lost, with what has been lost or eroded.
T
poster:Tom Grimes
thread:316365
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/books/20040211/msgs/326977.html