Freud hit me again last night. I was thinking of 3 different issues in the past couple of
Haunted Writing
days related to my study and work. One is about Death and Utopia, the second is about the transition from the big storyline to the sub Utopian storyline in the novel I am working on now, and the last is the two pages creative work I have to submit to my psychoanalysis class next Friday.
Before I went to bed, I had no clue, my conscious was blank, with no idea of what I am going to do with these 3 matters. I guess, the level of tension in my unconscious was high. It seized the chance of the night, the absentee of the ego. It woke me up, as if the little gene in the back of my head had all of the solution and wanted to spell it out. I wasn’t aware of that, and with a soar throat and tiresome, all I wanted was to sleep again. But the little gene whispered his wisdom in my ears, the solution for all the three:
1. Death and Utopia:
My dilemma here is the notion that death defines life as Satre put it, and thus eliminating death would render life meaningless. In my book, I am working on a Utopian world where death becomes obsolete after science find a solution for ageing, and I was thinking, would that really mean a meaningless world?
The gene stepped up, and point it out that what does it matter if one’s life is meaningless? Isn’t it more important to live happily than living a meaningful life? In nature, there is a specie of immortal jellyfish that has no conscious to render a meaning to its own life. It lives in peace.
Beside that, if darkness is what gives meaning to life, then death is not the only darkness we have in this life. There is an infinite amount of darkness as there is an infinite amount of light. Eliminating death, would not eliminate all the darkness in life. Humanity would soon evolve to fight other kinds of darkness, and maintain the value and meaning of life.
2. Jannah’s sub Utopian world:
Yesterday I reached a focal point in writing “Jannah”, a point where I am ready to start describing the futuristic Utopian world when death no longer exists. I was confused of how to start this sub story, but the gene had it all simple. He even spilled out the first paragraph in my ears and showed me the way to approach it.
3. Psychoanalysis two pages work:
I am still confused if this post can be the submitted material. For the gene, it is. The notion of his own existence goes inline with the haunted nature of writing. I felt haunted yesterday. I was writing in my sleep. Actually I wasn’t really asleep. I guess I was in a middle state. But the gene was awake, clear, and real. The feeling of his presence while writing is usually 10% of what I felt of his presence yesterday in the middle of the night. Maybe it has to do with the vigilance of the ego.
This isn’t a one of a kind experience that I just witnessed yesterday. It happens quite often. It hit me how the most clear and brilliant ideas come out in that time of the middle of the night. Freud made the gene existence clearer to me. For that, I am thankful!
Fadi Zaghmout فادي زغموت 
Hi Fadi,
Glad you are reading Freud, he has interesting views of human consciousness. I have some notes on your death and utopia conundrum. The presented argument, the dilemma as you present it is that:
Premise: “Death defines life is not justified”, then
Conclusion: “eliminating death would render life meaningless”
Let us start with the premise, what is meant by “define”. Is it giving meaning? Why could not be that death shapes certain choices in life. Yet not all of them. This statement seems like a conclusion of Sartre. It would have been better had the whole sequence of though leading to it was presented to the reader.
The conclusion drawn does not build on an established relation between the dialectical assumptions:
Eternal life is meaningless
Death gives meaning to life
Eliminating death will allow us eternal life
thus, life will be meaningless
All of the above premises leading to the conclusion need to be established logically in order to draw the conclusion and establish the dilemma.
Furthermore, moving on you introduce multiple concepts:
Darkness and Light
Consciousness and Unconsciousness
Meaning of life as an outcome of consciousness
All of which are extremely complex constructs and some are being used metaphorically.
So, the argument you are trying to build, got over to me as follows:
Premise 0: Death ends life
Premise 1: Life contains both infinite darkness and infinite light
Premise 2: Light is a meaningful life
Premise 3: Darkness is a meaningless life
Premise 4: Death is one type of darkness
Premise 5: Human beings are conscious
Premise 6: Consciousness induces meaning to life
Conclusion 0: Human beings induce meaning to their lives
Conclusion1: Eliminating death would eliminate one type of darkness
Conclusion 2: Eliminating death would induce eternal life
Based on conclusion 0+1+2 as new premises then—>
Conclusion 3: Eternal life will still suffer from other types of darkness
Conclusion 4: Human beings with eternal life will continue to be conscious and induce meaning to their lives
and thus
Grand conclusion: Eternal life will still have meaning
The above is a total mess! And it is just to show how complex the range of ideas that you attempted to summaries in few paragraphs!
You are trying to learn Freud by applying his thoughts to real metaphysical issues that humans struggle with. That is very commendable and brave.
Please continue, yet elaborate and present us more of where your little unconscious mind tinkers with.
Miss you a lot,
You know me
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Thank you my friend. I think that you have to write the critical part of my term papers!
My Satre reference is taken from a critical essay for Peter Brooks called “Freud’s Masterplot: A Model for Narrative”. Brooks here tries to read Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle from a narrative point of view. In that chapter, Freud’s argue death drives, he claims that each organism longs its original state, thus the goal of all life is death.
Brooks points out in the essay how Satre discovered in his grandfather’s library a book entitled “L’enfance des hommes illustres”
“which told of children names Johann Sebastian or Jean-Jacques, without ever mentioning the names Back and Rousseau, in recounting their childhood constantly inserted casual references to their future greatness, contriving the account so artfully that it was impossible to read of the most trivial incident without relating to its subsequently revealed significance. ”
Satre comments, “thought they were acting and talking at random, whereas the real purpose of their slightest remarks was to announce their destiny”
Satre in emulation began to see himself being read by posterity “from death to birth”.
That is Satre, Brooks, and Freuds point of views. I can see how the end defines the start, but I can also see how the beginning and the journey shapes the end. I don’t really see that life would be meaningless without death.
Hope that makes things clearer?
and I miss you so much as well.. I only have one smart friend in SA.. hope treats you well 🙂
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