On Mar 24, 8:14 am, "Sherrie Lee"
yahoo.com> wrote:> On Mar 23, 7:12 pm, "George Dance" wrote:
>
>> On Mar 23, 4:56 pm, "Sherrie Lee"
yahoo.com> wrote:>
> [...]
>
>>> The You I used was the more than one You which included you.
>>> The suicide I meant was what happens if "one" (I know, I said "you")
>>> goes one step further. I'm seeing the abyss not as simply letting go
>>> to let death happen as in when a long illness ends in death; I'm
>>> seeing
>>> it as the final step when a person takes their own life, to the end
>>> of some perceived trauma. Maybe it's no different, for example, maybe
>>> the people who jumped out of the Towers at the WTC were going to die
>>> within a matter of minutes, regardless.
>
>> OK. In that case, it's important for me to go back and underline the
>> possiblity you were offering me as an antidote to suicide: individual
>> creativity. If a person can see themselves as making a difference to
>> reality, in some way, that's powerful medicine to restore the
>> connection with reality and the will to live.
>
> You, (me) and Dennis ought to get together and write a script for a
> movie.
>
> It's probably already been written, but the movie would be on the
> subject of Time Travel.
>
It's a good idea to try something more ambitious, for the first time,
in collaboration with a more experienced writer. But I'm not your
guy; I've never written a film script; I'd have to bring my daughter
in to teach me basic technique. And I really can't see Dennis and me
collaborating, on anything, at this point. So I'll bow out
gracefully.
> If I say anything more, the lurkers with better connections than I
> have will have too much info.
>
> I don't want to do it for free, but I will b/c it starts out that way.
>
>> Basically, that's how I coped with my own "Abyss" crisis as a young
>> man; I wrote poetry about it. (I've found a couple of the old ones,
>> and have been playing around fixing them up; I could post them in a
>> day or two.) I can't imagne someone writing creatively, and
>> committing suicide because of what he/she was writing about; I'd see
>> the writing as both cathartic and therapeutic. (Of course, there was
>> Sylvia Plath.)
>
> Did she leave a suicide note? I know, I can look.
>
I notice Dennis found you that one: "Something to eat in the oven."
or whatever; didn't even bother mentioning the suicide. (Phillip Roth
later used that idea in /Portnoy's complaint/, IIRC.)
>>> I saw it reported that Teasdale committed suicide. There is always a
>>> question of validity of reports. I note your flame/troll statement
>>> below.
>
>> I read somewhere about a poet who was passionately in love with
>> Teasdale, and who proposed to her twice; she turned him down both
>> times. She committed suicide a couple of months after he died. But,
>> of course, it's only other people's speculation connects that those
>> events; only Teasdale knew why she did it.
>
> Sounds like she didn't leave a suicide note.
>
I did some googling around; turns out she did:
"When I am dead, and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain drenched hair,
Tho you should lean above me broken hearted,
I shall not care.
For I shall have peace.
As leafey trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough.
And I shall be more silent and cold hearted
Than you are now. "
>From the context, it sounds like that wasn't about Lindsay, the poet
whom she turned down and later killed himself. Might have been her
ex, though she did divorce him years earlier.
> [...]
>
>>> When you feel vicariously, how does it feel to you?
>
>> Strongly. I can watch a movie that I've watched 100 times, and get
>> tears in my eyes, as strongly as the first time. But another part of
>> me knows I'm not experienceing that, but only watching it; I can feel
>> the emotion without feeling a threat.
>
> the threat. I wonder if feeling the emotion is what PTSD sufferers are
> feeling when triggered.
>
> no threat exists (no one's sticking a gun to their heads), but they
> feel as though they're going to die
> when they hear fireworks. what makes it different? it's all in the
> head in both situations, except,
> the gun, which isn't because they're still alive. but they can never
> enjoy fireworks like you or me (I can).
>
> take the words away and make it algebraic; unless, it already is.
> something was "stolen" from them.
>
>
>>>> "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
>>>> Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
>>>> The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
>>>> The ceremony of innocence is drowned"
>>>> (Yeats, The Second Coming)
>
>>>> Pretty powerful stuff, but I don't think it showed any desire on
>>>> Yeats' part to commit suicide. Nor, when I quote or speak about
>>>> things like that, does it indicate any desire on my part to commit
>>>> suicide.
>
>>> When you say "pretty powerful stuff", how is it powerful?
>
>> (It ssounds like someone who's losing it; 'it' being both faith, in
>> anything, and also self-control. IIt's a peek at inanity: I can
>> sense that, without worrying about losing control myself (or even
>> worrying whether Yeats was losing control.)
>
> and so a PTSD sufferer can hang on by keeping self-control in
> situations where others needn't be as self-conscious, if at all.
>
>>> Then maybe meaning = significance. No meaning = no significance.
>
>>> And what is the fact? Is it a fact that Life is first not significant,
>>> then significance is constructed/attached?
>
>> I think that is a fact of our 'official reality'; and that people who
>> think otherwise, and still believe in the older type of 'official
>> reality' that should be learned and not constructed - the born-agains,
>> and all the other religious of every kind - are increasingly seen as
>> abnormal, and even slightly insane.
>
> they're (we're) hanging on to a self-conscious that's almost not even
> conscious of itself. now that's whacked!
>
>> Yes, it is part of our 'official reality' that meaning is constructed,
>> and does not exist "in itself" (mind-independently or objectively).
>> That's really what I meant by "nowadays, we live squarely in" the
>> Abyss. But we cope with it, because that's how it is; and it's
>> possible for any of us to see the positive in that.
>
> the PTSD sufferer still goes to the fireworks show b/c his kid enjoys
> it, and he likes seeing his kid experience crackling and colorful
> lights in the sky.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
