Monday Marathon of Nothingness

[dotinthesky]

It's Monday again. At the rate I'm going, I'll have been on holidays for the last two months. I'm grabbing a few books today, a notepad, a pen, and spending my hours writing and reading. And drinking lots of tea. I've sent my CV to a temp agency and I'm going to wait and see.

Spin the wheel, spin the bottle, which office clerk will go into the closet with me for a kiss? Ok, it's absurd. I'll shut up now.

I want to write a proper post, about knick-knacks and weekends and trips to the supermarket and the latest d-celebrity spotted on the tube and children singing to Gerri Halliwell in the cinema, but it's just not coming.

I also want to understand more about Freud's definition of the death instinct. moonlightjoy, maybe you can explain this to me.

Comments

gotta love google

[myendeavorca.livejournal.com]

I found it first! :)

DEATH DRIVE: The bodily instinct to return to the state of quiescence that preceded our birth. The death drive, according to Freud's later writings (Beyond the Pleasure Principle, "The Uncanny"), explains why humans are drawn to repeat painful or traumatic events (even though such repetition appears to contradict our instinct to seek pleasure). Through such a compulsion to repeat, the human subject attempts to "bind" the trauma, thus allowing the subject to return to a state of quiescence.

Re: gotta love google

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

that's what I read too... the death drive is an impulse to return to a previous, and happier, state.

hmmmm

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

=) Yeah, Freud... ugh. I didn't really like him, although I guess you gotta give him props for forcing the scientific community to consider the possible fact that people might actually have motivations that they aren't aware of..

What I remember about the death instinct is that it's explanation is kinda circular.

Freud says: People have a death instinct. It's what causes depression, etc.
People ask: Where does this death instinct come from?
Freud: It's because people must adapt to the death and destruction around them
People: But what causes this death and destruction?
Freud: The death instinct.

or something like that.. Freud wasn't too great at backing up his theories.. blah.

His idea of the death instinct comes from the fact that people do have destructive tendencies instead of constructive ones. That people are driven towards their death. However, Freud also had a theory of a life instinct that drove people towards furthering your life. It was a matter of finding the balance between the two. Freud was all about balancing.

Sorry I can't give you much more than that... We touched on Freud in many of our psych classes, but only for a little bit, before going on to the real, empirically based psychological phenomena.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

i agree with you that Freud's ideas are not very sound. I'm also not a big fan of his. I'm interested because I read a brief description somewhere that the death instinct is a drive towards a previous, and happier, state. For example, in the book Crash, the characters cause car accidents on purpose and then have sex in the wreckage... they have this death instinct, but what they really want (subconsciously, I presume) is to return to a previous state when the world wasn't as technological.

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

interesting.. I never heard of it that way, to be honest with you. I never learned about it as being a drive to returning to a previous state. That's an interesting idea... It certainly goes with Freud's ideas. But no.. I never heard of the death instinct being explained that way.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I really love psychology and I wish I could read more about it... but I only learn from side texts. Any books you can suggest to a layman like me?

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

hmmm.. i honestly don't know! see, the thing is, psych is such a diverse world.. you can't really find ONE book that will tell you everything, unless you pick up an Intro to Psych text book for university students...

The topics i'm most interested in are Cognitive Psychology (about the mind), Neuroscience (brain), Social Psychology (fairly obvious) and Abnormal Psych (weirdos).

Books.. hmmmm...

A really really great book i read was called _Searching for Memory_ (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465075525/qid=1080143459/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-6962037-3919034?v=glance&s=books) by Daniel L. Schacter. I really really recommend it!

Other good authors: Steven Pinker (language stuff), Antonio Damasio (brain stuff - really interesting!).

Are you interested in any particular psychiatric illnesses?

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Ha! We have a Steven Pinker book at home (How the Brain Works). I also read a book by Louis A. Sass which I loved (Madness and Modernism). I guess I'm looking for an interesting text which is not too dry. I'll check out the one you suggested.

♥

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you'll love it!

And the Steve Pinker book is actually called _How the Mind Works_

funny because he actually doesn't mention the brain at ALL in his book!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

lol... my brain is all fuzzy.

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

one more thing:

*HUG*!!!!

don't think about the death instinct.. it's not pretty :)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's not for me! I was just wondering because I've been reading this book on the history of Science Fiction and it talks about it in relation to the novel by J.G. Ballard (Crash). He happens to be one of my favourite novelists.

;)

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

The history of Science Fiction.. how.. geeky ;p

Wasn't there a David Cronenberg movie called Crash?

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Yes... and yes... Geeks that are unemployed stay home reading books.

;)

The movie sucked.

[moonlightjoy.livejournal.com]

.. but the book was good? that's often how it works..

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the book yet... but I read most of his other stuff and I really enjoy it.

[peraventure.livejournal.com]

yeah, but what about the death and sex thing? that humans are motivated by the desire for sex and the desire to stay alive in everything they do?

I've decided that it's not so much death and sex but snuggling and pie that motivate me.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

LOL... death and sex definetly go together... I read this novel in one sitting yesterday which I want you to check out. It's called In the Cut, by Susanne Moore. It's set in New York and it's an erotic thriller...

;)

[peraventure.livejournal.com]

Oh, I heard about that! Ok, I'll have my roomie pick it up for me.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

and I got your wicked wicked amazing Mix CDS!!!!!

♥

[peraventure.livejournal.com]

awright!! so excited you like them! did you look at the back of the tensor fasciae latte insert?

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

yes... did you photocopy it, or rip it off a book's page?

[peraventure.livejournal.com]

photocopied from my class notes. whee!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

wheeeeeee!

:)

[peraventure.livejournal.com]

g'mornin'! I gotta go to school now. yay! (oh sleeeeeping....)

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Hope you had/have fun... good morning again.