Dethlefs

The author of this article also suggests that life is what you make it (see the 4th paragraph). The over arching point, if I have read correctly, is that we no longer have an external Other (God) framing our perception of meaning. That is to say, we don’t kill people because it is a sin; we don’t kill people because we have constructed a ethical understanding of life, death, and murder that is separate from God.

When I first learned to read, I read as many new books as I could. Especially when I started to read longer and more complex texts, as the characters and the story world seemed so alive; however, I noticed that when I reached high school, my desire to discover new stories ebbed, and I more frequently reread the books that made me feel complex emotions in my youth. For me, when I read the last page of a novel or a series, its tragic because I know that the characters will never change. They immediately become lifeless. I would reread to try and bring life back to the story, but it never really worked. Very interesting read. Thanks.

I really enjoyed your essay, especially your conclusion–which I thought was very well done. Thank you for writing! You draw on many different psychoanalysts in the formation of this article, so I was surprised with the lack of Lacan! Most especially because of his extensive work with mirrors, fragmentation, and lack itself. Although, I would guess you fundamentally avoid Lacan, as his work steps away from the notion of ‘true self’ entirely, which I think is a key assumption of your article. Indeed, I think a Lacanian reading would read the image in the mirror as more true than any notion of an “internal” or “hidden” self, as it is the image in the mirror that contains the fundamental message of our lack itself. Therefore, I would probably read your “movement into the realm of illusion” in “Unfinished Duet” in exactly the opposite way: it is at this moment that the speaker is immersed in the Real. In which he sees the Thing that he cannot speak. Perhaps what Alice was really trying to say, when she, but for a moment, almost grasped her name, was, “my name is lack.”