my life to live

26 February 11

10 plays

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Because when you’re an optimist, you are continually getting reality checks about how much everything sucks, and if you’re going to be confused/frustrated/angry about it, you might as well be listening to vintage Radiohead, who somehow manages to take that sentiment and turn it into something lovely. It’s like gobbling uppers!

16 December 10

Comments | 3 notes

In Freud's classic theory, erotic energy is allowed a limited amount of expression, due to constraints of human society. Freud considered this defense mechanism the most productive compared to the others that he identified, such as repression, displacement, denial, reaction formation, intellectualisation and projection. Sublimation is the process of transforming libido into "socially useful" achievements, mainly art. Psychoanalysts often refer to sublimation as the only truly successful defense mechanism.

This is why people need to be taught to interpret works of art.

I should force myself to sublimate more when I’m irkin’

18 March 10

Comments

Ways to get through shit, by Peter Wessel Zapffe, noted Norwegian philosopher

Isolation is “a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling”.

Anchoring is the “fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness”. The anchoring mechanism provides individuals with a value or an ideal that allows them to focus their attentions in a consistent manner. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society, and stated “God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future” are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.

Distraction is when “one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions”. Distraction focuses all of one’s energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.

Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individual distances him / herself and looks at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g. writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his written works were the product of sublimation.

from here

Themed by Hunson. Originally by Josh