My therapist and I have been discussing the difficulty in dealing with emotions. Emotions are real, in that they crowd in on your mind; however, what they reflects is not necessarily true and sometimes it can be downright dangerous to engage them. My therapist suggests that dealing with emotions is a paradox. If you are willing to acknowledge the emotion, you very likely won’t. However, if you are not willing to acknowledge them, you will be plagued with them. In other words, sez the therapist, you have to accept the unacceptable in order to be free of it. So, in my case, if I accept the existence of unwelcome emotions, without engaging myself in their pathology, I can be ultimately free of them. When I try very earnestly, I understand what he is trying to tell me. I can make my mind bend just enough to comprehend. My difficulty is in stopping after acknowledging the emotion. Before I know what I am doing, I have begun to engage it.
The paradox of willingness concluding in the loss of that emotion and being unwilling resulting in engagement with the emotion reminds me a of studies years ago of Derrida. At that time, our main texts were Margins of Philosophy, Of Grammatology, & White Mythology.
According to our professor, Derrida wants deconstruction and differance [imagine the accent ague over the first "e"] and play to subvert and unsettle tradional forms of thought from within. [Derrida]: "How to interpret — but here interpretation can no longer be a theory or discursive practice of philosophy — the strange and unique property of a discourse that organizes the economy of its representation, the law of its proper weave,such that its outside is never its outside."
So it seems to be with emotions, when properly managed (or, in fact, not managed at all — letting them drift as they will and never "suprising" them with engagement). In fact, when I allow the paradox, (and here paralleling Derrida) my emotions are never my emotions.
Since narrowing in on a subject still produces a lie, regardless of how close one comes, for Derrida, the truth can be found only in what is not. It is in not categorizing, in non-totality, in non-language, and in multiple meanings. Meaning can, in fact, often be better found in what is not meant.
There is a ballet movement called releve [accent ague], where the dancer is standing on her toes. But the meaning of the movement is not in the act of being on one’s toes, but in the becoming. The movement begins in plie[accent ague], knees bent, gradually straightening the leg, as with no discernible hesitation, the ballerina’s heels slowly leave the floor, until she is standing fully stretched out on the tip of her toes. But at that point, movement does not stop, and she gradually beings her descent, slowly lowering her heels, then sinking again into a deep plie. The meaning of this movement, as in the movement of language, is to be found during the moments that movement does not stop.
Kant writes that human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature; and which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. Two hundred years later, Derrida suggests that the questions can be answered — as long as the critic dares to enter the other sphere: the one outside of the text.
The paradox of willingness concluding in the loss of that emotion and being unwilling resulting in engagement with the emotion reminds me a of studies years ago of Derrida. At that time, our main texts were Margins of Philosophy, Of Grammatology, & White Mythology.
According to our professor, Derrida wants deconstruction and differance [imagine the accent ague over the first "e"] and play to subvert and unsettle tradional forms of thought from within. [Derrida]: "How to interpret — but here interpretation can no longer be a theory or discursive practice of philosophy — the strange and unique property of a discourse that organizes the economy of its representation, the law of its proper weave,such that its outside is never its outside."
So it seems to be with emotions, when properly managed (or, in fact, not managed at all — letting them drift as they will and never "suprising" them with engagement). In fact, when I allow the paradox, (and here paralleling Derrida) my emotions are never my emotions.
Since narrowing in on a subject still produces a lie, regardless of how close one comes, for Derrida, the truth can be found only in what is not. It is in not categorizing, in non-totality, in non-language, and in multiple meanings. Meaning can, in fact, often be better found in what is not meant.
There is a ballet movement called releve [accent ague], where the dancer is standing on her toes. But the meaning of the movement is not in the act of being on one’s toes, but in the becoming. The movement begins in plie[accent ague], knees bent, gradually straightening the leg, as with no discernible hesitation, the ballerina’s heels slowly leave the floor, until she is standing fully stretched out on the tip of her toes. But at that point, movement does not stop, and she gradually beings her descent, slowly lowering her heels, then sinking again into a deep plie. The meaning of this movement, as in the movement of language, is to be found during the moments that movement does not stop.
Kant writes that human reason, in one sphere of its cognition, is called upon to consider questions which it cannot decline, as they are presented by its own nature; and which it cannot answer, as they transcend every faculty of the mind. Two hundred years later, Derrida suggests that the questions can be answered — as long as the critic dares to enter the other sphere: the one outside of the text.
Constance L. Lieber 
Leave a comment