DIANA MARIN

Blog

  • Thoughts

    There has been a paradigm shift in the sense that in the past I was obsessed with our ephemeral nature and I used to drown in ruminations about mortality – not that I’m immune to that now, but I feel the focus is now on something else. Initially, this shifted towards the idea of rebirth and re-emerging from myself and leaving behind any psychological material, any thought patterns, any people, events, or memories that no longer serve me and that I need to shed in order to become a better version of me or step into a new, more enlightened self. The idea of identity is very limited – there’s this tension between being and establishing an identity because the latter is usually based on worldly things- accumulating things e.g whatever your idea of success is or knowledge. I’m reading an interesting book about the difference between knowledge and self-knowledge, which I will elaborate soon. You’ll still have this nostalgia for who you used to be, you’ll be haunted by the ghosts of past versions of you, with their own dreams. Unless you are able to shed all those layers and not repress but step out of that state towards a new you and embrace the now, embrace the current experience and let yourself be guided by the subtle currents of mindfulness and gravitate towards the reality of wholeness.

    The difference between knowledge and self-knowledge is that objective knowledge is disembodied knowledge; it can be alienating and, paradoxically, it’s all about ‘me, me, me’, about how you can profit from something, how you can use information and map out the structure of reality in such a way that it allows you to manipulate the reality around you. And it’s focused on the wrong values like being in control (because it’s the realm of the ego), having a sense of power and control over others – which makes you feel good. At the opposite pole, you have self-knowledge, which is a world-centred view of the self: it’s all about felt experience and how you relate to the world around you, to nature, to people. Self-knowledge is used here in the sense of embodied knowledge and integrated information and it’s all about your body’s attunement to the world and about felt relationship and felt experience, when parts of you become illuminated. It’s not about thinking about the self in limiting, ego-driven ways, on the contrary, it’s about turning the focus towards the world and being in harmony with the world rather than trying to establish order and control. It’s not about control, it’s about surrender in a way, and about being present in the world and allowing yourself to integrate all aspects of the self as well. It’s something that reaches the depth of who you are by shedding all those layers that you were perhaps conditioned or wired to adopt. When you do that you are able to experience the wholeness of the world and the fluidity of being as well. And you will be able to resonate with the world around you and your entire world has the potential to change in a very beneficial way.

    Self-integration should make you get rid of anxious self-conscious musings. By embracing all those aspects, you are able to become yourself. You can just witness emotions- this is a classical stoic teaching- you can witness an emotion – no need to numb it down- then distance yourself from it, allow it to pass, observe it, learn what you need from it, and then move on, with that knowledge in mind. As long as you are attuned, your body is attuned, your whole being is attuned to the diversity and the wholeness of the world, I believe that is the secret to happiness, inner peace, harmony, and comfort – being at ease with yourself. It’s not always easy; we do have a tendency to let certain things define us like a certain emotion especially if it’s a negative emotion, one that you’ve experienced too many times you feel like you might let it define you – especially if external factors like people around are also pointing that out, emphasising that or only choosing to see that. So you shouldn’t let yourself be defined or tainted by anyone’s perception of you, by your own focus on a particular negative reaction or emotion, because you are so much more than that.

    Regarding success, even when you want to separate yourself from other people’s ideas of success you have to do it successfully so in a way that feels successful to you based on your own frame of reference or system of values which means you have to have a lot of faith in that in order for it to withstand the currents of opposing views. Spirituality tells us we are innately worthy, that worth should not be attached to external factors. I think for me success would be the idea of integration and harmony, especially inner peace. That looks a certain way, I have a vision of what it means. I don’t know where I’d be if I didn’t have the capacity to make things vanish. The capacity to move on, step into new selves is important to me.

    This made me think of that line from The Tree of Life which I will always remember- amazing film- the dichotomy refers to what I was talking about before about the self-centred view of the world versus when you look outwards and try to establish a relationship and with the world around you based on harmony.
    “The nuns taught us there are two ways through life, the way of Nature and the way of Grace. You have to choose which one you’ll follow. Grace doesn’t try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.”

    As beautiful and poetic as it sounds, I have always had mixed feelings about this quote. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked? That’s not the way. But I can see what they mean: the way of Grace is about transcendence; it refers to not letting external things affect you, it doesn’t necessarily mean you stay there and endure hardship and mistreatment, it just means you are strong – it’s about real power and transcending and about how the other – the one who was metaphorically referred to as nature has a false sense of power gravitating around the concepts of control, entitlement, order, wanting to establish order rather than focusing on harmony. Seeing the darkness in everything, which is basically a reflection of what is within. Not that there’s no darkness around you, but if you only see that, that says something about what’s inside you. Grace, on the other hand, only accepts insults and injuries in the sense that those things don’t change grace; there is something immutable about grace that makes it so that she doesn’t change in the face of adversity to the core. Her system of values doesn’t change. Things that don’t matter can change. So in this sense I do agree with the way of grace, however I have my doubts about the way this is expressed. I do stand by stoicism and the stoic world view, I always have. These are not opposites: You can preach about the fluidity of the self whilst at the same time holding onto that immutable aspect of you. A balance between the way of grace and of nature would probably be ideal – taking the best characteristics out of each and synthesising them and there you have it. This is kind of like how self knowledge and knowledge have to go hand in hand to be balanced and the more one grows the other one has to grow with it. As you cultivate your objective knowledge, the one responsible for accumulating information to use it in certain ways, you should also work on and nurture your self-knowledge.

    The two ways of seeing the world (self-centred & world-centred) are also reflected in Only Lovers Left Alive through the following encounter between the two protagonists. Tilda Swinton plays an insightful vampire, sharing her perspective with her perpetually despondent blood-drinking lover.
    Eve: “How can you have lived for so long and still not get it? This self obsession is a waste of living. It could be spent on surviving things, appreciating nature, nurturing kindness and friendship, and… dancing.”

  • Introspection

    How is life? A work in progress. Just like me. I’m constantly growing and learning; acquiring knowledge of what fascinates me is one of my enduring obsessions. There is definitely more that’s unchanging and relentless about me (including, paradoxically, my regenerative strength), but it’s much easier and more palpable to articulate the ways in which I feel I have changed or the areas in which I invite change. In my life I have shifted from cynicism to idealism to optimistic nihilism to a sort of hedonism to aestheticism (I know I’m merging philosophical and artistic concepts here, but I think of them more widely, as approaches to life), and there have been times when I have ricocheted among them. I’ve spent some time in what may be considered an adrift state, but this has often led to acquiring better knowledge of what I see myself doing, what I enjoy and what I’m good at, a realignment with my deep wishes and interests, and attunement with myself, in all my glory and imperfection. On that note, add an increasing willpower to either embrace or change and improve imperfections, case by case, because that approach makes sense the most, a balance between personal development and contentment is key, and both complaining and self-pity are the most useless ways to spend your energy. Unless you write it down on a blog or capitalise on it or use it as fuel to express yourself through other creative outlets, in which case you can be relatable, earn something, or it can be cathartic. With that being said, perfectionism should be kept within limits, otherwise it becomes a sad quest.

    After emerging with more self-knowledge regarding what fulfils me, plans have crystallised, but I need to maintain a healthy self-discipline in areas that are essential to my functioning and leading to a more substantial well-being rather than dopamine rewards. Building self-discipline is a challenge for most, and I’m the type of person who has always been most driven by spontaneous bursts of energy and motivation and outpourings of inspiration more than consistency and routine. I’m naturally inclined towards having a whimsical rather than methodical approach to life, with a lifestyle that may seem chaotic to some, though I can adapt and push myself to add order to chaos. I plan daily routines, but I sometimes end up doing what feels best ultimately, if I can afford to. This has worked for me creatively, in the past, but it’s not a viable or sustainable option as I age and have more responsibilities. I believe personality is a fluid thing, and thus I can adapt to something different and more efficient, but it takes a lot of deliberate effort to change something that has become ingrained in your being. I’m on the right track, though, because I’m getting into the habit of being more productive even when I’m not feeling at my 100 percent.

    I want to put myself in the way of beauty and in the way of inspiration and of good things happening, even when my willpower is somewhat tentative- as opposed to resorting to taking the easy way out, or prioritising self-indulgence in the form of distractions, of whatever nature, and yielding to unproductive mental traps that get me stuck, creatively or otherwise. “Everything in moderation, including moderation” as Wilde said. Also, although focusing on materialising plans is necessary, it should be noted that this will definitely not be achieved by obsessing and thinking about the future, but by living in the now and taking steps towards tangible results- even small steps make a contribution. You’d think this should be obvious, but my brain often begs to differ for some reason. Obsessing over things and slipping into problems with self-discipline used to be my Achilles’ heel, but it’s something that I’ve focused on altering and dedication truly helps you forge new neural pathways. On another note, doing good deeds has a very uplifting power and effect for me. So does inspiring someone, either through my words or activity. I used to receive personal, touching messages online, in which people mentioned how I posted, wrote, or quoted the right things at the right times for them to see or read and how they’ve been inspired or helped by posts and that makes me smile. I like influencing and inspiring people, and this realisation has made me reconsider the appeal of certain paths to me.

    I should probably nurture my dual & complicated relationship with vulnerability. I know better than to associate vulnerability with weakness, I know it can be empowering and unifying and brave, and yet, I find it so unnatural to open up entirely, I always have, partly because I don’t want to put myself in the position of allowing others to have full access to everything I am, partly because I don’t know how to convey things in an ideal way that makes me feel satisfied because I haven’t figured everything out but also partly because I’m at a point where I need to prioritise other things and don’t feel like I need to make many connections in order to be content. I’m also someone who doesn’t need constant contact to validate a friendship and actually in my book giving each other space and allowing yourselves to fall back into place and reach out to each other whenever you both need or feel propelled to is a love language. Also, it’s quite rare for me to fully resonate with another person so whenever it happens, when everything just flows and feels right I often feel this compulsion to protect it, and worry that there will come a moment when I might say or do something that alienates them, which triggers an uncharacteristic fear of abandonment. There are psychological shadows that I still need to integrate. I think it’s not uncommon, I think a lot of people curate their thoughts and feelings to express mostly positive or flattering ones, especially online. Within the context of a relationship, ironically, not wanting to give all of you can be considered a fear in itself, of sacrificing, of being tamed, subdued, sucked into, or simply, too dependent or entangled with someone else. Actually, I used to be quite the opposite in the sense that I felt like sharing many thoughts with others, I poured my mind and heart out. I still kind of do that, yet, on another level, perhaps emotionally, I’ve never fully given myself, in a way. At least I never feel like I do or that it’s beneficial. It’s also partly because we are all made of multitudes. Even though, in theory, I acknowledge that when you connect and give love (platonic, romantic, or of whatever nature), in a way, there is strength in putting yourself on that path, no matter what happens. But what happens if you become so enmeshed that you forget where you stop and the other begins? What happens when someone doesn’t act the way you expect him or her to? What happens when someone changes?

    What else am I still in the process of learning? Learning to let go. Of detrimental or fruitless thought patterns, of the burden of roles other people may cast me in through assumptions or expectations because sometimes I’m not easy to read and other times I’m pretty straightforward and transparent, letting go of my own expectations from everyone in favour of focusing on whomever resonates with me and I resonate with, of unnecessary prohibitions and restraints uttered by a part of my psyche that I keep silencing, instead of reconciling with or making sense of in order to change it.

  • Sigh

    What was that, right there?

    Hmm?

    Your sigh… a sign of weariness, blasé indifference, the content of decadence, spiritual relief?

    …

    Concealed contempt, a remembrance of loss, emotional capitulation, or repressed agony?

    No, it was actually me remembering your intrusive habit of analysing nonverbal cues and how in moments like these it tends to rub me the wrong way. Consider it a sign of my discontent with this dynamic.

    We should look into that, I’m sure there’s a reason for it. And for building invisible barriers of psychological impenetrability and feeling resentment whenever I try to cross them. Perhaps it’s because…

    Hilarious. You’re talking about trespassing, excavating, and infusing. There’s a way to enter someone’s inner world, force and a lack of subtlety are usually not the way. And seriously…The fact that you get visibly and, depending on your familiarity or affinity with the observer, often vocally irritated when the same treatment of psyche dissection is being inflicted upon you without consent…Now, what was that golden rule of Confucius?

    Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves?

    That’s probably misattributed. And a cautionary statement more than a rule. Give it another shot.

    To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it!

    …Also not a rule. And I’ll be buried with my grudges.

    Not an ethical rule, but a self-help rule. Look, I know, but are you truly bothered or just digging up reasons to be dissatisfied with and closed off to me?

    It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.

    You don’t actually live by that. Also, preaching about trust… Your obsessive devotion to double standards is the gateway drug to narcissism. But I’ll look past this because I see a version of myself in you.

    Your dogmatic devotion to projection under the disguise of spiritual awareness is a gateway drug to psychotic solipsism.

  • Window to the soul

    I watched her face
    as she integrated all of them
    inside her being
    the change was subtle
    I was attuned to her
    inner turmoil
    recognising the look
    of the split self
    in micro-expressions;
    others couldn’t tell
    why she seemed off-
    the warning signs,
    so tragically striking
    in retrospect.
    Her soul seemed made
    of something solemn, unrelenting-
    I trusted she could bounce back
    from the lowest circles of hell.


  • Sculpting a hybrid scene

    I always had a reverence for those fluid mythological mirrors –
    the cosmic girl, her words made flesh, the self-‘othering’,
    the bickering between the new and the almost-forgotten
    for the
    “I’m sorry…
    …you feel
    threatened by my presence
    and bewildered by my absence”
    The message – once uncannily cryptic, embedding itself
    in the adamant lucidity of the conspicuous,
    now – in your face, yet unreliable somehow
    the meta-awareness messes with the reintegrated
    unhinged –
    it could be self-gaslighting
    or absolute transparency
    Regardless, please satisfy my desires
    and you shall be forgiven rather than forbidden
    I never expect you to decode the world:
    your assumptions,
    like your assessments of character,
    are sometimes reflections of what lies within you, my dear.

  • May Queen

    I shut my eyes and let her caress me
    with her veils, scents, and many voices
    that touch me in moonlight-tinted spaces;
    a mother figure, playful yet collected-
    forgiving minor sins, sighs, disguises,
    the slight disturbances of
    extinguished raptures,
    in a glimpse of purity,
    in my unknown gestures of kindness –
    towards myself and others – she saw
    a potential for lightness
    She rewards the sweetness
    of the gaze with an aura of safety
    She crowns me May Queen
    whilst I bury my past
    and penchant for remoteness
    in a crimson house
    overrun with honeysuckle vines.

  • Nausea

    When the whole world is drenched
    in performative glue,
    you feel everything’s tainted
    still, you want your mind re-painted
    so you can try to pursue
    the myth that it’s all about perspective:
    treat it like a tool or an ordeal, right?
    it doesn’t always hold up,
    especially at night
    when you try to untwine
    your hair and your spine
    when one insight
    can incite a riot inside
    and you are so tired-
    you know the tiredness I’m speaking of-
    that of piercing through the sickly sweet
    glue that ties people together
    when they should be apart
    unwittingly toxic,
    such entanglement ensures
    a removal from any ounce of
    authenticity
    your pathological detachment
    from genuineness
    is the source of my nausea.

  • Dead Ringers (1988): A Psychoanalytic Reading

    Let’s celebrate David Cronenberg’s birthday by immersing ourselves in the uncanny, gruesome, and occasionally dreamlike psychological horror universe of Dead Ringers (1988).

    As the master of the Body Horror genre, Cronenberg always intertwines physical collapse with psychological disintegration in a way that unsettles the psyche. All of this is simultaneous with the unfolding of his characteristic fascination for the human body and the ghastly ways in which it can be corrupted for the purpose of symbolically exploring themes of alienation, repressed fears, and the mind-body duality.

    In Dead Ringers, the uncanny theme of the double is hypnotically crystallised through the dual role of Jeremy Irons, who plays Beverly and Elliot, striking twins with the same profession, substantial character differences and taste, and moments of distress. Irons manages to breathe life into two striking gynaecologists with an unusual bond, offering an impressive, complex portrayal of each character’s dynamic inner and outer self as they eventually spiral down into psychological disintegration and insanity. It is even more impressive taking into account the psychopathology of the twins, who exhibit tendencies compatible with narcissism and covert narcissism. 

    Read more:

    Dead Ringers (1988): The Uncanny Double – Narcissistic Symbiosis

  • Derealisation & Freud’s Uncanny experience

    In everyday life, the Uncanny tends to be linked with a sense of unreality that is characterised by a shift in the subject’s self-image, a perception of the self as ‘the other’, an alienation from one’s identity and sense of self, as well as from the nature of reality. Freud points out two sources for the uncanny phenomenon: the uncanny that is generated by repressed infantile feelings and the uncanny that emerges from the resurrection of resolved primitive convictions (such as omnipotence of thought, cancelling the gap of repressed desires, magical thinking, or the return of the dead). In any case, the effect is that your perception of the world around you during such moments becomes less familiar. In clinical terms, this aligns with the characteristics and symptoms of Derealisation and Depersonalisation disorders, which are associated with an uncanny feeling that reality is dreamlike, artificial, or Matrix-like, or respectively, that your sense of self is unreal, you are a character in a film, feeling either robotic, like an external observer of your thoughts and emotions, or the object of an external gaze. The intersection between uncanny modes of thought and the conditions of depersonalisation and derealisation can be reflected through aspects like automatism and strangeness, the blurred line between dream or fantasy and reality, as well as feelings of déjà vu.

    The split in one’s identity that happens as part of dissociative disorders is based on the idea that the human psyche constitutes a mix of conscious and unconscious processes. This split is experienced through an uncanny detachment between one’s self (the self that possesses meta-awareness) and one’s cognitive processes. Freud’s uncanny experience on the Acropolis is often referred to when it comes to the experience of derealisation.

    He analyses his paradoxical emotional response in a letter, noting its oddness:

    `So all this really does exist, just as we learnt! By the evidence of my senses, I am now standing on the Acropolis, only I don’t believe it.”

    In his letter titled “A Disturbance of Memory on the Acropolis”, he also writes:

    “I managed to write a short analysis of ‘a feeling of alienation’ which overcame me on the Acropolis in Athens in 1904, something very intimate. When, finally, on the afternoon after our arrival, I stood on the Acropolis and cast my eyes around upon the landscape, a surprising thought suddenly entered my mind: “So all this really does exist, just as we learnt at school!” To describe the situation more accurately, the person who gave expression to the remark was divided, far more sharply than was usually noticeable, from another person who took cognizance of the remark; and both were astonished, though not by the same thing. The first behaved as though he were obliged, under the impact of an unequivocal observation, to believe in something the reality of which had hitherto seemed doubtful. If I may make a slight exaggeration, it was as if someone, walking beside Loch Ness, suddenly caught sight of the form of the famous Monster stranded upon the shore and found himself driven to the admission: “So it really does exist – the sea-serpent we’ve never believed in!” The second person, on the other hand, was justifiably astonished, because he had been unaware that the real existence of Athens, the Acropolis, and the landscape around it had ever been objects of doubt. What he had been expecting was rather some expression of delight or admiration.”

    “These de-realisations are remarkable phenomena, which are still little understood. They are spoken of as “sensations”, but they are obviously complicated processes, attached to particular mental contents and bound up with decisions made about those contents. They arise very frequently in certain mental diseases, but they are not unknown among normal people, just as hallucinations occasionally occur in the healthy. Nevertheless they are certainly failures in functioning and, like dreams, which, in spite of their regular occurrence in healthy people, serve us as models of psychological disorder, they are abnormal structures.”

    Experiences of hyperreality connected with popular cultural locations (especially those infused with sacred echoes of myth) are not unusual, yet Freud’s perception went beyond this concept and beyond the mixture of familiarity and unfamiliarity, towards something more intimate. Derealisation and depersonalisation are viewed as defence mechanisms, related to the state of “double conscience”, the split self.  Functioning in similar ways to repression, it is also a way for the ego to detach itself from some psychological material. This may seem strange in the context of visiting a pleasant place, yet Freud concluded that in his case the nature of the Acropolis experience was connected to the repressed oedipal wish of surpassing his father – his presence in Athens, in such an overwhelming cultural location being a sign of success. Freud displaced his doubt about finding himself in that location to the reality of the place, hence Athens itself became unreal in his perception. Moreover, he emphasises that this phenomenon is also associated with ambivalent feelings of triumph and guilt and piety in relation to his father. In most uncanny phenomena, there is a mental state of ambivalence, as well as a dimension of desire, albeit previously consciously denied, which suddenly resurfaces.

    Derealisation and depersonalisation are forms of dissociation, processes that are more complex than the mechanism of repression (which eliminates the unpleasant or unwanted thoughts or feelings from one’s conscious mind) in the sense that they involve a conscious duality that includes an obsessive meta-awareness and focus on the unpleasant or unwanted thoughts. Always faithful to the psychoanalytical approach, Freud holds the idea that, although it hasn’t been ‘proved’, derealisation is linked to concealed memories and anxiety-inducing experiences which may have been repressed. In his view, his Acropolis experience constitutes proof of this link, due to its culmination in a fabrication of the past and his ‘disturbance of memory’, linked to other desires from his youth. In most depersonalised/derealised individuals, there is a desire to lift that veil of unreality (a characteristic of DPDR) and see the world through a crystal-clear lens. They, like Freud in that instance, dissect their own mind, delving into the unconscious feelings that may have triggered their condition.

    If you’d like to explore the rare condition of DPDR, check out my article on Talking Mental Health for further details: www.talkingmentalhealth.com/post/lifting-the-veil-on-depersonalisation-derealisation-disorder

  • A glimpse into the mind of Louise Bourgeois: art & psychoanalysis

    Louise Bourgeois viewed art as an alternative form of psychoanalysis, an unravelling of the psyche, as it is based on exploring unconscious associations. Currently on display at Hayward Gallery, in London, The Woven Child exhibition features sculptures that explore ambivalent mental states, past selves, ghostly memories, and physical and emotional pain, as well as art installations incorporating textiles, old fabrics, needles, and spiders – which she views as protective repairers, rather than frightening figures. The spider motif is associated with motherhood, whilst the process of weaving is also a metaphor for mending family relations.

    Delving into her work can be an unsettling process. In “Louise Bourgeois, Freud’s Daughter”, a book that also features rare excerpts from Bourgeois’ notebooks and diaries, Juliet Mitchell hints at the uncanny effect of her work, mentioning the ambivalence of the emotions felt due to the way her art taps into past and present mental states. She also emphasises that Bourgeois’ wish was for the viewer to focus on their own (unconscious) response to her work, rather than wondering about her own free associations. This aligns with the discourse on the uncanny, which inherently relies on the subjective experience of the viewer. Objects are usually not thought of as inherently ‘uncanny’. Unconscious responses to her work (and art in general) can be similar, consistent, despite the fluctuations in our psychological configuration and in the psychic, repressed material that triggers the response.

    Although this is an oversimplification of the themes she depicted, her innovative work is in part fuelled by a resentment towards her father and an admiration for her mother. According to Mitchell, Bourgeois was obsessively fascinated with her own childhood and afraid of her own capacity for aggression (a trait that is especially condemned in women). She also sublimated sadistic, vengeful drives through her art. In her therapy sessions, she tried to question the “nice girl” tendencies, resurrecting the buried self. She allowed herself to express rage and criticism towards Freud, Lacan, and her own psychoanalyst, Lowenfeld, whilst appreciating Freud’s “opponents”, Jung and Klein.

    Despite being engaged in Freudian psychoanalysis for a significant period of her life, Bourgeois wrote an essay titled “Freud’s Toys”, in which she expressed the view that Freud’s method wasn’t helpful for artists. There tends to be an ambivalence in her statements regarding both the function of art and the links between the creative and the psychoanalytical process: whilst she acknowledged they are both forms of psyche excavation, metamorphosis, and resurrection, her reinforcement of the image of the suffering, tormented artist appears to be incompatible with the ‘talking cure’.

    She pointed out that “To be an artist involves some suffering. That’s why artists repeat themselves – because they have no access to a cure”.

    At the same time, she stated: “The connections that I make in my work are connections that I cannot face. They are really unconscious connections. The artist has the privilege of being in touch with his or her unconscious, and this is really a gift. It is the definition of sanity. It is the definition of self-realization.”