Can you dare to look beyond your own grave
where nothingness reigns, where you will be no more,
where nothing will be left of your immortal self
which has dissolved into an abyss that has no name,
where there is no conjugation of „to be”,
the only noun is „void”; there is no where, no time —
and „nothing to think with and nothing to love”? 1)
Maybe this is not true, perhaps there is a great beyond
where looking in the mirror you will see no wrinkles,
no grey hair, you will have all your teeth in place,
flexible joints and a sprightly step
and you will never see the dawn of oblivion —
it will never come to haunt you.
I’m not even thinking of heaven — a glib and tacky one,
with choirs of sexless angels or hordes of lusty virgins
and fruit from the tree of ignorance aplenty.
But there must be something! Did not the poets tell you:
„Non omnis moriar — I will not wholly die” ? 2)
It may not be a place at the Almighty’s feet —
that one has been already taken by a noble legion
of martyrs and saints, as well as church officials.
Your private heaven could be on cloud nine,
in the realm of fancy, where your existence will go on
in the remnants of your creativity left in pieces of parchment,
in the debris of abandoned projects and, more substantially,
passed on in your genes to subsequent generations,
as far as they will have a chance to carry on.
From that beyond you could listen to the lovely music
which you had chosen carefully for your funeral,
see how many people came, and who had stayed away,
and whether there would be any appreciation shown
and sadness truly felt for your tragic demise.
It would be interesting to find out if anyone
remembers you and cares enough to read your papers,
memoirs or amateurish poems. And would your children have
any interest in what’s been left of you in all these scraps,
computer records, scores of photos? In their memories?
It would be such a joy to see how they are faring,
how their own children grow, and have a scope
to give them your blessings and your love,
untainted by the pain of your untimely loss,
and not embittered by your unseemly envy
of their going on with happy lives — without you.
Yet this comforting perspective is easily blown away:
the bubble of illusion bursts, the terror strikes, takes hold —
the end is nigh, it can come any minute, even right now,
and you, your thinking mind, with all the records of yourself
and of your world, will be wiped out, your loved ones will be gone,
your heart will stop and darkness will descend.
This is the final blazing truth: the dusk of your oblivion
has arrived, the sun will be eclipsed,
and nothing is „more terrible, nothing more true”. 1)
But this can’t be, it surely is a lie. You must not look
beyond the pleasure principle 3) — hold on to it.
Your physical and psychic life facing this threat
must reassert and fortify itself, no matter how.
And while it is obvious that we all have to die,
there is something in us that won’t believe it. 4)
You can find solace in the mirror of Narcissus,
youthful and perfect, and looking into it, apply
the Botox of denial, to cover up the ugly face of death.
But if you want to „live your life to the full”,
with no tomorrow and no ending, avoid his fate.
He, after all, did lose his life 5) — but you can have a better lot.
You can not only escape such a tragic ending
but also live beyond the limitations
besetting the lives of plebeian, hapless creatures,
once you acquire power and control
by gaining ownership of the obliging globe
and access to its immeasurable riches
which, like a Magic Pudding 6), an all-giving breast,
will be at your disposal.
You can exploit it, ravish it and tear its entrails out,
using its every bit, and as a member
of the privileged and enlightened caste
you are fully entitled to satisfy not only hunger
but your greed and lust, with no guilt and no accountability.
The great empire that you’ll build with this resource
will be a special place, a triumph of humanity
able to conquer nature and to foster growth
which by consumption of more, more and more
will bring abundance, prosperity and happiness.
You must not look towards where people starve to death,
fight over scraps found in a rubbish tip, or perish
in fires, floods avalanches or mudslides.
You need to turn your gaze away. And just believe
that it is only accidental, surely just a fabrication,
a slander by the envious, the prophets of impending doom.
There always will be a remedy, a ruse, a science
that bending to your will, can find a certain way
by which any depletion, pollution and destruction
will be undone, and inconvenient truth extinguished.
While the ingenious mind is serving you this way
it will manufacture for you a true heaven on Earth
lasting as long as you will live, and you can even get
a custom-made extension, if you employ a crafty
and convincing shaman, conjurer or priest
who can procure for you a place in the great beyond.
So you can proceed in blissful ignorance
and indifference to the fate of the unlucky others:
those who are dying now, as well as the virtuous meek
who will end up inheriting the Earth, no longer inhabitable.
It won’t be your concern, and you can safely say,
„’Après moi, le déluge’ 7), because I will not ever see
what happens next, and what is out of sight …
And frankly, why should I even care, since the whole world
does nothing to prevent my sad and cruel end?”
You see yourself in your brand new white Tesla
driving across a desert, next to the flooded fields of rotting crops,
punctuated by the stumps of dead black trees
and scattered with decaying carcasses.
You are wearing safety goggles and an oxygen mask,
you still have what’s left of your Magic Pudding, now worn out.
Its magic still works, though, making it possible
to disregard the evidence that shows that in the hereafter —
which now is clearly visible — there will be nothing left
of life, if this truth is not heeded nor consequences drawn
from it. You surely know it but not quite; like death itself,
it’s not for you, it only concerns the others
for whom there is no tomorrow, while you
will keep on living, untouched and unaware.
When you can see the future just like a doomsday film,
it gives you a pleasurable thrill. It’s like a dream of death
from which you can wake up. And it is just as well,
since being in it is like a nightmare horror
which you can’t bear and cannot break out from.
If that’s the way you see the future — it is murder, 8)
and you are not the victim of this crime,
you take part in it. The future world will surely die
while you are buying time with the forged currency of lies,
supported by halfhearted and tokenistic actions,
while you can continue turning a blind eye.
When you are able to step out and watch it from aside,
it is clear that in the last few decades, despite all the promises,
nothing decisive or effective has been done.
Your heart sinks then; the hope that it can happen still is fading, too,
as time is running out, and maybe it’s already gone.
Don’t let your spirit die, don’t sink into despair —
you can still join the ranks of revellers,
consumers of charisma, cosmetic surgery or happy pills.
And you will do your bit when you stop eating meat,
not use plastic containers, grow your own vegetables
and put a sticker, “Climate Action Now” on your electric car.
Is it still possible to share Freud’s optimism
about the future of mankind, expressed in his belief
that the voice of reason — which is a soft one and which does not rest
until it has been heard — finally, despite rebuffs, succeeds? 9)
And don’t forget that Freud himself chose death —
which he had fought in his tormented body
for many years, with such stoicism and courage —
when the eruption of another terrible world war 10)
must have shown to him, as it did to the world,
that humankind yet again had entered the disastrous path
of mindless destruction, demonstrating clearly that the voice of reason
and sanity does not really count and can be overthrown.
Maybe putting your hopes in the power of reason,
and the value of truth that should prevail because
of its merits, is another form of wishful thinking.
It disregards the war that is insidiously conducted
against reality and sanity under the deceptive cloak
of make-beliefs, which assert their power with the alluring promises:
of a paradise on Earth created by human ingenuity,
of inexhaustible and renewable resources,
and of death that can be extinguished or postponed forever.
Underestimating this extraordinary capacity of humans
for self-deception, for making threatening and unwanted things
go away at will, could be another fateful self-deception,
which prevents addressing dangers arising from the situation —
where persuasive talk is futile because no one is listening
and when reason can’t prevail while sheer unreason reigns.
Keeping silent about it would be a real crime
against humanity11) which for the sake of its survival
needs to acknowledge and confront
the grave consequences of adhering to delusion —
to the belief that a voice of reason can still make a difference,
and that wisdom has a chance to prevail.
But you can no longer speak in a soft balanced voice
you have to scream, and scream at the top of your lungs,
you have to loudly beat the talking drums
transmitting the alarm across the globe,
you need to blow the trumpet of the angel of truth
and mercy, to wake up the conscience, and to resurrect
the dead consciousness buried deeply for too long.
ENDNOTES
- Philip Larkin. Aubade. The Times Literary Supplement 23.12.1977; Collected Poems. Posthum. 1988.
- Exegi monumentum. Odes: 3.30; A.S. Pushkin. Monument. (Pamyatnik). Both poets express the belief that they will continue their existence through their work, which will stand as their monument, to be admired in the future.
- S. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Standard Edition. Vol. XVIII
4) Carl Jung in an interview with John Freeman. 1959. YouTube: 2AMu-G51y
5) Myth of Narcissus. In : Ovid. Metamorphoses. After having rejected the love of Echo and others, Narcissus is doomed to fall in love with his own reflection. His love unfulfilled, he withers, dies and is transformed into a flower.
6) Norman Lindsay. Magic Pudding. Sydney. Angus & Robertson.1st Ed. 1918. A popular children’s book by an Australian artist and writer. The Magic Pudding has the property of replenishing itself, and „That’s where the magic comes in … The more you eat the more you get”. At the end of the book, its owners, after many adventures, consisting largely of preventing others from taking it from them, enjoy the exclusive possession of the Pudding in self-contained seclusion, securing thus the unimpeded continuity of abundance and unlimited supply. So in fact, there is no „The End”.
7) Commonly attributed to Louis XV: “Après moi, le déluge” meaning roughly „When I am dead, the deluge may come for all I care”.
8) The Future. A song by Leonard Cohen. Album The Future.1992
9) Freud. S. Future of an Illusion. Standard Edition. Vol. XXI
10) Peter Gay. A Life for Our Time.1988
11) Nadyezhda Mandelstam, in Hope Against hope. (1999); also in Segal, H. (1987). Silence is the real crime. In International Review of Psycho-Analysis, 14: 3-12
Original art work©️Gosia Lapinski https://www.gosialapinski.com
Dr Michał Łapiński jest emerytowanym psychoanalitykiem szkoleniowym, członkiem Australijskiego Towarzystwa Psychoanalitycznego oraz innych stowarzyszeń profesjonalnych. Od roku 1984 mieszka w Melbourne, gdzie prowadził prywatna praktykę psychoanalityczna. Zajmował się nauczaniem akademickim i klinicznym, również w Polsce, i był autorem artykułów psychoanalitycznych. Był szczególnie zainteresowany pracami Biona i ich propagowaniem. Napisał wspomnienia (w skróconej wersji opublikowane w książce Jak Feniks z popiołów); pisze wiersze po polsku i po angielsku, oraz opowiadania (jedno z nich znalazło się w zbiorze The Analyst as Storyteller). Swoje utwory oraz niektóre prace psychoanalityczne umieszcza na swojej dwujęzycznej stronie internetowej https://www.michal-lapinski.studio/
