Rosa multiflora: G's understanding and reading of Jacques Lacan ... and using language, When feeling disconnected or alienated ... not necessarily as the on-off switch leading great happiness neurophysiology but nevertheless can help facilitate "weather" changes in those directions

Glad to talk ... hope you have an interesting busy week ahead ...

In terms of dysjunctions or a sense of disconnection of living in a city (for me), for example, I come back in my thinking to G's understanding and reading of Jacques Lacan ... and using language ... For Lacan, loosely paraphrased, the human mind is structured like a language (departing from his predecessors), and he also suggests there are three "registers" in it, a) the mirror, b) the symbolic and c) the real. In his work as a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst, and thinker and theorist, in France, - and re developmental psychology/psychoanalysis/theories of the mind, I think he found that the mirror/imaginary stage (which can involve expressions of narcissism for adults, but which little kids are often in a state of and grow out of) resolves itself into the "symbolic" potentially fruitfully ... hence the significance of the use of language for him (and the theorizing of the mind as structured like a language). For the "real," which is hard to get a grasp on in Lacan's writings I think, G used the example of the "table" (which can be solid, actual, physical etc), but in this one minute video on Lacan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwlirZQLAAg - the wolf/beast is used as an example of the real in Lacan's thought - perhaps emblematic (for me) of the predator as "real" in ancestral environments, since the reality of the wolf or the predator isn't nearly so fearsome these days as it might have been centuries ago, when hunger was more familiar, for example. (For Lacan, the real also as a linguistic abstraction becomes much more complex such that it's incomprehensible, too, I think)

Thinking about D (a MD) some these days here (and somewhat in terms of the above) and appreciating his thinking for himself, as an individual, and his instincts in navigating successfully in this world, in society, and his skill with language, and his intelligence, yet also appreciating a kind of understanding of how his mirror/imaginary aspects may have interfaced with his ability to symbolize, and in terms of a whole variety of understandings of the "real."

So, use of language (e.g. either writing or talking with someone) can help with a lot of different things for me when feeling disconnected or alienated ... not necessarily as the on-off switch leading to great happiness neurophysiology but nevertheless can help facilitate "weather" changes in those directions. It's interesting to me to think in terms of theorizing some of this so that I might learn from the dysjunctions and disconnections and deal or cope with them strategically even.

And yet also sociality, re the cabin fever I sometimes experience here in Canyon, can be beneficial. I wonder about you in your house sometimes in terms of sociality - since you are so wonderfully social - and think you will find your ways to further growing your circles of friends into your 100s and beyond, whether you're at home. with neighbors and friends around, or living in a different community. So I hope you can keep cultivating your skillful use of language and symbolizing (e.g. including drawing) while cultivating your great group of friends ("Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold" ... is a nice song :)).

Nice to talk with you last night. (On with a piping lesson with L in 30 minutes - then to wrap up writing my Harbin book by publishing it in the next few weeks).

L,
Scott