Mars III [en]

Je suis malheureux parce que je ne fonctionne pas et que je n’ai jamais fonctionné. En tant que jeune, je n’ai pas été jeune, en tant qu’adulte, je n’ai pas été adulte, en tant qu’homme, je n’ai pas été un homme ; à  tout point de vue je n’ai pas fonctionné. En plus de cela, pour que ce non-fonctionnement soit visible aux yeux du monde entier, voilà  que le corps, de manière à  la fois symbolique et conséquente, ne fonctionne pas non plus, il est malade, il est empoisonné, il est imprégné par la mort. Ce non- fonctionnement, cette mort, la mort des sentiments, la mort du corps, la mort de la vie, voilà  mon malheur. Ce n’est pas « compliqué », au contraire c’est logique, c’est clair, c’est simple, c’est comme ça.

Fritz Zorn, Mars

Mars II [en]

À présent on ne pouvait plus contester qu’en fait j’avais toujours eu bien raison et que mon impression avait été parfaitement correcte, que j’avais été séparé de tout le monde fondamentalement et en tout, et que tout ce que la vie m’avait offert jusqu’à  présent n’avait été que des bagatelles qui n’avaient rien changé à  ce seul fait important que l’essentiel m’avait manqué depuis toujours. Mais lorsque le cours de mes pensées eut atteint le point où fut prononcé le mot « essentiel », ce que c’était donc que cette chose essentielle apparut aussitôt avec évidence : l’amour, naturellement. Or il n’y avait là  rien de nouveau pour moi dans la mesure où, au fond j’avais toujours su, où d’ailleurs tout le monde sait et a toujours su et où chacun aurait pu me dire après avoir lu la première page de ce récit, dans quel domaine se situait ma maladie.

Mais c’était tout de même une nouveauté pour moi. J’ai beaucoup parlé dans ce récit du ne-pas-savoir et du ne-pas-vouloir-savoir et du fait que, quand on apprend une chose, il faut toujours aussi qu’on veuille d’abord savoir cette chose nouvelle avant qu’on puisse dire vraiment qu’on la sait. Au cours de ma vie, j’avais bien dit des sottises en parlant de mes « difficultés d’amour » sans m’avouer que j’aurais dû formuler la chose en disant que par manque d’amour je dépérissais et mourais. Quand quelqu’un est mort d’inanition, on ne dit pas, n’est-ce pas, qu’à  la fin de sa vie il a eu des « difficultés de nutrition », on dit qu’il est mort de faim. Lorsque je dis de moi que j’avais dit « difficultés d’amour », l’expression était à  peu près aussi juste que si j’avais des de quelqu’un qu’il avait des « difficultés de forme » après être passé sous un rouleau compresseur.

Il ne me restait plus qu’à  m’avouer que je n’avais pas eu lesdites « difficultés » mais que dans l’affaire absolument la plus importante de la vie j’avais complètement échoué, que je n’avais pas supporté ce manque essentiel, c’est pourquoi j’étais devenu fou (ou tout bonnement névrosé, pour employer encore une fois cet euphémisme bienséant) et que cette folie avait ensuite déclenché le cancer qui, à  présent, se préparait à  détruire mon corps.

Fritz Zorn, Mars

Frozen Ramble [en]

Lausanne-Zürich train, 10 a.m.

I sometimes get the feeling I spend my life being cold and hungry. They go together usually — one of the first signs of hunger is that I start freezing.

I’ve been in the train for two hours now, finished my book (About a Boy), and covered with goosebumps. Why does the A/C have to be set to winter-temperature when the air outside is as hot as it is? I’ll probably have to stop somewhere in Zürich to buy a jacket if I want to survive the trip home this evening. To say nothing of the day in the office, which has been called “The Fridge” in my mind for quite some time now.

One of the reasons I’m writing this is that I switched on the laptop with the hope that it would give out a bit of warmth. It gets really hot on my lap at times. Not now, of course. It’s behaving like car heating: I guess I’ll start feeling the heat once we enter Zürich station.

Some time from now, I might be provided with a wireless network connection for work. Just think about it! Internet on the train 🙂

You can probably be thankful I don’t write this kind of ramble more often, it’s turning out really lame. My brain hasn’t woken up yet.

Maybe a life update? I’ll be on holidays next week. I’ve been wanting holidays for ages. Now that they’re here, I’m going to spend them trying to translate a Hindi short story by Premchand, because I did my usual thing of waiting until it was too late before getting to work. (No, please don’t ask.) I did have a vague plan to go off somewhere exciting, but it didn’t happen; my last chances of escaping my sad fate as a future-ex-étudiante-éternelle have just drowned somewhere in the ocean. Maybe Aleika will come over a few days. That would be nice, as we haven’t seen each other in ages.

We’re in Zürich. Out of the freezer.

Mars I [en]

Cependant si, toute ma vie, j’avais été malade de l’âme et une possibilité de guérison existait pour moi, cela signifiait en fait qu’on pouvait me guérir du malheur que je traînais depuis trente ans et que j’avais considéré comme le véritable contenu et la véritable forme de ma vie ; cela signifiait en fait que le tourment qui, pendant trente ans, avait été ma vie à  mes propres yeux, n’était aucunement ma vraie vie, mais bien plutôt que l’élément morbide qu’il contenait avait brisé ma vie ; cela signifiait en fait que s’ouvrait la possibilité d’exister, que peut-être j’avais encore la vie devant moi et que je pouvais m’éveiller, comme d’un cauchemar, de celle qui l’avait précédée. Si mon tourment était névrotique et si on pouvait guérir une névrose, cela pouvait uniquement signifier que peut-être je pouvais encore voir le jour où ce tourment ne serait plus là .

Fritz Zorn, Mars

Mutants, Anyone? [en]

Right. So I’ve just come back from seeing X-Men 2, and I absolutely loved it. OK, I’ll admit to crappy cinematographic taste every now and again; but all these mutant stories must hit right on a soft spot of mine.

Has anybody else spent a fair amount of teenage years devouring Perry Rhodan books?

Temple Grandin and McDonald's [en]

An article on her work with McDonald’s to make slaughterhouses more humane let me to the website of Temple Grandin. Read the second article on the egg industry, it’s very interesting too.

The Lord of the Rings [en]

I have just finished reading The Lord of the Rings. If I remember correctly, this must be my fourth or fifth attempt to read the books. The furthest I have reached seems to be the very first pages of the third book, if my bookmark does not lie. My memory of those pages read many years ago has dimmed to near to nothingness.

I am one of the many people for whom the film saved the books. I had given up on reading them.

I am coming to the conclusion that The Lord of the Rings is not a book most enjoyed when first read. On the first reading, one is swamped with strange names and places, riddles and comments on the unfamiliar lore and history of Middle-earth. (Information overload, anyone?) The story unfolds slowly, too slowly, and one loses track of the complex plot and dozes off to sleep amidst poetic descriptions of beautiful land or fair deeds.

The Lord of the Rings seems written for those already familiar with a marvellously complex world Tolkien created. In any case, some familiarity with the world in question seems required to thoroughly enjoy the epic.

The film did not put me to sleep. They gave me a reasonably clear view of the plot, allowing me to dive into the books and enjoy the tale being told without feeling too lost. I am looking forward to reading the books again. But counting my previous attempts, it really took me hundreds of pages to learn to enjoy Tolkien.

Games People Play: Alcoholic/Addict [en]

Alcoholism can be analyzed through social games theory, which leads to the interesting realization that most support groups (like AA) encourage alcoholics to play another role in the game (Rescuer instead of Victim), and don’t actually help the alcoholic to pull out of the game and learn to relate to people differently.

If you have never heard of Eric Berne or his best-selling Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships I strongly encourage you to lay your hands on this book, or at least scoot off to this site, which briefly presents some important social games.

Games are played to varying degrees, and with consequences of varying severity (from benign to lethal):

  1. A First-Degree Game is one which is socially acceptable in the agent’s circle.
  2. A Second-Degree Game is one from which no permanent irremediable damage arises, but which the players would rather conceal from the public.
  3. A Third-Degree Game is one which is played for keeps, and which ends in the surgery, the courtroom or the morgue.

Coming back to the game of ‘Alcoholic’, here is the complete quote concerning the role of support groups in continuing to play the game:

There are a variety of organizations involved in ‘Alcoholic’, some of them national or even international in scope, others local. Many of them publish rules for the game. Nearly all of them explain how to play the role of Alcoholic: take a drink before breakfast, spend money allotted for other purposes, etc. They also explain the function of the Rescuer. Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, continues playing the actual game but concentrates on inducing the Alcoholic to take the role of Rescuer. Former Alcoholics are preferred because they know how the game goes, and hence are better qualified to play the supporting role than people who have never played before. Cases have been reported of a chapter of A.A. running out of Alcoholics to work on; whereupon the members resumed drinking, since there was no other way to continue the game in the absence of people to rescue.

There are also organizations devoted to improving the lot of the other players. Some put pressure on the spouses to shift their roles from Persecutor to Rescuer. The one which seems the closest to the theoretical ideal of treatment deals with teen-age offspring of alcoholics; these young people are encouraged to break away from the game itself, rather than merely shift roles.

The psychological cure of an alcoholic also lies in getting him to stop playing the game altogether, rather than simply change from one role to another. In some cases this is feasible, although it is a difficult task to find something else as interesting to the Alcoholic as continuing his game. Since he is classicly afraid of intimacy, the substitute may have to be another game rather than a game-free relationship. Often so-called cured alcoholics are not very stimulating company socially, and possibly they feel a lack of excitement in their lives and are continually tempted to get back to their old ways. The criterion of ‘game cure’ is that the former Alcoholic should be able to drink socially without putting himself in jeopardy. The usual ‘total abstinence’ cure will not satisfy the game analyst.

Both quotes: Eric Berne, Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships