Some days I'm pensive about life. In the last several years Deleuze and Lacan have helped me think through some issues of art and faith. I've puzzled especially over periods of my life where I was stalled (or I remember those times as of being-stalled). I've learned to be content with my life. Which is something I relearn each day - much as I relearn drawing and painting each day. Because each day is different. Each blank surface is different - and my mind and body do different things, make different associations, each second.
Lacan has this notion of the Real - which seems to be that unnameble event or presence that we spend time making symbolic sense of, but that which also threatens to undo the very sense we've made in life. The Real is trauma, the too much, Joyce's Here Comes Everybody. The Real threatens to take away the very things we think we have: sanity or home; family or health; jobs or status. This is what Freud meant by castration, "will they take even this from me?"
The Real is the "I'll never live through this" moment in anticipation. Jouissance rises up in anticipation - at once a dread and a thrill. The thrill of being overcome - much as an amusement ride or a bungee jump.
Jouissance is the signal....
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