What do *you* want?

[featherynscale]

Came across a passage I found worth noting... From Queen Maeve and Her Lovers, Sylvia Perera. Perera is a Jungian analyst, and the book is focused on Jungian approaches to addiction and recovery therapy - it's quite interesting so far.

In this passage, she has just talked about Cuchulain receiving three wishes from Scathach, as long as he could name them on the spot, in one breath.

"...the goddess of desirousness...does not seek repression of passionate hungers, but rewards the partner who can appropriately respond to her demands and transform raw need into desires specifically related to time, place and person .... To be able to name three wants suddenly on demand and in expectation of their fulfillment requires freely flowing, spontaneous access to passion, and a clear, articulated sense of entitlement. Such thrice-focused desire is remarkably difficult for modern rational consciousness, which is often too far removed from its repressed libidinous sources or in distorted relation to them through learned fear and addictive patterns. How far removed is easy to see. All we have to do at any moment is to ask ourselves the goddess [Scathach]'s question: what three things do I want most, now and here? Where there is a limp sense of entitlement, asking oneself and seeking to answer the question exercises a necessary psychological muscle."

Having the aforementioned limp sense of entitlement myself, this was of interest...

Comments

hmmmm.... philosophical questions

[capriciouslass.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of the ritual at the end of the Egyptian chapter. It left me with much to think about. We were asked, "If you were to die today, how would you choose to spend your day?" (or the corollary: what what would you be sorry you had or hadn't done in your life?) I know that the discussion in that ritual left me with much to contemplate. Now, off to contemplate life in the shower...

Damnit!

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

That's part of tonight's class? I'm gonna be real sorry to miss it... that's some of my favorite stuff, not to mention something I desperately need to work on.

[thee-emperor.livejournal.com]

*sucks deep breath in*

happinesslovegoodsexgoodfoodprosperityconnectionfriendswisdomandmore!

there!

Re: Damnit!

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was thinking that the class would be more about sovereignty when I planned it, but now I have all this material on ecstasy and passion, which I'm figuring is going to be more interesting than sovereignty (although I'm still planning on talking about that). So maybe.

But we can discuss your limp sense of entitlement some other time, when you're feeling better. :)

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

The word entitlement that bothers me. It has taken on such a pejorative meaning lately that it stands in the way of exactly what the author proposes. I think it implies that you may believe you have a right to something but that right is placing undue burden upon another. I think part of the distancing from the "repressed libidinous sources" (a fabulous phase I must use in conversation soon) is this idea that what we desire effects others. That can be good and bad and when it is uncertain in our minds which it may be, then we may tend to assume bad. Personally that is what I probably do far to often and the result is dropping the idea altogether.

Sigh another book...so much to know, so few quiet hours of the day.

Entitlement

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

The meaning implied here is non-politicized. Entitlement, in this sense, is about accepting what you desire and deserve. *Shrug* For me, it's easier to accept the general statement "People deserve to have good things happen to them" than the specific "I deserve to have good things happen to me" (ed. note - I can't even type that - I had to go back and correct three major typos). That's what this is about, in my mind.

Re: Entitlement

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

Yeah I figured it was not meant that way but I as a reader have that overlay. Guess in a way it worked, because I had to think about it more than just saying yeah I know that.

Re: Entitlement

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Oh! Oh! A cross-reference!
"You're okay; I'm not okay." Right?

This message is brought to you by the bunny who can be taught (or re-programmed, anyway).

Re: Entitlement

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Bingo. :)

Three cheers for those who know what they want.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Well done, sir.
I guess the secondary question is, do you expect to get it, and would you be comfortable with it if you did?

Re: Three cheers for those who know what they want.

[thee-emperor.livejournal.com]

already getting it in bursts, and quite comfortable with it, thank you. :)

Re: Three cheers for those who know what they want.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Fabulousness.

Re: Entitlement

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Sure, but the 'sense of entitlement' buzzword postdates the book/ideas being discussed, so it's not exactly the author's fault (I don't think you were really trying to say that, but it was subtextual).

Bah - fevers suck.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I think I'm being all clever and really I'm looking like a dickhead.

Since this is the discussion about Sylvia Perera and not the one about Robert Anton Wilson, let me revise my earlier pronouncement:

"entitlement" doesn't have to have the nasty connotations that the conservatives/libertarians have given it; it's unfortunate that it has been hijacked that way, but I don't think it's inherent in the word itself.

Re: Entitlement

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Actually, the publication date on the book is 1999, so *shrug*.
Although it's also true that there are a lot of words in analytic schools that mean different things than what they mean outside of the Freud-and-Jung club. (And, alternately, most words in use in politics mean something different than what they mean outside of those circles. So it runs both ways.)

Re: Entitlement

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

Yes and no. When I think about it now, yes I was putting some blame on the author for not choosing her words more carefully. Mostly, however, it was a statement of how the word effects me in first encountering it.

But I disagree about the connotations of a word. Whether a a politician used a word in a new way or a comedian on SNL, a word picks up connotations. It is the nature of our language and we don't have a language police (yes we have people who police us using language but not the language itself...see France). Most words are constructs and have no inherent meaning. Peruse the OED and watch a word change over time. The reclaiming tradition is all about changing words or changing them back.

Re: Entitlement

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Most words are constructs and have no inherent meaning.
I'd argue that all words are constructs and have no inherent meaning... but that may be just me. It's all based on consensus. If you and I have agreed that "sprorgle" means the sort of cappucinoid coffee that one gets from the dispenser at the gas station (you know, the sort that you have to fill your cup only 2/3 of the way up, and then let go of the button?), then sprorgle is as valid a word as anything else. This is why I got so PO'ed about the whole "trance" discussion not so long ago... in my world we can call it anything we want to as long as we understand that the meaning we assign to it is valid only for us... Or not.

Re: Entitlement

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

I started writing all words then "Mom" popped into my head and that is fairly consistent across languages that I know of. So, I didn't want to make an absolute statement. Being Pisces absolutes make me skittish.

Re: Entitlement

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Being the sort of creature that will hardly ever give a level of surety above 85% to anything, I understand.

That also occurred to me, that most languages attach the Ma- sound to the concept of mother, since odds are, that's the first thing the kid's going to say, and odds are that Mom's going to be the one who's around to hear it, but even that may not be the cut-in-stone sort of thing... in the Future(tm), when the feminist revolution is complete, and all children are raised by stay-at-home dads, Ma- may come to refer to the concept of father :-P

Re: Entitlement

[agrnmn.livejournal.com]

I'm just not for that at all, then I would lose status as a Mother Fucker.

since we're quoting...

[zylch.livejournal.com]

"The world owes us nothing/ we owe each other the world." -- Ani D. Still working on getting the first bit through my head, but in general I like the idea.

Alas, I'm going to have to miss this class. I've already burned more gas than I intended to today, and I have a metric buttload of stuff to do tonight. Have fun, though!

Re: since we're quoting...

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Is a "metric buttload" greater than or less than a "goatload?" -- just because I'm a stickler for preciscion.

Re: since we're quoting...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

It probably depends on whose butt you're using for measurement.

Re: since we're quoting...

[zylch.livejournal.com]

definitely larger -- if I'm not off the puter by three, I've got no chance.

off by 3 p.m.?

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Then I'll repeat the message I sent by email -- found you a bottle of Mavrodaphne. I can pick it up around lunchtime tomorrow, which means we just have to figure out how to get it to you for the evening. Will that suffice?

Re: off by 3 p.m.?

[zylch.livejournal.com]

got that, sent you an email which may not have shown up yet. What would be the best time/place for you?

Se philo!

Re: off by 3 p.m.?

[saffronhare.livejournal.com]

Just got your email and replied. I will now send another reply (which you should receive before your 3 p.m. deadline) with some phone numbers so you can also reach me offline. Savvy?