An homage to the suspicious intuitions of Sigmund Freud, as he speculates on the science of feelings, and the denial of the ‘oceanic.’
YEAR: 2014
RUNTIME: 10:30
VOICE: Sharday Mosurinjohn
MUSIC (SAMPLED): John Burge, Matt Rogalsky, Gary Kibbins
SOUND DESIGN: Matt Rogalsky
Script
1.
(on-screen)
- We are unable to actually see oceans; they are only accessible to introspection.
- After billions of years, the ocean is still infantile and narcissistic.
It will never “come into its own.” It will never come to resemble itself. - We want the ocean to say something to us, but all that it knows to say is “ocean,” “ocean,”
“ocean…” - The ocean has nothing to say and no means to say it.
- The ocean knows nothing, and nothing is given to the ocean to know.
- The ocean does not deceive us. (Although we are deceived by the ocean.)
- The ocean is patronizing.
- They say that if you are partially immersed in seawater
while reciting a long poem, you will remember that poem for the rest of your life.
I’ve tried it.
It’s not true. - The ocean is full of little corpses.
- That is why the so-called “boundless ocean” is often likened, sarcastically, to a small house.
That is why the so-called “boundless ocean” is often sarcastically compared to a small, dark house.
2.
(on-screen)
Inside this modest home,
friends & associates gather to chat
amicably
about relevant topics, while struggling with
unconscious impulses concerning
sexuality and aggression.
(voice and on-screen)
… he has been trying to make the experience of boredom and guilt a more enjoyable one than it
has been recently, because of the various frustrations which society imposes on him in pursuit of its
cultural ideals, which he attempts to accomplish by fixing attention on the bodily and sexual
functions, or by pursuing the impossible goal of encyclopedic knowledge, because he thinks he
sees in them a physiological basis, which corresponds with a number of obscure adaptations to day
to day mental life, such as trances, ecstasies, or alcohol and drug experiences, often employing
smart, modern, materialist vocabularies, which lean heavily on synonyms – synonyms of order, of
happiness, of cleanliness, synonyms of purity and guiltlessness – as well as the associated
substitute emotions without the self-confidence required to face the noisy spectacles of eros which
compete for attention in the dark, obscene corners of our phantasy life relentlessly persecuted by
the tyranny of the pleasure principle – itself without emotion, although vibrant and liberated from all
forms of self-doubt – that decides, decisively, the purpose(s) of life, employing an artful mix of
aggression and decorum which animates Bob’s desire for a more primitive – yet at the same time,
more bearable, more livable, more tolerable – version of civilization and progress. Note that Bob,
thinking that his psychological misery is more artistic and more stylish than the psychological misery
of the common office worker, confident that he can reduce questions of meaning to simple
measurable outcomes, yet lacking a proper substitute for parental agency, is terrified that every raw
moment will linger like a meaningless eternity, and that despite his many discontents, and despite
the difficulty of dealing scientifically with feelings, has not attempted to disguise the fact that he has,
at various times and in varying intensities, employed intoxicants and other gratification-inducing
agents to reestablish control over his assorted sexual objects, which might otherwise slip away
unseen into the evolutionary night.
Bob is weak, and is surely right to be concerned about that. Reality is too strong for him. Bob is
himself not yet healthy enough to ignore his real misery.
… and he might reply, employing his extended spiritual vocabulary, that all raw experience contains
the potential for developing a compelling alternative, like that offered, for example, by the
communists, who believe that they have found the path to deliverance from our personal sufferings,
thinking that mankind is wholly good, but the institution of private property has corrupted his nature,
as again and again we find fault with our civilization for the pitiless imposition of instinctual
renunciation, and for promoting the self’s selfish negativity in a social world which, as everyone
knows, is weakened and degraded by such actions, even while knowing that no ego can mature
and flourish without first exposing itself to the cruel disenchantments enforced by civilization, while
simultaneously competing with other often belligerent egos for the scattered scraps of satisfaction
which can be scavenged there, as Bob, who has now acquired a motive for keeping custody of his
female acquisition, understanding that historically the process of founding families was connected
with the need for continued genital satisfaction, envisions himself gazing out on a vast and
melancholy landscape of ill-fated protagonists, all those now defeated, bitter species-males
enthusiastically responding to the call for retribution, contriving elaborate strategies for securing the
loyalty of their sexual objects in order to prevent them from being seduced or seized by interlopers,
only to succumb to the heartbreak of their never-ending ordinariness, and the knowledge that they
represent nothing more than hopelessness and negativity, scavenging, again, for those
voluptuously empty experiences that can only defer the inevitability of disappointment, knowing
(while not really “knowing”) that disappointment will be ingeniously (but transparently…) disguised
as blissful sensation, where the only recourse is to seek fulfillment in aggression, as a defense
against suffering, as that is the one choice remaining to those whose only real commitment is to
survival and reproduction, which may seem a reasonable alternative to giving in to hysterical fear,
whose shrill, needy victims whine with disheartening predictability:
“But what about me?
What about my primary drives?
… even as they conspire to turn their misery against their tormentors, experiencing fully the idiocy of
rural and small town life, in a futile effort to forestall any or all scenarios, however drearily inevitable
they may be, where the renunciation of instinct is transformed into a dynamic source of bad
conscience, making the society which demands it simultaneously both more secure and less happy,
an endless process with no beginning and no end, always in media res, but always taking the
“unattackable authority” into itself, internalizing it, as does Bob the father and Bob the son, swept up
in the fever of social accountability and the endlessly cruel demands of instinctual repression.
Bob knows, as surely we all do, that it all began in relation to the father, and is finally completed in
the relation to the group. He experiences a deep feeling of resentment, which he feels entitled to
interpret as moral sensitivity.
For it is in the group, in civilization itself, that Bob and his kind together responding to a primeval
need to bind all together in oneness, anima mundi, counteracted by another, contrary instinct
seeking to dissolve those mythic, unified wholes, which instinctively seek out feelings of ‘eternity,’ of
something limitless and unbounded, something ‘oceanic,’ only to return them to a primeval,
inorganic nothingness, something resembling the deep and soothing comforts of death and
annihilation, which are at least more sophisticated than the unpretentious but also equally
uninspiring life cycle of the paramecium, where primary narcissism remains a rich and pure
sensation uncorrupted by guilt, and unmoved by the narcosis induced in us by art, and where the
ceaseless demands of civilization has finally forfeited its promised rewards, having forever lost the
trust of its participants, whose feelings of aggression can finally be expressed unaffected by the
devious machinations of internalized authority, which reaches heights that the individual finds
impossible to tolerate, that being the price that Bob must pay if he intends to accept both the
restraints and the safety of the group, finding no solace in the illustriousness of his predecessors,
all of whom, although falling victim to the very same ……
3.
(voice and on-screen)
I cannot discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling in myself. It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings.
Scientifically I cannot discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling in myself. It is not easy to deal scientifically with feelings.
Scientifically I cannot discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling in myself. It is not scientifically easy to deal scientifically with feelings.
Scientifically I cannot discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling scientifically in myself. It is not scientifically easy to deal scientifically with feelings.
Scientifically I cannot scientifically discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling scientifically in myself. It is not scientifically easy to deal scientifically with feelings.
Scientifically I cannot scientifically discover this ‘oceanic’ feeling scientifically in myself. It is not scientifically easy to scientifically deal scientifically with feelings.
Scientifically I cannot scientifically discover this scientifically ‘oceanic’ feeling scientifically in myself.
It is not scientifically easy to scientifically deal scientifically with feelings.
Scientifically I cannot scientifically discover this scientifically ‘oceanic’ feeling scientifically in feeling
myself. It is not scientifically easy to scientifically deal scientifically with feelings.
Feeling scientifically I cannot scientifically discover this scientifically ‘oceanic’ feeling scientifically in
feeling myself. It is not scientifically easy to scientifically deal scientifically with feelings.
Feeling scientifically I cannot scientifically discover this scientifically ‘oceanic’ feeling scientifically in
feeling myself. It is not scientifically feeling easy to scientifically deal scientifically with feelings.
Feeling scientifically I cannot scientifically discover feeling this scientifically ‘oceanic’ feeling
scientifically in feeling myself. It is not scientifically feeling easy to scientifically deal scientifically with feelings.
Feeling scientifically I cannot scientifically discover feeling this scientifically ‘oceanic’ feeling
scientifically in feeling myself. It is not scientifically feeling easy to scientifically deal feeling scientifically with feelings.
Feeling scientifically I cannot not scientifically discover not feeling this scientifically ‘oceanic’ feeling
scientifically in not feeling myself. It is not scientifically feeling easy to not scientifically not deal feeling scientifically with feelings.
Discover feeling scientifically I cannot not discover scientifically discover not feeling this scientifically
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discover not scientifically not deal feeling scientifically with discover feelings.
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easy to discover not scientifically not deal feeling scientifically with ‘oceanic’ discover feelings.
Discover myself ‘oceanic’ feeling scientifically I cannot myself not discover scientifically discover not
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is not myself scientifically feeling easy to myself discover not scientifically not deal feeling myself scientifically with ‘oceanic’ discover feelings myself.
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discover not easy feeling this scientifically ‘oceanic’ feeling myself scientifically easy in not feeling
myself discover myself. It is not easy myself scientifically feeling easy to myself discover not
scientifically not deal feeling myself scientifically with easy ‘oceanic’ discover feelings myself.