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“desire … is … mediated by reference to Nothingness: the true object-cause of desire (as opposed to the objects that satisfy our needs) is, by definition, a stand-in for Nothingness. … Objet petit a as the object-cause of desire is the originally lost object: … not only that we desire it in so far as it is lost - this object is nothing but a loss positivized.” — Zizek (via jujutsu-with-zizek)
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To the Wonder Notes
“Everywhere you’re present. And still I can’t see you.”
Haloes of sunlight; tapestry.
(A lack of) love—familial, romantic, divine. Love is the Search, the water, the dance (Camera movement/walking around each other/hands: dancing figures, water, light). The reach—across the language barrier/beyond words (French, English, Spanish, sign language, prayer, muttering, silence, violence), the jump cut (Camera movement: inability to hold on), the sin. Thus, the film itself reaches for an unreachable. Shows us an unseeable (Title: “To the Wonder”: a mystery, the whole film: a direction).
The Light and the flower. The seashore.
Not a guide to relationships; guide to the seeking/guide to the divine; solipsism; meditation on the emotion/passion, a reflection, a phantasm of desire; trust is not enough.
“My mother says I’m chasing moonbeams.”
A ballet.
To the Wonder
2012
Terrence Malick
When I was about 10, living in Mount Vernon, my friends and I got in trouble for fucking around in this big vacant brick house down the block. It was owned by some lady named Betty Shabazz who died some years ago. I’d never heard of her. My father (after whipping my ass) gave me this book and it changed how I view myself and the world. Happy Birthday, مالك. (at 407 Cedar Ave, Mt. Vernon)
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“Prison systems are fond of tests, all kinds, psychological, I.Q., aptitude. During my stay at Vacaville I was interviewed several times by two or three psychiatrists who ran a battery of aptitude and I.Q. tests on me. I scored low on the I.Q. tests, about the third or fourth grade; I don’t know about scores on the others. Puzzled over these low scores in view of my good grades in college, the psychiatrists asked me about it. I explained to them that I refused to relate to these tests because they are routinely used as weapons against Black people in particular and minority groups and poor people generally. The tests are based on white middle-class standards, and when we score low on them, the results are used to justify the prejudice that we are inferior and unintelligent. Since we are taught to believe that the tests are infallible, they have become a self-fulfilling prophecy that cuts off our initiative and brainwashes us.
“I told the psychiatrists that if they really wanted to know my I.Q. they ought to examine my background and the work I had done in many areas, including creative disciplines like music. This seemed perfectly logical and obvious to me, but the psychiatrists either could not understand or preferred to remain ignorant. Their approach was so mechanical, so lacking insight, that they appeared unintelligent to me; they refused to see that it is more important to judge a person by his accomplishments than by some abstract tests that may or may not correlate to the facts of his life. It has been my experience in prison that psychiatrists are among the most rigid and inflexible members of the staff. They are programmed and computerized like robots and cannot approach inmates as human beings. With their tests and questionnaires they seem to have a preconceived idea of what an “adjusted” human being is. Any deviation from this mold is a threat to them.”
— Huey P. Newton, from Revolutionary Suicide
“[The book of Job is] laying bare the basic discursive strategies of legitimizing suffering: Job’s properly ethical dignity lies in the way he persistently rejects the notion that his suffering can have any meaning, either punishment for his past sins or a trial of his faith, against the three theologians who bombard him with possible meanings - and, surprisingly, God takes his side at the end, claiming that every word Job spoke was true, while every word the three theologians spoke was false.” — Zizek (via jujutsu-with-zizek)