An Aggregate of Indications.....is from a paper I wrote in college. I received permission to attend a graduate level course on Freud's Dream Book: 100 yrs later. I had taken other courses with Prof. Thomas A. Pepper and had thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and intensity in which he conducted class and the way it reflected his overall personality. For example, in a previous course with Pepper I learned quickly that one of the effective methods he used to ensure a student's preparedness was to single them out to answer questions and/or recite out loud passages he wished to cover. He had me read one of Shakespeare's Sonnets for the class, Discourse on Love. I was a decent reader but was stumped on a question that he finally opened to the class. "What does it mean in this passage, to die?" After several shrugged shoulders and many adverted eyes, Pepper finally exclaimed, "to FUCK". Well ok then. Looking back I still don't imagine myself standing up and yelling that answer and having it be correct but it will certainly stick with me and that's what learning is, right. More than most any class and even many experiences, I left Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature courses, especially Pepper's, with this feeling. Not a small thing.
Back to the point.... The course on Freud's Dream Book took place around a large rectangular table (probably 4 large, heavy wooded tables pushed together) in the library of the CSCL Department HQ, an offshoot of the main office. Recognizing I was sitting among TA's I had for other introductory courses, I couldn't help but imagine the feeling of a meeting of the "League of Extraordinary Gentle(wo)men" or even Aristotle's "Symposium". The syllabus was set that each "student" was assigned to lead one half of a three hour lecture. The other half was covered by Pepper. The class was held once a week so these presentations were expected to be very polished. I was assigned the very last week, after all the other TA's and grad. students had set the bar. I don't believe that my paper was cutting edge poignant, polished, or even came to a real ending but it read well and I was complimented during break from one of the brighter students (almost worth as much as my grade for the class). When we returned, I was asked without too much success to defend the title. Unfortunately I had not sited the page and could not/have not researched to find it again but it was a broad brushstroke to describing the method by which Freud analyzed a patient's case history...and I'm sticking to it. You heap together all the little bits of info and take to issue the highest likelihood (a guess) of inter-connectedness, cause and effect of symptoms, and proceed with an analysis. This method fails scientifically although whenever I visit the doctor it certainly seems to me that I report my situation, they hear a cough from the chest, feel my lymph nodes are swollen, look at the back of my throat, etc. and then diagnose (guess) that it's strep. Regardless of its lack of scientific merits, Freud's impact on literature was substantial to say the least. Every little spec contributes to the bigger picture in some fashion. In many respects there is still a "leap" made to how a person registers their analysis/perspective of life and reality or makes light of the millions of specs to their daily lives. It is truly incredible to realize that every single person is processing their own reality differently. One person can deny the Holocaust and another will insist the world is not flat. And we are all constantly piling up our heap with thoughts, based on who knows what, to come to some conclusion that this is the way it is, the way it was, going to be, should be, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but. Here's my reality. It really makes sense. You can't disagree with it. But the funny thing is, that is so limiting to define things as diametrically opposed, right and wrong. It's a heap of shit really and you can't help but whiff the influence: family, friends, pets, the weather, the climate of opinion, shelter, working for the (wo)man, preoccupations, obsessions, compulsions, instincts, reactions, motivations, a sign, a message, circumstance, time and place, context, interests, the media, fashion, music, literature, art, language, senses, power, the will to...whatever, nourishment, health, money, politics, foresight, memories, hindsight, forgetfulness, mistakes, luck, the birds and the bees, a good pair of shoes, a fresh glass of water, coffee, beer, wine, etc., medications, scenes, moods, planetary alignment, transportation, belief systems, and blessed be all the other words that mean one thing to one person and something entirely different to another, existing, changing, until it doesn't.
Considering all the angles of influence within one person's life, it isn't hard to concieve of tracking such wavering sentiment. This leads me to another favorite collegiate study of mine; Soren Kierkegaard, who utilized pseudonyms to differentiate between voices often publishing two works at a time so as to add to the intrigue. Works under his real name were religious in nature and many even attacked the church mostly for reasons that it cheapened Christianity with its contradictions, adaptations of interpretation, and business mindedness. His pseudonymous writing took on more carnal topics that eventually were turned upside down to illuminate some issue of spirituality, etc.... I found Kierkegaard's pseudonyms (Johanne the Seducer, Johannes de Silencio, etc) to be particularly clever, enough to take a generic version of them for my own. It takes the fun out of it in explaining it but Johannes D (my chosen user name) not only leaves the end descriptor open to the exceptionally wide range of my moody ass but also rolls off the tongue sounding like "your highness" perhaps refering both to royalty and the state of being high....like on a Mt.
Everywhere around us, there's a mystery unfolding, a flip side not considered. Senseless, disconnected, hard to explain. Plain as day, stumbled upon, previously hidden, a firm grip on the obvious, all the clues present themselves. And then there it is....unpredictable, messed up, beautiful, and ever changing.....an aggregate of indications. Perhaps something/nothing more.
