Status Updates From Mas Alla del Principio del ...

Rereading to teach!

"One of our strongest motives for believing in the existence of death drives is indeed the fact that we have perceived the dominant tendency of the psyche, and perhaps of nervous life in general, to be the constant endeavour–as manifested in the pleasure principle - to reduce inner stimulative tension, to maintain it at a steady level, to resolve it completely (the Nirvana principle, as Barbara Low has called it)."

"As we have already learnt from the research carried out on protista, the coalescence of two individuals without subsequent [cell-]division (i.e. conjugation) has a strengthening and rejuvenating effect on both individuals, assuming that they separate from each other soon afterwards (see above, p. 87; cf. also Lipschütz)."

"Isn’t it altogether plausible to suppose that this sadism is actually a death drive that has been ousted from the ego at the instance of the narcissistic libido, and as a result only becomes apparent in conjunction with the object?"

All the sublimations and reaction-formations and surrogate-formations in the world are never enough to resolve the abiding tension; and the gulf between the level of gratificatory pleasure demanded and the level actually achieved produces that driving force that prevents the individual from resting content with any situation he ever contrives, and instead–as the poet says–he ‘presses ever onward unbridled, untamed.