Monday, August 15, 2011

permanent strangers

Unheimlich, or the uncanny, for Freud, represents experiences that are uncomfortably strange or uncomfortably familiar. It could consist of the return of a repressed past into the present, or the unconscious obtruding into consciousness. He draws on examples on literary examples, such as the Oedipus myth, moments when life and fiction are blurred resulting in life as fiction. It’s also a moment of uncertainty at the intellectual level, where we are rationally uncertain of how to receive something, whether seeing our double, or an inanimate object become life like. Heimlich is the German word for “homely,” or “native,” and thereby Unheimlich is that which is “unhomely;” yet, it is and is not homely or familiar. The term heimlick contains a paradoxical premise for it is what is familiar and concealed. It’s an indefinite concept and defies a straightforward definition. I wonder to what extent, the notion of permanent strangers evokes the uncanny, a movement from familiarity to absolute strangeness. When your idea of a person is shattered to the point of transforming the person into a complete stranger. What is most sad, however, is the permanent stranger turns out to have always been a stranger. Your conceptions were always misconceptions. There’s the risk of questioning yourself, whether in fact you knew this person and whether this sudden strangeness, even animosity, places you under erasure.

6 comments:

  1. Wouldn't it be better to question yourself?

    That way, you would really decide whether you knew that person or not.

    After all, people do strange things, depending on what your definition of weird is.

    And people change too.

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  2. Merci, Aman! (:

    Ovais, good point. I think questioning of the self is inevitable. And the feeling of being erased is an implicit questioning. Because when you begin to wonder whether you exist for the other person, you start to think of whether in fact you exist (not literally, but on a social level).

    Yes, people change, we all change, I too change, sometimes for the better, other times for the worse.

    How would you define weird or strange?

    Thanks for commenting, Ovais.

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  3. Strangers would always be strangers . No matter what .Those who are ours are ours and there is not strange feelings about them .Some time our nearer people are strangers to us.So its depend on heart ad soul .I like you. I can talk with you and don't feel you as a stranger even that I have never meet you ,or saw you in real .But there is an amazing comfort level with you.

    Hope I have understand your post.

    By the way ,I have tagged you in my post A to Z.

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  4. You could stalk that person and see if you really do exist..

    It's easier on Facebook. :p

    Weird could be anything. Depends on your definition of normal. Is normal a person who runs around when they get hyper or is it someone who yells and annoys random people?

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  5. You're the sweetest Izdiher! <3 I feel the same about you too.
    I will definitely check out your post. For some reason, my blog doesn't inform me if I've been tagged, maybe it's not supposed to.
    Yeah, you make you good point, some people will remain strangers no matter how much you get to know them.

    Ovais, I think that would be the greatest response if someone found you're stalking them, you should tell them all you wanted to find out was whether you exist or not.

    I guess in both scenarios you presented the person is normal. Perhaps the latter would be less normal if the person randomly yelled. But there are normal people who are annoying.

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  6. Oh tagging means I tagged you .Now you answer .Make a post like that :).Take care .

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