Father Again
“How to learn from the dying of the dead for the life of the living.” Farocki wrote this line in a production note while shooting Between Two Wars.
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This write up has nothing to do with Harun Farocki’s work. Although I admire the depth of his empathy and his love for film. I was just typing attachment on eflux and I came upon this writing by Constance Ruhm about how her work is influenced by Harun.
Harun’s films talked about capitalism, fascism, control, machines and labor. You can look them up. But for me, just some things reminded me of my father and so I share it. Harun talking about machines, the discipline of the machine turning into control. My father was also a machine man.
My initiative began as I thought of attachment. Our most pursued, subconscious reality creator can be found when we look at the things we are most attached to. What was missing in childhood, that is driving your behavior and reality today? The father was that figure for me. The unavailable man I lost when I was way too young. The sexual force/ life force that I feel most driving and powerful is the love towards an unavailable man. Why is my drive doing this? We all know from psychology that it is the absent father. It is perverse to think about how this pattern is really me wanting to seduce and have sex with the father? It is like the Oedipal complex but for a woman. It is my anima, as Jung would say. Of course, it doesn’t literally mean I want to have sex with my father or that daddy issues are a permanent fate. No, it’s just that childhood templates of where the psyche was most active become adult templates that one heals with shadow work. Each time the pattern of a painful relationship will reveal the core wound that is meant to be healed
Someone else might be attached to making money, because that is what was lacking as a child. We all have one or two strongest attachments.
What does it mean, then to let go? Letting go has come up for me recently. I feel like this is the lesson of the human experience. To come with human bodies, attachments and to learn to let them go so that we journey back to our light bodies! Spirit beings that we are. It transmute the human experience, to spirit experience. And in the process maybe create something with purpose intentionally from our highest selves and not from the repeated patterns of the subconscious.
Now that the subconscious has made it’s way to the conscious, I see my father everywhere… In the coconut seller who gives me a kind smile. The professor who was nice to me. The man who was a bit kind. The only difference is, I see the kindness for what it is. A gesture, and not my own projection or drive of making if more that what it is. It’s still very sticky because subconscious drives are so deeply rooted, but it gets better.
Originally published at http://bewitchedforceofthepyres.wordpress.com on January 26, 2024.
