Now it is 5:35 a.m. and I still can't sleep. Why can't I sleep?

Here is what I learned and what I think about Freud:

1) Freud talks quite a bit about mastery--when he discusses separation, and then later, when he discusses trauma, which is in some ways even more interesting.

2) To Freud, it is clear that trauma and separation are both assaults on the self, or more precisely interruptions of the economy of narcissism that constitutes the subjectivity of the mature adult. Freud's mention of the ego as a "unity" is revealing and interesting here. Specifically, the ego-libido and the object-libido are conceived as fluid "chemical energies" (it seems probable that Freud expected these properties of psychology to be further clarified and developed by neuroscience, which he refers to as "psycho-physiology"). To Freud, the attachment to objects grows from the desire to be loved; in a "happy" love relationship, libido flows (in the form of energy) from the ego to the object and back in a form of sustaining economy. This ecosystem of ego-libido and object-libido constitutes the subjectivity of a mature adult.


The loss of a beloved object (which, significantly, to Freud is not merely caused by a death but also by the loss of a relationship) disrupts the unity of the ego (??) and requires the ego to perform the work of mastery, which usually takes the form of instructing the self (through a sort of obsessional rote repetition) in the reality or actuality of the loss. Freud uses the word "pain" to refer to this variety of loss, and suggests that loss is a source of pain because it is a violation of the borders of the self [is this bullshit????? double check].

Separation is not external to the self, even when it takes place in the physical environment that is external to the body of the bereaved. Rather, separation or loss is a breach in the unity that is the ego, because the attachments formed by an individual are not external to him or her but form part of the hard-won unity of the mature self. The loss of an attachment thus compromises the unity of the self and is experienced as a personal danger [again, bullshit?????? double check] which must be mastered.

emotions of anger and grief, . . . competing impulses toward protest and mastery (here, not mastery in the sense of consolation, but rather mastery in the sense of recognizing the loss as real, factual, actual, objective).


Question: how does all this relate to the sublime, *exactly*? How much is it wise or necessary to focus on the idea of separation as personal danger?

Maybe it would be more shrewd to emphasize that, to Freud, the boundaries of the "self" are not as simple as we might expect, but contain a whole economy of identification: with objects of attachment, with countries and places, etc. This would later allow for a more inclusive discussion of danger.

(Death as a loss of self, not a loss of life.) Significantly, although Freud does not *say* it, does he imply that the loss of the ego is potentially more devastating than the loss of life? Double check.