“Self-love is the principle of imagination.
The parlêtre (the speaking-being) adores their body because they believe they have it. In reality, they don’t, but their body is their only consistency - their only mental consistency, you understand - because this body will clear off at any moment.
It is even fairly miraculous that it subsists for the time it is being used, which is an inescapable fact, due to the fact of saying it.
It is inescapable inasmuch as, however you use it, it won’t get used up.
This is a fact that can be observed even in animals. The body doesn’t evaporate. It is consistent.
Indeed, this is what is disagreeable to mentality, solely because this mentality believes in having a body to adore.
There lies the root of the imaginary.”
Jacques Lacan, Seminar XXIII, The Sinthome, 1974, page 52
Painting by Guillermo Lorca García, The English Bed, 2020
The parlêtre (the speaking-being) adores their body because they believe they have it. In reality, they don’t, but their body is their only consistency - their only mental consistency, you understand - because this body will clear off at any moment.
It is even fairly miraculous that it subsists for the time it is being used, which is an inescapable fact, due to the fact of saying it.
It is inescapable inasmuch as, however you use it, it won’t get used up.
This is a fact that can be observed even in animals. The body doesn’t evaporate. It is consistent.
Indeed, this is what is disagreeable to mentality, solely because this mentality believes in having a body to adore.
There lies the root of the imaginary.”
Jacques Lacan, Seminar XXIII, The Sinthome, 1974, page 52
Painting by Guillermo Lorca García, The English Bed, 2020