It is important to start by mentioning Paul Diel regarding his conception of the unconscious and the subconscious. In Post THE UNCONSCIOUS AND THE CONSCIOUS IN THE APPLICATION OF THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM, we said: “In order to make incursions into the configuration (conformation) of the mental (cerebral) functions, we will resort to a classification that Paul Diel makes (elaborates) in his book Psychoanalysis of Divinity, F.C.E., Mexico, 1974. Diel clearly points out the psychic functions of the conscious, unconscious and superconscious as the natural and healthy states of the psyche that every human being has; he also includes the subconscious as the damaged function of the mind, freeing the unconscious from that attribution that is regularly made to it. In his essay Diel shows the unconscious as the vital and vigorous function of the psyche where all the desires, appetites and instincts rejected (repressed) by the consciousness accumulate; defining the subconscious as the pathological and unhealthy state of the human psyche (Jung calls it psychological shadow), which has desires that are irreconcilable with reality, that which our consciousness assures us -most of the time- is the authentic one”. We will use and adhere strictly to this definition as I consider it to be the most accurate.
Furthermore, we need to underline that the subconscious is not part of the unconscious; that is, the unconscious does not contain any damaged element or part.
Now, let us see what the EROS and THANATOS instincts are.
In the science of psychology these two instincts have been defined to signify the inclinations that the human being has towards life (Eros instinct) and towards death (Thanatos instinct). Both instincts are innate and natural in all human beings, since they are born, live and until they die; and both can be developed, increased or decreased, depending on the individual being and his environment and social surroundings.
THANATOS INSTINCT
The Thanatos instinct is an impulse or inclination to death and destruction, a concept that sounds aggressive, but in our field it indicates that generalized dissatisfaction -in a high percentage of human beings- that we feel and that overwhelms us, because we do not feel happy in an appreciable and constant way.
Resorting to some definitions, we find the following meanings and scopes of the concept Thanatos. Freud incorporated this concept in his psychoanalytic theory, as the opposite of the Eros instinct.
It is considered to be a force of discord and rupture, contrary to the meaning of EROS, being this instinctive of union.
Thanatos is a vigorous energy towards death in general, manifesting itself also in a particular way as an impulse towards self-destruction, in which the individual is not conscious of it; in other less crude (rougher or softer) words, in those cases that are not reduced, it is a propensity (predisposition, disposition, tendency) towards the negation of the self.
In Post WALKING AS PHYSICAL PRACTICE AND AS ALEGORY, I expressed: “No one should be afraid of death if one has lived genuinely and vitally in the light of one’s own spirit, under the guidance of the force of the particular reason, the feeling of personal emotions and under the WAY of knowledge indicated by the instincts [EROS instinct] and the individual unconscious”. Of course I was referring to the EROS instinct.
EROS INSTINCT
Let us now devote a few words to its counterbalancing companion, the Eros impulse.
This instinct is a determining inclination to life, to the desire to live, to the yearning to live.
Resorting to dictionary definitions, we find the following meanings and scopes of the concept Eros: 1) Desire for possession or love, almost always erotic. 2) In Platonic philosophy, the driving force of life that tends towards the absolute God; hence, the motive that explains education, the arts and philosophy. In Plato’s use of the term, he insists on the character of fascination, impersonality and intense desire. 3) This is why Eros must be distinguished from the Indian Bhakti (altruistic surrender), from the Buddhist Metta (disinterested benevolence), from the Confucian Jen (humanity, charity) and Ai (personal love), and from the Christian Agapao (sacrificial, protective, fraternal love) and Phileo (personal affection or fondness). Source: Dictionary of Philosophy, Dagobert D. Runes, Grijalbo, Mexico, 1981 (Original title: Dictionary of Philosophy).
In these scopes we can observe that in the different languages each one gives it a different meaning and this leads us to multiply the content of the word. Of course, we have made incursions into the understanding of the concept, and now we will do so in what instinct represents in itself in the human condition.
According to Freud both instincts, Eros and Thanatos, are complementary and both are indispensable for the survival of the individual being.
The unconscious is EROS.
The subconscious is Thanatos.
To walk is to advance. To advance is EROS.
THANATOS is not to advance, is not to walk.
For my own reasons to promote walking, I will dedicate more effort to elucidate the behavioral and directive manifestations of the Thanatos instinct, in human behavior, more than of Eros (Of this instinct EROS, sheltered by the individual unconscious, I already spoke in Post THE EMOTIONS AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM), although I did not mention it with that name. Aspects that I will try to show that this negative drive tries to dominate the Human Condition, since it is a “natural” reflex in the behavior of the human being.
I will try to list, as completely as possible, the equivocity (multivaloration, polyvalence) of Thanatos, an instinct that we locate its manifestations concealing itself in other attitudes and actions of the human being: punishment, war, aggression, overweight, damage, alcoholism, drug addiction, excommunication, revenge, torture, sadism, masochism, smashing, whipping, beating, stoning, lynching, expulsion and imprisonment; which I believe are the most representative manifestations, and that there will surely be some more that I have not included.
As we can observe in this list, some human actions are clearly seen to be a homologue to this instinct, but others are observed with different ranges (graduation, scale).
As is to be expected, the conscious is influenced in its actions by both instincts, and both seek to influence it to the greatest degree possible. Thus, the Thanatos instinct seeks the support of the conscious and achieves it in a relevant percentage (it would be important to know this percentage).
In general, we must also assume that the conscious is not always alert to the very different onslaughts of the Thanatos instinct, in order to reject it or at least not to support it.
Both instincts are a prefigured part of the self and each seeks its support to perform and discharge itself.
Thanatos uses, as we have already mentioned, dozens of masks so that it is not recognized and thus can perform freely, as “part of the self”.
Thus, in a high percentage of its actions it manages to incorporate itself to the will and the actions of the self, and sometimes it also manages to fuse itself to the character and personality of the individual, which in this way the individual self makes it its own and manages to deceive itself that this is its authentic way of thinking, feeling and acting, so that the conscious does not manage to identify it, behind its disguises. In Post AUTOLIBERATION OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS THROUGH SELF-SUGGESTIONABILITY, we express: “Therefore, the next step is that of tranquility and/or happiness that is achieved through having each one the ‘control’ of our emotions, but not the type of control that we have been taught to practice: repressing them or hiding them, so that others do not see them or do not notice them; and I am referring to the systematic learning to hide them from the eyes of others that ends with our own self-deception of not being able to recognize them in ourselves, or in getting to confuse them by not having them clear and thus unbalancing and preventing our development or emotional maturity, which is often transformed into a neurotic (or deceptive) state, being ourselves the victims of that self-deception”.
On the other hand, and because of that same acceptance and self-deception, there is also the possibility and risk that the conscious turns to the Thanatos instinct and seeks it more frequently, because the subconscious has been invaded by that malignant and destructive drive, and the need arises – at the level of the consciousness – to go through some of the masks that represent the Thanatos instinct completely (in its totality).
Of all the most representative manifestations of Thanatos that we have pointed out above, we will choose only one, punishment, to analyze this negative drive, but all that we will point out about punishing in the human being, will be valid and useful (profitable) to consider for the rest of the other manifestations, in terms of the relationship between Eros and Thanatos.
Punishment is a sensitive volition (predisposition, resolution, will) in the human being that anoints him with power. And it is in this aspect that the Thanatos instinct begins to function.
Every human being has a degree of interference of Thanatos in his interiority. Some more and others less.
The degree of dominance that Thanatos has in the being, is the level that defines how sick that individual is of the need for power. The more Thanatos, the less love he has for life, the less will to live. The less love he has for himself and therefore the less love he has for other human beings and for humanity.
This predisposition to punish works in two scenarios. One is self-punishment, which translates into an instinctive need to punish other people. The other scenario is the need for power that the self needs to level its frustrated personality. It is sick. The way to resolve this imbalance in its personality (an insufficiently developed and formed personality) translates into a need for power, and one of the ways the self uses is to punish – in various ways – other human beings. The diverse forms of punishment can be counted by the thousands, so it is not necessary to try to enumerate them. It is enough to know that all of them are representative and manifestations of the Thanatos instinct that nests in every human being. One of our voluntary actions should be: to permanently “fight culturally and intelligently” against Thanatos, our own and that of the rest of human beings.
I expressed in Post THE GAME AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM. PART II. NO TO COMPETITION, YES TO FUN: “The neurotic implication of superiority, expressed in the Potlach can be extended to tips, charity, alms, donations, etc., a neurotic egocentric form disguised as giving gifts to dominate and place oneself above others. A game, a competition, a party?”. This need to have power is found in conditions and attitudes that we do not even imagine. It is very subtle in this, the Thanatos instinct.
The more the human being needs to punish, the higher the level of the Thanatos instinct that dwells in him.
Punishment has always been recognized as part of human nature. In Greek mythology there were 3 deities, the Furies or the Erinias, who represented punishment – among other symbolisms (personifications) -, who lived in hell; these were Tisiphone, Megara and Alecto. In the Greek Furies are represented practically all the violent actions of the human being: assaulting, whipping, punishing, torturing, destroying, beating, warring, harassing, stoning, lynching, sadism, viciousness, cruelty, revenge, etc.
A question I am obliged to ask here is: To what extent can we associate the Thanatos instinct with affections of the emotional type? We might well extend it to mental illnesses, but that would be too much to attach importance to this instinctive solicitation. Of course, we cannot answer this question in this short space and time; however, I would like to comment on neurotic conditions.
I will comment on aspects of the collective unconscious in order to better grasp this emotional inclination. ABSENCE ARCHETYPE: From the Jungian point of view, like all archetypes, it is an absolute and universal concept. This is also a psychic projection or spiritual images (productions) generated in the collective unconscious and that emerge to the consciousness after long periods of time, generated by repeated experiences fundamentally from the most remote times by the observation with the naked eye of the behavior of the stars (the Sun, the Moon, Venus, etc.) following one another, appearing and disappearing, in a reiterative and infinite way in time and space, in such a way that they have been engraved in the collective unconscious. They manifest themselves and reveal themselves to the physical medium in various ways, among them plastic art. It is probable that in this archetype “absence” that I have been defining and studying, the renewal of God can or should be included as one of its forms of manifestation. Jung speaks of this renewal in Psychological Types, volume I, pp. 260 and 298: in the archaic mind it is inscribed that everything must “die” and be “reborn” (God, Jesus, the astral gods, etc. the resurrection); although the archetype “absence” should not be confused with the new, with the ritual of the new, with the restarting of the cycle, of the astrological periods, although they are related: the punishing God for the good, loving God. Also to make a distinction with the analysis of the “revival” of those who lost their lives: the resurrection (resuscitation) of the hero, of the guide, of the redeemer. The ortho of the sun is the new being born from the mother darkness, which defines the cycle of eternal rebirth or eternal return. According to Frazer in his book The Golden Bough, pp. 381 and 378-380, he mentions a mythological manifestation of this archetypal phenomenon, noting: “… whereas the decision of Zeus that Adonis [Tammuz, god of the Semitic peoples of Babylonia and Syria] should remain part of the year under the ground [with Persephone, queen of the nether world] and part above the ground [with Aphrodite, goddess of love], is only the Greek version of the annual disappearance and reappearance of Tammuz [as a religious projection of the movement of the stars, the Sun chiefly, in its daily appearance and disappearance; of the god who dies annually and returns to revive the eternal circle of birth-dying-rebirth]. The Greeks adopted Tammuz in the 7th century B.C., changing the name to Adonis: “The true name of the god was Tammuz, and the appellative Adonis is only the Semitic Adon, ‘Lord,’ an honorific title by which the worshippers addressed him. But the Greeks, by mistake, converted the honorific title into a proper name.” Tammuz is the husband of Istar, goddess of reproduction, the Mother Goddess. Tammuz died every year, a part was hidden and the reproduction on Earth ended. Prophet Ezekiel 8, 14. Tammuz is disputed between Aphrodite and Persephone, between the goddess of love and the goddess of death, so Zeus intervenes to resolve this dispute.
One of the most frequent and pitiful manifestations is that which – consciously or unconsciously – is used by some researchers who attribute negative actions (of those we are mentioning) to ethnic groups, copying or repeating what their minds project (Thanatos) for having read or heard that some other human group carried it out with that destructive instinct, with capital cruelty. I quote my own comments in this regard: “…in most of the plastic representations where the planet Venus appears, we find it symbolizing a warning -and not a punishment- about an event of aggression -warlike or not- that the Mayan people should keep in mind, and not as they have wanted to make it appear, in this type of symbolism, as an aggressive and hostile people”.(*)
Let us return to the center of the subject: Let us see some aspects that we have pointed out in previous posts and that will lead us in the subject. The neurotic uses diverse ways to communicate with the rest of the people, he uses camouflages just like the Thanatos instinct, and it is not only because of this that they identify themselves, but also because this instinctual character can enter into the interiority of the being to separate it from the Eros instinct, facilitating the work of that other that neurotically envelops the healthy part of the ego. “Indeed, this Vicious Circle is fed back by the neurosis itself, which provokes in the individual different neurotic states, which rest on the Inner Need, which takes different specific forms of behavior and attitude towards the apparent reality, Idea of Idealistic Perfectionism (IP), Being Superior to Others (BSO), Egolatry (EG), Having a Higher Power (HP), Egocentrism (EC), Dominating Others (DO), Narcissism (NA), a myriad of neurotic states that invariably lead to depression and anxiety” (Post COMBATING VARIOUS ENEMY HABITS WITH WALK-RWD, SOLUTION TO PROCRASTINATION). In direct words: negative emotions feed back to the Thanatos instinct. We said in Post THE POWER OF EMOTIONS: “We must be aware -know fully- that negative emotions by themselves will not want to allow us to free ourselves from their dominion, because that is precisely where they feed and self-generate, from our lacerated and dejected feelings. Let us break their powerful destructive chains by going for a walk”.
We can paraphrase Jung, when he spoke of emotions: Thanatos is the same that has always affected us, referring to primitive and modern man. Jung alluded to the emotions and not to the Thanatos instinct. Surely there are several psychic elements that relate these two characters: Thanatos and Emotions.
We said in Post THE EMOTIONS AND THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM: “How can we avoid diseases generated by uncontrolled emotions? The good functioning of the brain allows a better control and regulation of emotions, provides a better obstruction to the bad ones, to the disturbing ones and to the destructive ones. An individual who maintains a healthy sympathetic system, which is the core of the neurovegetative system, will have less disturbing emotions; in the same way, he/she will be able to face negative emotions more effectively (Vicious Circle), since he/she will be able to regulate them better and keep them under control, and therefore will be able to avoid diseases, since controlled emotions will no longer be able to generate them. In other words, people who do not have a healthy sympathetic system or a healthy brain, fatigued by stress, increase their predisposition to suffer strong emotions of anger, frustration, jealousy, hatred, or any other disturbing, by a slight irritation or by being presented with a slight stimulus of external discomfort”. Is it a coincidence that these states are the same as the covert manifestations of the Thanatos instinct? The practice of walking and the WALK-RWD System operates in two senses and levels: on the one hand, it allows us to recover the feeling of certain pleasant emotions that for various reasons we have come to stop feeling; that is, we will rediscover some of them as if it were the first time; on the other hand, it also helps us to eliminate negative emotions.
Negative emotions and unpleasant habits govern our existence on a daily basis.
I have also expressed: “All the harmful effects coming from negative emotions are generated within a functional imbalance of the brain, and their greater or lesser degree of manifestation is directly related to brain incapacity or fatigue; we know that a healthy state of the brain, freed from exhaustion (from stress, for example), allows, even in very unpleasant situations of emotional imbalance, that the person can recover quickly, because he can better self-control himself and restore his balance immediately. His nervous system will function better, giving him total control over his disturbing emotions.”
“The WALK-RWD system increases the blood irrigation and oxygenation of the brain, which causes a better work of it, and a healthier and healthier functioning, freeing it from fatigue and weakening, giving it strength to better face (discharge generation) destructive emotions.”
“The soul of the walker generates an (invisible) force that seeks to correct emotional, mental and physical aspects. He receives a complete encouragement to his being. That form of ‘physical, mental and emotional animation’ is received by each and every part of the walking person’s organism, which infuses it with an empowering effect.”
“When we are under the influence of a negative emotion, we cannot feel or think about anything else, other than that harmful emotion. However, we must make an effort and go for a walk, because it has been proven that the practice of walking restructures the nervous system, that which is formed by nerve cells, managing to potentiate that nervous reconfiguration and its nervous-emotional healing effect by complementing the walk with the other 3 structured activities within the WALK-RWD System. This allows us to face the two sides of emotions, both the negative side (unpleasant emotions) and the powerful side (powerful emotions). For both sides it is necessary to make immediate decisions.”
“The WALK-RWD System, applying it in an integral way, reading, writing and drawing, while we walk, balances, compensates and harmonizes us in our interiority in relation to negative emotions, and keeps us at a certain healthy distance from unpleasant worries and relationships of all kinds (social, family, school, work, etc.). The system is not only walking but is structured with 3 basic activities (they promote and develop the artistic impulse) that allow evolution and mental and emotional revolution, a permanent exercise that moves us positively and transcendentally towards the future, making us live our existence in the here and now”, inviting – by its own systemic and functional structure – to the effective participation of EROS.
“Writing, as we walk, is the ideal means to be able to know the different ‘vital vessels’ that we have under our emotional psychological domain, by allowing us, by this means, to extract some or several of the elements that make up each vital vessel.”
I have expressed in Post SELF-FREEDOM FROM NEGATIVE EMOTIONS THROUGH SELF-SUGGESTIONABILITY: “Keeping ourselves walking in a recurrent way, we arouse and impel that mental and emotional negations, such as can be, in general, insecurities, prejudices, distrust, hesitations, indecisions, negative ideas, fears, doubts, phobias, manias, hatreds, etc., in any degree of development [of all kinds (category, class) and depth (degree, level)], that have been stored (latent, underlying, hidden, concealed, disguised, potential, silent, furtive, dissimulated, treacherous) within our interiority (our inner being) begin to become positive affirmations, by the mere fact of physically and symbolically moving forward in space and time”; in a single word: let us walk!
To finish with this word Punish, I will quote what I expressed in Post HOMO SOCIABILIS OR SOCIALIS? HUMAN AGGRESSION WALKING IN CROWDED PLACES. PART IV of IX: “This natural attitude of aggressiveness in the human being is observed in diverse actions in social coexistence: How many times have we not been impeded in some action that we wish to perform, by other individuals? Each one of us has hundreds of occurrences (events and anecdotes) of this type. It is a fact that man is not sociable by essence (nature); this is evident in the course of life; as we get older, we become insensitive to our own weaknesses and fears; we no longer need the help of others, and to that extent, we move away from others (until we reach the 3rd age and this is another very different situation); as a natural process to recover our essence of being accompanied with ourselves. So do not panic if you are losing those friends who were dear to you, either because they move away from us or we move away from them. Here we must differentiate between bonds of sociability and bonds of love and reproduction. Sociability is lost, however, the need for love and the instinct of reproduction are maintained. In the latter two, the bonds are maintained almost until the last day of life. Regarding the degree of intensity between men and women, there is a differentiation: in women love persists longer, in men the instinct of reproduction lasts longer. This can be amplified when the confrontation between the instincts Eros and Thanatos is established. In all cases that we have the opposite aspect: good and bad, black and white, day and night, which is almost at all times of life, we can point out the same thing, in that the human being always seeks his natural or essential state, in this post is not to be sociable, although sometimes we get confused and do not know what we really are more: if Eros or Thanatos.”
At the age of 21 I wrote a poem consisting of 2 stanzas, which I would now title EROS VERSUS THANATOS, which goes like this:
LIFE
Life, I have it,
but as if I didn’t have it;
it is an impossibility to try to keep it alive;
Alive, like the desire to live,
like the desire to die
to see if I am really living.
&
In itself, what do I have?
Desire to live or desire to die?
I do not understand;
Why then the desire to die,
if I love the desire to go on living?
END
And another one, of 9 stanzas, at the age of 23:
LIFE AND ITS DEATH
Life: before it, the desire to be;
after it, to cease to be.
Two unreachable poles,
moments that cannot be postponed
inexorably join each other;
one is the day, the other the night.
&
One ends, the other begins.
Links in a chain
that ineluctably comes to break.
&
Pieces joined in different ways,
some are kept, others are forgotten;
true reason to live is to make them remain,
to forget them is to die, it is to end, it is to pass away.
&
To remember them is to persist; to recreate them in order to transcend
to exalt them in a quest for immortality.
To let them be lost is to die,
only death can unite them again.
&
Life: continuity of the work;
human effort invested that must not be abandoned;
work, part of life itself,
important or not for those, but for you;
pain and sweat poured that should not be disdained.
&
Death: end and beginning; beginning and end
that should not be overlooked.
To faint with its pain,
is not to transform it
in conscience, in courage and in strength.
&
And in this endless chain of links,
your being will continue to be present
in the unfathomable mystery of the night.
&
Mystery of life,
anguish of death,
unite the night to the day;
renew the spirit with astonishing fortitude.
do not think that the chain is broken,
only it begins.
&
Death: before it, the desire to be;
after it, not to cease to be!
END
I ask myself: What about my own chain, in those years, how would my Eros and Thanatos get along?
It has been commented at various times that tranquility is the anteroom of happiness; the satisfaction of human needs is the reasoned process by which we can presuppose and define the pleasant over the unpleasant, according to what is available, and hence the self-evaluation of our own happiness for decision making and selecting what is most convenient, valuable and profitable.
In other words, this allows us to become aware of what we are and what we can realize, of what we have, and that we do not know how to enjoy as we can and should, due to that spirit of nonconformity that is fed and governed (governed, administered, manipulated, directed, led, guided, nurtured, sustained) by the open – but unconscious – struggle that these 2 instinctive characters celebrate daily within our intimate being: eros and thanatos, which undoubtedly the impulse to “death” is always defeating and dominating the eros instinct.
The most extreme result would be -in this scenario of not knowing how to live life- from the confrontation between these two characters, as in some cases it happens, to point out ourselves as the character we would like to become.
For the time being, I believe that we must go for a walk to strengthen our self, so as not to allow Thanatos to have the upper hand. Let us strengthen our Eros instinct by going for a walk every morning.
Last minute note: Before I say goodbye, with all that is happening regarding Artificial Intelligence, I invite you to read the last book that I published on Amazon on February 20, entitled “ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PROMPTS AS A SECOND LANGUAGE”, Kindle Edition. I have been so amazed to discover this new technology that I would like everyone to get involved in it; for this reason, I decided to exercise and managed to find certain techniques and ways to develop questions to this type of tool, which I am sure will serve to obtain almost all the answers required in most areas of knowledge and activities of human beings, in a precise, fast and effective way.
The way you ask is the formula to get your answers. You have to experience it for yourself.
(*) Loya Lopategui, Carlos, Dintornism in Ancient Mayan Plastic Art, EMULISA, México, 2012.