Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The moment dominated by Ate, the goddess of folly

Annihilation of the mind, mental blackout ... These are the words with which journalists and specialists imperfect attempt to describe the terrible moment when a father forget his son unconscious in a parking heated by the sun. These stories are so frightening and trouble us not only for the natural pain that one feels for the death of a child and the tragedy of his family, but because, as we read everywhere, it is folly to "close" does not belong to parents disturbed inattentive, unaware or, even, delinquents, but loses and takes careful and involved fathers, husbands love and caring.

Nothing to do with the brutality of crimes such as Avetrana Here death's face is nice and warm all of a family, on a given day, in a world whatsoever. And then? There are no real words to tame such a terrible idea: the idea that around the corner and perhaps each of us, there can be a mind-boggling.

In our society, who grew up in the birthplace of psychoanalysis, the ego is one, if not always harmonious: in these terrible events, the psyche seems to break down and crumble, like a kaleidoscope poorly constructed. For a moment, for a moment, the mind diverts the path and "forget" you forget a child asleep in the cockpit of a car.

In the universe of Homer, when the heroes of myth are fought around the walls of Troy, the Greeks did not yet know this conception of the mind as a harmonious whole: the psyche is made up of a set of organs (heart, diaphragm, lungs, liver ...), all of which drive the inner life of men. In that world, the madness is a state of mind, but a deity: Ate, the daughter of Eris (goddess of discord) and Zeus, whose name means blindness.

The goddess Ate, often sent by the lord of the gods, his father, lead, enters the human mind, it strikes like an arrow. It's just a moment, and the mortal can do nothing to oppose. A while and it is the darkness, blindness, just blackout. Then it's over: there is no sickness or disease, but just the idea of a "foreign agent" that affects lands.

At that particular moment, in which anything can happen, the king can behave like naughty children (as in the case of Agamemnon, the Iliad), the brave heroes could annihilate, without knowing it, the whole family (just happen to Heracles the greatest of all heroes), glorious warriors can shred herds of cattle, mistaking them for enemies (thus the famous Ajax).

Recovered the reason, the gesture crowds are only the inevitable consequences: the censure of his companions, the house of mourning, shame for his gesture. Madness to the old is not a psychological problem to be analyzed (it will be, in effect, but later), hero of the crowds should not be treated.

This idea of the psyche as a jigsaw puzzle of organs, a part of so many pieces to fit each other, a single, terrible moment of darkness like the stories of those poor fathers who dropped out, just for a terrible long- time, the road of the daily routine that have missed a step, which made a detour from everyday life.

Just a moment out of the way, and forget the most precious love, the right to be protected above all else.

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