CORONA LEXICA: Words as Metaphor and Fleshed Reality-A play of words with the Real*
Velleda C. Ceccoli, PhD
I am paying attention to the way that
language germinates with
experience,
mine and yours.
Our experience
in this moment of
collective vulnerability
I am paying attention to the way that
the symbolic mediation of our signifying system
stretches language in
an attempt to parallel and
perhaps, capture
for a moment
inner experience
fusing it with outer
I am paying attention to the fragility of the membrane that separates
the internal form the external
Symbolic and Imaginary play coming into
the Reality of
the Thing
At play no longer and instead
gnawing away at
the boundary between
psyche and soma
I am paying attention, now,
to specific words and
the way they impact us, given
Our current condition, given
Our world today
this minute,
this day,
this week and
the next
I am paying attention to
the way that some words feel
hard, concrete, solid, cement-like
while others
mutate and fluctuate with
emotion as
Our experience
re-defines them…
CULPRIT (now there’s a word!) : guilty party; offender; wrongdoer; perpetrator; criminal; malefactor. The beginning of this new world…
VIRUS: A substance produced in the body as the result of a disease; one capable after inoculation of infecting other people or animals with the same disease. A submicroscopic organism that can multiply only inside living host cells, has a non-cellular structure lacking any intrinsic metabolism and comprising a single DNA/RNA molecule inside a protein coat, and frequently pathogenic. And then there is its corollary:
VIRALITY: rapidly spread by means of people communicating to each other; addressing both the internal nature of the virus and its propensity to live in our environs as well. To spin off and multiply, to attack, not only humans and other animals, but information, computers, technology, bank accounts, the economy…
These two words lead me to
CONTAGION: as in communicating disease from body to body by direct or indirect contact. (Like now…wash your hands…careful what you touch…and where you put your hands…the trace of humanity having a long trail or is it tail?)And then I arrive at
VULNERABILITY: From the Latin – vulnerabilis -, able to be wounded, either physically or emotionally, liable to damage or harm, especially from aggression or attack. And thus my use of the word collective as an adjective, as in we are, all, together vulnerable –
which brings me to our
FRAGILITY: From the Latin –fragilis-, meaning breakable, weak, perishable, and/or easily destroyed. Yes, we do not like to think of ourselves in this way and yet, we are, we are, we are. And the fact of our current state, both internal and external leads all of us into a state of
UNCERTAINTY: The quality or state of not being certain; doubtfulness, hesitancy, irresolution. A thing of which the resolution, outcome etc. cannot be determined. Are we not in the business of uncertainty? And yet, and yet, we know not of this collective incarnated uncertainty. The question now is: How to establish
IMMUNITY: From the Latin -immunitas– as in the freedom or protection from anything injurious; lack of susceptibility. Is this not what our defenses, our phantasy, our internal life should grant? And if we cannot establish a physical exemption from this Thing then how are we to continue to feel our
RESILIENCE: As in the act of rebounding or springing back; elasticity; the ability to recover readily from, or resist being affected by a setback, an illness, etc. How do you know we can survive this? Does this require a certain amount of welcomed
AMNESIA? From the Greek amnesia, forgetfulness; loss of memory. Afraid? Why? There will be vaccines, antibodies…Or is it instead, an insidiously established
HABITUATION: As in the formation of a damaging dependency; an innate response to a frequently repeated stimulus. I am fine, at home and isolating. Or better yet, a steady and ongoing need for
DISSOCIATION: The breaking up of a substance into elemental particles; the breaking up of an association or idea, and finally, a condition in which mental processes are separated from the conscious personality- usually as a result of trauma, a situation in which one can go on and on despite external events that are monstrous like NOW, and what is trauma if not a direct attack on our most elemental sense of
SAFETY: The state of being protected from hurt or injury; freedom from danger; close custody or confinement as a means of protection. As long as I stay home…
And
SECURITY: The condition of being protected from or not exposed to danger. Freedom from anxiety or apprehension; …it will all be ok, so that a sense of
RELIEF: The alleviation or deliverance from pain; can once again be part of our days and relieve the
TRAUMA: The psychic injury caused by emotional shock…of the world’s grief and loss, so that
MOURNING: Our expression of grief; lament; can take place and once again and connect us to our
MORTALITY: The condition of being mortal and subject to death; the loss of life on a large scale. And the inevitability of our
DEATH: The final and irreversible cessation of vital functions; the state of being without life, animation or activity.
As in what Freud struggled with and knew ALL of us struggled with- the knowledge of our own mortality and death, our inability to stay connected with its inevitability and reality, with its ineluctable trajectory, its truth, and thus the need for Our defensive/protective psychological structure and the fact that being
ALIVE: Unextinguished, undiminished, unforgotten; in a sentient or susceptible condition; fully aware, sensitive and responsive; full of energy or animation; active, lively, brisk. Can be taken away at any moment through the actions of another, of
a pandemic, of an accident…In a world where
LOVE (I am NOT turning to the OED on this one!) must reign and lead us out of
ISOLATION: Separation from other things or persons; solitariness; complete separation from persons with a contagious or infectious disease, separation from contact with other people; and leading to total
ALONENESS: Quite by oneself, unoccupied; without other companions; solitary; lonely. And our own, internal world with all its object and its inherent
LONELINESS: The condition of being alone and unfrequented; desolate; dreary; dejected because of a lack of company. To a sense of
CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY: Civic, from the Latin -corona civica- designating a garland of oak leaves for the one saving a fellow citizen’s life; pertaining to citizenship; and Responsibility, from the Latin –respons- to respond a charge, trust or duty; correspondent; answering; accountable; capable of fulfilling an obligation. Where our
COMMUNITY: From the Latin -communitas, communis, common- a body of individuals; the commons; an organized political, municipal or social body; and further, the state of being held or shared in common; with joint ownership and liability; a common character or identity; life in association with others; society; the social state.
makes us whole once more, an integral part of something larger, of our
WORLD: A state of human existence; present life; the earth; a natural environment or system. The material universe; the cosmos; creation as whole; Everything that exists.
EVERYTHING
THAT
EXISTS
EVERYTHING
THAT
EXISTS
EVERYTHING
THAT
EXISTS
Velleda C. Ceccoli , PhD. – Executive Committee, NYU Postdoc; on the faculties of the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, The Stephen Mitchell Center, The Institute for Relational and Self Psychologies in Milan, Italy, and the American Academy of Psychoanalysis. She is also on the editorial boards of Psychoanalytic Dialogues and Studies in Gender and Sexuality. She writes the ongoing psychoanalytic blog Out of My Mind, and has published a number of journal articles on language, trauma, dissociation, sexuality, gender and erotic experience. She maintains a private practice in New York City, New York.
*With a little help from the Oxford English Dictionary – that pantheon of words and meaning(s).
**NIAID microscopic photo of Covid-19 that has been colorized, along with my super-imposition of a crown.