The mythology of the hero rests on an abstraction: that one can act with decisive force, impose order or belief, and remain untouched. In lived experience this is impossible. Violence and coercion, whether physical, institutional, or symbolic, leave residues that manifest as trauma — what in clinical terms is described as post-traumatic stress. The nervous […]
Context: Landmine-hunting hero rat dies in Cambodia after stellar career Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Even more heroic, perhaps, for being entirely unaware of what they have done. Bravery not being the absence of fear but the courage to act in spite of it, this is a template – if entirely unrelated – […]
No discovery without risk, no catharsis without suffering. The absence of presence in future knowledge is always the presence of absence in (and as) experience. No wisdom without pain, indeed, and as for information – no integration (or resonance) without difference (or alienation). Originally written as a comment here.
Daedelus Kite 