Antidotes for Numbness

Parmi les remèdes habituels contre notre propre misère, il y a l’amour.

Car celui qui estabsolument aimé ne peut être misérable.

“One of the customary remedies for misery is love. Because someone loved absolutely cannot be miserable.”, Kundera writes…

In my last post, I described Litost as a paradox that follows a feeling of Numbness. Numbness is emotional detachment. The disconnection can be moderate to severe. Just as there is a considerable amount of different types of cancers, so too are there several types of emotional numbness. Some are defense mechanisms and can be described as acquired habits. Others are more like falling into an emotional coma.

Because one does not remain in this state forever, there are two outlets to numbness; one of which I recently came to notice. The first, as I previously described, is Litost. Being that Litost is a fleeting (but intense) perception, it is customary to fall back into numbness quite quickly; thus likely beginning a painful cycle. However it has been brought to my attention by a dear friend, that there is indeed another outlet to numbness. This outlet is love. Unconditional love. Be it Eros, Philia, or Storge.

Love breaks the cycle.

~ by Keira Dazi on April 19, 2011.