Christopher Bollas

"The most complicated achievements of thought are possible without the assistance of consciousness".
Sigmund Freud
The Interpretation of Dreams

If it's true that where I am is always strange and that where I'm not is always where I want to be, then I must be in Wyoming, and I am.

The wind woke me, that's right, the wind, at 4a.m. It comes from nowhere, from the far north where it's stored in gigantic vats on the state line Wyoming shares with Montana, and is released from time to time by a god with a real sense of humor.

I'm sitting in my great chair with the wonderful footrest in my little cabin reading Christopher Bollas's "The Infinite Question," who brings Freud back to life in all his glory.

Bollas takes Freud to the limit. It's like he's poking coals to see if he can start a fire, and he can. To paraphrase: that being human is most certainly about asking questions that have no answers, knowing deep inside they have no answers, and to keep asking the questions anyway. I'd forgotten too Freud's insistence on listening, how important the act of listening is in the psychoanalytic process to both analyst and analysand.

Thank you Christopher Bollas for channeling Freud. You've given me permission to sit here in the dark without a thought in my head in the hope that some question will occur to me, as it most certainly will.