Enlightened by error

The great Russian woman poet, Marina Cvetaeva, once wrote: “I’ve trained my soul to linger outside the window… I simply wouldn’t allow it
into the house, the same way as one wouldn’t let in a stray dog or an exotic bird”. That’s one, and not so infrequent, a way of keeping at bay those silly and seemingly unaccountable tricks played on us by our subconscious, such as our errors, dreams, slips of the tongue and pen, that make coming to terms with and accepting ourselves so much harder. Gabriella Ripa di Meana is a Rome-bornand-based psychoanalyst who can boast many years of experience in the field of psychoanalytic teaching and training. Amongst others, she is the co-founder of the psychoanalytic movement called Nodi Freudiani (Freudian Knots). She has many publications to her name, including essays and books. In one of her most recent books, Il sogno e l’errore (Dream and Error), published by Astrolabio, she recommends instead that we face up to all those challenges confronting us when our soul taunts us with its bafflingly capricious capers. After all, she suggests, they could turn out to be unexpected openings onto new vistas, offering us surprising opportunities to gain new and better insights into ourselves.
In your book you write that errors are – and I quote – “a precious and inevitable creation with the power of making us want to set out on a journey, change, and even love”.
Yes, “inevitable” because there’s no way we can live without making mistakes, getting things wrong, misinterpreting or forgetting them. Going through life without some degree of suffering is impossible. Today, psychological pain is preferably referred to as a “disorder”, as “faulty behaviour”. As such, it’s something to be eradicated, got rid of, suppressed – like a flaw or a spanner in the works. I instead believe – and my lengthy clinical practice bears it out – that it’s through and thanks to errors that a precious part of our psyche gets a chance of being revealed to us at all. It’s that side of us that doesn’t quite fall in line and hasn’t any other way of making itself heard, of letting us know of its divergence, of its accodisagreement.
Its erring stems from its inherent errant ways, that is from its urge to roam, to travel, in a word, from its wanderlust. It needs to move about, to shift its viewing point and hence point of view on both itself and others.
I’m not at all saying that errors should be idealised. Idealisation, in fact, tends to neatly wrap up and immobilise any experience. But I do think errors should be heeded, valued, and when possible followed up.
Beckett once wrote: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better”. Among other things, I believe what he’s saying is that, regardless as to what extent we may come to terms with or understand our errors, it isn’t that we learn how to stop making them. What we can gain, though, from any error is greater selfunderstanding, so that any future error will be a source of still greater insight, more fruitful and less alienating.
You maintain that errors, slips of the tongue or pen, dreams, that is, generally and metaphorically speaking, those stumbling blocks our psyche just doesn’t seem to be able not to trip over and that can cause us considerable pain and embarrassment, are in fact one of the few resources available to the individual today for feeling unique. How necessary is it, do you think, to feel unique in order to relate to others positively and correctly?
Errors, slips of the tongue or pen, memory losses, symptoms and dreams all well up from our subconscious realm. There’s no doubt that they can sometimes make us feel very uneasy and be highly disturbing. In any case, they’re always sure to startle us, to take us by surprise. Such accidents sharply sever the smoothly continuous line of conventional and generally predictable discourse, causing an abrupt and unexpected quantum leap of meaning. This new meaning potential, the dazzling light such events shed on the routine weft and warp of everyday discourse and action, can highlight a truly unique and remarkable thread of truth; it’s a highly idiosyncratic thread in so far as it’s not anybody’s or everybody’s truth. It can be self-revealing solely to that one person, ever at odds with herself and self-disruptive, who has made the error, had that particular dream, or complained of that particular symptom.
That’s what I mean when I speak of “uniqueness”. Being unique has truly nothing to do with being all of one piece, or indeed exhibiting “individuality”, that is being undivided. On the contrary, being unique means not being standardized and consistent throughout, because we can’t help being cut through and across by our desires, by the words and law coming from others.
The other who dwells within us in intimate alienation, so to speak, and challenges the undivided mastery of our ego is first and foremost
our subconscious… with its rejection of what makes sense on the surface. Indeed, we carry around within us the ultimate outsider. If we can but just manage to leave ourselves open to this stranger’s bizarre and inappropriate forays, if we can but admit to how unfamiliar we are to our very selves, all the rest, I’m confident, will simply come naturally.
What should we do, do you think, to “let ourselves be tripped up”. That is, how can we coolly accept the fact that “it is precisely the erratic nature of our failings that makes them bear most fruit”; how can we enrich our everyday lives by honestly looking into ourselves and gaining a deeper self-understanding, especially whoever has the responsibility of organizing the work of others?
I really don’t think we can set out to work fairly and in earnest with someone without having been through a profound personal experience contributing to strengthening our subjective makeup.
In the case in point, I’d say the experience that counts would be that of making the mistake of relying heavily on technological supports for the successful outcome of a job requiring a concerted team effort and realising that such an attitude is tantamount to being on the sheer defensive and is as such unreasonable, not to say pointlessly ineffective and doomed to failure when the subconscious springs its surprises and teases us with it riddles.
In other words, I’d say there’s not much that can be taught someone else of a frustrating experience unless that sense of frustration hasn’t been tried directly by the interested party, that is, unless the narcissistic price entailed by failure has been paid directly in the flesh (symbolically, of course), in all its aspects, and savoured to the full.
No, being open to “letting oneself be tripped up” doesn’t mean being indulgent towards any error or failing, regardless. There’s far too much of a lackadaisical, happy-go-lucky attitude going around nowadays, a veritable fear of taking responsibility for anything. “Letting oneself be tripped up” and the ensuing fall are only worth it if one is willing to face the errantly erratic consequences, which are in no way certain beforehand.
That means bearing responsibility for one’s actions, and even more so for one’s failed actions. If any positive value is to be assigned to one’s failings starting from the theoretical and clinical high-ground I’m suggesting here, then there has to be this willingness to cope with the consequences of whatever it is about our behaviour that may take us unawares because utterly unplanned, honestly acknowledging that it is something that intimately belongs to us and is significant. What taking one’s errors seriously ultimately adds up to is taking one’s subconscious seriously and acknowledging that it too deserves to be taken and dealt with as a responsible subject, while at the same time being incalculably boundless.

Interview by Lilia Ambrosi