A  hangover is what this feels like. Perhaps you recall your last hangover?

It is Thursday morning after Christmas day. You know, that day anticipated by everyone with the highest of expectation. For my adult self, reason/experience insists “that longing is fantasy, a shape shifting, media driven, ginned up illusion” so snap out of it dude, etc., etc.. My own feeling about Christmas-as-event has always been mixed. But I’ve never entirely been successful to dis-enthral myself. There has always been a side of me, that small child inside, filled with desire and dread about what will be revealed on Christmas morning. “Is there a really a present under the tree for me?”

The festival of fantasy is over, for another twelve months. Yes, I remain able to imagine the possibility that a newborn infant child would/could be the catalysis for a future of peace, love and harmony for everyone.

But now, it’s back to Trump-world, a new year, the inauguration of a man elected by a majority of us, to be CEO of this experiment in democracy, (or perhaps democracy’s final gasp).

So, upon which fantasy am I to place my bet, which future do I affirm with my whole heart, and with the maximum of creative action? Am I inclined to do my part for a future that is more kind to everyone regardless of ethnic, of social status, of religious heritage, even of politics by comparison to myself? Or do I throw-in with a future ideal of America valorizing ass-kicking, of hunting down the scape-goated classes… What about a reversal of history to assert American hegemony over Canada and over Panama and the canal? Which fantasy-future will I help into being, putting “my shoulder to the wheel” of time?

We move about psychologically, form our sense of self by means of our imaginations. Our imagination is a tool, or better, a palate of colors by which we create the future. And that’s not all. The imagination is also a shield of lies to protect ourselves from our abyss.

Three insights from Jacques Lacan seem pertinent:

The job of art is to stage fantasies,
to confront us with radically desubjectivized fantasy
that can never be enacted.

Action is often a desperate stop-gap
aimed at keeping at bay
the spectral netherworld of fantasies.

Let’s fuck, kill someone, launch a war
before our fantasies overwhelm us.
Do something now!

The ultimate ethical task is that of awakening:
not only from sleep
but from the spell of the fantasy itself
that controls us even more
when we are awake.

What about a tune to anchor us for our journey into this Thursday? I like this one. I Feel Love by Donna Summer.