In the sinuous folds of old capitals, Where all, even horror, turns to enchantment, I spy, obeying my fatal humors, Certain singular beings, decrepit and charming.
The Little Old Ladies, Baudelaire
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
I wandered lonely as a cloud, Wordsworth
Freud (1928) wrote that an illusion is distinguished not by its falsity, but by its origin in a wish; it is a wish that we have become passionately attached to. Illusions, such as the little bit of trust needed for romantic love, keep us attached to the future and fuel our desire. The optimism of cruel optimism is not only for a better outcome this time, but for a future that we want to keep moving toward. As Berlant articulates, we see the devastation wrought by cruelly optimistic attachments to destructive political and economic objects that offer hope but instead repeat and intensify deprivation and violence.
A cure for love, Sophia Frydman
