A total collapse of everyday meaning echoes depression and neurological disorders

Evidence

A collapse of meanings on that scale was described by Austrian playwright and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal in a 1902 story translated as ‘The Letter of Lord Chandos’. Masquerading as a genuine letter written in 1603 by an English aristocrat, it evokes Hofmannsthal’s own experiences during a breakdown in which the whole structure of things and people around him fell to bits. Everyday items suddenly look to Chandos like things seen too closely through a magnifying glass, impossible to identify. He hears people gossiping about local characters and friends, but can make no coherent narrative out of what they are saying. Unable to work or look after his estate, Chandos finds himself staring for hours at a moss-covered stone, or a dog lying in the sun, or a harrow left abandoned in a field. The connections have gone. No wonder we call an experience like this a breakdown. It may sound familiar to anyone who has suffered depression, and it can also occur in various neurological disorders. For Heidegger, it would be an extreme case of the collapse of everyday Being-in-the-world, a collapse that makes everything obtrusive, disarticulated, and impossible to negotiate with our usual blithe disregard. — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 238

Categorization

• XREF: Connects Hofmannsthal’s Lord Chandos letter — famous precursor to modernist crisis of language — with existentialism’s breakdown of everyday Being-in-the-world; also echoes the experience described in the reader’s earlier ‘Zero Decibels’ notes about extreme silence as breakdown. — connects to: Depression correlates with literal loss of neuronal connections — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 161; Neurological suffering poses the question of the psyche surviving its own annihilation — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded: From Neurosis to Brain…, 1289; Repeated depression physically atrophies the hippocampus and neurons — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 159 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Illustrates what Heidegger means by a collapse of everyday Being-in-the-world.

Broader Connections

• Depression correlates with literal loss of neuronal connections #expands (0.85) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 161
• Repeated depression physically atrophies the hippocampus and neurons #corroborates (0.85) — Catherine Malabou, What Should We Do with Our Brain?, 159
• Neurological suffering poses the question of the psyche surviving its own annihilation #expands (0.80) — Catherine Malabou, The New Wounded, 1289