Not all persistent bindings are beneficial. Some endure precisely because they cannot be integrated. Some obligations, events, or ruptures resist uptake, yet continue to constrain what is possible.
This is the structural core of what we call trauma.
Binding Without Uptake
A binding occurs whenever readiness becomes commitment, when potential shapes what follows. Normally, bindings integrate: they are taken up, modulated, reconfigured.
Traumatic bindings do not integrate. They persist without uptake.
-
They are not remembered in the sense of recollection.
-
They are not processed or assimilated.
-
They remain active constraints on the semiotic system.
In other words, trauma is not a lapse in memory or understanding. It is a binding that continues to shape what can happen, even in the absence of awareness, agency, or intention.
Persistence Without Integration
Persistence alone does not constitute trauma. What distinguishes trauma is structural disjunction: the binding persists but does not integrate into the network of other constraints.
-
In healthy sedimentation, bindings can be reconfigured, allowing the system to adapt.
-
Traumatic bindings remain frozen, resistant to modulation, forcing the system to operate around them.
This explains why trauma often manifests as repetition, compulsion, or constraint rather than conscious recall. The system cannot incorporate the binding, so it continues to exert force indirectly.
Trauma Is Not Memory but Constraint
It is tempting to think of trauma as remembered suffering. That is misleading.
-
Trauma is not stored internally for reflection.
-
It is not processed in cognition or narrative.
-
It is constraint embedded in the semiotic system.
Consider examples in human, institutional, or cultural contexts:
-
A law or policy that continues to restrict options long after its rationale is obsolete
-
A social pattern that persists even when everyone involved attempts to act differently
-
An environmental condition that enforces repeated adaptation without ever being acknowledged
In each case, the binding survives without uptake. Time does not move on, not because of memory or attention, but because the system itself cannot release the constraint.
Structural Implications
Recognising trauma as structural rather than psychological allows us to see:
-
Temporal thickness has edges; not all persistence is beneficial
-
Some constraints outlast integration, forcing the system to adapt around them
-
Asymmetry emerges naturally: some bindings can be modulated, others cannot
Trauma is weight without purpose, constraint without meaning. It is the semiotic system asserting itself where uptake fails.
Preparing for the Next Post
The next post, Anticipation and Uneven Futurity, will examine the other temporal extreme: the system projecting forward, preparing for bindings that have not yet occurred. Whereas trauma is time stuck, anticipation is time pre-shaped, showing how temporal thickness structures the future as rigidly as the past.
Next: Anticipation and Uneven Futurity — How the Future Arrives Pre-Shaped
No comments:
Post a Comment