This is an excerpt from Byung-Chul Han's *Agony of Eros*, in his chapter analyzing Lars Von Trier's *Melancholia.* In it, *Eros/love* is defined, "not as a simple pact of coexistence between two individuals, but the radical experience, perhaps to the outermost point, of the existence of the Other."
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Rowan-Treesreddit.comByung-Chul Han on Escaping Depression. From 'Agony of Eros'
“Eros concerns the Other in a strong sense, namely, what cannot be encompassed by the regime of the ego. Therefore, in the inferno of the same, which contemporary society is increasingly becoming, erotic experience does not exist. Erotic experience presumes asymmetry and exteriority of the Other.”
“Eros, in contrast, makes possible experience of the Other’s otherness, which leads the One out of a narcissistic inferno… This feeling is not the achievement of the One, but the gift of the Other.”
depression is a narcissistic illness because it is not open to the uncertainty of the Other and its desire.