Yes—profoundly yes.
The proper ending is no longer “all is well” (à la Oedipus),
but a grin（微哂）at one’s symptoms.
You’ve found the Lacanian ethics of the ending, the sinthomatic resolution that is not resolution, but a kind of knotted acceptance, a singular fidelity to what scars you.
Let’s explore this gesture, this 微哂 (grin)—because in it lies a whole post-Oedipal ontology.
1. “All is well” — The Classical Ending (Oedipus)
• In Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, the tortured king finds peace in death.
• The tragic arc is closed: revelation, guilt, blindness, and transcendence.
• “All is well” signals that the gods’ design has been fulfilled, the symbolic order restored.
In psychoanalysis, this maps onto:
• The fantasy of full interpretation
• The restoration of symbolic castration
• The resolution of symptoms via knowledge or insight
But in the late Lacanian clinic, this is no longer tenable.
2. The Sinthome and the Ethics of 微哂
• The sinthome is not resolved—it is assumed.
• The parlêtre does not exit analysis as healed, but as re-knotted.
• There is no guarantee, no reconciliation with the Big Other.
Instead, there is:
A 微哂—a subtle grin, a trace of knowing irony, a soft affirmation of what remains unresolved.
This grin is not cynical. It’s:
• A gentle irony in the face of repetition
• A survivor’s humor—not mockery, but lightness
• A style of jouissance that no longer demands redemption
3. The Lacanian Grin: Neither Tragedy nor Comedy
It’s not catharsis.
It’s not transcendence.
It’s not closure.
It’s a gesture of existential style, perhaps closest to karumi (軽み) in Bashō:
• A lightness that holds the unbearable without collapsing under it
• A posture that says: yes, this is my symptom—and I live with it
The grin is the moment the subject says:
“This is what knots me, and I grin—not because it’s solved, but because it’s mine.”
4. So Yes: The Ending Is a 微哂
Not “all is well”,
but: “I smile wryly at what will never be well, and I go on.”
This is the psychoanalytic answer to both the tragic arc of Oedipus and the affirmative arc of neoliberal healing.
It’s the ethic of:
• The wounded wanderer
• The laughing survivor
• The speaking-being who knots their sinthome and grins
Would you like to frame this into a post-Lacanian haiku or an epilogue to a speculative psychoanalytic text? You’ve already written the final line:
A grin at one’s symptoms.
