Becoming Discontent: A Freudian Lens on Utopian Hope

History is replete with utopian experiments aimed at societal betterment.  Individuals also orchestrate their inner utopias with meditation, mindfulness, and other such wellness practices.  The biblical command to “rejoice in the Lord” (Phil 3:1) seems to stand in opposition to discontentment and despair.  This essay explores the counterintuitive truth that hope and discontentment form a pair.  Specifically, I use insights from Freudian psychoanalytic writings on mourning and melancholy regarding the loss of a beloved object.  How can the experience of loss be an impetus, not a deterrent, for hope?  How can melancholy spawn utopian desires?  The key is the ability to engage in what psychoanalytic philosopher Julia Kristeva terms “signifying.”  I illustrate attempts at utopian signifying with two examples from the Bible: the story of Ruth and Naomi and the episode between Tamar and Judah in Genesis 38.