My turn to play Doctor Freud
For my sister.
Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake. It is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.
Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet
Rilke sees love as personal development and perhaps the awareness of something/someone outside of the self. Do you agree? (comment below)
Personally, yes, I believe it is a growing of the self into the world, greater awareness and the stripping off of the base selfishness (and other forms of self-centredness and egocity to become more sensitive) that ails all human beings. Love as a lesson? (comment on this below) Whatever it is, it is a journey, nevermind where it ends, in a permanent union or a bitter split--we still come out different from how we were when it first came to us. (Not like one of those awful pop songs that alk about the griefs of break-up--they fail to see that love's value is essentially in the transformation it causes in us.)
Is there such a thing as true love? What is true love? (I've wondered this myself, and very seriously too.) The poet Marlowe brought forth a very interesting point in his poem Hero and Leander,
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?
Alright, this is not the entire quote I wished to give you, however, the gist of what follows is that when the person decides personally what/who he loves, it is not a strong love. Rather, love that is a compulsion, inexplicable, is Love. What Marlowe means is that true love is a result of fate, not the fruit of personal will, which means that there is a force outside of us that decides for us whom we love. I suppose it is true to some extent as love is blind (although, as an asides, Nat King Cole did remind us: but will you please make up your mind?). Seriously, I could argue for this: true love requires no reason. If one loves another for a reason then one loves the qualities that the object of one's affections represents instead of the person, there fore making love nothing more than a venal thing, borne out of the selfishness of one's own heart. Not ideal at all.
Love is very important to us all (we always talk about it, don't we?). However, I find it regrettable that people have gotten such a strange, warped idea of love that it has become more of a vice or a nudge-nudge wink-wink thing between the youngsters that you and I have trouble speaking of it face to face (or even writing notes on paper to each other in case our parents might find it and get the wrong idea). Human love is a very personal thing, not like the love of God (in some religions) which is for everyone and something which even believers find hard to comprehend, so deep and vast it must be. We have no idea, no reasons as to why we love each other, but being the subjective beings we are, perhaps we love because it is the closest we can get to the truth (?). As a natural compulsion towards others like us.
What do you think?
Sex is an even more uncomfortable topic but I'm proud to say that we're sixteen and not obsessed by it even now. More than ever now, popular opinion is that sex is great, is natural, is good for us and people who think it is a sin are the sinners themselves. (Is this what drove us off the self-indulgent Earth-Goddess Tori? How I can mock something when I no longer love it!)
More than ever now, give me your opinion. (In comments.)
Personally, I feel that it is all a base joke (and so do our lovies!). Is it necessary? That is what I ask. How does it benefit us? (As a girl, I can speak quite eloquently against the sex act.) I think that this is why sex is a taboo topic and that kids feel that it is cool and rebellious to speak about it publicly--it's just another way of upsetting their parents. We know, but we still do it as guilty pleasures (so we call it, it sounds so ^%&^* innocuous). Magazines and pastoral care lessons only tell us that it is good as they're afraid that we'll stop listening. Well, don't listen, it's nonsense and nobody learns anything from it.
I argue that sexual desire is a fault as it shows how beholden we are, still, to our earthly flesh. It's an insult to our minds and our higher intelligence as Human Beings, whether sex was invented by the Devil to tempt us from the divine bosom or just a key in evolution so that we continue to spawn (and spawn and spawn...what for?). Oh, but still, we do it. It's Fun.
And I believe that for most people, sexual desire is a natural and very important component in character as it is a natural fault by dint of our place in the Animal Kingdom. I think that it has something to do with the ego as well, ties in with that thing about breeding and perpetuatinjg one's genes. But now that we've become so advanced, isn't it about time that we got rid of this dirt that still continues to exert such a hold over our selves? (Individual will is what makes life worth living.)
Your opinion.
And the passages/character development I promised you:
He was quiet on the bus home. Was it a religious wounding, this sudden casting-off of his childhood? Or a show of his scorn of the faith he had held all his life? (The question should rightly have been: What faith? but that was too painful to consider; he chose to overlook it.) And what of that other he had left behind? Was that a question or an answer? Ordinarily he chose not to be anguished (he was not), he was a passionate being consumed by the extremes that his heart pushed him to, he was angry, he was merry, he was a wolf, a lamb. He lived in the moment, for the moment, that was what kept him alive. His tremedous will.
He was not a wise fellow.
and
Why had he done it? God it was betrayal, by God it was. How should he stop it from happening the next time, stop it from coming between them even in words? Now that he was far away, perhaps now he should tell him. Yes, then he wouldn't have to see his face...they could go back to being friends.
Love is at first not anything that means merging, giving over and uniting with another (for what would a union be of something unclarified and unfinished, still subordinate?), it is a high inducement to the individual to ripen, to become world, to become world for himself for another's sake. It is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.
Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet
Rilke sees love as personal development and perhaps the awareness of something/someone outside of the self. Do you agree? (comment below)
Personally, yes, I believe it is a growing of the self into the world, greater awareness and the stripping off of the base selfishness (and other forms of self-centredness and egocity to become more sensitive) that ails all human beings. Love as a lesson? (comment on this below) Whatever it is, it is a journey, nevermind where it ends, in a permanent union or a bitter split--we still come out different from how we were when it first came to us. (Not like one of those awful pop songs that alk about the griefs of break-up--they fail to see that love's value is essentially in the transformation it causes in us.)
Is there such a thing as true love? What is true love? (I've wondered this myself, and very seriously too.) The poet Marlowe brought forth a very interesting point in his poem Hero and Leander,
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?
Alright, this is not the entire quote I wished to give you, however, the gist of what follows is that when the person decides personally what/who he loves, it is not a strong love. Rather, love that is a compulsion, inexplicable, is Love. What Marlowe means is that true love is a result of fate, not the fruit of personal will, which means that there is a force outside of us that decides for us whom we love. I suppose it is true to some extent as love is blind (although, as an asides, Nat King Cole did remind us: but will you please make up your mind?). Seriously, I could argue for this: true love requires no reason. If one loves another for a reason then one loves the qualities that the object of one's affections represents instead of the person, there fore making love nothing more than a venal thing, borne out of the selfishness of one's own heart. Not ideal at all.
Love is very important to us all (we always talk about it, don't we?). However, I find it regrettable that people have gotten such a strange, warped idea of love that it has become more of a vice or a nudge-nudge wink-wink thing between the youngsters that you and I have trouble speaking of it face to face (or even writing notes on paper to each other in case our parents might find it and get the wrong idea). Human love is a very personal thing, not like the love of God (in some religions) which is for everyone and something which even believers find hard to comprehend, so deep and vast it must be. We have no idea, no reasons as to why we love each other, but being the subjective beings we are, perhaps we love because it is the closest we can get to the truth (?). As a natural compulsion towards others like us.
What do you think?
Sex is an even more uncomfortable topic but I'm proud to say that we're sixteen and not obsessed by it even now. More than ever now, popular opinion is that sex is great, is natural, is good for us and people who think it is a sin are the sinners themselves. (Is this what drove us off the self-indulgent Earth-Goddess Tori? How I can mock something when I no longer love it!)
More than ever now, give me your opinion. (In comments.)
Personally, I feel that it is all a base joke (and so do our lovies!). Is it necessary? That is what I ask. How does it benefit us? (As a girl, I can speak quite eloquently against the sex act.) I think that this is why sex is a taboo topic and that kids feel that it is cool and rebellious to speak about it publicly--it's just another way of upsetting their parents. We know, but we still do it as guilty pleasures (so we call it, it sounds so ^%&^* innocuous). Magazines and pastoral care lessons only tell us that it is good as they're afraid that we'll stop listening. Well, don't listen, it's nonsense and nobody learns anything from it.
I argue that sexual desire is a fault as it shows how beholden we are, still, to our earthly flesh. It's an insult to our minds and our higher intelligence as Human Beings, whether sex was invented by the Devil to tempt us from the divine bosom or just a key in evolution so that we continue to spawn (and spawn and spawn...what for?). Oh, but still, we do it. It's Fun.
And I believe that for most people, sexual desire is a natural and very important component in character as it is a natural fault by dint of our place in the Animal Kingdom. I think that it has something to do with the ego as well, ties in with that thing about breeding and perpetuatinjg one's genes. But now that we've become so advanced, isn't it about time that we got rid of this dirt that still continues to exert such a hold over our selves? (Individual will is what makes life worth living.)
Your opinion.
And the passages/character development I promised you:
He was quiet on the bus home. Was it a religious wounding, this sudden casting-off of his childhood? Or a show of his scorn of the faith he had held all his life? (The question should rightly have been: What faith? but that was too painful to consider; he chose to overlook it.) And what of that other he had left behind? Was that a question or an answer? Ordinarily he chose not to be anguished (he was not), he was a passionate being consumed by the extremes that his heart pushed him to, he was angry, he was merry, he was a wolf, a lamb. He lived in the moment, for the moment, that was what kept him alive. His tremedous will.
He was not a wise fellow.
and
Why had he done it? God it was betrayal, by God it was. How should he stop it from happening the next time, stop it from coming between them even in words? Now that he was far away, perhaps now he should tell him. Yes, then he wouldn't have to see his face...they could go back to being friends.
posted by fairypenguin at 6:09 PM
2 Comments:
Perhaps the importance of love is what it says of the giver than the recipient--to give is an assertive action; there is a choice a decision and a willfully created impact. To recieve is something that happened, a little way, by accident.
To love is generous... and maybe it opens up the care that we feel to something beyond ourselves.
Regarding romantic affections; I was thinking about this on the way home a day ago or so, how does this differ from friendship, really? It is a good warm feeling that you may hold for another, that's the important part. I couldn't really distinguish the two. If the sexual act the difference, or is it the intensity--what about very deep friendships then, rare as they might be?
Is romantic love in the presence of desire? Wouldn't sex be classified as erotic love, really?--like stupid, unerotic novels (!)
Wikipedia says: 'Triangular theory of love and argued that love has three different components: Intimacy, Commitment, and Passion. Intimacy is a form where two people can share secrets and various details of their personal lives. Intimacy is usually shown in friendships and romantic love affairs. Commitment on the other hand is the expectation that the relationship is going to last forever. The last and most common form of love is simply sex, or passion. Passionate love is shown in infatuation as well as romantic love. This led researchers such as Yela to further refine the model by separating Passion into two independents components: Erotic Passion and Romantic Passion.'--so it is SEX then. This is rather disappointing actually.
Regarding sex itself. Many people do indulge themselves when they say it is good and healthy and desireable and part of proper development. I personally dislike the idea. Sex was really made for biological purposes, you have sex to have children and ensure that the species survives. In that way, sex was not a creation of the satan.
But I do feel that in this sense, sex if not for the purpose of having a child would be redundant, and for purposes of self-indulgence. It isn't so much that it is evil but that it lacks a reason and is... irrelevant.
Love is quite abstract no matter how warm or close or integral it may be to us--and possibly even tangible in the form of the beloved.
Once again wikipedia: 'True love, in contrast, usually refers to a strong love between lovers or spouses, though overt sexuality is not required.' Yes. Yes, I think so.
There will probably be more to this later as more ideas and opinions take shape. So I'll just end this off here.
Love is irrational. I'll quote Milan Kundera: "The feeling of being elect is present, for instance, in every love relation. For love is by definition an unmerited gift: being loved without meriting it is the very proof of real love."
Physical/sexual attraction does make the difference from friendship to a romantic relationship. Physical intimacy increases overall intimacy. There's nothing much to it:
1. Sex makes you feel good;
2. You love someone;
3. You want to make them feel good.
It's like sharing a secret, a warm cumplicity. That person's body becomes your secret territory. You love every inch of skin. You want to be responsible for that person's pleasure. You want to feel that there is a connection between the two of you that is exclusive.
"Eroticism is one of the basic means of self-knowledge, as indispensable as poetry." - Anaïs Nin
Regarding evolution: I suppose you could survive on shots of vitamins and proteins but you'd still want to eat. It's great to be an intellectual, to read, to think. But you're really wise if you realize you're a sensuous being. And being wise is much more than being an intellectual.
Filling the void of what we don't know with further reading: Milan Kundera's "Unbearable Lightness of Being"; Anaïs Nin's "Little Birds".
"To read, to read, to live the lives that others dreamt." - Unamuno
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