Love
What is love?
Hush. What a foul word. What an execration.
What indeed is love ? A jangling.
When I refer to love, I do not refer to what passes as love: the imperfect
and misplaced faith of two individuals who are bonded emotionally and sexually
to each other. Nor do I refer to friendship, a partial meeting of the minds
and emotions. When I refer to love, I demand that it include a perfect communication
between two individuals.
There should never be the dumbfound look of incomprehension. Disagreement,
yes, but incomprehension, never. They should understand each movement, the
origin of sorrow, anger. To feel alone when you are with someone---this
is the greatest loneliness. The next greatest loneliness is that of being
with friends who cannot understand you. Then it is crowds. Lastly, when
you are alone, loneliness comes if you do not understand yourself.
And then I think: this communication will solve nothing. Once this perfect
communication is reached, the mind is laid bare, so naked even love cannot
clothe it. Love spreads itself thin, trying, curls back in repulsion.
It invariably turns out that if there are two people, they will always
be pulling in opposite directions. Thus one will have to compromise whatever
they are doing in order to follow the other. This sort of inevitable sacrifice
does not appeal to me because it invariably causes resentment at the slightest
show of ingratitude. Thus what was at first freely given is now openly resented.
So-called love then
deteriorates into a many branched thing of hypocrisy and pain.
If you do truly understand another individual, is not the overwhelming emotion
that of pity? And what is the relation of pity to love? Does pity lie at
the heart of love or is it incompatible, antithetical, fatal?
And how does it stay, what does it feed on? There is habit, loyalty...the
antithesis of thought since thought implies examination and examination,
in turn, a correction, a tuning to the moment at hand. Isn't being fickle
ultimately the choice to being true to ourselves and the moment rather than
others?
And why is stability a virtue? Stability always implies possession. Possession
is the only necessary ingredient for loss.Thus, if you are stable, you lose.
With my one attempt at stability came my one great loss.
Many refer to this inability to love as a fear. But there are things that
I do not fear. I have no fear of death. And there are things we should
fear---such as fire or heartbreak. And there are things that we should weigh
and discover if they are worth the effort.
In my childhood, there was a lake, roped off, a small blue boat, a miniature
island and a white bridge that crossed from the island to the shore. I had
always planned to cross the bridge onto the island. Unfortunately the bridge
was merely ornamental--it was a double curve, fragile with no bottom. That
does not erase my desire to walk upon it---the impossibility only increases
the desire. I want to walk on a pathless bridge. I want to be completely
in love. I want to desire to live, to stay on this earth.
None of these offer themselves as any real possibility.
cf. Stupidity
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