Recent Thoughts
I feel like I haven't communed with the blogosphere in a while. In other words, I ain't seen y'all in a minute! If you don't get that, don't worry; it's ... urban. I'm too tired to translate.
At this very moment I am enjoying a bottle of Miller Genuine Draft. It is "brewed from the finest hand selected hops and choice roasted malts." That's Miller's way of saying "our beer is good." And it is. It is indeed. For cheap beer.
I haven't written much lately because I've been super busy. But I have spent a great deal of time thinking about a TON of stuff. I think while I'm driving, or while I'm working, or while I'm in the shower. I'd like to share some of my thoughts from this week before I go to bed:
1) Isn't it strange how we can have a great deal of affection for people we've never met? I have pictures of my grandfather, whom I never met, and ... I feel this affection for him. I miss him, in the truest sense of the word. I really did miss him, because he died before I was born. My father told me "I'm sorry my daddy never got to see you. He would have loved you." Southerners tend to call their fathers "daddy" even after they have become adults. My father was, among many other things, a southern transplant.
So yeah ... it's a little strange for me to have this "love" for a man I've never met. My grandfather yes, but still in many ways a stranger. All I have of him are photographs, stories, my last name, a Y chromosome.
Do you wonder what your ancestors were like? I mean, what they were really, really like deep down on the inside? If they were pirates, were they pirates because that's what they wanted to be? Or did they believe that was what they had to be? If your ancestors hail from the British Isles, do you wonder if your great-grandfather to the "nth" degree was a lonely Roman soldier who fell in love (or lust) with a Celtic woman with blue tatoos on her face? Do you wonder if he wrote a letter in Latin to his mother back in Italy saying "My firstborn looks and acts like a Celt, but, oh ... I wish you could see him. You'd love him."?
Do you wonder if your ancestors traveled on the Silk Road? Did they study the Q'uran at Timbuktu? Were they proud descendants of Hebrews who converted at the time of the Spanish Inquisition? Did they lose all of their siblings to the Black Death? If you don't wonder, I do. I wonder about your family as well as mine. Maybe your family and my family are the same. Maybe politics, class, religion, or skin color made our family go in separate directions. I don't know, cousin. Do you?
2) I thought a lot about my future. Man ... talk about scary! I thought about buying and owning a home. What must it feel like to look out a window, and see your own gorgeous backyard garden, and think "Those damned rabbits keep eating my cabbages!"?
How would you pick the house? What if you couldn't find the perfect house? Would you have it built? Not me ... most of the new houses are cardboard monstrosities, four variations of the same theme, in subdivision, after subdivion, after subdivison. How sad. Would you build it yourself? I guess I would, except ... I don't know how. I'm not good with tools, or measurements, or wiring, or anything that requires my hands. Well, I'm a decent drummer, but that's a different sort of thing.
3) I thought about love, in all its forms. Remember Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis? Love can be selfish. How can we be sure that ours is not? Mine often is, and sometimes I think there's not a thing I can do about it. And when my "love" is selfish, what am I missing? Is my mind darkened? My heart? Sometimes I am selfish toward God, inwardly shouting monosyllabic words like, "NO!" and "MINE!". Just like the angry little toddler who is so defiant, yet so dependent.
I had more thoughts, but it's time for bed. If I keep writing, this post won't make any sense at all. Good night.
At this very moment I am enjoying a bottle of Miller Genuine Draft. It is "brewed from the finest hand selected hops and choice roasted malts." That's Miller's way of saying "our beer is good." And it is. It is indeed. For cheap beer.
I haven't written much lately because I've been super busy. But I have spent a great deal of time thinking about a TON of stuff. I think while I'm driving, or while I'm working, or while I'm in the shower. I'd like to share some of my thoughts from this week before I go to bed:
1) Isn't it strange how we can have a great deal of affection for people we've never met? I have pictures of my grandfather, whom I never met, and ... I feel this affection for him. I miss him, in the truest sense of the word. I really did miss him, because he died before I was born. My father told me "I'm sorry my daddy never got to see you. He would have loved you." Southerners tend to call their fathers "daddy" even after they have become adults. My father was, among many other things, a southern transplant.
So yeah ... it's a little strange for me to have this "love" for a man I've never met. My grandfather yes, but still in many ways a stranger. All I have of him are photographs, stories, my last name, a Y chromosome.
Do you wonder what your ancestors were like? I mean, what they were really, really like deep down on the inside? If they were pirates, were they pirates because that's what they wanted to be? Or did they believe that was what they had to be? If your ancestors hail from the British Isles, do you wonder if your great-grandfather to the "nth" degree was a lonely Roman soldier who fell in love (or lust) with a Celtic woman with blue tatoos on her face? Do you wonder if he wrote a letter in Latin to his mother back in Italy saying "My firstborn looks and acts like a Celt, but, oh ... I wish you could see him. You'd love him."?
Do you wonder if your ancestors traveled on the Silk Road? Did they study the Q'uran at Timbuktu? Were they proud descendants of Hebrews who converted at the time of the Spanish Inquisition? Did they lose all of their siblings to the Black Death? If you don't wonder, I do. I wonder about your family as well as mine. Maybe your family and my family are the same. Maybe politics, class, religion, or skin color made our family go in separate directions. I don't know, cousin. Do you?
2) I thought a lot about my future. Man ... talk about scary! I thought about buying and owning a home. What must it feel like to look out a window, and see your own gorgeous backyard garden, and think "Those damned rabbits keep eating my cabbages!"?
How would you pick the house? What if you couldn't find the perfect house? Would you have it built? Not me ... most of the new houses are cardboard monstrosities, four variations of the same theme, in subdivision, after subdivion, after subdivison. How sad. Would you build it yourself? I guess I would, except ... I don't know how. I'm not good with tools, or measurements, or wiring, or anything that requires my hands. Well, I'm a decent drummer, but that's a different sort of thing.
3) I thought about love, in all its forms. Remember Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis? Love can be selfish. How can we be sure that ours is not? Mine often is, and sometimes I think there's not a thing I can do about it. And when my "love" is selfish, what am I missing? Is my mind darkened? My heart? Sometimes I am selfish toward God, inwardly shouting monosyllabic words like, "NO!" and "MINE!". Just like the angry little toddler who is so defiant, yet so dependent.
I had more thoughts, but it's time for bed. If I keep writing, this post won't make any sense at all. Good night.
posted by Wordsmyth at
10:39 PM
11 Comments:
Selfish love comes from casting off or cutting yourself off from natural feelings you'd otherwise have, all in some lameass attempt to get stuff for yourself that can only be freely given.
(It can be equally selfish to lust after the idea of someone you could give the best of yourself to. As a man, what I REALLY need is someone to give to. That's what *I* need, and it's selfish to expect anyone to cooperate with that scheme of mine, especially if I'm not their preferred flavour. Some believe God has to "have a special someone" set aside, and others believe that, if I "had skills" I could be happy with and make happy almost anyone. Bullshit to both, I say.)
when i cling to something, crying, "mine!", i almost have this me vs. God mentality. there seems to be a different mentality when i feel that God is putting good things in my life, and i have hopeful expectation :) as things unfold.
of course, that doesn't stop me from telling him, on a daily basis, what i'd REALLY like.
Wikkid, explain what you mean by "casting off or cutting yourself off from natural feelings you'd otherwise have"
The bible consistently refers to adulterous and lustful people as "having cast off all feeling" rather than what modern thought would make us expect, which would be more like "gave in to his/her natural biological urges and deep, honest, primal feelings." To respond to something and appreciate it is, in most ways, the opposite of fantasizing about it, lusting after it and not having it. I think natural feelings are reactions to What Is, rather than to What We Want And Can Imagine.
My theory is that, in order to (i.e.) have sex with someone and make it "just physical" you have to develop the deeply unnatural, "fractured self" ability to split your body and its hormones from your heart and mind, and make those last two do the opposite of the first thing, instead of having your whole self move in concert as one being. I think much of the pain associated with "break up/make up/wake up" together stuff is all about the lack of internal harmony caused by our disynchronous infrastructural parts.
I think it is possible that, if we did things right, we would enjoy more people in more ways than we tend to now. Instead of enjoying a lot of people a little, we want to enjoy one person 24/7. This stubborn insistence upon the aforementioned ideal, propagated by thousands of years of traditional romantic love poetry, plays, songs, paintings and so on, coupled with how *alone* modern people tend to be (living alone, in spaces that are segregated worlds with seperate climate controls and entertainment) makes people want to "have someone" in their lives in the way they have cars, TVs and toilets.
Old world and third world people experience, I suspect, a broader and deeper connection to other human beings than we do. Our "work manners" and the use of telephone and Internet mean we have carefully buffered, scheduled, structured interactions with the demi-strangers we work with, and less interactions with family and chosen friends (as opposed to "acquaintences by default") Or something. Just stuff in my head that isn't thought out and probably won't be.
that's pretty deep, and I honestly don't think I've thought of that before. There is one point I disagree with you on, however. You said, the romantic ideal has been "propagated by thousands of years of traditional romantic love poetry, plays, songs, paintings and so on ..." While those things have always existed, I don't think anyone really placed a premium on them until the Middle Ages when courtly love really began to have a following. Even then, the majority of people viewed courtship and marriage in practical terms.
When the ancients wrote poems about soul mates, or erotic bonds that could not be broken, they were often talking about just that: soul mates. NOT spouses. A wife was someone who bore your legitimate children and kept your house in order. A husband was someone who took care of you (see original meaning of the word). and husbands and wives were chosen by the parents of the future spouses; it wasn't about how bride and bridegroom felt about each other. it was about politics, property, and procreation; different classes gave those three different priority.
I think this is why Paul's teaching to husbands and wives was so remarkable. "love your wife as your own body" was pretty shocking in much of the ancient world.
but back to "casting off all feeling" ... what do you suggest to those who wish to be integrated, having their entire selves move in concert?
I think that worn old theory as to the connection of romantic love to marriage being a relatively new concept is bullshit. That's because I think God made it that way on purpose, and the only way the two ever get seperated is if a civilization goes sadly astray (which happens every single time)
I mean, the Song of Solomon is pretty telling as to a pre-medaeval work with romance and marriage together. In fact, Solomon did the "soul mate" and "wife" as one thing several hundred times, didn't he?
David was pretty romantic too. Jacob's working for Rachel seems to me to be more than a pragmatic decision about politics, property and procreation. Would have been simple to take a local girl or be satisfied with Leah, but he wanted Rachel so badly, he worked for her and it seemed like days.
I also note the number of times it says that the patriarchs "took" their wives and loved them and knew them and children were the result (not the purpose) of this. Abraham's making Sarah's grave seems more than merely pragmatic or respectful.
Call me a romantic, but I think that being "pragmatic" about something like sex or marriage isn't human. I don't think it's ever been natural, but societies have a way of warping what's meant to be. If our current society keeps up with what it's been trying, it will almost succeed at making finding a partner like getting a car loan.
David wasn't being pragmatic about Bathsheba, and certainly wasn't primarilly after children, nor was he content keeping her as a mistress. He wanted her as his wife right away.
Besides, the whole Medaeval Romantic Love Conceit was bullshit. It was about lust. (lust: impotently bemoaning your inability to get something that seems appealing, or conversely, overreaching sense and position to pretend for a time that you can possess something you never can)
Love is about seeing what is and appreciating it and filling needs and coming together. It isn't about "I have a biological urge to bear children" and it's not about "I want sex without going all the way emotionally" nor "I need someone to smother."
Real romance, unwatered-down by lust, is a normal, human thing that God made, that was felt from the beginning. Do we read Adam, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all saying "Well, now I've got a wife. Procreation problem solved" or do we sense something much emotionally deeper and exciting in their "this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh" type proclamations? Can it be that it was "not good" for Adam to be alone, not just because he couldn't bear children without a wife, but because he lacked companionship and a deep soul bond?
To feel that God meant for it to be seperate from and not directed toward a spouse, to argue that some smart people got the great idea to innovatively "invent" an odd marriage of romance and spouseship, and that this hadn't existed before the dark ages, that before that, it was "women for children, and young boys for romance," well, that's more than my imagination can comfortably hold. A lot of things were lost during the "dark" ages. Literacy. Art. Reason. Romance?
Next they're going to argue that the protective love of children was only in the year 1943 properly connected to nurturing one's own children, and that, before that,the two were generally seperate things...
Granted, Song of Solomon teaches us how marriage is SUPPOSED to be. I'm not arguing that one never, ever found true love with a spouse. I'm simply arguing that it was not normative, nor did most people expect it to be. While this may be disappointing from our point of view, I'm not sure the ancients' lack of expectation in this area was morally wrong or sinful.
I would say Solomon did NOT do the "soul mate" and wife thing several hundred times because "soul mate" by definition demands exclusivity. Sure ... he "loved many women". That's different from having many soul mates, which definitely chafes against the western concept of romantic love.
David may have been romantic, but his romantic feelings for one woman didn't stop him from gettin' down with another. The Bathsheba thing doesn't strike me as true love at all. He saw a beautiful woman, and being THE MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE ENTIRE EMPIRE, slept with her. That sort of thing just tends to happen. Giving Bathsheba the benefit of the doubt, I don't really think she had a choice in the matter. I think Bathsheba being made a wife means virtually nothing. I'd bet cold, hard cash that the major difference between David's wives and concubines was this: the concubines were hot, and the wives were SUPER hot. David married Michal. David married Abigail. David married Bathsheba. Which one had his heart? Or did it just depend on what night it was?
Now let's go to Jacob. I'll give the brother mad props for working 14 years for the woman he loved. That's dedication. But was Rachel his "soul mate"? I'll give this a veritable "maybe". Why maybe? Because he kept sleeping with Leah. The romantic love spoken of in poems, songs, etc. demands exclusivity by nature, not by decree.
Abraham seems to have loved Sarah with a love that we'd do well to emulate. That whole business with Hagar was actually Sarah's idea. But, his love for her does not tell us WHY they got married. All we know is that he loved her during their marriage.
My point is not that romantic love is bad. I'm only saying that the concept of placing it first and foremost as the reason for getting married is indeed relatively new. I'm not saying the ancients didn't experience romantic love, or didn't yearn for it. I'm not saying it didn't occur within marriage. In the ancient world, the practical considerations were almost always put first. I guess we can just chalk that up to The Fall. If that hadn't happened, there would be no need to be pragmatic.
I get you now. I do tend to feel that "The romantic love spoken of in poems, songs, etc." isn't what it's cracked up to be, and unless our romance doesn't exceed that of the romantic poets, then it won't get us far. I don't think that these patriarchs being inexclusive as to their wives automatically means that they married primarilly for pragmatic reasons. I don't see how most of them were being pragmatic. With Solomon, David and Jacob, I'd have to say "romance or lust, but not both" was the explanation, not pragmatism.
So it makes it easier to make romance a priority if you have money and power. If you are starving and/or oppressed, probably less of a priority.
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