23 October 2007

common disaster...

Let me preface this post by finally stating that for a few weeks now I've been seeing a young lady here in town. I'm sure you could've figured that out with your keen intellect, but I might as well spell it out because it is an important detail for this entry. Oh and things are going very well, thank you for asking. Tomorrow is her birthday and I had a heck of a time thinking of something to get her, which of course is not what she wants but everyone says not to pay attention to that.

Ok so I woke up pretty early today, all things considered, and I'm enjoying some of my typical fare, Duncan Sheik, Cousteau and now Cowboy Junkies. I suppose it begs the question why I like music that borders on the depressed and lovelorn when my current situation is anything but. What can I say; I'm just a sensitive guy I guess. Whatever I may feel with my tactile senses my internal senses are focused on the pain just beneath the surface of the casual affairs of the world we live in.

So I am laying here thinking (too much perhaps) and I wandered into a rabbit trail. I suppose it is inspired by one of the songs I listened to almost an hour ago. The lyric goes "How will I know that its you; how will I know that it's right?" The song is written to a fictional lover outside of time and space in the realm of the metaphysical, presupposing that his lover is out there but not known to him. Such a song can't help stir your thoughts just a little. How indeed?

Well, you can weigh your own feelings and you can speculate as to the others. You may even discuss these things at great length, but language always falls short in communicating them absolutely anyway. I had to do some quick research to write this entry for you. I apologize if it borders on academic, but I was stuck on something I read a few years ago and I wanted to get it right.

This comes from a book on ethics by a guy named Ramsey who I believe is either very old now, or very dead. He first makes a case for "disinterested-love" which is a phrase he coins because he believes for love to be pure it must not be interested in any form of gain stemming from selfishness. I'll skip that part and go right to where he is quoting and analyzing Kierkegaard;

if you wish to assure yourself that love is disinterested, you must remove every possibility of requital... If love persists notwithstanding hostility, then it is in truth disinterested... in a love relationship between persons who have a personal or natural affinity for one another, there is always a hope and a prospect of requital, at least of a reciprocated love; and generally speaking, this is what happens in due time. But precisely this hope, this prospect of requital in the not far distant future produces such an effect that one cannot definitely see what is love and what is enlightened selfishness." - Paul Ramsey regurgitating Kierkegaard

Then I got to thinking. Have I ever had a natural affinity toward someone with the hope of requital that was not returned--at least not returned in the way I had hoped? Well, the short answer is yes. Many times, but one in particular though I will not name her here except as Ammonia (a name I joke to my coworkers I will name my first daughter if I have one).

So the test I came up with in my mind, to determine if a love that does seek requital really lives up to the standard of disinterested love (assuming I disagree with Ramsey and the genius of Kierkegaard) is what would I do if this person were to reemerge and confess a secret longing for me, either in the past or continuing into the present. Would I say thank you, that is flattering but no thanks? Would I go further and admit my own feelings but insist that I no longer feel that way and I wish her the best? Or would I recklessly extinguish this new flame and hope to light an old one that never really burned to begin with?

All great questions and I won't answer them now, just something to mull over I suppose. I mean at some point you have to take your head back out of the clouds, dust out the cobwebs, return to reality and just be glad you don't have to make that choice!

OK I lied. I am pretty sure I'd admit I had a crush but that it is over and it was based on a fantasy that doesn't exist. The person I knew isn't the person she would now be, nor am I the person I was then. Even the friendship I had with this person wouldn't stand much of a chance of lasting given the time and distance that have helped shape who we are now. Sorry to make it sound so simple, I really wanted it to sound more like the plot for a film that would just grip you until the bitter end but for some reason it fell apart in act two, didn't it? Well, that's life folks!

Peace,

b

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home