Greetings folks, Yes, this is yet another thread on that book I'm reading. James Hillman and Michael Ventura collaborated on an extraordinary book: We've had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy - and the World is Getting Worse Here's their dialogue on love: Hillman: You know, there's a feeling about a good day-it's slow, and very much like being with a lover. Having a good moment at breakfast, tasting something-it has to do with beauty, this matter of love. And I think all the "work" at personal relationships fucks that up. That "work" is not aesthetic and sensuous, which is really what love, for me, is about. Aesthetic and sensuous, and a kind of joy. Love doesn't result from working at something. So the therapeutic approach to love, of clearing up the relationship, may clear up communication disorders, expression inhibitions, insensitive habits, may even improve sex, but I don't think it releases love; I don't think love can be worked at. Ventura: That's a distinction that our culture seems to have been busy forgetting for the last several decades-the distinction between "the relationship" and "love." To apply the word aesthetic to "the relationship"-that would make a lot of us blink hard. Hillman: That's what love is about-aesthetic and sensuous. And when that aspect isn't functioning, the other person becomes a little bit of a camel, carrying so much weight through the desert of the relationship-your baggage, the other person's baggage. No wonder camels spit. I tend to agree with the above. I have stated elsewhere here on EC that love is an active verb, it has four elements that are essential and do require work: caring about and for someone, responding to the other's needs, respecting the loved one and above all getting to know that person. But the missing ingredient in all of this is....why? Why do all those things for someone and no one else? I think Hillman gets it; the joy (as opposed to the pleasure) of love is beautiful on its own. It's what the poets talk about, like a perfect day. Love has grace and is in almost artistic proportion to every moment with the loved one, it has a quality unlike anything else... Do you agree?
