Greetings folks, One of my favourite books goes by the odd title: Living Without a Goal, by James Ogilvy. It's a book about living in the present, and finding a way to create a life as an artist creates a work of art. It's about all the goals in our lives that we take on, too often without thinking, including love, or what we think love is. LZ Granderson gave a humourous lecture at a TED talk that makes fun of the "Gay Agenda", but listen to what he says at 5:36 in the video... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CstD6O95L-o&list=WLh3emDv6mF_4matmZXKkJxeDZEg-hfxPY At that point in the talk, he tells us how his husband proposed to him. He started by telling him about how penguins present their potential mates with a pebble, a perfect pebble. Right then and there, his now husband gave him just such a pebble...The speaker, LZ, talks about how he wears it on a necklace when he feels nervous, or when his husband is away for a while. In Ogilvy's book, he goes on at some length about the idea of sublimation. Not when a substance goes from solid to gas without becoming a liquid first (dry ice for example), but sublimation in the sense of adding layers of meaning to the mundane. Such as LZ's pebble. Who knows, but that the common gesture of giving a ring in betrothal did not also start that way, as a sublime gesture of love. Ogilvy argues that we live now in a world of symbols and images instead of concrete things that can be clearly owned or possessed, like diamonds; whether it's books, movies or contracts...this is the meaning of an information economy. The word "Love" also falls into that category, it signifies something very difficult to define precisely. Here's what Ogilvy had to say about love and the sublime: "Ownership of the sublime is not like mastery. To own the sublime is not to have and hold forever, till death do you part. Ownership of the sublime is service rather than mastery: less like the love of a possessive husband for his trophy wife, and more like the love of a mother for her children: a nurturing love, stewardship rather than dominion. This nonpossessive love takes delight in the least trace of the beloved, whether the laughter of a child, received as a gift even though not given as such, or the last rays of a sunset streaming magenta over the horizon after the source is long gone." "Even death can be sublime. We would be so much less sad if we learned how to let go of the things we love. Then they might become truly ours for the first time, in this nonpossessive mode that the sublime demands of us." This love that everyone speaks of can actually mean radically different things to different people, and different cultures. But one component seems to bring some common ground; love in the aesthetic sense, or love in the realm of the sublime. Like LZ's pebble, the significance of it could only come about through the creative association of a scientific zoological fact, to a sublime act of love. Ogilvy argues that many of our goals should be sublimated in that one should take a more creative path to reaching them. For example, lingerie heightens sexual tension by concealing and revealing at the same time, creating something more, out of nothing. Simply by deviating a little from the direct path, one is lead to enjoy the journey just as much as the destination. It is key to bringing an ordinary biological function, sex, into the realms of poetry and beauty. That is what being human is all about...making it up as we go along, and, like an artist, stepping back from the work, or our lives, and seeing where it all fits in. No grand goals or living other people's ideas of what our goals should be. For all of us here, who are looking for that someone to love, remember that it isn't possession to "have" a BF or GF. It's a weakness in our language to use such verbs. If anything we are the ones possessed of that love, and it is seeking something from and through that "significant other". Once you find that someone, it's important to take each day with that person as a gift, and not something owned. Ogilvy again: "Lila is less possessive in her love for Ned. Last Valentine's Day she sent him a card that said, without irony, "My love is like the sunset. I glory in his presence. I sit in silence and awe, but I do not say he is mine." These days, I'm not looking for the love of my life, I suspect that will happen eventually. In the meantime, I'm looking for that perfect pebble...
You reminded me of the other reason I came out. As much as I would love a lifetime w/someone; what I need is just for however long to know what it's like to love and truly be loved. To just be with someone. People talk about "Soulmates" as this long lifetime thing but maybe in this lifetime its only meant to be for a short time. That's ok for me. I was never an academic or an intellectual but I was taught to play the part. I hated it. Now due to a past illness that took my ability to fake it and well most things is gone. There are chunks of my life that are just snap shots of memories. Years gone. 2 degrees just paper. Whoever is in my life has to be ok with the now. For me the phrase "remember when" is something I had to make peace with. Because more often the answer is "No" . What I let go of with the ex. is that he is the keeper of memories no one else has of me. For me this is a different kind of "out" No more illusions.
I love this whole thread.. 'possession' the idea of it, is so destructive. I hate the possesive pronouns. "MY" wife? "MY" husband? "MY child....,"? We don't OWN one another. That's slavery. I claim rights to needed use, and agreeable exchange to many things... ownership, to nothing.
Interesting timing Greatwhale. I recently shared an article with a young man I'd been communicating with on another forum. A young man in love with a young woman who had experienced a horrible childhood, who loved him back but cringed at the thought of intimacy with him, who identified as a lesbian but desperately wanted to want a straight relationship with this fine young man. This smitten young man, a self-proclaimed white knight, professed no need for a sexually intimate relationship. He proclaimed that he would marry her and be happy with a platonic, celibate marriage, if he could but hold her each night in their sleep. But what of the resentment that would build, what of their base human needs, why must they shackle themselves into a commitment? Would he possess her? Would he resent her? Would he allow this wounded bird to spread her wings as she healed or would he keep her in a gilded cage? It's a slippery slope. Here's the article I shared with that young Knight-errant. It strongly questions definitions/classifications. Love vs. Possession. It references another exceptional work of literature, Truman Capote's Mojave. Hmmm, I'm going to need to make a list... I'm sensing the potential for a Master's thesis in the making! Equating Love With Possession
I'm going to have to check this out. Your summary of the story sounds a whole lot like many aspects of my relationship with my wife, with a few twists. Kind of scary, actually. Although my wounded bird doesn't seem to WANT to spread her wings. She just wants me to keep improving her cage.....
Unfortunately that is not a summary of the story, that's the summary of my correspondent's real life situation. Capote's story addresses the love vs possession theme. My question to the young man was, after reading that article and if inspired by that, then Mojave, would he still want to cage his young lady love in a relationship she could never find fulfilling.
Where does the urge to possess come from? My toddler uses the possessive "our" to mean "we"... And of course "mine" is a favorite word of hers. I remember walking around college gloating to myself that I "had" the hottest girlfriend in town- competitiveness was right there with the sense of possession. At 21 years old, I felt pride in having a prettier, sexier girlfriend than all the guys I saw walking around campus. Now I just want to enjoy the experience of love and relationship WITH the woman I love. Unfortunately, she is in a relationship with someone else. I can't "compete" and don't want to. I want her to want to spend time and share that love with me. we'll see. One day at a time.
One of the things that has annoyed me for years is the way that whenever my wife wants to do something by herself, she will use "I" and "me", but whenever there is something that she clearly intends for me to do, she will use "we" or "us", as if that somehow softens the fact that it's really an order/expectation. Perhaps it did early on, but now it's obvious that she regards me as basically an extension of herself, instead of a separate person. Part of that is my own fault--I know I gave her the expectation early on in our relationship that I would be there for her under all circumstances, because I knew that she really had no one she could depend on in her life. I didn't realize at the time what a bottomless pit she was. I feel as though there is no point in trying to re-train her now, since we both know that things are winding down between us, even if there is no definite date or plan. No point in adding to the conflict. But I can see very clearly that one of my challenges for future relationships will be to recognize a needy person and RUN as quickly as my legs will take me. That, and to learn the distinction between giving of myself and giving up myself.
From Khalil Gibran's The Prophet, On Children: And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls. For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
All things owned and all who own are slaves All Things by being owned are slaves Things of nature living Things of mind or fancy -- you say -- my child husband wife -- you say my body & your body being owned No longer you who own but yours a slave as all things being owned are slaves All Things bought and sold imprison what is free in mine & yours & mine-not-yours Imprison as your boss imprisoned is by you as you by him and the great corporate slave of slaves & holder of slaves As all workers owned by wages owned in turn in buying selling making slaves of all the earth & all that's on the earth & in it Slaves his & hers & ours & my & theirs & Mine-Not-Yours When all things All things of nature living (& all things of nature live) & Things of mind & fancy Yes & none can own what lives Its hidden truth Its Being true are hidden being slaves For all things common are for all in need to nurture life & nurturing & all good works Not getting but begetting Begetting loves children & for making Making needed things Engendering All works of art and poetry To cling to more than what is needed -- HOLD to Things by words of ownership -- my & his & hers & yours & theirs & mine-not-yours is Theft & all who own are thieves & the laws upholding owning These are laws of theft & those who uphold them All officers and magistrates judges holders of public office are thieves & holders of slaves & the hidden powers of Things living -- Things of Fancy & of Mind their hidden life in slavery brews in secret poison that transforms their owners Drives them to greater & greater acts of theft & to acts of violence born in darkness & to die in darkness until all life in nature driven By the hidden power of slaves For things living will not rest easy in a state of slavery but corrupts all owning & all owners to their destruction even to the destruction of all Things singing better in our graves than slaves for every Song & every Poem is a Song of Freedom & Destruction & every Poem is a Poem of Freedom & Destruction freedom from owning & being owned -- no my no mine no his no hers no theirs But only Ours in Common in the great Love that encompasses all Things to the end & to the very end of the poem that owns no end & none can own
