[It's December Days time! There's no overarching theme this year, so if you have ideas of things to write about, I'm more than happy to hear them.]
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azurelunatic asked me a question that I have no answer to.
"What is love? What makes a good relationship?"
Well, I could describe it in terms of a profound lust for someone, a desire to know their body in every intimate way, to get excited sexually at the sight of their body, both from previous memories, anticipation of the future, and whatever imagination, fantasy, and creativity can produce. Love has that, or so I'm told.
"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind."
Maybe love is the intimate time and touch, the shared things together, the massages, the making food, the doing things together, the holding hands, the places gone, the notes in lunches, the words exchanged on phone or Skype or anything else that communicates. The tiny gestures of intimacy that you can see in any grouping that has been together for long enough and that are still fond of each other.
"After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake."
Perhaps it involves a fiery intellect, a stimulating conversation, big and small issues discussed with each other, brains operating at high levels, debating and understanding, advocating and defending and making points, but never at the expense of each other. Puzzles solved together, games played and strategized and optimized to play their very best with and against each other. Nobody in the group will ever be bored with each other, and the pursuits of the mind will stretch on into infinity, possibly aided by the Singularity.
"After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire."
None of these capture the essence of love, although they do hint at aspects of it. Sexual compatibility, intimacy, intellectual compatibility, touch and affection, all of these things are important to me and love, but I've been raised and socialized to believe that love is an ineffable quality, a thing that you recognize when you have it, and not necessarily a thing that is built up by successful instances of compatibility and resolution of conflict and shared experience, even though that's likely what it is.
I can't describe it because I don't know what it is, and I haven't been given the tools to do it. And so, I don't think I've experienced it enough (or at all) to get a clue.
"And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave."
azurelunatic asked me a question that I have no answer to. "What is love? What makes a good relationship?"
Well, I could describe it in terms of a profound lust for someone, a desire to know their body in every intimate way, to get excited sexually at the sight of their body, both from previous memories, anticipation of the future, and whatever imagination, fantasy, and creativity can produce. Love has that, or so I'm told.
"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind."
Maybe love is the intimate time and touch, the shared things together, the massages, the making food, the doing things together, the holding hands, the places gone, the notes in lunches, the words exchanged on phone or Skype or anything else that communicates. The tiny gestures of intimacy that you can see in any grouping that has been together for long enough and that are still fond of each other.
"After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake."
Perhaps it involves a fiery intellect, a stimulating conversation, big and small issues discussed with each other, brains operating at high levels, debating and understanding, advocating and defending and making points, but never at the expense of each other. Puzzles solved together, games played and strategized and optimized to play their very best with and against each other. Nobody in the group will ever be bored with each other, and the pursuits of the mind will stretch on into infinity, possibly aided by the Singularity.
"After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire."
None of these capture the essence of love, although they do hint at aspects of it. Sexual compatibility, intimacy, intellectual compatibility, touch and affection, all of these things are important to me and love, but I've been raised and socialized to believe that love is an ineffable quality, a thing that you recognize when you have it, and not necessarily a thing that is built up by successful instances of compatibility and resolution of conflict and shared experience, even though that's likely what it is.
I can't describe it because I don't know what it is, and I haven't been given the tools to do it. And so, I don't think I've experienced it enough (or at all) to get a clue.
"And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave."
