okay, bonbon, i just got hold of a new interpretation of reality--well, new to me. It's Julia Kristeva's interpretation of love, relationships, and essentially reality, given our natures and given that we live under paternal Law. I don't understand it completely, because she's a prolific writer, and all her ideas are somewhat interconnected. Kristeva has been most active from the mid-70s to mid-90s. She is French, of Bulgarian origin.
Here's a really watered down version. Basically, at birth we experience a separation from our mother's body--aka the maternal body. Our mothers supposedly have a multiplicitous idenitity--daughter, wife, worker, lawyer, gardener, housekeeper, writer etc.... But in our paternal society, we simplify "mother" and we think of her ONLY as the maternal body. It is the maternal body that horrifies the child, because she threatens our autonomy. From pregnancy to infanthood, boundaries between mother and child are always confused. Even the mother is confused, becuase the child was once her body. The child therefore learns to "abject," "jettison," "expel" the mother, in our need to develop individuation and identity. So we separate from her, to find out that we have lost our very self. Because not only was the child a part of the mother's body, the mother was also a part of the child's body. The child and the mother had no boundary--they are One. In our confusion, we transfer our loss and need of mother to someone else. (Kristeva explains homosexuality and heterosexuality, but i dont want to get into that). And that is why we need love. For heterosexual women, we transfer our loss and need to a man. But never will we be satisfied, because that man was not what we lost nor what we sought. We still keep trying and looking, though. There is one way, acc. to Kristeva, to be satiated. That is to reunite with the mother. Reunion with mother for a woman takes place through pregnancy... etc etc etc....
My point is that because we feel an emptiness inside, we seek to be satiated. We think romantic love will be the key to our freedom. Christians explain that because we were sinners, we lost god, and so we are empty. Christians preach a return to god through jesus. Kristeva teaches a return to mother through pregnancy. Society teaches, i suppose, satiation through romantic love, or money, or power, or.... But it seems that, acc. to Christianity and acc. to Kristeva, romantic love is not the cure, although it is certainly a distraction from our emptiness and may seem to take the form of satisfaction.
I guess we just need to know ourselves, and to know ourselves well enough to know what it'll take to fill our empty hearts and souls; and to each, our own. let me know what you think, okay?
have you gone to my blog? I posted an email i sent to my sisters re: E. Wong (Aug 17), who performed at the busker's festival, here in halifax. I think i have a crush on the dude. go check out his website. I have a link to it from my blog.
sincerely,
kh
August 20 11:25 PM
2 comments:
Hey KH,
I think the problem really is with not knowing ourselves well enough. You can eat and eat but you can still not be satiated because you're not eating right. For some people the emptiness is so vast they seek to fill it by engaging in harmful (or unusual) behavior (eg. serial dating? serial one-night-stands?). Come to think of it these aren't very unusual really; they're quite common. But they don't really help do they? It's like you have an injury, but all you've got at your disposal are those tiny little band-aids that don't even stick on properly. You see what I mean?
Seeking to fill our heart and soul's emptiness is a life-long journey; a lot of people die without ever knowing what could satiate them. Christians seem to have less of that problem (that's kinda why I want in.... heh). The reason why they have less of that problem is because the love that they receive is magnanimous, ubiquitous, unconditional and forever. Where else could you possibly get that kind of love? Certainly not from any mortal being (they could leave us; they could die). Romantic love, to me, is least like the kind of love I have just described. For example, we've often heard of "If you love someone you'd set him/her free." How many times have you seen that actually happen around you? A few months ago I was involved with a guy ("involved" is used very loosely here) but he broke my heart, and to this day I periodically want to stick daggers into him. If "love" was really what I felt the aftermath certainly looks ugly.
The closest you get to "pure" love in the realm of humans would be, I think, the love you receive from your parents (or mom) and the love you feel for your child. But they too, could die on us. The solution seems to be: rather than focusing on how much love we receive from and feel for people we should focus on love itself as a quality. In other words: just practice the act of love. Quit worrying about what you get in return or whether it's ephemeral.
But as you say, to each, our own. Some people seek wealth or other material things, although I have yet to meet someone who'll flat out tell me that as long as they have money (or power, or romantic love) they'll be satisfied. Most people need something more than that, and by "more" I don't mean "quantity of". I think what we have a thirst for is transcendence, and we should seek outside the material world to satiate ourselves.
Hmm... that was meandering eh?
-Bonbon
Sometimes, i wonder if i'm still heartbroken... that i still want him...
jesus? lover of my soul?
because i had had it, and i turned away... Love.
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