Love and Loneliness.

Inspired by a presently ongoing exchange between Poison, Blurred and I.

In love, I seek the freedom of the Other, the freedom that grounds their choice to love me, to accept me as I am given, in all my givenness, as a being with possibles, a being that projects his very being outward onto his possibles and is so responsible for them. I cannot be satisfied with a love that is coerced or forced in some way: I cannot emphasize this enough, love must be free. But at the same time, the prospect of a freedom behind love terrifies me. It's so arbitrary. My lover might at any moment revoke her love for me, change her mind and shatter everything. This prospect is paralyzing. This is why lovers often insist that their union was "meant to be," or that they were "made for each other." In doing so, they secure against the prospect of losing love to freedom. So at one and the same time, I need for love to be free, and for love to be necessary. But this is surely impossible. To this extent, love is absolutely founded on trust, on the bridging of the abyss between two subjects, wholly unknowable to each other. It comes down to my trust that my lover both loves me in freedom, and that she will not at a whim revoke such love. This trust is surely absurd, and to recognize it for what it is to succumb absolutely to despair. One must concentrate instead on the bridge between the lover and the beloved. But the abyss cannot be bridged without first being recognized, without first being acknowledged. In Nietzschean terms: one must first grapple with nihilism before actualizing himself in the face of such meaninglessness. It is here that I locate the despair. One is not guaranteed a successful, permanent bridge over the abyss. It may at any moment crumble from beneath me. One may indeed become the monster one battles with, succumb to the abyss one intends to cross. And in this sense, the prospect of love itself is terrifying. Its opposite can sometimes be comforting, and at other times alienating.

In loneliness, I seek my own freedom only. I absolutely ignore the existence of the Other. But in this sense, I can never self-actualize, I can only actualize myself as an object for the Other, because to myself, I can only be a subject, a subject with infinite possibles, defined by what he is not, without ground. To construct this ground for myself, I need the Other. And with the Other, comes the limitation to my freedom. And so on, and so on, and so on. Ah, what a night this is.

Without Music, in answer to a question you have asked me before, I've figured out a philosopher I really don't like: roger scruton.

He seems to be a philospher that is totally against the kind of freedom you are talking about.

He, like Burke, argues that we are beholden to the powers that be, that is even though he would probably be less likely to be so beholden if the powers that be went against his own personal beliefs about how the world should work.

You and I aren't so different. I suspect little more separates us than 30 years and a few drinks. I tremble before the thought of what I'll be like next year -- the thought of being your age is too foreign for me to contemplate. No offense, of course.

And certainly self actualization is a matter of actualizing yourself before the other. It wouldn't be as much fun otherwise. But at the same time you have to actualize yourself to yourself before you can even hope to actualize yourself to the other.

You don't exist in a vacuum. You have to assume that if you are feeling certain things, others are as well, that is since we are all experiencing a common world and reality.

It is the very assumption that most artists have to work under.

without-music wrote:

You and I aren't so different. I suspect little more separates us than 30 years and a few drinks. I tremble before the thought of what I'll be like next year -- the thought of being your age is too foreign for me to contemplate. No offense, of course.

For all the assurance it might seem, it's not as bad as you might think. I remember being young and not thinking I would make it past 30.

The nice thing for me is that being past the point where my hormones are raging, and being past the point where I think I might actually "make it" (that is while still being able to sustain a remote possibility -to still think of getting the band back together), I'm in a position to experiment. I'm in a situation where I can jump around from discipline to discipline and see what happens without having to worry whether I'm going to make it in any one.

I just like the idea of jumping around, of taking in a lot of different information about a lot of different things, then doing things just to see what happens.

It's not the worst point A to point B a guy could ask for.

And no offense taken.

To give you another example:

I can joke with Poison IV. This is because she is about as hot as hot can be. She is, as far as I'm concerned, playboy beautiful.

But, ultimately, I stand nothing to gain by it. This is why I can play with her because I have nothing at stake.

That said:

I tend to pray for 2 things before I die:



Sex and psychedellics.

I would love to have sex with a woman a little less perfect than IV



(and I stand with Aldous Huxley who requested that he be administered LSD on his deathbed.

She's certainly beautiful. That doesn't stop me from enjoying her conversation, as well as engaging her intellectually. I think I stand to learn quite a bit from her, regardless of how "out of my league" she may be.

Quote :

I'm in a position to experiment.

I can see the benefits to being in such a position. Though I still can't possibly fathom the idea -- too many years left to live, I think.

That bitch Blurred is still around?

Regardless of how the subject of your love feels, you are always free to love her. You don't have the choice of not having that freedom.

phoneutria wrote:

Regardless of how the subject of your love feels, you are always free to love her. You don't have the choice of not having that freedom.

Huh?

phoneutria wrote:

Regardless of how the subject of your love feels, you are always free to love her. You don't have the choice of not having that freedom.

You're quite right. But love demands a reciprocation. I am hollow and empty if the subject of my love refuses to return the sentiment. And her choice to return, to sustain, or to revoke that sentiment is always free -- this is ground from which I made the initial post.

I think it is important to realize that the deepest love does not have to be between something you fuck.

And thus that great love can be between you and everyone if you just open to people.

And the more you give to more people, the more you get.

without-music wrote:

Inspired by a presently ongoing exchange between Poison, Blurred and I.

In love, I seek the freedom of the Other, the freedom that grounds their choice to love me, to accept me as I am given, in all my givenness, as a being with possibles, a being that projects his very being outward onto his possibles and is so responsible for them.

If they love you as possibilities, a free, undetermined....'space'? potential? thingie? process?
what is it they are loving?

IOW don't you want their love to be based to a great degree on what you are, rather than on what you might be(come)?

Otherwise why should you interest them more than someone else? who also could be seen as a vast freedom of possibilities?

I don't think I seek the freedom of the other, in love. I respond to what I experience. I intend to also leave them much room to be free and not be an object, to change, to evolve, etc.- though it would be dishonest to say that is all I do or feel in the face changes or aspects I did not realize were there, etc.

These sound like noble ideals on your part, but they seem distant from the actual mud and splendor of a real relationship.

(happy birthday, by the way)

without-music wrote:

You're quite right. But love demands a reciprocation. I am hollow and empty if the subject of my love refuses to return the sentiment. And her choice to return, to sustain, or to revoke that sentiment is always free -- this is ground from which I made the initial post.

The anguish of denied love is in my opinion one of the most beautiful emotions you can experience.
It's in the never materialized love that the idealization of the feeling and of the object of love thrive.
Once factual, everything is reduced to no more than what it is.

Abstract wrote:

And thus that great love can be between you and everyone if you just open to people.

Love for me is much more violent than that: I pick a single element out of its context, pluck it from its background and proudly proclaim that I love it, I privilege it over all things related, desire it at the expense of all else. In this sense, love cannot be "for everyone" -- such a concept disintegrates the very foundation for the possibility of love itself.

phoneutria wrote:

The anguish of denied love is in my opinion one of the most beautiful emotions you can experience.
It's in the never materialized love that the idealization of the feeling and of the object of love thrive.
Once factual, everything is reduced to no more than what it is.

Well put. We disagree, of course. But well put nonetheless.

Kovacs wrote:

If they love you as possibilities, a free, undetermined....'space'? potential? thingie? process?
what is it they are loving?

IOW don't you want their love to be based to a great degree on what you are, rather than on what you might be(come)?

Otherwise why should you interest them more than someone else? who also could be seen as a vast freedom of possibilities?

I don't think I seek the freedom of the other, in love. I respond to what I experience. I intend to also leave them much room to be free and not be an object, to change, to evolve, etc.- though it would be dishonest to say that is all I do or feel in the face changes or aspects I did not realize were there, etc.

These sound like noble ideals on your part, but they seem distant from the actual mud and splendor of a real relationship.

(happy birthday, by the way)

This is in accordance with what I just posted.
Before the objectification, what you love is an idea, more so than an actual person.

Two phases of the experience, both with a "splendor" of its own kind.

phoneutria wrote:

This is in accordance with what I just posted.
Before the objectification, what you love is an idea, more so than an actual person.

Two phases of the experience, both with a "splendor" of its own kind.

Or it's a bunch of concrete things, the way they look, the way they look at you, the sound of their voice, the clever things they say.....and so on.

You can form an idea or set of ideas batching all these and fall in love with ideas. Or you can just keep heading down the line of enjoyable/challenging experiences.

Anyway, I found it interesting that you saw what I wrote as in accordance and I was thinking much more along the lines of concrete experiences and you were thinking of ideas. Though I obviously agree also.

And yes, it's not so easy to separate out 'concrete' experiences from ideas, but I refuse to go there in this context.

In matters of love, what happens inside of our minds can be much more powerful than sensorial pleasures.
Think, for example, of the moment that precedes a first kiss, when compared to the actual kiss.
Don't get me wrong, kissing is amazing. But when compared to the raw thrill of diving into the unknown, the physical fades.
In fact, I can't even remember much about first kisses, other than the emotions I felt

without-music wrote:

Abstract wrote:

And thus that great love can be between you and everyone if you just open to people.

Love for me is much more violent than that: I pick a single element out of its context, pluck it from its background and proudly proclaim that I love it, I privilege it over all things related, desire it at the expense of all else. In this sense, love cannot be "for everyone" -- such a concept disintegrates the very foundation for the possibility of love itself.

How does that disintegrate the possibility of love itself?
If one can love both children given two, and then both children given three, and then both children given four... why must the series stop and at what particular number would it stop?

Perhaps you are talking about specifically love that involves sex(partnership), not just love in general? at which point we can isolate the difference as being sex and thus say that really with regards to sex you prefer to have a single person...which I find reasonable?

yet I fail to see how sex is necessary for the deepest of love, rather it is something that often follows from deep love, but reversing that and saying that thus such deep love is a product of sex...seems like a post hoc ergo propter hoc sort of fallacy...

without-music wrote:

Inspired by a presently ongoing exchange between Poison, Blurred and I.

In love, I seek the freedom of the Other, the freedom that grounds their choice to love me, to accept me as I am given, in all my givenness, as a being with possibles, a being that projects his very being outward onto his possibles and is so responsible for them. I cannot be satisfied with a love that is coerced or forced in some way: I cannot emphasize this enough, love must be free. But at the same time, the prospect of a freedom behind love terrifies me. It's so arbitrary. My lover might at any moment revoke her love for me, change her mind and shatter everything. This prospect is paralyzing. This is why lovers often insist that their union was "meant to be," or that they were "made for each other." In doing so, they secure against the prospect of losing love to freedom. So at one and the same time, I need for love to be free, and for love to be necessary. But this is surely impossible. To this extent, love is absolutely founded on trust, on the bridging of the abyss between two subjects, wholly unknowable to each other. It comes down to my trust that my lover both loves me in freedom, and that she will not at a whim revoke such love. This trust is surely absurd, and to recognize it for what it is to succumb absolutely to despair. One must concentrate instead on the bridge between the lover and the beloved. But the abyss cannot be bridged without first being recognized, without first being acknowledged. In Nietzschean terms: one must first grapple with nihilism before actualizing himself in the face of such meaninglessness. It is here that I locate the despair. One is not guaranteed a successful, permanent bridge over the abyss. It may at any moment crumble from beneath me. One may indeed become the monster one battles with, succumb to the abyss one intends to cross. And in this sense, the prospect of love itself is terrifying. Its opposite can sometimes be comforting, and at other times alienating.

In loneliness, I seek my own freedom only. I absolutely ignore the existence of the Other. But in this sense, I can never self-actualize, I can only actualize myself as an object for the Other, because to myself, I can only be a subject, a subject with infinite possibles, defined by what he is not, without ground. To construct this ground for myself, I need the Other. And with the Other, comes the limitation to my freedom. And so on, and so on, and so on. Ah, what a night this is.

Oh man:

You even sound like an Emo musician.

You ever get into Rival Schools? Or Quicksand?

Quote :

You even sound like an Emo musician.

I suppose I walked right into that one, didn't I?

Yeah, but it's what makes you: well: you.

Listening to "When the Levee Breaks" right now can only remind me of who I am.

The main thing now is to stand on the shoulders of what we have and transcend it.

What else would there be to do with our minds that are a composite result of everything we have experienced?

You have an advantage over me in that arteries of your brain are a little less hardened than mine.

Why not use that to your advantage?

As Sartre points out: we project into being.

It seems to me we should make it as intense and worth it as possible.


We should raise our stimulus level in order to meet it



(that is with the condition (and inherent obligation( that no-one gets hurt but us.

I always thought this quote by Plato 2500 years ago on love was cute and it's still true today.

"and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight even for a moment.."