I feel bad. I feel awful.
_________________
Justice is holding a grudge. Forgiveness is letting go of them.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Pathology of Love
Is is not human to want to be wanted? Love is commonly listed as a need for humanity along with food and shelter. The Beatles even claim that "Love is all you need." Love is beautiful and should be freely shared. Desire, on the other hand, is sinful and forced into privacy. Desire seems to complicate ideas of love and its necessary role in human life. Desire can exist legitimately in society only accompanied by the guise of love. Love has two feet to stand on. Desire, if not held in love's embrace, seems to be lying ready on its back.
The worst possible scenario is one that involves an unequal exchange of affection: a lover loves and desires their lovee, but the lovee does not or can not match that love (if they love at all) and/or the lovee does not or can not match that desire or the lovee is only interested in being loved and desired with no interest in reciprocity. Is love and desire as economic as described above?
Do love and desire only function if their is equality of exchange?
I want to be wanted. I desire to be desired. I love to be loved. Yet, without adhering to the economy of love, my wants and desires seem unnecessarily complicated. It is not that I do not respect or enjoy the company I find myself in with my random romances. I am eager to acquaint myself with others and explore the complexity of their individual humanity - get to know them, their minds and bodies, their way of life, their social behaviour etc... But I do not find it necessary, in this process of acquainting and exploring, to reciprocally love or want them in return. (Desire is integral in order to pursue sexual intimacy, which is always a requirement in my romantic relationships.) Yet, under the hegemony of this economy of love, I am forced to consider if my need to be needed is not a human need, but something pathological. Am I psychologically or emotionally abnormal to need to be needed? Or is this only deemed abnormal by a society that is ruled by marriage and monogamy? Can not I, as a healthy and responsible human being, be wanted and desired and loved by another, even if I do not reciprocate the same feelings with the same passion and intensity? Is there not other people whom enjoy wanting and desiring and loving just as I enjoy being wanted and desired and loved? Is it pathological to continually be involved in economically unequal romantic relationships?
Maybe I have little interest in wanting or loving these persons, because I know I have someone whom I want and desire; unfortunately this person can not at present offer me the company that I need, so I look elsewhere for actual physical companionship. Maybe, as a homosexual, I refuse to live in the cage of monogamy established by the tyranny of Christian marriage... Maybe I am willing to express the plurality and fractured nature of human existence through my love life...
Maybe this IS really a psychological and emotional pathology...
Here I am. It takes two to tango, but my dancing partner isn't around to twirl me about the dance floor. So I am looking for other partners who'll dance with me for a short while. I don't want to dance with any one person too long. I want to take advantage of my opportunity to dance briefly with everyone who is willing to dance with me. Yet, if everyone is looking for a partner for life and I am just looking to dance for a song or two, am I, until that happy day when my beloved and I will be re-united, destined to being dancing with myself?
The worst possible scenario is one that involves an unequal exchange of affection: a lover loves and desires their lovee, but the lovee does not or can not match that love (if they love at all) and/or the lovee does not or can not match that desire or the lovee is only interested in being loved and desired with no interest in reciprocity. Is love and desire as economic as described above?
Do love and desire only function if their is equality of exchange?
I want to be wanted. I desire to be desired. I love to be loved. Yet, without adhering to the economy of love, my wants and desires seem unnecessarily complicated. It is not that I do not respect or enjoy the company I find myself in with my random romances. I am eager to acquaint myself with others and explore the complexity of their individual humanity - get to know them, their minds and bodies, their way of life, their social behaviour etc... But I do not find it necessary, in this process of acquainting and exploring, to reciprocally love or want them in return. (Desire is integral in order to pursue sexual intimacy, which is always a requirement in my romantic relationships.) Yet, under the hegemony of this economy of love, I am forced to consider if my need to be needed is not a human need, but something pathological. Am I psychologically or emotionally abnormal to need to be needed? Or is this only deemed abnormal by a society that is ruled by marriage and monogamy? Can not I, as a healthy and responsible human being, be wanted and desired and loved by another, even if I do not reciprocate the same feelings with the same passion and intensity? Is there not other people whom enjoy wanting and desiring and loving just as I enjoy being wanted and desired and loved? Is it pathological to continually be involved in economically unequal romantic relationships?
Maybe I have little interest in wanting or loving these persons, because I know I have someone whom I want and desire; unfortunately this person can not at present offer me the company that I need, so I look elsewhere for actual physical companionship. Maybe, as a homosexual, I refuse to live in the cage of monogamy established by the tyranny of Christian marriage... Maybe I am willing to express the plurality and fractured nature of human existence through my love life...
Maybe this IS really a psychological and emotional pathology...
Here I am. It takes two to tango, but my dancing partner isn't around to twirl me about the dance floor. So I am looking for other partners who'll dance with me for a short while. I don't want to dance with any one person too long. I want to take advantage of my opportunity to dance briefly with everyone who is willing to dance with me. Yet, if everyone is looking for a partner for life and I am just looking to dance for a song or two, am I, until that happy day when my beloved and I will be re-united, destined to being dancing with myself?
Monday, December 11, 2006
Dancing With Myself Or A Rose By Any Other Name...
I am dating myself. I am not dating myself in the ways of Skinny Rabbit (I am not that egotistical - Skinny Rabbit, you know you indulge in your egotistical ego! Yet here I am, singing a song of myself). I am dating someone with whom I share a name. That is not to say that I am dating another BedroomPrince. Bedroomprince is merely one of my many multifarious identities. The name I speak of refers to the non-virtual, "real life" version of BedroomPrince. From this adventure in dating identical autonyms, the multiplicity of the identity of human beings begins to appear with indefinite clarity.
For the purposes of this mere post, and in order to keep BedroomPrince's non-virtual "real life" title anonymous, I will take on the alias Sigmund. As of this weekend, Sigmund is dating Sigmund.
I should first describe the events of the evening in which I, Sigmund, met dear Sigmund. It was the Saturday following the last week of term, filled with multiple essays and papers to be written on a variety of, seemingly disparate, but ultimately related subjects. I had found myself with nothing to study nor read, and no particular errands to run. Online I found a dear friend, whom I had shared a number of intimate moments with, just as bored as I. This friend just happened to be named Sigmund as well (this is another Sigmund, not the Sigmund I am currently dating). Like most Saturday nights, I was particularly randy, and so I invited Sigmund over to watch movies, with the hope of us getting it on, as we are want to do. Sigmund arrives: we watch one movie in the living room, then watch another in my bedroom when my room mates arrive at home, and then, because of an upset stomach, he leaves. I still haven't gotten my rocks off, which takes me to the local chat room where I begin my hunt. After signing in, I almost immediately receive a message: it is Sigmund (the one in which I am currently dating). I know Sigmund from a long, long time ago. When I was a child of twelve years of age, I was in a musical play in my hometown (All the World's a Stage and Men and Women merely players!), and dearest Sigmund, as cute now as he was when I first fell for him, was the pianist accompanying me. Since that first moment of attraction, I have seen him at many seemingly random events throughout my life; once he played a concerto with our hometown's symphony orchestra, later I saw him on the street of the city I currently live in, then two weeks ago I saw him at the bar, and tonight, he is messaging me online. I couldn't be happier. I finally get to live out my childhood fantasies and kiss my first crush. That Saturday night at midnight, we meet for drinks, make our way back to his place for some more wine after last call, and the next morning I awoke next to him (I got to live out much more than my mere childhood fantasy. I didn't have those thoughts when I was twelve - not yet anyways). And now, after a night of watching the latest Woody Allen movie (Woody Allen seems to play the same role in every movie he directs), I am back in my apartment relating this all to you.
Despite how smitten I am with Sigmund, I am constantly forced to try to reconcile how we are the same person, we are both Sigmund, but so very different defined by the myriad of our subtle, and not so subtle, complexities. A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if it smells different, we give it another name, don't we? Yes, I am Sigmund, but with so many people on this planet who share my name, my name doesn't seem sufficient in defining who I am. Yet if someone asked me who I was, who I am, the answer I would give would be my name. I have always felt that I connect, on some mystical level, with my own name. But here I am, writing not as Sigmund, but as BedroomPrince, readily accepting that one name is inadequate in defining who I am. Who am I? I am Sigmund. I am BedroomPrince. I am many things (I contain multitudes.) Sigmund refers to me, just like the letters c-h-a-i-r refer to a chair. Yet Sigmund refers to so many more identities than just my own. Language fails us once again.
So yes, I many ways I am dating myself. Sigmund is dating Sigmund. I am dating Sigmund. Sigmund is dating BedroomPrince. BedroomPrince is dating S------. I am sure if I desired to name all my multifarious identities, this list could go on forever. But not everything needs to be ruled by the tyranny of language.
What's in a name?
So much, but at the same time, nothing at all.
For the purposes of this mere post, and in order to keep BedroomPrince's non-virtual "real life" title anonymous, I will take on the alias Sigmund. As of this weekend, Sigmund is dating Sigmund.
I should first describe the events of the evening in which I, Sigmund, met dear Sigmund. It was the Saturday following the last week of term, filled with multiple essays and papers to be written on a variety of, seemingly disparate, but ultimately related subjects. I had found myself with nothing to study nor read, and no particular errands to run. Online I found a dear friend, whom I had shared a number of intimate moments with, just as bored as I. This friend just happened to be named Sigmund as well (this is another Sigmund, not the Sigmund I am currently dating). Like most Saturday nights, I was particularly randy, and so I invited Sigmund over to watch movies, with the hope of us getting it on, as we are want to do. Sigmund arrives: we watch one movie in the living room, then watch another in my bedroom when my room mates arrive at home, and then, because of an upset stomach, he leaves. I still haven't gotten my rocks off, which takes me to the local chat room where I begin my hunt. After signing in, I almost immediately receive a message: it is Sigmund (the one in which I am currently dating). I know Sigmund from a long, long time ago. When I was a child of twelve years of age, I was in a musical play in my hometown (All the World's a Stage and Men and Women merely players!), and dearest Sigmund, as cute now as he was when I first fell for him, was the pianist accompanying me. Since that first moment of attraction, I have seen him at many seemingly random events throughout my life; once he played a concerto with our hometown's symphony orchestra, later I saw him on the street of the city I currently live in, then two weeks ago I saw him at the bar, and tonight, he is messaging me online. I couldn't be happier. I finally get to live out my childhood fantasies and kiss my first crush. That Saturday night at midnight, we meet for drinks, make our way back to his place for some more wine after last call, and the next morning I awoke next to him (I got to live out much more than my mere childhood fantasy. I didn't have those thoughts when I was twelve - not yet anyways). And now, after a night of watching the latest Woody Allen movie (Woody Allen seems to play the same role in every movie he directs), I am back in my apartment relating this all to you.
Despite how smitten I am with Sigmund, I am constantly forced to try to reconcile how we are the same person, we are both Sigmund, but so very different defined by the myriad of our subtle, and not so subtle, complexities. A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but if it smells different, we give it another name, don't we? Yes, I am Sigmund, but with so many people on this planet who share my name, my name doesn't seem sufficient in defining who I am. Yet if someone asked me who I was, who I am, the answer I would give would be my name. I have always felt that I connect, on some mystical level, with my own name. But here I am, writing not as Sigmund, but as BedroomPrince, readily accepting that one name is inadequate in defining who I am. Who am I? I am Sigmund. I am BedroomPrince. I am many things (I contain multitudes.) Sigmund refers to me, just like the letters c-h-a-i-r refer to a chair. Yet Sigmund refers to so many more identities than just my own. Language fails us once again.
So yes, I many ways I am dating myself. Sigmund is dating Sigmund. I am dating Sigmund. Sigmund is dating BedroomPrince. BedroomPrince is dating S------. I am sure if I desired to name all my multifarious identities, this list could go on forever. But not everything needs to be ruled by the tyranny of language.
What's in a name?
So much, but at the same time, nothing at all.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)