Love, Loss & Symbolic Death (Existentialism) “Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.” –Ernest Becker There’s a great essay written by Sigmund Freud called, “On transience”. In it, he cites a conversation he had with the poet Rilke as they were walking along this beautiful garden, and at one point Rilke looked like he was about to tear up, and Freud asks “What’s wrong? It’s a beautiful day, there’re beautiful plants around us- this is magnificent!” Then, Rilke says, “I just can’t get over the fact that one day all of this is going to die. All these trees, all these plants, all this life is going to decay; everything dissolves into meaninglessness when you think about the fact that impermanence is really a real thing. Perhaps, the greatest existential bummer is entropy, and I was really struck by this because, perhaps thats also why when were in love were also kind of sad. Theres a sadness to the ecstasy. Beautiful things sometimes can make us a little sad, and its because what they hint at is the exception, a vision of something more, a vision of a hidden door; a rabbit hole to fall through, but a temporary one- and I think ultimately that is the tragedy. That is why love simultaneously fills us with melancholy, thats why sometimes I feel nostalgic over something I havent lost yet because I see its transience, its impermanence. And, how does one respond to this? Does one love harder? Do we squeeze tighter? Or do we embrace the Buddhist practice of no attachment; do we pretend not to care that everything and everyone we know is going to be taken away from us. I don’t know if I can accept that, I think I’m more on the side of a Dylan Thomas quote that says, “I will not go quietly into that good night, but instead rage against the dying of the light.” I think that we defy entropy and impermanence with our films and our poems. I think we hold onto each other a little harder and say I will not let go, I do not accept the ephemeral nature of this moment, I am going to extend it for-ever; or at least I’m going to try.” ~Jason Silva~ “If the love object is divine perfection, then one’s own self is elevated by joining one’s destiny to it. One has the highest measure for one’s ideal- striving; all of one’s inner conflicts and contradictions, the many aspects of guilt—all these one can try to purge in a perfect consummation with perfection itself.” –Ernest Becker “Ive been lucky enough not to lose anyone I love except my grandfather to actual mortality. But, it doesnt mean I haven’t experienced symbolic death; symbolic death in the form of love lost. There’s a reason melancholic movies get under my skin and why I can’t look at most Instagram photos for more than a few minutes at a time. Because, I get sad over something I haven’t necessarily lost yet. Falling in love is like staring into the sun and finding that instead of blinding you, it illuminates you and all of a sudden you went from being blind and then you can see. It is the moment of feeling like you are complete for the first time. Roland Barthes says All of my desires are abolished by the plenitude of her satisfaction. Love is fulfillment, love is to overflow, love is to spill over, love is aesthetic arrest, love is the italization of experience, love is getting caught up in something larger than yourself, love is radiance beyond all previous limits, its consummation, its consecration, its a dance with the divine, its- I went to God just to see, and I was looking at her, reflected right there in front of my eyes; thats love. And, so when you lose love, when you break up with somebody you cared about, somebody in whose arms you felt the promise of forever, and you felt the promise of eternity, you felt the promise of souls merging; and then to contemplate the idea that there was a time when we were together, and now we are not, how could it be so? How could it exist that once we were us, and now we are not? And, then you look at old videos and old photographs and you cant believe that there is a reality playing back there for you, you are seeing a replay of something that was real and tangible and solid, and whered it go? ...And whered it go?” -Jason Silva
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 02:13:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015