Love. . . Affection. . . Esteem

          Our wills and fates do so contrary run

          That our devices are overthrown:

          Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own.

          [Hamlet, III.ii. 207-209] 

"There is the great lesson of 'Beauty and the Beast,' that a thing must be loved before it is lovable." - G. K. Chesterton

"That kind of communication in Persuasion depends upon deep 'affection,' a word that Austen values over 'love.' 'Affection' between woman and man, in Austen, is the more profound and lasting emotion." - Harold Bloom, The Western Canon

"Value in Shakespeare, as Jane Austen admirably learned from him, is bestowed upon one character by or through another or others and only because of the hope of shared esteem ." - Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

 "The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror."  - Oscar Wilde

Are those who are not in relationships of passion, of romance, of love, are they the ones who theorize about it the most? Perhaps not; those who act are philosophers through action, and those who contemplate are actors through philosophy. The question builds from my current state, for I am single, and the question of love, affection, and esteem is strongly and frequently on mind. Granted, as an artist who is at work on a novel, and projecting future projects in which such a matter is important, it is necessarily in my thoughts; however, my personal life, particularly now, seizes the question forcefully and demands an answer.

Of all the people I know and have known, there are two for whom the trinity of my love, my affection, and my esteem reaches its highest and strongest state (I exclude familial relations, since the familial is a different beast). With one, the affection is stronger, and so this person is my best friend; with the other, love rings out, and I "can't help lovin' dat man of mine." This is the cause of perhaps my greatest sadness, the depths of which are so far down that its treblings are not easily felt, but yet manifest profusely. For if my feelings were switched between the two, I would be in a relationship with my best friend which would shame others, and have a friendship with the man after my heart, my soul, and my mind which would do the same. But for love! That which is the truest decimator of reality and pragmatism. That through which our most contrary imaginations thrive and hold onto the spectres of things not even much wished for, for who desires pain? My love demands the impossible, and so instead of focusing on the one person who, so far, was ready and willing to reciprocate, it sets its sights on a man who, unless he holds the secret of ages, cannot reciprocate. Sudden love is the hooking of fish: the sucker takes the bait, and is dragged into unbreathable space. I desire always after the most unavailable of men, but this one is the difference that makes a difference, and I am inspired as I feel like I expire. I should hate him, if I did not also, as I said, have the greatest affection and esteem for him, and if I had not come to a ceasefire with myself, this love would have been the prime reason for not finding love elsewhere; as it is, pride, circumstance, and timidity are what keep me from finding romance.

In the meanwhile, I can at least find comfort in having found a friendship that is really something more. We tried romance, but alas, we are better friends than lovers. The "alas" is a desire more for accurate emotions than it is that this relationship would have worked. And it is through this connection that I side with Jane Austen, and place affection over love. My affections are astoundingly correct; that is, I am made stronger by such attachments, whereas I am made stronger only by my withstanding of the misfirings of my love. Affection is the realization of a bond, while love is the formation of one, no matter how perilous the connection. To receive the love of God is frequently disastrous in the Hebrew Bible: Adam and Eve, when they cross it, are ruined unto death; it kills Abel by means of Cain's envy; Noah is made a survivor into drunkenness and shame towards his youngest son, Ham, father Canaan; it nearly drives Yahweh to senselessly murder Moses, and then Moses is denied the Promised Land after all he has done; it drives Saul, through his earnest foolishness, into great disfavor with God and also into mania; Elijah is driven into the wilderness and deadly despair; Job is ruined to the brink of the grave; and finally "for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life," yet what kind of life is desired that must be lived in shame at having cast our such sin onto one sacrifice, so that through the shame we are saved, and who should wish to have been made that sacrifice? Yahweh is indeed a jealous god. The women fare only a little better, and that's only because God seems to feel more affection towards them. While such love makes these personages great, they seem like gulls after Malvolio, for greatness is thrust upon them. It would take many centuries before King Lear emerged and the Hebrew Bible had an equal in displaying not only the devastation that over-surpassing love engenders, but also the great aesthetic benefit the observer receives. Affection is the swerve that keeps (romantic) comedy, particularly in the strongest of Shakespeare (As You Like It and Twelfth Night), from becoming tragic, and so it is that Austen's novels are able to achieve their "happy" conclusions. It ignores the pride we have about ourselves, and lands upon the pride, no matter how hidden, that we have in the others who receive it.

So we come to esteem. Do we come to esteem through affection, or does it grow independently? Indeed, is it possible to have esteem without affection or love? The experience of history suggests yes, but it seems, in such cases, that we either respect a person as a vessel that accomplished a few approved achievements in spite of a multitude of other actions, and certainly apart from their character; or who has become something we wish to be (or already think we are), but yet we also despise them for it (I think of the movie "Kill Bill"). The "hope of shared esteem" engenders value, but can we accept it when it is born of terror for ourselves? When something is loved, it becomes lovable, but the reverse holds true, if the rest is true, of esteem: when we esteem someone, we ourselves become estimable. Those who put themselves last will become first; mankind, at least those with hearts, has a natural propensity for holding an inverse relation of given value and perceived self-value: the more modest a creature, the higher we want to think of it. Yet, the more expressively great a person is, the more we tend to be awed by them. The matter of esteem causes me much trouble, for, more than love and affection, I constantly equivocate about it.

Love. . . affection. . . esteem. . . an arbitrary order, in constant flux, despite my usual preference of affection. Yet, a life is greater when difficult pleasures, that is pain-that-creates, are met with the fullness of one's self, and an easy life can be had by resting on affections. The recognition of bonds is hardly a cause for change, and only brings about an unfolding. Love, the seeming ex nihilo creation of connections, and esteem, the invitation we send to those whose highly regarded presence itself raises the value of the party, are of the three the real progenitors of change. The former inspires us to actively and consciously remold so that we can attain the love-object, while the latter is more of an undercurrent, a subterranean stream chipping away at our crust and whose effects only later bubble to the surface. Or do I mean that the other way around?

A Report, after Exhaling

A couple years ago, my mother lost her job, and because it happened shortly before the holiday season, she more or less lost any festive spirit; for a while, it seemed she had lost any sense of purpose. There are few things more disturbing than the sudden occurrence of the long-expected, much less the long-desired, and both of them fit my mother's relation with her job. So it seems from my position. As we all knew then, this was a blessing, and being freed from a despised obligation, despite stunning her for a while, has allowed her to pursue a better way in life. I allude to this episode to point out either that proximity can breed disease, or that traits and thoughts and actions can happen along strange familial lines. That is, I write my mother's above story with a feeling of much self-recognition: nearly two years after this story, I too live a similar plot.

My friends, or at least my audience, will likely know of my pains and travails and general depression of the past several months. I shall not go into it, for it bores even me even now. Defeat is only fascinating in the moment. But we (at least we Americans) crave victory, and the ambling progress I have made in the past month is the reason for this post.

Some background points, first, in mosaic: I'm not much for making resolutions; by September of last year, my politics had become overbearing; I have a friend who likes to focus on a word for the year; there was much that I had relinquished; a deadening job; a dead love life; an undead outlook on life; cynicism is dead: long live cynicism; whatever. . .; something I can't quite remember, and another I can't quite put my finger on. I have occasional stomach cramps, and the simple relief for them is deep breathing. I have begun breathing (again). But first, I had to have one last hurrah in abject self-pity and misery; it had to be done devoid of cynicism, yet as to produce irony; it had to find the sticking place. Despite the arbitrariness of our time divisions, we revolve around them nevertheless, and in acceptance of this knowledge, I chose New Year's Eve. I had been invited to a party or two, and my best friend asked to hang out. Instead, I chose to begin a new solar revolution with tears, with the shortness of breath attendant upon the thickness of loneliness (there is nothing more suffocating than nothing), and with the rehashing of all my unglück, my faults, my failures, my vices: "after great pain a formal feeling comes." Then I went to bed, then I woke up, and then I decided, simply, that I had not wasted my New Year's Eve, that despite tossing aside all friendship the previous night, it was necessary. After rehearsing my nightmares, I could come to my dreams more willing to be prepared (or something, words fail me in this sentence).

Presently, I have had mixed success, but I don't feel despair anymore; it calls to me every now and then, and I'll never escape a natural decline towards melancholy, but it is there, and I am here, and I move and it moves, and sometimes I give it a nod, and often it will speak. I step forward right now by means of my resolution, which is my word of the year: Fundamentals. A return to what I had been before I stumbled, with the obvious differences that age requires. I have been writing more, an activity which long preceded my musical life, and indeed have started a novel (still deep in the planning stages). Stances I had given up out of social cowardice I hold again: gnosticism, aestheticism, et cetera. My former politics, which also crowded out much, I have almost completely dropped. For I have aged in a life as an artist, and dogma and cant have almost completely slipped from me; at the least, I have shown them the slide, and most have given the slip. My nutrition and activity are better, though I am still quite imperfect. I am seeking again newer lives, but again, without the flailings of despair, grasping wildly about. There are several avenues I'm exploring, but I don't feel a deadening anxiety about them as I used to: I would like to go to grad school in Britain come August (or September), but if it doesn't happen, something else I will try. I have been out and about more often, and though I wish I could see a greater variety of my friends, I know we all have our disparate lives. There is perhaps a flicker in my romantic life which may yet ignite. And finally, I have reached a paradox with my job: I have come to accept it, but for some reason, such acceptance gives me the courage to give it up, to quit. My thoughts these days aren't "I desperately hate my job and can't stand to be here" but "I'm able to live with this, and feel ready to move on." Don't ask me; but I feel myself very, very near to finally making an end of my time there. So it will be that the same employer will have done something to my mother and to myself. The one thing that comes to mind is something a writer said: "I don't enjoy writing. I enjoy having written."

Now for a thing of beauty:

I am obsessed with this song currently.

Semi-Stream-of-Consciousness Philosophical Entry

This is from my current journal entry; I had intended a mere record of my thoughts and actions as of late, but my mind wandered further and this came out. This is actually a pretty good example of what goes in my head when I go for walks. I do not claim this to be original, true, right, good, or factual--indeed, I hope to be corrected or debated on where I'm "wrong"--but merely some musings.

 Another late-ish night when I rebel against the coming day's slavery. Yesterday, getting into the car to head to yet another of such toils, I asked "When will this nightmare end?" They say I should be thankful to have any semblance of income, shelter, family, friends, etc. . . . materialism! The very Urge of me is disgusted. But too much complaining. It seems I am to be purged of all my notions, of the world, politics, people, and such. Shall I have been right about anything (major and important)? The more I learn about my rebellious nature, the more it seems in the employ of the status quo, not of sloughing off the bad, but of resisting the corrosions of influence. Yet how gullible I can be! How both? Yet another instance of my bilateral self? So there is much I have held that I am gravely doubting, and much that has repelled me that I am vertiginously considering. What of my original self will remain into the other end? What should remain? The oldest and best part of me, perhaps, but is it a thing to be built upon, or must the dirt be brushed away, the rock pounded off, and the slag be melted away? Shall I be naked or rightly attired? 

This is further compounded by the difficulty of action. It is not the flesh found lacking, for both will and inaction are present in the spirit. The ship's sails are open, but hardly any gust to make it go. Yet, is that analogy correct? For am I right to compound will and desire? Can I will to write a book but have no desire for the writing? Our language certainly allows for the reverse, to have the desire but lack the will. Perhaps the problem lies in a compounding of action and object, of doing and achievement, journey and goal: that is, of writing a book, and the book having been written. The spirit places the end, the desired, ahead of our motion towards it, and so belief overtakes (becomes?) perception, seeming clouds reality, and we congratulate ourselves on dreaming a good dream and accomplishing a job well done, partially because we dared to conceive it, partially because we "know" it won't/can't be done; "why begin till we know that we can win, and if we cannot win, why bother to begin?" In a time when the lowest common denominator is too frequently raised to laudations, when people rest too easily, too quickly, on a complacent acceptance of the things seemingly unable to be changed, merely wanting a better life and wanting to be a better person already therein make one a better person. Thus the desire has become the goal itself, the abstract made concrete, and a certain kind of will emerges, a desperate optimism: we want to be on the other shore, so we imagine we're on that shore, and our virtual-reality addled minds fill in the blanks and we dwell in two places at once, the achieved and the wish-to-be-achieved, by means of an optative link, a Paradox Machine. Indeed, the linear time of our lives is folded upon itself and (perceived) future and (ongoing) present mash together; only such a will power can make our selves from two different times coexist.

But time will not have it, and so we will become fools and float in a gas until we are belched out and dissipated in the air. Linear time is the rock upon which our lives must be placed and walk. We only move along by successive achievements; desire is but energy. Perhaps it must be that we need to find joy (fulfillment?) in writing, in the doing, but only celebrate a book, an achievement, for celebrations are temporary, of a fixed time, but fulfillment goes on. As they say, it's the journey, not the destination. As Oscar Wilde said: 'There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

My Religion is Art

One of my favorite shows is the British quiz show "QI" ("Quite Interesting"). I remember the host, Stephen Fry (an idol of mine), telling a story about some new-ish English university, I forget in what city, hiring a marketing agency or the like to help them come up with a name, and twenty thousand pounds later, the agency landed on [name of city] University, University of [name of city], and something else just as banal. I relate this anecdote because, one, I think it's quite interesting, and two, it relates a bit to the topic at hand. Although the university might very well have been clever to think of those names on their own, it took an extravagant journey to discover them; rather, rediscover them, perhaps. Now, another story: a few years ago, I attended my first Passover feast at a friend's posh apartment ("posh"; I've been watching too much BBC) and even though it was my junior year of college, I still hadn't quite become chummy with my peers, so part of the conversation that evening fixed on me. I was asked what I believed in, what my religion was; my answer, at the time: Art, with a good helping of Christian Gnosticism. It's been a journey of almost four years to realize, more than ever, how true for me the Art part really is. I suppose that's a victory for Experience, but the more I live the more I learn that Experience is really an affirmation of what you suspected all along, whether you thought you were right, or even thought, deep down, that you were wrong. Or maybe that's just me; Experience has yet to help me decide which side within me is right on this matter. To the point: I have known all along that my church is the music hall, the museum, the theatre, what artsy place will you, but I was a doubting Thomas, and it took me a detour through Politics and the Normal Life to correct my path.

How awful the Normal Life is! As I mentioned in my last post, I've lived the Normal Life the past year and a half, and it has been about the worst. Perhaps I went into the typical working world with a Good Morning's Hatred of it, but nothing subsequent has cured me of that bad faith. "How dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use!/ As though to breath were life." Basically, I want much more.

Yet how much worse is Politics. A couple weeks ago I hung out with a friend, and we had a lengthy debate over politics and the like; I wasn't doing that great a job, and I was a bit surprised to discover how little I cared about it. At the end, as we were parting, I reiterated how much I hated the whole thing ("to hell with the whole damned thing!") and that I needed to set my priorities in order, and nowhere at the top was Politics. And tonight, after seeing so many Facebook posts about the Vice Presidential debates, instead of being interested and eager about it, I am rather tired of it, disgusted even. I am deeply cynical about it all, including my own political stance, and that's no way to live. So now my only stance is Marxist, Groucho Marxist: "Whatever it is, I'm against it!" because, though I still find it interesting, it can no longer be a main interest, not for the good of my health at least.

Art, then, has remained, waiting patiently. It remains one of a few things about which I have never become cynical over. I despair over it, I become angry over it, I get frustrated with it, but I never look at it and feel an emptiness within, as though I were at the end of a lengthy relationship and realized it was all for naught and made of naught. But it is more than an interest; it is, as I said, my religion. I have a deep spirituality and abiding mysticality (new word), and they are never more profoundly plucked than when in the presence of Art. There is more proof of God for me in a good melody, in a fine poem, in a stunning painting--in a single psalm--than in all the writings of Paul.

That's all I have to say really. I suppose I could expound further, but not now; all things should unravel leisurely. I am an Artist, a Musician to be exact, and the saints who intercede on my behalf before God are the works of Art.

Sehnsucht

It baffles me that I should write this, and it may be that I will regret this later, but it would only be in keeping with my recent life. An inexorable urge is typing this out, I suppose.

This past year has been about the worst in my life. Not that is has been filled with disaster; I can't think of a single major tragedy; call it a melodrama in grey. It is a time where only cognition of future hindsight keeps one from being blinded by the fogs of tribulation. There is a Sondheim lyric, "every day a little death," which seems appropriate. My confidence and esteem are shattered. My bitterness and envy and jealousy are energized (the last I was unaware of possessing, to the degree I feel it). The loneliness that has been and will be with me all the days of my life is exacerbated by isolation, for I seem to be a more social creature than I had previously thought; it took losing the constant interaction of school to realize this. Although my shyness constantly improves, the simple task of reaching out even to people I consider friends seems like a chasmic reach, and I stutter, and I spend my time alone, or with one particular friend. Besides the acrophobic nature of the confessional, the task of presenting all the strands coherently is dizzying. It would be easier to puree my mind, my heart, and splatter the mixture on a canvas like Pollock.

Nearly a year has passed since I realized what damage I had done to fund my undergraduate studies. That was the numbest weekend I have ever felt, and I'm not sure I have yet fully recovered. It was a grand start to an intentional tutelage in the School of Fooldom, where I would seek to be reckless in romance, careless, and understand what it meant to give in to the irrational desires; yet I had discovered I had been a fool all along. Compounding the terrors of debt was the lack of income. I have no idea how many applications I've submitted, several dozen is likely, yet I have had only three interviews, two of which were with companies that were last ditch attempts, and the only two who hired. One has obviously proven to be better than the other, yet it is a lose-lose-loser situation through and through. I hate my job, and I lack the luxury of having something meaningful to suffer through it for, like a family, a love, or a way out.

Thus I feel like a failure. First for falling far below expectations. People see wonderful things in me, and I give them Walmart. There are many things I have said I would do: improve my German, read books, write works of words and works of music, etc. Almost nothing have I accomplished. Foremost, though, I feel I have failed at being an emulatable (making up words as needed) human being, a strong one I suppose I mean. I come from stock who have held jobs they disliked, who work to make a living, and do so stoically. I try, but I can't, and I feel weak. I must live what I do, and not just do to get by.

This is all exacerbated by the successes, big and small, of most of my friends and peers. I am rarely happier than when this one gets to continue their education/dreams; when that one falls in love; when another gets engaged, or married; when Friend Such-and-Such attains a wonderful job; when Friend So-and-So gets to travel; when Ms. Someone gets to live in a place to-die-for. (On the flip side, I am rarely more contemptuous and disgusted when a Mr. Nobody gets great recognition that is most undue.) Yet, envy makes this matter equivocal. I have had none of this, and the part of me which cries "Why not me?!" feeds the monsters of the deep, and they wish misery on all. There was one day where I had two parties to attend; I bailed out of both, because I was sick at heart, and because I simply couldn't face all these people whose lives seemed better than mine.

This feeds into my natural propensity for being alone; that is, what I thought was so. Although most of my friends still live in the area, it is tiring being practically the only one who has travel half an hour or more to interact. I am a part of nothing that I feel ties with; I connect with practically no one at work (though I get along fine with them); although I am now in a choir, excepting a few the next oldest person is at least twice my age. Looking at my friends, I see they have friends from all sorts of places, from other college departments, other professions, other walks of life. All my currents friends are from the music department I studied at, or my one great friend and the acquaintances I gain from her social realm. As I said earlier though, I have always felt alone. I can remember being in kindergarten and feeling like there were connections I simply lacked. Though it seems I do yet need more social comfort than I had thought.

So much for a year! I am 23 years old, and I should not feel this way. I am 23, and I should not feel like I have the burden of great expectations to fulfill, and feel like I will fail them utterly. I am 23, and should not feel so alone. I am 23, and should not feel so bitter. I am 23, and should not feel like I have already missed the advantage of the prime of youth; so much time has been wasted on hiding the nature of my love, and now that I am finally in a position to openly embrace the object of it, I cannot, because I desire after vain and impossible romances. I am 23, and the air of death should not be ever around, informing my fears and infiltrating my art. The saddest of this is that you can replace those "23's" with "11's" and "15's" (give or take a year for both) and you would still have the same situation, for, although this currently isn't a breakdown but a strange need to vent some venom, I have had two prior instances of breaking down because the pressure of outward expectations and inward doubts finally blew up.

Again, I don't why I should be flaying myself publicly. Perhaps for pity, which is nice, but is soon outdone by the guilt of receiving it for these reasons. At the moment I feel fine, perhaps nervous, and not looking forward to work tomorrow; there is no desperate haste to post my emotions. Nietzsche once wrote "That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts. There is always a kind of contempt in the act of speaking." Perhaps that is one reason I have such difficulty with talk and conversation. However, these words above are all written down, and, as Emerson said of Montaigne, if you cut them they bleed (for me). I have already talked them out with some, but they need to be written down to be alive for me outside myself.

Not all has been bad, and it won't remain so forever. The latest, perhaps last, but most important lesson I have learned in my time after graduation is that there is very little for me in St. Louis anymore. I had been fighting it, I think, and it took a conversation with a confidant for me to accept it. I need a clean and decisive break, and so I am applying to grad schools in England. It will be risky indeed, but that is another thing I know I have been lacking which all my successful friends have had, this risk-taking. This is not to say I wish to sever ties with people, but a change of scene is needed; the act has gone on for too long (it has been five years since I have been outside the St. Louis area). I know this is the right thing to do, because I feel an excitement I have not felt for a long time.

Perhaps this song selection is cheesy, but I couldn't give a damn.