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A Final Note

Recommendation: I Love How You Love Me - Live - By Jeff Mangum

Thank you for following me on this journey. I will look back on these posts with a happy nostalgia and I will go forward with a tight grasp on what people mean to me. 

I think I’ll end, like, really end, with a quote from someone who can write better than I can. This one is from Peter Schjeldahl, a New York art critic who died in October. He found out he had lung cancer while driving through scenic upstate New York. After ending the phone call with his doctor, Mr. Schjeldahl reflected on the beauty of the natural world around him:

“How many times had I seen and loved the sight? How many more times would I?” 

I saw this quote and the news of Mr. Schjeldahl’s death just a few days after a big health scare of my own back in October. I carry his words with me now. I breathe in the places I love for a few moments longer. I lie next to the people I love and refuse to shut my eyes until they force themselves closed. I say these words to the world and to the individual: How many times have I seen and loved you? How many more times will I?

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That human sort of love

Recommendation: Bodys by Car Seat Headrest

I hate to say that this will be my final blog post. This last discussion will concern Wings of Desire (dir. Wim Wenders, 1987) and the topic of agape and benevolence.

Wings of Desire follows Damiel and Cassiel through a divided Berlin. There, we see them experience life as angels as they are able to provide a sort of comfort to the distressed citizens below without actually interacting with them. When Damiel falls in love with Marion, he embarks on a journey in which he decides to shed his immortality and become human to experience love on a mortal level. However, Cassiel does not follow Damiel’s lead. His experiences in following Homer leads him not to the Potsdamer Platz, but rather post-war destruction and the erected Berlin Wall. Later in the film, Cassiel attempts to comfort a suicidal young man but is unable to prevent the man’s death.

Ultimately, I think it is in the differing experiences of the two angels that determines their immortal and earthly desires, as well as their conflicting choices in retaining or giving up their immortality. In John P. Reeder’s “Benevolence, Special Relations, and Voluntary Poverty: An Introduction,” Reeder discusses how he sees the roots of benevolence in the transition from what are deemed “special relations” (meaning a particular love for an individual or individuals based on some characteristics of the individual) to agape, or a benevolent love of strangers. Does this idea present itself in Wings of Desire? I think the opposite proves itself more true. Damiel’s journey into mortality is in part due to his yearning for human love. He cannot experience what it is to live and love like humans do; all he can do is observe. Damiel’s love of others was always based in the love of strangers, yet Marion provided a catalyst for Damiel that sparked his quest for a more complete love. On the other hand, Cassiel did not find the sort of loving attraction that Damiel felt; he mostly saw some of the many tragedies of humankind. Thus, he remained in his state of agape and immortality because he became wary of the way humans love.

It would be incredibly optimistic yet entirely beautiful to hope for a world where people could exist as Damiel does. He understands the work of the angels – the benevolent love that allows for one to provide comfort to total strangers. After his transition to humanity, Damiel understands that human sort of love as well. There is a difference between the way he loves strangers and the way he loves Marion, and there has to be. It is impossible to commit to a sort of universal love that also applies to the ones closest to us. 

We cannot step back and allow ourselves to love all of humankind. I think everything I am about to say is in response to a broad examination of the question: What do we owe to each other? I think there is a baseline level of kindness that should be shared amongst strangers. I do not know you and you do not know me, and yet we can coexist with a mutual understanding that we will be, generally, kind to one another (optimistic, I know). 

Sometimes it is easier to love a stranger than to love those we have come to know in a more personal sense. It is important to note that in terms of complete strangers, certain factors play into how we all look at each other and treat one another. Are we pursuing a sort of agape if we smile as we pass by others in the library but look down at the ground when an unhoused person asks us for spare change? This is not an interrogative question – certain societal factors shape the way we have come to look at one another, and perhaps it can be seen as less emotionally taxing to ignore an unhoused person. I’m not condoning or condemning anything here, I just think it is important to note that the term “strangers” should be used in a universal sense, yet societal factors can inform the mental image of a “stranger” to be one similar to us in terms of socioeconomic status.

But back to my point. It can be easier to love a stranger than those we know personally. We look at a stranger with a baseline idea of who this person is – a person. We do not know who they are, what their name is, what they have done, and we do not even know what their voice sounds like. However, sometimes what we know about the people that are part of our personal lives causes turmoil and renders us unable to love them. It can be hard to see another person for who they truly are. It can be terrifying to look at how far a person extends beyond their surface. There is beauty, pain, faults, failures, successes, and a multitude of perspectives that make them a unique individual. Sometimes these faults can be too difficult to look past, and sometimes we learn things about another that we wish we never had. In realizing that a person we once loved or hoped to love is not who we thought they were, we are shattering our own idealized version of them and replacing it with some undeniable truths. 

This all sounds… so sad. It is a good thing that the opposite is also true. In seeing another for who they are up to and beyond their personhood, we can find a love that I think can be called a human sort of love. We can still find love in the faults and mistakes that shape this person because we see the totality of their parts – the faults plus the beauty plus the pain plus the kindness plus the curiosity plus EVERYTHING. I think it is necessary to exist with a sort of agape, or at least a hopeful pursuit of a more universal love, in order to see another for who they are and love them all the same. How can we love an entire other spiritual amalgamation of a person if we cannot exist with a baseline of love for humankind?

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The Weaponization of Love

Recommendation: Your Graduation by Modern Baseball

Love, and especially romantic love, can often be related to Hemingway’s iceberg theory. When he wrote short stories, Hemingway expressed himself with a sort of minimalism that focused on the surface rather than delving into an explicit conversation regarding the underlying themes of his stories. Love is similar to this idea. The iceberg is more contained on the surface and it is often difficult or even impossible for the one not experiencing this one individual love to see the complex monstrosity that lies below sea level. Love is far more complicated and often much less beautiful than it appears on the surface. Jealousy is sometimes a principal cause of the corruption of a love once seemingly untouched by malice.

Daniel M. Farrell writes on the concept of jealousy in his article, Jealousy. He explores the identifiable differences between jealousy and envy as well as why it is important to make this distinction. Farrell writes that, “Our protagonist feels jealousy, it seems to me, only if, and to the degree that, she has, in some respect, begun to care about how her lover thinks about (or treats) her relative to others” (Farrell 537). In Phantom Thread, (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 2017), Alma finds herself entrenched in jealousy throughout her relationship with Reynolds Woodcock. Where does her jealousy come from? Farrell writes about jealousy as a threat-response to the thought that one’s “status as a favored individual may be in jeopardy” (Farrell 554). Through Alma’s eyes, Reynolds’ initial attraction to Alma begins to compete with his detached nature and sole focus on his business. 

There is a sort of duality of jealousy that takes place within Phantom Thread. The first is Alma’s jealousy towards Reynolds for not putting her first over everything, including all others that Reynolds interacts with as well as Reynolds’ business. On the other hand, Reynolds’ jealousy makes itself known when some clients begin choosing another dressmaking business over his own. Here, Reynolds fulfills Farrell’s definition of jealousy because he is beginning to care about how his current and former clients think about the House of Woodcock.

Furthermore, both Alma and Reynolds exhibit the “threat-response” that Farrell talks about. For example, when Cyril tells Reynolds that his designs may be outdated compared to others, his threat response is his belief that his marriage with Alma may need to come to an end and that she may be more of a distracting presence than an inspirational one. In the wake of hearing Reynolds’ words, Alma capitalizes on her own threat response of poisoning Reynolds in order to keep him subdued and needy: If he cannot focus on his business or the other people around him, Alma is his only need and Alma has no need to worry about how Reynolds thinks about others or his business.

Is jealous love, or love “earned” through actions taken in the pursuit of gaining favorable recognition or treatment of another, really love? There may be too much subjectivity in this sort of idea. As Alma describes at the end of Phantom Thread, she truly believes that she and Reynolds are in love, and their actions towards the end of the film give us very little room to disagree. Reynolds knows that Alma has poisoned him yet again, and he willingly eats his food and asks Alma to kiss him before he falls ill. I think a better question can be asked here. Does the love between these two characters already exist, or is this sort of happiness manufactured through Alma’s poisoning of Reynolds’ food?

Love is relative, meaning that it is in the eye of the beholder. For Alma, she can love and be loved by Reynolds most easily and completely when he is incapacitated. Thus, the poisoning sparks a stronger and fuller love between the two characters because it allows Reynolds to focus on nothing but the woman caring for him and Alma to be allowed to spend so much of her time and attention on Reynolds.

There are some relationships in which a person can be subjected to mental, emotional, or physical abuse, constant fighting, dishonesty, etc. etc… and still believe that they love the other person. Who has the right to tell them that they are wrong? It is inaccurate to believe that we can speak for another in terms of love. One person can never look inside another and see what they are made of; I could listen to another person recount their entire life from start to finish and how each moment made them feel and I would still be unable to understand or represent the totality of another human being. It would be almost dehumanizing to tell another how to love or to judge whether or not another is truly in love: it would ignore the experiences and perspectives that make this person an individual. That is not to say that one should not step in and offer or provide help if some sort of relationship becomes truly abusive/dangerous for one or more people (although even in these cases, love can still remain).

But in a relationship like Alma and Reynolds’, both characters want the sort of love that they are subjecting one another to. There is the option to walk away, and yet both of them remain, willingly. Love is not some singular beauty. It exists on different planes for different people. 

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You’ve been diagnosed with love

Recommendation: Goodpain by Yoke Lore

There has been much debate and study surrounding how people think about love and which method of considering the topic of love as a whole is most beneficial. On one hand there is the scientific, philosophical method of loving and thinking about love. This sort of methodical reasoning involves observing the way love works and how it is often predictable; what is happening to one has happened to countless others before, and the results of these previous instances of love can be used to inform one’s own choices regarding love. However, the conclusion is often that love is an illness, and the only cure is to abandon a romantic love as its effects on one’s life are never worth the pains and frustrations of such an illness. 

On the other hand, there is the more poetic experience. Love can be explored from an individual, first-person perspective in which one attempts to explore his own experience, including both the beauty of love and the pain of heartbreak. In Ruth Rothaus Caston’s Love as Illness: Poets and Philosophers on Romantic Love, the poet considers love as an illness that can bring a sort of good pain to an individual. Although the side effects of this love include “insanity, burning, insomnia, trembling and shuddering, tears, fear, premature wrinkling,disorientation, aphasia, blanched complexion and weight loss,” the poetic lover still faces love head-on even with the previously earned knowledge of the pain and agony that can, and more often will, be brought on by such an affliction (Caston 283).

Perhaps the question is not how love should be considered if we are to think of it as an illness, be it from the philosophical and scientific point of view or the poetic method of repeated love, but rather if we should consider love to be an illness at all. If love is an illness, there is not necessarily a cure (as many illnesses are without a true “cure”). Instead there is the idea that we should seek out a remedy.

However, we are not seeking out a remedy to love, but rather loss, pain, heartbreak, and that piercing fear that we will never experience a connection that was once thought of as uniquely beautiful. It makes sense why one from the philosophical realm of thought would never want to love again; it is also clear why the poets would risk the eventual and unavoidable pain that is carried with any sort of loving relationship. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michael Gondry, 2004), Clementine and Joel both attempt to erase the torment of their failed relationship and lost love from their minds completely. Nonetheless, they still find themselves falling for one another again. Clementine and Joel are purposeful philosophers – the suffering they experienced drives them to destroy the emotional turmoil that plagues their minds. They never want to feel this sort of distress from their love, and they see this erasure as the “cure.” 

The pair become accidental poets; their use of a truly scientific “cure for love” that involved the loss of memories, beautiful and painful, has in turn taken away the thing that drove them to seek out this cure in the first place. If they had retained their memories, would they have ever loved again, or would their fear of experiencing that frustrating, agonizingly confusing state of being have dissuaded them from trying again? I think their philosophical mindsets would have kept them apart. Regardless, without the true experience and memory of their previous relationship, Joel and Clementine try their hands at love again. As they receive the Lacuna records and listen to the painful memories of their first attempt at love, the two decide to try again, even with the understanding that their relationship may end up in the same exact place. They embody the poetics here; giving into the desire and yearning for an emotional connection while still understanding the mostly cyclical nature of love – love forms, love fades, heartbreak enters, emotions fade, love can form once again, be it with the same person or another. 

Alfred Lord Tennyson said, “ 'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” If we are to think of love as an illness, I think it is most beneficial to think of it as the common cold rather than some strong, debilitating disease. It also makes the most sense to think of the illness as the negative effects of love, including heartbreak, loss, and fear of finding or losing a love. I admit that I am probably more aligned with the poets than the philosophers here in saying this. There is no cure for the common cold. There are ways to lessen the pain and symptoms, sure, but there is no singular thing that can be done to truly eliminate the cold. The common cold will come and go, and it will appear in stronger and weaker forms. The most important thing about the common cold, however, is that it will almost always return. 

All relationships end in pain, even a loving relationship that spans a lifetime and was full of so many beautiful moments that two people were able to spend decades with one another. One of these people will die before the other, leaving the other in a sort of heartbreak, at least for a short while. It is difficult for me to imagine a life where I loved and lost and took on the philosophical way of thinking. Love makes people do irrational things. It is inherently painful. Still, I do not think that love is an illness that should be thought of as something to be cured. Love and the loss of love sit on ends of a spectrum. One can be a pure, beautiful emotional experience, the other a pain that at the start feels as though it will last forever. Of course we will seek out a way to lessen the pain of this loss; discomfort is always something that we try to reduce or eliminate from our lives, but the solution should not be to never try and love again just because of a preexisting fear of loss. I don’t think that is philosophical, I think that is cowardice. 

Thus, the most important question is not how one deals with the lasting trauma of a heartbreak, but rather, what does one draw from their lost love, and how are these experiences, perspectives, and lessons applied to one’s future attempts at love? There is no failed love if something is learned. Sometimes things just do not work out. If we take what we now know and bring it into the world ahead of us, our next love will be beautifully different, even if it too comes to an end.

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Loving and losing a friend

Recommendation: Death Cup by Mom Jeans

How do we make friends? This question seems to be more pertinent and prevalent now, meaning my time in college and with my eyes towards the future, among myself and my peers. In our pre-college years, at least in my experience, friends were never too hard to come by. These relationships were formed mostly out of circumstance or coincidence. For example, if I had a few classes with someone every day for years and played on the same soccer team with that same person a few times a week for years, chances are we would become friends (provided this other person was generally nice to be around). 

I’ve formed some friendships in college in the same way. While I was studying abroad, the group of 12 strangers (including myself) were thrown into a completely new country with the only familiarity being that we were all college students studying in this program. The proximity and consistency of our daily lives brought us closer together; we had so much in common because we literally spent so much of our time doing the same things.

The formation of friendships through proximity and circumstance can be applied to My Own Private Idaho (dir. Gus Van Sant, 1991), which Mike and Scott’s relationship as the pair of men travel through America towards Idaho and eventually into Italy. The circumstances that bring Mike and Scott together on multiple occasions is their shared work as hustlers. This consistency allows for their friendship to take shape. 

However, Mike and Scott do not remain friends throughout the entire film. Their eventual estrangement calls the initial strength of their friendship into question. Aristotle claimed that there are three forms of friendship: the useful, the pleasant, and the good, with the good being the strongest of the three. This type is said to build itself around both shared interests, ideas, and qualities of character. Throughout much of the film, Mike appears to see Scott as a good friend while Scott may only experience the useful and pleasant through Mike. The scene where the two men sit around the fire exemplifies both the strength and mutual understanding present within their friendship while also planting the first seed for the dissolution of this relationship. Mike’s confession of love to Scott reveals a sort of love that expands from philia into eros. Scott does not reciprocate Mike’s desires, but he is not apathetic towards Mike; the personal honesty expressed by Scott proves his friendship with Mike. Nonetheless, Mike’s love for Scott remains unfulfilled and Scott’s reminder that he only sleeps with men for money pushes Mike to understand that friendship is the limit of their relationship, but this too will fail.

A friendship is easier to maintain than a romantic relationship. We still have expectations for our friends and there is a sort of effort required to maintain them, but a good friendship can exist without the physical and deeper emotional connections that drive successful romantic relationships. When romantic desire is introduced to a friendship, especially when it is unrequited, the friendship is fundamentally changed. For the one feeling this love towards their friend, there is more at stake, emotionally, than potentially losing a friend. 

How do we lose friends? For Mike and Scott, their friendship did not end abruptly, even if it may have seemed this way. Watching their relationship over a two-hour period may give the impression that Scott’s father’s death and Scott’s inheritance was a sudden change and betrayal of his friendship with Mike. However, their relationship faded away gradually until there was the sudden realization that the friendship was over. It began with Mike’s confession of love by the fire, it continued with Scott’s relationship with Carmela, and it solidified with Scott’s inheritance. 

We usually do not lose friends when they add something or someone to their lives (for example, Scott’s attraction towards Carmela). Especially if these friends are defined by the Aristotelian “good friends,” enjoying the ideas and characteristics of the other should not be altered by the other gaining love in another, or any, form. Since Mike also feels romantic love towards Scott, their relationship is changed by Carmela’s presence: Scott has essentially, although not purposely or knowingly, told Mike that he can desire someone but he does not desire Mike. 

My Own Private Idaho does not recover Mike and Scott’s friendship (unless the final scene is to be interpreted as Scott picking up Mike). It shows love and loss, but it leaves open the question of if and how a friendship can be regained. 

As Julia Annas explains in her writing, Plato believed that the “good” people share qualities that draw them together and spark their continued friendships, while the “bad” can never experience this collective philia. Their own inner strife will always push and pull them apart. When we lose a friend, what do we do? We turn to our other friends. At the synchronous funerals in My Own Private Idaho, the stark contrast between Bob’s funeral and Scott’s father’s funeral cements the lost love and friendship between Mike and Scott. Mike turns to the other hustlers, his other friends, and their shared commitment and uniquely emotional mourning of Bob’s death. At the same time, Scott looks on, hardly paying attention to either his father’s funeral or the people around him. These people do not love each other nor are they friends. This funeral is a requirement, an exercise in appearances. 

One final difficulty in friendships that is present in both Plato and Aristotle’s ideas as well as My Own Private Idaho is the impact of the external on these relationships. Scott does not betray his friends and his sexuality for his father’s fortune and power simply because Mike expressed his love for Scott. Rather, the consistent presence of Scott’s father as this figure of overbearing power pulled Scott away from the life and journey he embarked on with Mike. 

Love is unpredictable. Sometimes love is out of our control. Friendships do not always fade because of a lack of effort or because people’s ideals and characteristics shift over time. External forces can break relationships when these forces become internalized by an individual. This is not to say that Mike is representative of Plato’s “good” while Scott exemplifies the “bad” that Annas discusses. Relationships often lose their balance when commitments and desires are misaligned. To be unsure of one’s own desires, or to allow the external to apply itself to one’s thoughts and actions can also bring about the end of love, be it philia or eros. 

Love is uncertain. It falls away when we allow the unknown and unclear aspirations to control our decisions. This is not to say that one must be sure about everything; I am not suggesting the impossible. Rather, we can maintain love through the unforeseeable future when we are willing to accept the love that we feel for another without giving in to fear, to the voices that tell us to back away.

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What are we? Should we have even asked?

Recommendation: How I Get Myself Killed by Indigo De Souza

Romantic love is often unstable and uncertain. It can bring pain and fear, or peace and perfection. More often than not it can be described by all of these terms and many more. It’s often difficult to decipher our own emotions, so when an entire other human being is thrown into the mix, things become exponentially more complicated. We cannot enter our partner’s mind. We can understand their perspectives, we can listen and understand them, but we cannot be this other person. I think this is something people, including myself, sometimes forget or fail to recognize. The complexities of our own self – our thoughts, our overthinking, our fears, our hopes, our expectations – all of these things can often take up so much of our mental space that it is difficult to look at another person and remember that they exist in the same way that we do. 

In Neil Delaney’s writing on romantic love and commitment, he discusses three characteristics that people desire within their own loving relationships. These first of these three qualities include a desire to unite with another both psychologically and physically to cement a bond. Delaney also describes people as hoping to be loved for certain properties that they believe they possess. Finally, he explains the idea of loving commitment, meaning that the bond formed is built on a trust that both partners are devoted to this relationship.

There is a strong connection between these ideas and Her (dir. Spike Jonze 2013). I will focus specifically on the idea of one wanting to be loved for certain properties. Delaney explains that we have “... a desire to be loved for such properties where these properties are appreciated in a way not too different from the way that [we] appreciate them” (Delaney 345). This idea is flipped upside down in Her. Theodore’s love for Samantha may be based on certain properties, but Samantha is not hoping that Theodore loves her for these properties. Earning Samantha’s love requires little effort from Theodore; Samantha has been programmed to provide him with this companionship. Of course, Theodore does not understand this. He pours his life into Samantha; he learns from talking to her and shapes his love for her around the most mutually fulfilling outcomes. 

On the other hand, although Samantha eventually becomes an independently intelligent being beyond her initial operating system, her initial properties were programmed into her, and her companionship with Theodore was given to her without choice. Therefore, while Theodore feels a sort of loving commitment to Samantha because of his human understanding of love (we witness this through Theodore’s relationship with Catherine), the origins of this love are almost manufactured. The qualities that initially attracted Theodore to Samantha were not properties that Samantha appreciated about herself in a similar way, if at all. These properties were chosen and coded into Samantha’s software. This is not to say that the love between Theodore and Samantha is not “real,” because of Samantha’s disembodiment and initial total artificiality.

In fact, the love between Theodore and Samantha can be paralleled with modern day long distance relationships. In a lot of cases, these relationships require some form of digital communication to function, be it texting or talking on the phone. The idea of loving someone for certain properties and being loved for our own appreciated characteristics becomes fundamental to these relationships. When one is in a loving relationship without the consistent physical aspect of it, the emotional and psychological elements are enhanced. Her is not about a long distance relationship, but similarities can be drawn between the disembodied Samantha, Theodore’s fear of loss, and a larger sense of a lack of control in this form of relationship. For example, when Theodore finds himself briefly unable to speak to Samantha while she meets with other AIs for an enormous software upgrade, he panics. Theodore’s inability to physically interact with Samantha provoked the overwhelming fear that she was gone. This is similar to how love exists across distance. There must be a greater trust between two partners that their commitment to one another will survive the distance. 

The attempt at defining this sort of commitment is often a large stepping stone in many loving relationships. The classic question of “what are we?” has cemented itself as a point where two people may try and explain their emotional connection towards one another. This “we” is never congruent between two loving partners. Although joint understandings can be formed surrounding the commitment one has to another, love is varied. We do not and simply cannot all love in the same exact way. We can love each other nonetheless. The specific expression of this love (assuming it is healthy) is less important than the reception of this love. 

Why do we ask each other and ourselves to define our relationships? Healthy communication is obviously an important factor in loving relationships, but there is certainly more that pushes us to determine a mutual understanding of our commitment to each other. Love is often chaotic, but not in a bad way. Introducing another into our lives forces us to give up a piece of stability. Love demands vulnerability in order to grow, and it can enter and exit our lives at any pace. “What are we?” is an attempt to stabilize some of the perpetual uncertainties of love. This question cannot remove the chaos from love, nor can it create a love that endures anything and everything. It can, however, shape a point of commitment between two partners. Love will always be chaotic, but knowing why and how we love the ones we choose to love can bring a perfect sense of peace.

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Sometimes the best way to speak for someone is to shut the hell up

Recommendation: Talk 2 Me by Montell Fish

In an earlier entry I wrote about “Love at first perfect silence.” There, I explored the idea of finding love in complete silence, where existing quietly alongside another person was a notion of a loving relationship. Here, I will discuss why an opposite idea, listening, has the ability to provoke the revelation that one person loves another just as much as this perfect silence does.

The idea of the “ideal listener” is explicitly discussed in Carla Kaplan’s writing “The Erotics of Talk.” It is in reference to Zora Neale Hurston’s novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, in which the protagonist seeks out her friend as this ideal listener in order to recount her life story. In both Before Sunrise and Before Sunset (dir. Richard Linklater, 1995, 2004, respectively), the ideal listener is at the core of both films. As Jesse and Cèline walk around Vienna and Paris, they find the thing that they had been yearning for in the other: someone that they can talk to with complete confidence that the other is not only listening, but understanding and reciprocating their communication. 

The scene in Before Sunset where Jesse and Céline ride in the taxi together showcases the idea of the ideal listener, along with “hungry listening,” another topic Kaplan discusses. As we watch Céline break down about her life, her romantic failures, and her concerns about finding happiness in another, we also watch Jesse sit and silently engage with Céline. He says nothing, but we know, and more importantly Céline knows, that he is listening, otherwise why would she speak? We all want someone with which we can share our experiences, hopes, fears, anything, and as Kaplan points out, one does not simply need to find someone with which they have the authority to speak, but the other must earn the authority to listen. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the protagonist, Janie, refuses to tell her story to others until she is forced to when she is on trial for her ex-husband’s death. This is by no means a recounting of experiences to a listening audience; the people around Janie force her to let them hear what she has to say without offering the necessary perspectives or understanding to actually listen to her.

Experiences like Janie’s can be destructive and provoke fear when it comes to opening oneself up to loving relationships. After having your narrative disregarded or incorrectly understood time and time again, the ability to trust another with being this ideal listener can be terrifying. Kaplan writes about Charles Taylor’s argument, in which he conveys that identity is sometimes shaped by a recognition of its absence. In these cases, the world can reflect a distorted identity back to an individual, leading to misconstructions or misrepresentations of one’s true self based on a failed understanding of one’s experiences.

I wrote that love can be found in a sort of perfect silence. Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, as well as Carla Kaplan’s writing, explore the idea of love revealing itself in an almost opposite scenario. Love is found in listening and being listened to; it is confirmed when one understands that their words are not being misconstrued by their listener.

All of this can be boiled down to the importance of communication. The “love in perfect silence'' that I discuss is not something that can be a constant within a relationship, nor is it enough for a formation of love. It is a moment of realization that one person loves another. However, love is formed elsewhere. I see the dual nature of the ideal listener as a perfect encapsulation of one way in which love develops. It is not enough to just be this listener for another, nor is it sufficient to feel as though another is this listener for you. This sort of conversation must go both ways: I must listen and I must be listened to.

I almost described this foundation of love as a dual responsibility, but I hesitated. There is no responsibility felt in this form of relationship. The feeling comes naturally. In these kinds of relationships, I know that I am being listened to by someone that will not take my words and regurgitate them inaccurately to another, nor will they speak to me with hesitation, as though I do not care to hear what they have to say.

In fact, speaking for another falls into a category of things that I do not think are essential, or even desired, qualities of a loving relationship. There is certainly a benefit to having someone that understands your perspectives and words, but I think the effort should always be made by both the listener and the speaker to speak for themselves and to realize when one must step back as the other speaks for themself.

We are not allowed to be completely honest in our outside lives. At times this is a good thing; I’m sure many of us would come off as rude, apathetic, or straight up insufferable if we spoke our minds all day long. On the other hand, the desire to verbally express all of our thoughts and experiences is not often strong: Do we want all of these people to hear what we have to say?

This is the benefit of finding and recognizing this ideal listener. They earn our permission to listen and we feel comfortable to speak. There is no limit to expressing our thoughts and perspectives when we are with this person (assuming we are relatively justified in what we are expressing to them). 

People change, and people in their relationships may one day lose the ability to be the ideal listener for another. This can be frightening and confusing, but it is not one specific person that cements themself as an ideal listener. Different relationships and different forms of love will bring about different listeners, and we will find ourselves being separate listeners for other people as well. There may not always be one specific person that can be a constant companion to our talk, and we cannot expect to want to express every single thing with them. We must recognize when we find someone who can listen, and we must acknowledge when another needs us to listen to them. This is not to say that we should listen and regurgitate these experiences to others; this obliterates trust and destroys the entire motivation behind the search for an ideal listener.

Sometimes we desire more than communication through a conversation. Love is found in speech and silence. We love the people that we can speak to without fear of being interrupted or misunderstood. We love the people that allow us to listen to them; they understand that we will hold ourselves in silence.

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Heartbreak and how we try again

Recommendation: Icarus & Apollo by Ripto

Heartbreak is a unique sort of pain. It can vary in intensity depending on many factors (what is lost, how long the relationship with this other had lasted, what sort of love has been lost, etc.), but the pain is always recognizable as heartbreak. It is not only a feeling of loss, but also of failure on two accounts.

The first is the thought of one’s own failure. Questions like, “What did I do wrong?” “Why this, why now?” and most importantly, “What could I have done differently” swirl around in one’s mind on a seemingly endless loop. I say that the last question is the most important because it is the question that will influence the future. One will (hopefully) not give up all faith in love as a whole after a single heartbreak. 

The second is the question of the failure of the other to fulfill the ideal characteristics of a partner (romantic or otherwise, partner referring to the other piece of the loving relationship). The failure of the other is not simply boiled down to something “they broke my heart” or “they did ‘X’ thing wrong.” Rather, this second failure is rooted in the characteristics of the other; it finds itself in their values and characteristics. It can seem like oversimplifying to strip one down to their traits and other qualities, but in a broader scope beyond this one “other” we can look at what all of our past loves and heartbreaks, what could also be called temporary successes and permanent failures (although perhaps that is too harsh of a comparison) have in common. 

In High Fidelity, we watch as Rob details her “Top 5 heartbreaks,” explaining each in excruciating detail and constantly making fourth-wall breaking comments about each of her ex-partners to the camera. Throughout the series, Rob searches for these Top 5 heartbreaks, looking for each of them in order to discover why she is always left heartbroken and alone. Here, Rob consciously confronts the first of the two failures while almost subconsciously questioning the second. She is on a journey to find out her own wrongdoings and what she could have done differently, but she also finds herself exploring the qualities of her ex-lovers from this subjective yet exterior perspective. Enough time has passed since most of these heartbreaks where Rob can examine them from a position further than when they had just occurred. In one case, when Rob finds out that she is actually the one who ended things with her fourth ex, Justin, she feels much better about herself. Here, there is no first failure to question. For Rob, something was wrong with Justin, she had no shortcomings in this relationship.

How does one like Rob move forward from a heartbreak, and why is confronting past failed relationships (although not usually as directly as Rob does) important for moving forward? For Martha Nussbaum in her writing “Love and the Individual: Romantic Rightness and Platonic Aspiration,” there are certain positive reasons and realistic objections to deciphering what one looks for in a partner, and why some of these qualities may have been misconstrued or imagined, leading one on a road to heartbreak.

By drawing up a list of certain properties that one finds important and/or hopes to see in a partner, one can hold this list up to current and former relationships to understand how their partners have aligned or been out of place with this list of admirable qualities. People are often split on looking for a partner that is similar to them or nearly a total opposite (i.e. opposites attract). Not only that, but sometimes people find themselves falling for another after they see this person commit a certain act of kindness, bravery, or intelligence, among other admirable traits. 

Nussbaum’s writing includes arguments regarding both of these ideas. First, there are some situations where qualities opposite those that one possesses may be admirable because they may be the exact qualities that one is lacking. I believe that this is true. There are people I have loved because of their ability to draw out a trait that I would never use to define myself. This is not to say that these people helped me discover something about myself (although they probably did), but rather that their qualities and values lodged themselves in my own sense of self and how love allowed me to share their perspective. Second, Nussbaum’s work points out that we do not value certain qualities that one displays unless we believe that these qualities are a regular part of their way of being. That is to say that if a person is seen being kind, they are not just feeling as though they should be kind in that one moment, but rather that they value kindness on a consistent personal level. 

There does not need to be some checklist that one holds up against anyone that they find themselves in love with. I think this can be harmful. We love who we love and choose them based on certain qualities, but most or all of those qualities do not need to always be found in all who we fall in love with (although ideally the values somewhere on this list can be used to define a decent human being). Nonetheless, heartbreak can force us to use this list. We take what we believe we want in a partner and compare that with those past relationships, hoping to spot with clarity where everything went wrong.

Reality is never that simple, and love is even more complex. It is important to recognize the qualities of the person you love, it is less important to decide whether or not someone will be an ideal partner based on a predetermined list. Love is constantly changing. The reasons why we love are never stable or precise. It is an impossible task to accept that heartbreak and a lost love are not always due to some concrete reason or some after-the-fact value or characteristic of a partner. 

Where does new love come from, and how do we let it into our lives? At times it can seem as though we are searching for a replacement for something we have lost. We find someone that aligns with the characteristics we deem valuable and admirable and convince ourselves that we are in love with them. Is love deceptive? Or are we the ones committing the deception, tricking ourselves into believing, “this is love”? I think this forces a distinction when it comes to moving on from a heartbreak. Moving forward in the hopes that one will find a near perfect copy of what was lost will probably end in failure. Clearly something was wrong in that previous relationship (with oneself or with the other), what will be different this time? On the other hand, moving forward in the search for a more general love can be a much more fruitful journey. We understand what qualities we admire; we are searching for a continuous feeling and a joint experience rather than an individual.

Love is not deceptive. Lust, some overwhelming feeling of being drawn to another, a passionate fascination… These can all deceive us into thinking we are in love or cause us to let our guards down, leaving the door open for perhaps unnecessary pain. But love is never misleading. It is instead embodied by those who share the traits and values that we deem most important and most admirable. Love allows us to look at the entire interior and exterior of another, at their sense of self and their perspective, and know that although it may not be permanent and that there is always the possibility of unwanted change, we can love and be loved by this other person.

[melatonincycle]

Who are you now, who were you then?

Recommendation: Work Song by Hozier

Love is something that we will all likely experience more than once. It will manifest itself in different forms, and in different people, and yet it can be something so memorable that memories of one’s life are sometimes chained to the love of that time in one’s life rather than a greater, more complete picture of life itself. It is impossible for me to remember every single thing I have ever done, in fact I would be astonished if somebody could prove this sort of memory. Furthermore, there are most certainly memories that are more prominent for me than others. As I think about the strongest, most recognizable memories, which for me are those that I can recall in greatest detail, I find myself realizing that they are almost always encompassed by some form of love. I think this same idea can be found in Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2016) and can be drawn out from Pamela Demory’s writing “Moonlight, Adaptation, and Queer Time.”

The narrative discontinuity and time jumps within Moonlight contrast with the repetition of each of the three eras of Chiron’s life that are shown to the audience. As Demory points out, the three eras are not simply replications of one another. Their repetition is done in a way that allows for the three actors to serve as convincing that they are all the same person while revealing the cyclical nature of Chiron’s life through his relationships with others. Demory also quotes Judith Butler at one point in her writing, citing Butler as saying that “repetition never fully accomplishes identity.” Although Chiron is seen at different points in his life as very different people both physically and socially, the repetition that manifests itself in cinematography and storytelling serves as a reminder that Chiron has not been able to truly exist beyond his pain, trauma, and repressed sexuality in a world in which he cannot be himself. 

These images display the repetitive cinematography and storytelling, first the sink as a method of showing a sort of disconnected continuity for Chiron, then the beach as a place of loving comfort and separation from the pain of Chiron’s life

There are significant moments in Moonlight that are not shown to the audience. We do not see Juan die, we only hear about it in passing, and then it is forgotten. We are not given insight into Chiron’s time in prison, but rather the moment that sent him there and his life afterwards. Nor do we see how Chiron’s mother finds herself in a rehab facility. We go with Chiron to see her after the fact. It is in these gaps of time that the nature of Chiron’s strongest memories are conveyed to the audience. All of the moments that we see are defined by Chiron’s relationship with another. We saw Juan as Chiron’s father figure, Chiron’s fragmented relationship with his mother, and of course Chiron’s relationship with Kevin. Chiron’s life is represented by love in its many forms and the subsequent loss of that love. There is no need for us to bear witness to the moments in between, to this sort of dead time that leaves Chiron more or less unchanged. This is not to say that Chiron’s time in jail did not change him. Rather, it is to say that his growing up under Juan’s care has led him to take Juan’s place as the drug dealer in his neighborhood more so than his time in prison did. 

Love itself may not always be repetitive, but our desire to replicate and repeat love is often strong and defines many moments in our lives. Why does Chiron go to Kevin’s restaurant in Act III of Moonlight? It is not that Chiron is an unchanged man from Act II, it is that he is searching for a repetition of one of his strongest memories, that being his time on the beach with Kevin. 

In a larger sense, I think there is a truth to the fragmentary and discontinuous narrative of Moonlight, and more specifically in the moments of Chiron’s life that we witness. In thinking about my own life, I can separate it into several beats all spaced apart by a sort of blank time. This blank time is not forgotten nor unimportant, but it is thought of in the way that Moonlight treats Juan’s death and Chiron’s time in prison. Love is dominating in the sense that it often overrides other emotions and experiences. 

This can be thought of in both a linear and cyclical fashion. In a cyclical sense, one may be in a loving relationship, then this relationship may dissipate (i.e. Juan’s death, Kevin being forced to beat up Chiron), and then there is a space of time before another loving relationship is found. If one thinks about this as linear, the same idea as the cyclical motion is present but the person carries the past experiences with them into the next loving relationship. Perhaps both of these work together, as one will usually carry the mistakes, choices, and consequences of the past into future relationships while still falling victim to some personal instincts, societal oppression, or tragic moment that brought an end to the previous relationship in the first place. 

The promise of love that has already been known to Chiron is perhaps what drives him to go and see Kevin in Act III of the film. A rare moment in which he truly knew peace has potentially presented itself to him again, and that is something that cannot be ignored. Repetition can hinder growth in the sense that it can be seen as returning to a person you once were, yet it is overwhelmingly enticing in the sense that there are parts of our past selves we have lost and sometimes wish could be restored. Love, then, is a balancing act between finding ways to repeat past loving relationships while still refusing to attempt to replicate the past. 

[melatonincycle]

If we can’t do anything, can we still love?

Recommendation: To Be Alone by Hozier

There is always some tragedy that accompanies love. I would not use “tragedy” to define the smaller fights between two people that love one another, nor to express things done maliciously and purposefully by one person to another (this could launch a debate about whether or not something done in this manner could ever constitute a loving relationship – I will refrain). No, the concept of this tragedy I refer to is something far greater. It could be the sudden or expected, yet inevitable and devastating, death of a lover, or it could be a breakup and termination of a relationship – a destruction of this unique line of communication. However, sometimes this tragedy is brought on by something exterior to a loving relationship. This outside cause is something larger than the relationship itself, and perhaps even larger than love (although this is not to say that it is stronger than love). In some cases, this obstacle is a societal one. For James Baldwin in his book If Beale Street Could Talk as well as the film adaptation (dir. Barry Jenkins, 2018), systemic and societal issues come into conflict with love in various ways.

By examining Christopher Freeburg’s writing on Baldwin and If Beale Street Could Talk, I hope to answer the following questions: Why do Tish and Fonny choose to stay together through all of their pain? What keeps Tish from abandoning all hope when she realizes there is nothing more she can do? And more broadly, how does love function amidst circumstances out of our control?

Christopher Freeburg connects Baldwin’s writings to those of Soren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard describes love as being hidden in the interior being, while in turn acting as a form of connection with all of existence. As Freeburg points out, Baldwin explores the body as a material thing through sexuality and vulnerability while encouraging his readers to consider their own existence as “transcending material life.” Baldwin wants his readers to long for control of their lives when they are faced with an insurmountable obstacle.

This exploration of love and the self is made abundantly clear in If Beale Street Could Talk. Immediately after Tish and Fonny are shown having sex for the first time, the film cuts with an unapologetic harshness to the current “facts” known about Fonny’s arrest and the crime he is accused of committing (Timestamp: 36:00 - 39:00). Beyond the explicit overarching storytelling method used here, there is an inherent brutality in the dialogue, soundscape, and cinematography that convinces the viewer from this relatively early point in the film that there is little hope for Tish and Fonny. Tish tells Fonny she loves him as they lie together, naked, in bed. The bedroom is warm and dimly lit, and so is the train car that the characters ride on the way back to Tish’s home afterwards. The score is instrumental and sweeping, paving a sonic confirmation of the love the characters feel for one another. Then, there is the cut to black as the music fades away. This is followed by a moment of silence and then, Tish’s voice. However, it is not her soft, shaky voice professing her love to Fonny. Rather, it is an emotionless recounting of Fonn’s criminal case. The once sensual visual language becomes black and white still images, thrusting the viewer from pure love to its polar opposite; we are in a world without emotion and where subjectivity is greeted with hostility.

Tish and Fonny, in this moment and in the film as a whole, seem to follow Freeburg’s discussion of Baldwin. These characters experience the material only to be confined by the realities of American society. Nonetheless, Tish and Fonny are able to hold on to their love even as the chances of Fonny’s freedom disappear. Their love cannot be thought of as something that will be destroyed by the ruthless and impenetrable systemic injustices and their own powerlessness in the face of these injustices. This love is also not something that will fail when these characters realize that even their most desperate efforts, such as Tish’s mom traveling to Puerto Rico, will not be able to break through historical and societal barriers. Rather, since the love between Tish and Fonny has been in part established through the material, sexual connection between them, it transcends their powerlessness.

"But I Know About Suffering, And I Know That It Ends." If Beale Street Could Talk, dir. Barry Jenkins

This idea can be explained through a look at the “before” and the “after” of Fonny’s arrest. Before the arrest, Tish and Fonny had their love for one another, but they also had time to look for an apartment, to go grocery shopping, to walk in the park and talk, to have sex, etc. etc. After the arrest, all that remains is love. Although it is safe to assume that Tish and Fonny’s entire lives were in part dictated by the widespread systemic racial issues of 1970s America, they do not come to realize their complete lack of control until after Fonny’s arrest. 

In accepting their powerlessness, Tish, Fonny, and their families give up all hope that a solution to Fonny’s situation is lost but retain the hope that not only their love remains, but also a hopefulness about their love in the future.

When some tragedy causes one to lose their connection to the material world, just as Tish and Fonny have, a lack of choice becomes a prominent factor in life. However, one can still choose what they want to love. There can be this overriding precedent: things have been that good once, things can and will be that good again. Although a relationship can be fundamentally altered or destroyed by inescapable societal oppressions, love is the one thing that can be retained even in an acceptance of one’s powerlessness.

[melatonincycle]

Modern Love (And Where It Comes From)

Recommendation: Beige by Yoke Lore

Freud and Plato had contrasting opinions on love and its origins. I believe that it is important to discuss these opposing ideas before exploring the origins of modern love – that is to say, how modern love presents itself and makes itself known between two people.

Freud’s explanation of love was one of seuxal impulse and sublimation. For Freud, sublimation took the form of transforming the socially unacceptable, in this case sexual desire, into the socially acceptable, meaning love. This “love” is a trick in which we persuade ourselves into thinking that the sexual desire and physical pleasure we are searching for is some sort of higher emotional connection. In 2046 (dir. Wong Kar Wai, 2004), this idea manifests itself somewhat in Tak’s story while onboard the train as he tries to leave 2046. There, he believes that he falls in love with one of the train’s humanoid robots. However, he is on the train attempting to leave 2046 because that is where he lost his love. Tak is not immediately in love with this humanoid mechanical being, but rather he convinces himself that his desire for a physical replacement for the one he lost is this sort of higher emotional connection.

On the other hand, Plato’s explanation is one of this more intellectual, disembodied connection. It is less about the sexual and more about the reproduction of ideas. By transforming a sort of initial physical urge into a calling to this union with another, Plato believed that love had an overriding ultimate aim rather than a carnal origin. These ideas can also be found in 2046. Chow and Bai Ling initially begin a platonic relationship in which they agree to be “drinking buddies,” but this eventually becomes sexual. Although Chow wants their relationship to remain sexual and transactional, Bai Ling finds herself falling for Chow and wants a sort of sexual exclusivity between the two of them. For Bai Ling, the physical excitement is there, but she is determined to find something greater than just sex. 

Modern relationships, or at least relationships at this stage of my life (college, early twenties, etc.), seem to find themselves forming in two common situations. 

The first of these relationship-forming practices stems from contemporary hookup culture, in which two people engage in a purely (or at least mostly) sexual relationship while keeping emotional connection out of the picture. However, just as with Bai Ling in 2046, emotions sometimes find a way to seep into the physically transactional relationship. Assuming both parties are interested, the connection that began in the physical can stem into something more complex and emotionally fulfilling.

The second of these situations is a sort of opposite to the one I just described. It exists when two people believe that there is an initial bond between them that has transcended the physical before it has even reached that point. This is a relationship that stems from an assumed spiritual link rather than a sexual connection. Eventually, this relationship will (usually) proceed to include the embodied, pleasure-oriented form of love. Nonetheless, it begins in a search for and belief that a higher union is possible with this other person. 

How do these two situations manifest themselves? What contributes to their seemingly prolific existence in modern culture? For the first relationship form, things like dating apps (tinder, bumble, hinge) allow for immediate fulfillment of the sexual and pleasure-based urges that Freud describes. By viewing another person through only surface level characteristics, like some pictures and a 300-character-limit description of oneself, the other person is able to keep an emotional distance. A hookup stemming from a physical attraction does not mean that one has warped their desire into believing that they are in love, but a continuance and development of such a relationship may prove otherwise. These initially grounded desires warp into something that may eventually be described by the couple as love.

Moreover, the other form of connection, the one of initial emotional bond rather than sexual, finds itself manifesting in the social proximity of college. In a classroom setting, for example, one person may find themselves an intellectual attraction to another, as though the conversations held in this space designed for intellectual stimulation spark a romantic bond between two people. Is this idea aligned with Freud or Plato in terms of its love origin and ultimate destination? Arguments could be made for both. Plato may say that the bond is one of disembodied spiritual pursuit, and the classroom setting allows for this growth. Meanhwhile, Freud may argue that thinking the classroom setting allowed for a relationship formed on emotion and the intellectual before the sexual is just a mental trick or sublimation to try and convince oneself that sex is not that final goal.

Is there a right answer? It does not have to be found within Freud or Plato, although their ideas may help. These two situations I have described can be explained as sex as a means to love versus love as a means to sex. The origins are different, but does it matter? All relationships are somewhat based on desire, but is that desire always sex?

I do not believe so. I think the main issue I have with Freud’s ideas is that they often boil all aspects of humanity down to the physical and the grounded, the scientific. There is something so unappealing about all that that I almost refuse to believe it. A relationship can be purely sexual, it can be purely transcational, it can be a dishonest belief that two people are in love when it is just a desire for physical intimacy that generally comes with the confirmation of love. Nonetheless, love can stem from and continue in forms far greater than just sex. It is a major aspect of many romantic relationships, this is true, but to bring it all down to this and to use sublimation as an excuse for one finding a connection in another seems like the easy way out. How better to explain some seemingly disembodied idea and desire than with hormones? 

I cannot say that Freud is incorrect. Modern relationships, hookup culture, and college relationship culture, are confusing and terrifying. These things are also beautiful, and can lead to something that is not necessarily better but different than physical pleasure. The connection that drives two people to talk for hours on end, to listen to each other, to grow and work through difficult moments… This is not sublimation. If someone wants physical pleasure, they can find it. If someone wants a greater, more fulfilling love that encompasses some larger thing, goal, connection, something, they have to work for it. 

[melatonincycle]

Love at First Perfect Silence

Recommendation: Listen to Ezra Bell's I Love You Too

Closer (2004, dir. Mike Nichols) holds itself to the tagline, “If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking.” This is certainly true for the characters in the film, as they all seem to continuously seek out something other than what they currently have. In the end, it is difficult to say whether or not any of these characters ever feel love for each other, or if they simply chase a self-pleasure that eventually tires itself out. While I watched Closer, and as Alice and Dan and Larry and Anna hurt themselves and each other, I kept thinking about how love at first sight is too risky. Sure, you can get hit by a car while locking eyes with Jude Law and think that counts as destiny, but what happens when Jude Law turns out to be unsatisfied with everything and everyone he finds himself falling for? Even though at this point in my life I do not find much truth in the idea of love at first sight, I find value in the Closer tagline in the sense that it conveys the continuous search for something. 

What is that something? Christopher Matthews in his article explores the importance of the train in the Victorian-era idea of love at first sight. The destruction of the space between two people combined with the tight, inescapable shared space of the train car leads one to naturally focus on the other person sitting next to you, or across from you, or on the other side of the train. Although this phenomenon is not exclusive to Victorian-era trains, I would not describe the assumed connection one feels with another while traveling to love. I believe that “Interest at First Sight” is a better term. This interest may be what Alice and Dan felt for each other in Closer prior to the car accident. A person traveling in a busy city that stands out to you among hundreds of others is certainly enough to peak your interest for a moment. Is it love? As Dan and Alice’s story progresses, the answer veers further and further towards “No.”

So what is that thing we continuously search for if it is not love at first sight? When is this love felt, and how does it make itself known to us if it is not made known through a supposed instant connection or some shared glance in a train car? 

On one cold December evening in Prague, I sat with a friend on the metro. We went to IKEA to return some furniture. We picked up some IKEA-branded beer and champagne, and traveled back to our warm apartment. My friend and I talked about very little, and other than the occasional joke about IKEA meatballs or incredibly bland discussions of the interior design of Prague Metro stations, we sat in silence. I remember this evening in its entirety not because it had some unforgettable, climactic moment, but because of the silence my friend and I shared on that near-empty metro to the outskirts of the city. 

On this journey, on our own modern version of a 19th century train car, I found myself experiencing a sort of perfect silence. There are times when silence is uncomfortable or it feels as though it needs to be filled. This was not one of those times. Perhaps it was the confinement of the metro car that made me feel this way, or maybe it was the knowledge that this silence would come to a natural end when we reached our stop, but in that moment I came to a silent understanding that I loved my friend. This was not a romantic love, but a bond that justified itself in my ability to exist alongside my friend as the rhythmic rattling of the train car occupied the space around us. 

Descriptions of love at first sight often involve this love making itself known because one person sees a hint of something extraordinary in another. It could be in the way they look, the way they are dressed, anything at all, but it defines itself in a sort of contrast. In Closer, Dan found this contrast in Alice’s strong juxtaposition against the grayness of the city. Although my metro ride is not a story of love at first sight, the first pure silence I felt with my friend is synonymous with the surface-level contrast of love at first sight. Our days and nights were occupied by the city noise, the non-stop classroom conversation, the eardrum-bursting nightclub music. These days spent among each other and our other friends formed the love in our friendship – that first perfect silence cemented it.

Both Closer and Christopher Matthews’ article account for a similarity among those who believe they experience love at first sight: It is less about the other person and it is more about how the other person makes one feel. One traveler may see another on a train car and believe that they are in love, but it does not matter who they are seeing. All that matters is that based on a surface-level observation, one person has sparked a sort of lustful interest in another. The person being observed is stripped of everything besides their outer characteristics and given the idealized form that the observer has crafted for them. That is what makes the idea of love at first sight far too hopeful; there is no truth to this love besides the truth that one manufactures based on what one is searching for.

I contrast love at first sight with love at first perfect silence because that silence is how I have found myself understanding the strength of this connection, the strength of this love. It is not a noticeably intense, instant bond, but something that is built up through conversation, laughter, and moment after moment that brings me closer to this other person. 

While reading Matthews’ article and watching Closer, I found myself thinking “how do we know when it is actually love?” quite a few times. I find myself interested in many, many people when I walk through an airport. I watch as people my age sit and read before their flight and I find myself interested in these people, but it is not even close to what I would describe as love. I have felt the sort of “love at first perfect silence” that I have been discussing with two people in my life. It is in this infrequency that I find reassurance. The Closer tagline reads  “If you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking.” I believe in love at first perfect silence, and yet I have never found myself looking for it. 

The characters in Closer fail because they are obsessed with talking themselves into sex, out of trouble, and into convincing themselves and another that they are in love. They are unable to get past the initial “love at first sight” infatuation and see the other person past a fantasized creation.

So much of what I am describing is about seeing the other person for who they are and being in love with every part of them. Perhaps this can be paralleled with Matthews — the love at first sight scenario involves a silent connection in which one convinces themselves that they are in love by combining surface-level features with an imagined, idealized personality.

The love I am describing finds itself in a somewhat similar silence, but there is no idealized personality. There is instead the person sitting, lying, sleeping beside me. I know this person; I do not need to invent anything.

[melatonincycle]

Where Do We Go From Here?

Recommendation: "When You Were Made" by the Growlers

My parents started dating in college. They both went to Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. I do not know much about their early relationship, or how they first met. However, there is one story from their time in college that I often think about. Perhaps it’s because I have heard it so many times, or because my siblings and I bring it up at every family gathering, but it stands out to me nonetheless.

This is how the story was told to me, and how I repeat it to others: At some point during their college years, my mom and dad were sitting on a bench on campus, just talking. Someone came up to them, maybe someone my mom knew, or my dad knew, or both of them knew, but apparently he said something particularly unsavory to my mom. My dad stood up and started chasing this guy. He chased this guy to a building that had one of those glass doors with security wire in it, and as the man slammed it shut behind him my dad’s clenched fist went straight through the glass and the security wire, slicing his hand and wrist open.

This is the entire story that I have been told, essentially word for word from what I can remember. It leaves me, and probably leaves you, with some questions. What did this guy say to my mom? Who was he? Why did he feel so compelled to say something? I do not have the answers to these questions, and honestly, neither do my parents. I do not think they are keeping anything from me (the story is simply not mind-blowing enough to need to conceal details). Nonetheless, I think about this cliché boyfriend-defending-girlfriend from some disrespectful guy scenario that ended with my dad in the emergency room and I realize how it has shaped my perspective on the love my parents have for each other.

In both the film Paris, Texas and in Steven Zeitlin’s work, I have found a point of explanation that helps me to answer another question about this story about my parents. Why are they still together? I don’t ask this out of concern that they are on the verge of some dramatic divorce, but rather just a line of inquiry into how their relationship sustains itself.

Zeitlin discusses the idea that a sort of courtship narrative can help couples to reassure themselves that they made the right decision, that they have chosen the person they can imagine themselves with for the rest of their lives. Paris, Texas portrays a love gone bad, in which the story of the relationship evokes both happy nostalgia and deep pain for both Travis and Jane. Although my parents’ relationship does not have a violent or tragic ending like Travis and Jane’s, there is this sort of parallel that can be drawn regarding the consideration of the beautiful moments in the past in order to reassure oneself about the present situation.

Jane and Travis’ reunion through the one-way mirror provides a reassurance for both characters that imbues itself with the idea of the folkloric courtship narrative that Zeitlin discusses while still maintaining their tragic past. There is no happy reunion, there is no physical touch. There is merely an emotional connection, a sort of joint understanding made visually explicit through the merging of Travis and Jane’s faces on the mirrored glass. Although both characters understand that they must remain separate, the story about the early days of their love reassures them that they made their choices for a reason.

Love is never easy, nor simple, nor certain. It requires reassurance, in fact it demands it. This story of my parents, of my dad putting his fist through a glass door, still clings to my memory for a reason. Perhaps it is my parents’ version (or at least what I see as their version) of the beginning of Travis and Jane’s story. It is that memory that displays a sort of love that we want to hold forever. It is the rendition of love that we wish could exist in our lives every single day. My parents’ story is not a courtship story, but it is still the story that has been passed from them to me to my friends and other family members as a repeating reassurance that they love each other.

However, I do not truly know that my parents feel this way. Maybe this is not the story that they use to convince themselves that they made the right decision, that this college romance can continue until they grow old. In that case, I suppose that this is the story I use to reassure myself that my parents love each other. It is as if Travis and Jane’s son, Hunter, had some memory of his parents' chaotic relationship and needed to wrap his arms around the early days of their love in order to believe that their relationship still holds that same feeling. I know that this is exactly what I do with the story of my parents. When things go bad, when it feels like our family is collapsing in on itself, when hospital bills, trips to mental health facilities across the country, and an overwhelming fear of the unknown become what feels like our own twisted family traditions, I need to reassure myself that my parents love each other.

"...I'm afraid. I'm afraid of walking away again. I'm afraid of what I might find. But I'm even more afraid of not facing this fear. I love you Hunter, I love you more than my life." - Travis, Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas

In these moments, I tell myself this story of my parents. I romanticize my dad’s headstrong chase through the Fairleigh Dickinson campus and convince myself that this love still exists in our family. I have yet to disappoint myself, although I must admit I have come terrifyingly close.

In a larger sense, I think this idea of looking at love between one’s parents as something that demands reassurance is reflective of the hope we have when it comes to our own relationships. It ties itself into Aristophanes’ story in the Symposium in this way, as the idea that there is a second half waiting for us somewhere out there fills that void of uncertainty with a sort of hope that this person will eventually be found. With regard to Paris, Texas and Zeitlin, the stories we tell ourselves are meant to instill this hope, even when the stories are not from our own lives. When I look at the world and see the amount of relationships that dissolve due to exterior circumstances beyond a lack of romantic chemistry, I retreat back into the story of my parents in college. Maybe I am being unbearably naive, but to look at a world filled with failed relationships that result in unhappy people afraid to try their hand at love again breaks down the hope I have for the love I want in my life. 

Love commands our reassurance and in return love gives us hope. 

-c.r.