Conduct of Life: Session Eleven B
Session Summary - Love
Bev introduced Emerson's essay "Love" with John Lennon's song "Woman", a love song that illustrates the projectional potential of love. Then we suggested movies or songs with the theme of love that didn't make us gag, as Lennon's song might. The relationship in "As Good As It Gets" figured as a realistic portrayal of love in the midst of human foibles for a number of people. Then Bev asked us to consider the words Emerson might give to a number of famous couples including Zeus & Hera, Paul and Linda McCartney and Kermit & Miss Piggy.In his "Love" essay, Emerson seems to speak from the heart expressing a deep longing within. His writing illustrates an outpouring from direct experience which includes a variety of emotions such as loss, joy and sorrow. In his journal, written in 1840, Emerson admits that he is cold at the surface, not revealing the tenderness at his core. He looks toward the day when relationship will not be defined by law perhaps because of his belief that marriage often destroys love.
When asked, "Do you love me?" Emerson suggests the question means, "Do you see the same truths?" As his second wife Lydian was more conservative and prudish than he, and while Emerson's highest concern was the intellect, it is easy to see that his struggle with love in the context of marriage had its base in his experience.
Emerson begins his essay discussing youth, writing of inflamed emotions, sparks and imagination. Using rich imagery, he shows the power of love to revolutionize body, mind and soul. Passion however knows no bounds and, with different intensities, pervades beyond the appearances of youth.
Falling in love, Emerson suggests, is a link to the divine. Nature and love operate on the same principle; the essence of nature and love are soul mates as nature grows conscious when awakened by love.
Emerson encourages that we leave an adherence to facts and look to hope rather than history to understand love. While some look fondly to events in their past experiences of love, both Emerson and Paul warn that nostalgia can be dangerous. It is more helpful to look at what is underneath the experience of love rather than looking to the experience itself.
On subjectivity, Emerson writes that all is sour as seen by experience and encourages us to go with the intellect. In doing this we marry reason and passion. Bev wondered whether Emerson was bitter about the events of his life, his first wife's death and a less than ideal second marriage, which crushed his romantic ideals? It is difficult for us to see only this bitterness when it seems that Emerson set up his second marriage to get a slave. If he had stayed married to Ellen, who knows where Emerson's ideas on love may have ventured. He probably would not have written this essay in this way. Emerson prompts us to ask the question 'what do we do when reality hits infatuation?'
Emerson writes strongly about the limitations of marriage. His words suggest that we should not put great experiences in a structure. A greater law is at work in love. By following society's rules this law is ignored. If one is in love and the whole world changes, it will only change for a small time if the focus is only on the individual. The object of love will be forced to carry too much baggage. Rather, it is the view of love that is important. Allow a person to be a conduit of love. If that person dies or no longer is a conduit, another image will hold love. Go with the new image.
The energy of love is a central motivator in many different situations. Love touches everyone. It makes artists out of people and offers hope.
When love wanes, we take on illusions to try and keep love alive. Emerson encourages instead the integration of experience with truth and intellect.
Emerson also discusses obsession. Problems can result when everything in one's life is related to the significant other. Paul related his relationship to Bev. At the beginning of their relationship, Paul focused on the Christology of Bev, instead of the human form. Christ he would always have a relationship with. We also discussed the danger of fusion; falling in love can ruin your life and everyone around you. At the same time Paul suggested that without infatuation you cannot have relationship; it is necessary to initiate the relationship. We can accept a certain amount of fusion and not be overly worried about it's presence in our lives.
It seems that love is the foundation of Emerson's philosophy. When Ellen died, love for her gave Emerson courage.
Emerson moves the reader to see love in a broader landscape, to see love and nature merge. We are loved by nature and to play in love or nature we transcend. In love we enter the realm of beauty.
In reading of the importance of transcendence in conjunction with love, we realize that without a metaphysic, we are ruined. The energy of love is a waste without the metaphysic as the experience of love becomes particularized and love in only focused in the individual. Rather than 'this is thou, this is not thou', only 'this is thou' exists. It is Platonic thought which emphasizes a view which seeks what lies beyond the person. The material is never enough. We spend most of our lives living in the shadows, seeking what doesn't matter.
In writing of how banality squelches passion, Emerson seems to be in deep sorrow for his ideal. Emerson says that body and form take us away from love but maybe the form is what endears us to each other. In relationship people can point out the flaws and blemishes. But in talking about curing the other, Emerson may be off. For example, Hawthorne writes "The Beauty Mark" in which the doctor tries to get rid of a mark on the cheek of a beautiful woman. In becoming obsessed with her beauty and the mark, the doctor kills her. There is a danger in focusing on the particular and the ideal.
The key in the essay is the shift from loving the one to loving the world. Can this happen with love for anything? Bev thinks so. Emerson's goal was ultimate union and transcendence.
The evening ended with experienced souls talking about the lost loves and Paul McCartney's "Somedays".
"Inside each one of us is love And we know how it feels."
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