Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Life is full of tiny cute miracles (1)

“Life is full of tiny cute miracles like yellow butterflies”
“Or like unexpected flowers blooming (I read this somewhere)”
“ Did you know that if somebody touches your ear with his lips you could hear his soul?”
“ Do you think so?”
“ I know so.”
“How come?”
“Because I believe it. (But not as in ‘I have an opinion about it’, I have faith…)”
“Ok. Than come closer …can you hear it?”
“No.”
“See!”
“It has to be done with the right intent. Nibbling my ear does not count.”
“ I guess I haven’t been given your faith”
“Faith is not given. Faith is demanded. To believe is an action…”
“Yes”
“ Than faith is something you ask and take. It’s a choice. Same for love”
“You can not choose to fall in love. That just happens”
“True. But to fall in love is not same as to love. To love is an action. So you get a choice: to love or not to love…”
“So you can love anyone than? Any person that is, ‘cause is your choice”
“ I guess. If you’re God or a saint. In theory, you can go to a store and buy any clothes you want. But you don’t because what you do actually buy has to fit your size, your pocket, your taste…”
“You trivialize love. People are not clothes”
“Not as simple as fashion, I admit. But don’t they come in different colors and sizes, aren’t they used depending on occasion and taste?”
“That’s silly”
“So it is. So it is”

(1)this post is a comment to this one: " O minciuna repetata..."

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

This post actually tackles with two - not just one - recent posts, to different extentsm though. The one you linked to, obviously, and I will have to repeat what I have said when you first left a comment on my webpage, namely that your comment should have been copied and pasted instead of the contents of the original post. Writing is, I assume, just one of the many things you do so well :)
The other one, in which case I actually talk about a mirrored response, was posted on www.botesteanu.nu just this Monday: and if you talk about the lack of option of falling in love and the required action of loving, I was talking about how things are when you hate (be it on and off), and why hate is such an empowering feeling you may or may not choose, but, altogether, feel it fiercely and going on about it. I don't really hate. I am usually the loving kind, give or take a few stray dogs.

Thank you so much for being here. You make my life an awful lot easier :)

xoxo
O.

Anonymous said...

That is very smart abd very cool. "To love is an action."

Ana said...

Octavian
If my writing is good, my reasoning is quite decent and my garden/Greek salad is excellent (I can bring witnesses for my salad)
I do not think my posts should be a substitute for the original. I think they are complementary…I liked your little”credo” is almost a poem (it is a poem)…
Being able to find people with whom I share (even partly) my Weltanschauung makes me feel less lonely.
Paul
To love is a verb expressing an action. It took me a few good years to internalize this statement, but I finally got it…
and I thank you for the blooming flowers.

Anonymous said...

A fascinating conversation here. I tend to think of love as a passion or feeling; one that can lead to action. I think that explains why love can be expressed in so many different activities, and interpreted in so many different ways. Passion can inspire both creation and destruction. If, on the other hand,'to love' is itself the action, does that mean that the passion is the consequence or end of love. Actually, that sounds like a pretty reasonable idea. In that case, hate is not the opposite of love but is instead the consequence.

Ana said...

Passion like falling in love (or in hate for that matter) happens to you. “Passio ” (the Latin root) implied that you are the object of an action and not the subject and it can be translated as “to happen to”.
To love as action is a matter of choice. In Symposium, Socrates chooses to love (eros) young men in order to assist them so they shall bloom in virtue and reap the fruits of reasoning. He is not in love with young men; he suffers no passion for young men (unlike Plato he does not seem to be interested in men at all). In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul states that love (agape) sees all, forgives all, conquers all and suffers all. To love here is also a matter of choice: to see but to forgive, to be able to conquer but to suffer persecution.
Thus passion is neither the beginning, neither the end of love as action but something different. It is true though that it is much easier to love one when you are falling in love passionately with him, but in some circumstances –Christian love or Socrates’ “falling in love” is not a condition.

Symmetric: hate can be passion but can also become a way of life. To be a racist, xenophobe, homophobe or misogynist is a matter of choosing to hate. We are all biased, it is true and there are biases we might never be able to overcome. And there are people that are going to irritate us to the point were it would be better to avoid them. But to choose to dwell in our prejudices and trace guidelines based on them it is to choose to hate. And hate as such had never been preceded by love and will never end because of passion.

to-morrow said...

It sounds like a prose poem. A mixture of power and sensibility. It’s great!
“But to fall in love is not same as to love. To love is an action” . My comment: to love demands time and dedication, it's a prolonged action.
Apparently, people can be compared to clothes – this is the end of your poem. It reminds me of a novel I started to read: “The Clothes of their Backs”, by Linda Grant (“Rochia cea noua” – in Romanian). A book about immigration, identity and clothing as an expression of the inner self.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for such a thorough response. It struck me as I was reading that I have not had a great deal of exposure to the philosophy of passions. That seems suddenly rather odd, given that I have studied quite a bit on ethics and morality. Is a discussion of morality relevant if it does not seek to define passion? I need to really consider that question properly. I guess Aristotle's NE would be a good place to start.

I notice that the claim that 'love is an action' ties in nicely with Aristotle's discussion of voluntary and involuntary actions in Book III of his NE. I'm rather curious now to consider how love crimes and hate crimes might be judged in that context.

Thanks for re-igniting my passion.

Anonymous said...

This is wonderful. There is so much to love here. My favorite lines are these:

"True. But to fall in love is not same as to love. To love is an action. So you get a choice: to love or not to love…”

So well put and so true. Sometimes, when I "choose" to love people who don't seem loving at first, I am quite surprised at the positive outcome. Your words made me think of many scenarios.

I love your ability to make prose poetic. It's not an easy thing to do, but you do it so well! Thank you for your kind comments at my site. It has been a pleasure to meet you in these past few weeks. You have another fan:)

Ana said...

to-morrow
Thank you, though I did not meant it as a prose poem…Just prose.
Yes, to love does require time and dedication and it does take time…
Brad
I did not dedicate much time to ethics and morality in college –just some required basic classes. Thus, I am unfamiliar with whatever Aristotle has to say. However I read quite a bit of Plato and some Christian minded philosophers. And I remember Kant’s moral writings – he said that good is the result of an intended action and not the result of a noble emotion (and he said that much better than I do it.)
“Hate crimes” are crimes that that target a certain group of people. They are intentional. They are premeditated most of the times and motivated by a doctrine that defines and excludes the targeted group. (Ok, I used to watch quite a bit of Law and order to when my toddlers were only babies). Hate is exclusive, love is inclusive…
“Love crimes” are actually crimes of passion. Hate, anger, fear are also passions. However given that they are passions, therefore they are quite subjective (see Wittgenstein), it is impossible to tell which is the actual passion or emotion that motivated such an extreme action.
Julie
Thank you for understanding this so well. And I hope and wish the best for your family.

Anonymous said...

great conversation!

i agree, yes, love is an action

what's funny is i just put a poem up that has also been accused of trivializing love by comparing trying on men to trying on shoes...