Here's something from a famous playwright and poet: "Heaven finds means to kill your joys with love". What do you make of that?
You're sitting on your back deck. It's mid-morning in late Spring. You have your coffee in hand and the local paper on your lap. You're looking out over the back 40. You decided not to plant corn on this parcel to let the soil recuperate a bit. There's an article in the paper about a farmer who lives not too far from you who swears he saw a UFO. You don't think so. But to prove to yourself you're open-minded, you get the idea to make some kind of design on your parcel that would signal to a UFO that there is semi-intelligent life down here. You look up how to make a spiral. You decide that an Archimedean spiral (named after the 3rd-century BC Greek mathematician Archimedes) will suffice. You are going to make something that looks like this: You figure 800 footsteps will do. You grab a stake, measuring tape, and a pair of snow shoes. You pound the stake and start walking in a circle, letting out the measuring tape a little at a time. It takes you less than 20 ...
I need to re-read that after a tall pour of wine.
ReplyDeleteTotally ...
DeleteTotally? Totally what? A total bottle of wine? Here's a couple of ideas. And I quote: "Love is just a lie made to make you blue." "Love stinks." "Love brings such misery and pain" and countless other song lyrics along the same line.
ReplyDeleteTotally. As in, I need to re-read that, etc. But since you push, 'Heaven' is meaningless to me but I get the sentiment. A tall pour isn't really going to help me here. Love is a word and a concept that is so vague and so layered that it invites us to project all our neuroses onto it. There is too much here to get into in a satisfying way, but I do interpret love as support. When I love someone, I mean to say that I support them and believe in them as a person. The person they are, they could be, they might be.
DeleteLove whispers softly,
Pain echoes in empty rooms,
Hearts bound, bittersweet.
Looks like you're right, there's too much to get into here just from a simple quote from somewhere in Shakespeare's works. It was innocent enough on my part I just wondered what you might think of it. And of course it was out of context. But did like your idea of love and support, works for me. And pain can be an echo of love? Thanks for your comments and the nice haiku.
DeleteLove is paradox wrapped in a mystery and reminds me of peoples grappling's with "God" and what is the saying? "God is Love" 🤔 Anyway, "Love" for me, is a verb. Going to see Fiddler? I sing about it.
ReplyDeleteAnd Joy by the phrase you posted, Brian, would be something closer to maybe a forbidden love or a carefree lifestyle, that is sacrificed in the name of a greater good or a higher calling?
It could also represent a more general loss of innocence or youthful idealism that comes with experiencing the complexities of love and life. "Joy" being something as fickle as "happiness"? I would argue that you can have joy as an anchor in life while "happiness" comes and goes. Or is it flipped? Is Joy the fickle one and Happiness the anchor?
If love is a verb, then it isn't oatmeal, all warm and mushy, but sometimes can be hard. All the sad love songs give testimony to that.
The three types of love: Eros, Philia, and Agape, will sit differently in our hearts. Will "feel" different. Will give and take differently.
Where does motherly love sit? Philia? Agape? That kind of love is having your heart spout legs and leave your body - and you are only as happy as the saddest kid, because of that love.
I would say - Brian, "Totally" a bottle of wine.
Wow, I'm definitely going to need a bottle of wine and go through this again. Love is a verb! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteTotally!
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