What Now? > What Now?
Schopenhauer in Love!
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Holden:
I'd never offer anyone a bunch of grapes again.Ever! :)
http://youtu.be/6R8NNLQbQNU
Nation of One:
This is utterly fascinating Capiton: Schopenhauer as philosophy's Dr. Love!
He had written that a married philosopher belongs in comedy, to which I added: "A flirting philosopher is pretty comical as well."
Success with women eluded him. Nor could Kafka keep such relations together. Maybe some of us are too honest and reflective, both men and women, to keep up the farce demanded by polite society. Arrrrrrr ...
I am forever smitten by one or two or three or four or ... women simultaneously - like Dostoevsky's "Prince Myshkin" (the Idiot). The thing is, since I am protective of my solitude and I know that emotional entanglements lead to heartache (and worse), I don't really seriously pursue relations. And yet, when such a woman really needs me (most often for some unpleasant task such as moving her from one apartment to another) I often come running like a love-sick loyal canine.
Fortunately my teeth are now all but rotten, I have more hair on my legs and chin than on my skull, and I am usually quite penniless ... and skinny to boot ... so I don't have to bat women away with a hammer. ;D
This little documentary on Schopenhauer gives me some insight into my own wretched experiences with "love" and "romantic infatuation".
You remember the film "Henry Fool" - how when Henry impregnates and marries Fay Grimm?
He said, "This is how great men fall" or something like that.
I don't think I can be domesticated. Whenever I've "played house" with a woman, I'm the one who ends up doing all the cooking (which I enjoy doing) and cleaning.
There is surely a comical side to all this.
Have you heard of Malcolm Lowry, the author of Under the Volcano? He shunned "love" in order to protect his solitude. He ended up drinking himself to death in Mexico while finishing that very novel.
There's just no figuring any of this out. All one can do is be oneself and live out one's story no matter how tragic, absurd, and ridiculous. :-[
--- Quote ---I'd never offer anyone a bunch of grapes again.Ever
--- End quote ---
I had read about his infatuation with that young woman who had just turned 17. She was repulsed by him? He was only 44 or so, and she refers to him as "that old Schopenhauer".
So, why do fools fall in love? Why offer grapes to a woman who does not appreciate you as a Being? Why throw pearls before the swine? >:( ;)
Octavio Paz says love belongs to the one who loves, not to the beloved.
Nation of One:
This is something I really have in common with Schopenhauer (and possibly Cioran as well - it is said that Cioran was constantly falling in and out of love): a lone wolf scholar/madman-philosopher who is literally haunted with images/spectres/phantoms of women I encounter in my daily life. It is not like I carry around a torch for previous romantic "crushes" of the past. No, it seems that wherever I go I end up experiencing "intrusive thoughts" just from the slightest exchange of the "copulatory glance".
I think I am reaching a point where I suffer/enjoy the "chemical reaction" privately. I used to imagine that the chemical reaction was mutual and comically try to verbalize what was going on within me. Now I kind of just take it in stride and figure it will fade away eventually.
Schopenhauer went into great detail about the reasons behind such "strong attractions" in Volume 2 of The World As Will and Representation in the chapter called "The Metaphysics of S-E-X-ual Love".
One could agree philosophically with David Benatar (author of Better Never To Have Been Born), Cioran, and Schopenhauer and still be 100% under the "spell" of Nature. That's why I urge myself to be patient with myself and not to get too flustered when I find myself "disturbed" by intrusive thoughts from my photographic memory.
??? :D :'( :P
Nation of One:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieCUC6bqPs8
I am still amazed at how vulnerable I am to unrequited love. Why are some of us attracted to those who would abuse us emotionally, psychologically, and even physically?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf3EvfBSxuk&list=RDMM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIrE30iUy-E
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