JW: Befuddlement of love

Lerrea Mohney

In Maria Popova's Wednesday note this week, I stumbled across a slippery new thought that seems to be hovering just outside my grasp. I am challenged by the abstract thoughts and literary linkages she offers and am not sure I have this right, but, in a nut shell, she seems to be saying that it is commonality that attracts, offering a possible merging of selves, a union of soul mates, a fusion into anam cara perfection ... but it is uncommonalities that offer us recognition that lights up unknown places within us.

"Decades into his long life, the poet Robert Graves defined love as 'a recognition of another person’s integrity and truth in a way that… makes both of you light up when you recognize the quality in the other.'

Selfing and Unselfing

"Selfing" ... recognizing ourselves in another is what Popova describes as "the most dangerous fiction the Romantics bequeathed us — their model of love as union between lover and beloved, a kind of fusion of selves, with its connotation of mutual completion."

The alternate to that view she seems to say is "uncommonality," what Iris Murdoch calls "unselfing," recognizing the other's "otherness" as the true basis of "mutual recognition of and rejoicing in two parallel completenesses."

I wonder for a moment if this idea might bring some light to some of Keen's questions?

And then the thoughts slide away as I try to grasp a more concrete metaphor to describe the "fit" that we think of as love. Puzzle pieces are a common metaphor, comfortably fitting into a sense of two pieces creating something more, a bigger picture. The commonality and idea of filling gaps is easy, tempting, but seldom as simple as carefully crafted puzzle pieces.

What we actually get in the arena of life and love is a puzzling combination of comfortable commonalities and startling otherness.

I think of my Aunt Lerrea, one of the great loves of my life. We had few easy commonalities: a generation apart, sporadic shared life experience, great gaps in education and world view, and only a semblance of shared spiritual beliefs. But somehow our uncommonalities fed a river of conversation and caring that only stopped with death. What drew us into life long conversation? What kept us there? Why were we able to love each other unconditionally? We never made a pledge to each other. We never had to. It was just written on our hearts that we would always be there for each other. We had five decades to weave this love into the fibers of our beings. It was part of who we were.

As I began this, I thought I had an answer:

commonalities draw us together

uncommonalities flash light into our unrecognized places.

However, since sometimes these things lead to love and sometimes they don't, I'm now back to pure befuddlement. And, that makes me wonder if this trying to pin love down like a beetle in a glass display case is sheer madness.

Sometimes "love" happens. Sometimes it doesn't. Maybe it's pheromones. Maybe it's just magic. Maybe, once again, it's the confusion that springs from conflating romantic love with caring, unconditional positive regard love.

In a previous post you say:

"Keen throws down the gauntlet: “The first and most important question any person can ask is: how can I become a more loving human being?” 

Maybe that's a clue ... being a more loving human being could be supported by appreciating both commonalities and uncommonalities. Maybe just recognizing where love has appeared in our lives and where it lurks now is the important part.

I know that my aunt and I truly loved and cared for each other. She was like a gentle rain in a desert. Because of her love, I grew softer and kinder. Because of her I still yearn to be kinder, more connected, more loving.