plato on love: sketches on my theory of love

my former theory:
to say that cross-gender interactions cannot be platonic is to say that you cannot give beauty the respect it deserves. you are saying you must always consume beauty. perfect love in heaven will be as c.s. lewis describes it in the four loves, with the beauty of one person passing through the beauty of another without need. but now we need (lewis describes the core of our being as desperate). and what to do with that need? certainly not to consume beauty, but first to respect it for what is and then to accept it's role as a satisfier when it is gifted in portion; it's role as satisfier is limited. being sustained with beauty is much like eating food, which we don't consume on sight, but appreciate with gratitude as we are gifted with portions a bit at a time. therefore, cross-gender interactions can be platonic. (note: it might be more accurate to describe these interactions as operationally platonic, since there always exists a sea of sexuality that we must chose not to act on in order to maintain platonic interaction.)

my new and improved theory of love:
though it is possible, platonic love is not what i seek. instead, it is a selfless love i'm theorizing. that is, i'm looking for a love which acts with pure motives. details of motivations aren't left out nor are they embellished. instead, this love takes on a concern for another's best interests. dredge your motives and come up with what means the most, that's what i say.

GLORY

"What It Is to Burn" ~Finch~

She burns

Today's on fire

The sky is bleeding above me, and I am blistered

I walk these lines of blasphemy, every day

And still:

Like a bad star, I'm falling faster down to her

She's the only one who knows, what it is to burn

I feel diseased

Is there no sympathy from the sun?

The sky's still fire

But I am safe in here, from the world outside

So tell me

What's the price to pay for glory?

Like a bad star, I'm falling faster down to her

She's the only one who knows, what it is to burn

Today is fire, and she burns

Today is fire, and she burns

She burns

She burns

She burns

She burns

She burns

She burns

Like a bad star, I'm falling faster down to her

She's the only one who knows, what it is to burn

in order to do this justice, be sure to listen at full volume while lying flat on your back.

it would be blasphemous to give anything less to the song.

the notion of Yesteryear and the ambivalent sentiment it illicits: nostalgia as the amalgamation of the sentiments of grief and belonging

it seems that the notion of Yesteryear has of late established itself in pop culture as the base descriptor of all things hip. if it's not retro, then "please, don't wear THAT!!!" and what i wonder is this: why this fascination with vintage clothing? why the popularity of so many bands (e.g., belle and sebastian) who either forsake the technological capabilities of recording and mixing equipment which is now available or -- WORSE -- who use up-to-date equipment and then proceed to downgrade the audio quality of their songs in order to achieve the 'oldies' sound?

i discovered a book on this phenomenon of Yesteryear called The Artificial Kindom: On the Kitsch Experience by Celeste Olalquiaga. Here's a description from amazon:

"...Celeste Olalquiaga offers a meditative look at the origins of kitsch and what kitsch tells us about the conflicts between the real and the artificial, tradition and modernity, nostalgia and melancholy. Olalquiaga artfully traces this form to the mid-1800s and establishes kitsch as a sensibility of loss-a yearning for objects to help recapture the past-and explains how these artifacts respond to a deep-seated human need for meaning and connection with nature. The Artificial Kingdom beautifully elucidates this aspect of culture as an attempt to recover what industrialization has destroyed."

so it sems this all has something to do with the two feelings which compose the notion of "nostalgia": belonging and grief. for those of us who have fond memories of our childhoods, the concept of Yesteryear is comforting. it triggers memories of waking on summer mornings to dew-drenched stawberry patches needing inspection for newly-ripened fruit, of countless hours of performing waterfalls from monkeybars and pennydrops from swinging trapeezes, of fort-building and popsicle-making and softball-playing. here the nostalgia is a positive emotion. ...but nostalgia is also a negative emotion. the memory of Yesteryear can also elicit a feeling of loss, of grief for that which is in the past and can no longer be relived. we are unable to bring back the good times, and it seems times these days are harder than they used to be; we long for the 'good ol' days.' there are also regrets, painful memories, 'what ifs.' ...so nostalgia includes both a positive and a negative component. which leads to ambivalence. why would people place themselves in a place of ambivalence? ...this is my question.

it just struck me that earlier today i was telling a friend how confused i sometimes feel as to how to handle the memories of losing someone i loved to a heart attack nearly three years ago. re-entering those memories for the sake of continued grief and continued celebration of this person's life seems to be important. but it's draining. ...good draining though. it helps makes sense of things. ...i guess maybe this all has something to do with the search for meaning. obviously the past is not the source of all things meaningful, but a synthesis of the things we've experienced in our lifetimes seems to be necessary for some reason or another. as the anniversary of mike's death approaches again, i plan not to supress the memories of Yesteryear as they give rise to the emotional ambivalence of nostalgia. grief seemed so intuitive in the early days. all you have to do is cry and be with each other. no one expects or requires anything more of you. but now even though every once in a while the trauma still feels like icy rain in my chest, the shock has worn off and my body is warm again. and i guess a hauting trauma of the past is important to remember as part of the story of our lives. but perhaps this year's rememberances are to be less about the trauma of death and more a temporary entrance into nostalgia, followed by a timely exit. afterall, nostalgic sentiment quickly becomes tacky, but for an appropriate amount of time it is lifegiving. so an entrance into nostalgia, a celebrative reminiscence of m's life? somehow i think i need this, even if just for a minute.

in order to end on a lighter note, here are a few versions of the game 'pong' for old times' sake (even though i was too young for this to be part of my childhood...it's still kitschy!)

http://www.worldofkitsch.com/interactive/games/pong.html (this one's more like the original atari game, though a bit difficult to play online.)

http://www.puzzlechoice.com/pc/Radial_Pongx.html (this one's more elaborate (2D!) and quite fun, though not as much in the spirit of the original pong.)

p.s. pink and purple were my absolute most favoritests colors when i was five. now that's kitschy.

p.s. 3D pong

here's a 3D version of pong. it's pretty hott.
http://www.addictinggames.com/3dpong.html

orange-heads

my friend gave me some orange-heads this afternoon. i think they were supposed to help me feel better because i'm sick, but i'm not sure of the nutritional value of orange-heads. is there such thing as imitation vitamin C? ...anway, regarding life decisions, this is what i think:

1. there is no need for a girl to push herself to either despair or panic when the unknown obscures and fades what would otherwise be a bright consciousness. control is an illusion anyway, so what's the point in trying to white-knuckle grip her agenda?
2. watch wide-eyed for what blooms, because flowers do.... (some have a timing all different than she would expect, but they still do.)
"be still and know that i am god."
and this too: "it just takes some time, little girl, you're in the middle of the ride. everything, everything will be just fine. everything, everything will be all right, all right." ~jimmy eat world, "in the middle"~
i. but first, it is absolutely necessary for her to ask the questions that will bring her life, i.e., what does it mean? who am i? where am i going? etc. wrestle, spin, demand. her longing for things to be the best they can be should never be compromised, and the pain when these longings aren't fulfilled must be entered. in the end, her longings will be wholly fulfilled; this is our hope. in the meantime, this pain is the first step of a two-step process (for second step, see above).