Omnia Vincit Amor

OMNIA VINCIT AMOR:
A Panegyric for a Valentine

It has often been lauded as high praise to Love that it is blind; also that it conquers all things to overcome the universal condition of man, that is to say the brokenness and dysfunction present in each one of us. A brief reflection on these qualities shows them to be incompatible, leaving us to determine whether Love is a dichotomous entity, a dialectic, or possessing of an entirely separate quality from these.

When it is said that Love is blind it is not meant to be complimentary, that much is certain: The phrase is almost entirely reserved for the trite observation of a somewhat more seasoned, skeptical individual as pertains to a young couple happily floating along. The implication is that in Love one does not see the faults of the loved, but only sees the things they want to in their partner. This is most certainly blindness, but is it Love? It is analogous to a doctor, seeing his patient blind, saying that it is the feet of the man which cause the problem because the patient only stumbles while walking!

What is blinding is fear: Fear of being alone, fear of failure, fear of change. It is most certainly human nature to avoid being wrong. The more vacuous a relationship really is, the more we need to hope and pray that it's okay- turning a blind eye to the problem, and leaning on a sophism that says that ignoring the problems is in fact the key - no, the hallmark- of a healthy relationship. To say that it is Love to be blind to a person is to discredit Love terribly; loving an image of someone you've imagined is no love at all. Loving someone blindly is only foolish.

So does love conquer? This is the older idea of the two; Virgil proposed it in the middle days of the Roman Empire. Today we use it as the justification for our blindness- if Love conquers all things, then our differences and our problems are no problems at all, in fact they'll be overcome and happily packaged for us by Love! This is what the woman who knows her boyfriend is practicing an infidelity tells herself as the woman walking by thinks that Love is blind; it is a way for us to feel safe and secure in a flawed relationship while creating for ourselves the image of some kind of nobility. Ultimately, however, this is no Kierkegaardian sacrifice but a Wertherian romanticism; it will only lead a downward path to hurt and despite.

We further must consider what it would mean for Love to conquer our differences in relationship: A conqueror is rarely benevolent. The word itself is not a word of peace nor love, nor is it pleasantly connotated- neither was it in Virgil's day, a war-like time of Roman pride. (Keep in mind, Virgil was commissioned to write an epic history for Rome. Key words: WRITE HISTORY) It was in 47 BC that Julius Caesar used the words "Veni, vidi, vici" to describe his conquest of the Gauls- a campaign that can be equated with massacre and annexation of land for the purpose of ethnic cleansing and the expansion of an Empire.

If Love is about one person seizing control of another, ethnically cleansing them, and using them to expand their empire, it's been seriouslly overrated.

And that's the problem with both of these sophisms: They're just that; catch phrases that are just close enough to how it really is to seem right, to sound nice and wise, but to ultimately ring hollow. Love is something in the middle; or something that looks similar. Like we might say a blind man has a problem with his feet because we know no better ourselves, this diagnosis is unable to provide a solution.

I will include here a confession of my own that I am not especially eager to air publicly, because of my pride, but which I know that I must. I have partly out of pride, partly out of fear, spent most of my life living that Wertherian ideal; finding the most painful possible outcome and throwing myself into it out of a sense that it is noble to suffer, that it is better to lose love and write epic ballads about it than to have a happy, healthy relationship.

I've idolized the Brahms, the Mahler, the Phantoms of the Opera in this world; it hasn't been pretty. I've hurt a lot of people around me doing it, and I've hurt myself too. When you spend years orchestrating social failures for yourself, you start to forget how much of it you set up in the first place. I began to believe that I really was a failure, that I really wasn't loveable, and that I couldn't trust the people who said I was.

I'm free of that now in part because of recent experiences, in part because I've come to see what really is incredible about love. The experiences simply served to teach me that it is worthwhile to do hard things, not just things that feel hard. The Wertherian route is the easy path to take- you garner a lot of sympathy for a problem you don't really need to have in the first place. To actually make love work is a lot harder, and isn't as glamorous, but it is noble. And wonderful!

The problem with love being blind or conquering is that it means you can only love something that is as you like it. One way or another you're hiding from the truth of who someone else is, and loving an image you've created of them. It's false, it has no merit. If you believe someone is perfect, it's easy to love them! Why wouldn't you love a perfect being?

And if you have no choice, it has no merit. This is where Love becomes spectacular: You don't need to! We as humans have been loved by God not because we are perfect, but because we are flawed- not in spite of that fact, but because of it! Love is only possible where there is imperfection! If real love is more that just a feeling of warmth but rather a committment we make to another person regardless of feelings, an ideal we look up to and, if we understand it, would never violate, then it is certain that love must not be blind- for a blind person can see perfection no better than flaws- nor can it conquer- for to love a conquered person is to love oneself.

Love cannot conquer all things. It does not erase the past; it cannot change the present. Love will not alter persons or circumstances. It is no respecter of monies, of classes, nations, borders. Love is no feeling, no magic. Love is the ability of one entity to see another entity, in all their wretchedness and say- in full awareness- "This is beautiful".

Love cannot conquer all things- and that is what makes it beautiful: It doesn't need to.


Immer,
Benjamin

Dedicated to J__ M__ , 2/2009 Et nos cedamos amori

The Things I've Learned in a Year of Counterpoint: All Dissonance is Passing

Nothing more here than a few lessons I've learned in the last year...more to come in the next weeks, as well as explanations. This serves as filler while I prepare a sort of opus magnum over the next two weeks- a discussion of Christian morality, and Christian Anarchy.


Life is a lot like counterpoint, really. We often ask for it to be homophonic; planned, controlled, and worry when it isn't. Like isn't a chorale tune, though. Life is counterpoint. It swells, it fades, it conflicts and it inspires. And the first rule of counterpoint? All dissonance is passing. So sit back, and enjoy the ride. All things resolve.

A Few Other Lessons (bon mots):

Live your own dream; sing your own song.

Love cannot conquer all things; what makes it beautiful is that it doesn't need to.

Have grand dreams, but delight in small things.

Be mindful of what you fear; what you fear is what you worship.

Cynicism is a tool for a lazy thinker. It speaks loundly, but works little.
Criticism is silent, and acts swiftly and wisely.

The times when you feel most you cannot breathe are the times you need to step back and take a deep breath.

Every day, find something new that is beautiful, and learn to love it. A pebble, a blade of grass, a leaf, a star, a person. All life is wondrous, learn to see it as such.

Erkläret,
Benjamin

Ein Tugendlich Pfliecht

From my Notebook XII:

März 10, 2008-
Often as I am tired I find myself beginning to wonder, in retrospect, about decisions I have made. Questioning them, specifically. Revisiting again and again the mistakes and successes, but mostly mistakes, of my past.
What if I had asked earlier? What if I had done x different, or chosen y instead? Would that have fixed my current problem, or made it worse? Would I be happier? Can I ever fix it? Would my life be better now if I had chosen differently?

But I stop myself tonight.

Virtue does not wonder about what might have been. It sees what is, and though it need not be happy, accepts the present with quiet dignity. In this, there is honor. In doubtful retrospective, there is only confusion and retrograde growth.

The Poor Knight II

From Søren Kierkegaard: Fear and Trembling, p.30-A Panegyric upon Abraham

"Not one shall be forgotten who was great in the world. But each was great in his own way, and each in proportion to the greatness of that which he loved. For he who loved himself became great by himself, and he who loved other men became great by his selfless devotion, but he who loved Ideals became greater than all.

Everyone shall be remembered, but each became great in proportion to his expectation. One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal, but he who expected the impossible became greater than all.

Everyone shall be remembered, but each became great in proportion to the greatness of that with which he strove. For he who strove with the world became great by overcoming the world, and he who strove with himself became great by overcoming himself, but he who strove with ideals became greater than all. So there was strife in the world, man against man, one against a thousand, but he who strove with ideals was greater than all. So there was strife upon earth: there was one who overcame all by his power, and there was one who overcame God by his impotence. There was one who relied upon himself and gained all, there was one who secure in his strength sacrificed all, but he who believed those Ideals was greater than all.

There was one who was great by reason of his power, and one who was great by reason of his wisdom, and one who was great by reason of his hope, and one who was great by reason of his love, but the one who chose ideals, and Idiot to other men, was greater than all: great by reason of his power whose strength is impotence, great by reason of his wisdom whose secret is foolishness, great by reason of his hope whose form is madness, great by reason of the love which is hatred of oneself."

The Poor Knight I

From Dostoevsky's Idiot, Book 2, Chapter 6:

"Deepest respect," Aglaia went on gravely and earnestly, "because that poem simply describes a man who is capable of an ideal, and what is more, a man who having once set an ideal before him has faith in it, and having faith in it gives up his life to it. This does not always happen in our day. We are not told directly what the 'poor knight's' ideal was, but one can see it was some vision, and the knight in loving devotion has put a rosary around his neck instead of a scarf...anyway, it's clear that the poor knight did not care what his lady was, or what she did. It was enough for him that he had chosen her and put faith in her pure beauty and then did homage to her forever.

That's just his merit; if she were to become a thief afterwards, he would still be bound to believe in her and be ready to break a spear for her. He seems to be, in one striking figure, the grand conception of chivalry's Platonic love. Of course that is all an ideal- in the poor knight that feeling reaches its utmost limit in asceticism. It must be admitted that to be capable of such a love means a great deal, and that such love leaves behind a profound impression."