I find it hard to write about some things. Love, death, happiness. I can talk about sex as a sort of abstract oncept that is unattainable in its purest form. Of course it is easier to write about concerete things: people, places. But feelings, especially those noble, lofty ones we all aspire to are not nearly as tangible or translatable. Baser intincts like lust are identifiable and can be readily diagnosed. But love is almost obscenely difficult to pin to a board to be examined under scrutinous microscope. Love is elusive and often mistaken, misdiagnosed and manipulated. Romantic love is even more endangered, disappearing from its native habitat at an alarming rate. Of course, love can be mistaken for truth, as in "true love" and then spirituality is ascribed to the most human of emotions. True love is always accompanied by celestial imagery and singing cherubim. But I think it is wrong to give love, a human emotion, a quality of heaven. Life on earth is flawed and love itself knows no perfection. The people we love are dark, monsters at time, and love fades and dies. Love is not truth, and yet one can find truth through another person. One can find transcendence through love, and that is a form of spirituality.
But the clarity of religious experience seems to be more akin to sexual ecstasy. The spiritual nature of love seems to be closely tied to physical acts, and as a societ that both embraces and rejects physicality and hedonism, it is difficult to reconcile the two with words or images. Any depiction of love and sex risks being voyeuristic; depictions of love and sex are stick figure paintings of the real thing. Any film, book, etc. that shows love loses any sanctity through distance and corporeal limitations. I hate watching romances, especially those marketed to single women as "chick flicks." Directors seem to mistake chemistry and compatability for genuine emotional attachment, and sometimes even love. Fairy tale endings do not happen, and it is cruel and at times disgusting to pretend otherwise. Romantic movies set up the average couple for failure, by promising a beautiful ending with happy grandchildren, when reality is
in fact a bitter, dark ending in death, divorce, or apathy. Life is what it is, and love is not truth or god, just the ecstasy and pain of being profoundly human. It is not the grandchildren, or the ending that makes love beautiful: it is the pain and the ecstasy of being human.
I feel it is easier to achieve that beauty through writing. Prose allows for at least the attempt to delve into emotion, whilst visual experiences seem to only skim the surface of emotion. I dislike the omniscient perspective in writing because only deity can claim to know everything, but the limited third person seems to most directly translate the human experience into "reality."
But the clarity of religious experience seems to be more akin to sexual ecstasy. The spiritual nature of love seems to be closely tied to physical acts, and as a societ that both embraces and rejects physicality and hedonism, it is difficult to reconcile the two with words or images. Any depiction of love and sex risks being voyeuristic; depictions of love and sex are stick figure paintings of the real thing. Any film, book, etc. that shows love loses any sanctity through distance and corporeal limitations. I hate watching romances, especially those marketed to single women as "chick flicks." Directors seem to mistake chemistry and compatability for genuine emotional attachment, and sometimes even love. Fairy tale endings do not happen, and it is cruel and at times disgusting to pretend otherwise. Romantic movies set up the average couple for failure, by promising a beautiful ending with happy grandchildren, when reality is
in fact a bitter, dark ending in death, divorce, or apathy. Life is what it is, and love is not truth or god, just the ecstasy and pain of being profoundly human. It is not the grandchildren, or the ending that makes love beautiful: it is the pain and the ecstasy of being human.
I feel it is easier to achieve that beauty through writing. Prose allows for at least the attempt to delve into emotion, whilst visual experiences seem to only skim the surface of emotion. I dislike the omniscient perspective in writing because only deity can claim to know everything, but the limited third person seems to most directly translate the human experience into "reality."
