How can I live without that woman, more like!
From "The Fall"
"I once knew a manufacturer who had a perfect wife, admired by all, and yet he deceived her. That man was literally furious to be in the wrong, to be blocked from receiving, or granting himself, a certificate of virtue. The more virtues his wife manifested, the more vexed he became. Eventually, living in the wrong became unbearable to him. What do you think he did then? He gave up deceiving her? Not at all. He killed her. This is how I entered into relations with him."
I admit this is a somewhat odd way to start a Valentine tribute to my wife; and even more strange that the motives of this "noble criminal, "as his lawyer designated him, have never once occurred to me in the past 32 years. But apparently it occurs to many. I suppose that in existentialist-speak, he was ennobled by doing the deed and not just conceptualizing it. And that whether or not to act on one's worst feelings is not the point but simply to be honest in your actions as an individual.
However this manufacturer's experience has not been my experience even in the life of my mind much less my actions. However much I might try to explain this in words, in the last analysis I cannot begin to accomplish this; I will have to be judged by my actions also as influenced by not only by nature and nurture but by my free will and choice and, largely unbeknownst to me, the Holy Spirit. Yes, there is that. There is also the matter of maturity and getting over the poor judgment and poor choices of the past.
At least in the beginning, I never considered Flo to be a saint. I simply considered her to be an honest person who responded to honesty not with condemnation but with a welcoming compassion and not a little interest. Flo used to be a little jealous because I had written some "love poems," to a former girlfriend. But by the time I met her, the poetry thing was pretty well burned out. In fact, looking back, these were not love poems at all but admiration poems, because at the time I knew little or nothing about love, particularly not the unconditional type even though I was mistaken about never having seen any, I had just given up on it as possible for me to do or deserve, that's all. Basically it was exercising my own abilities to admire myself and my creations , thinking myself pretty clever, but still not thinking about the girlfriend as a real person but more or less as an aesthetic experience. (Herman Hesse, anyone?) Once I found the real thing, or, realistically speaking, the Real Thing found me, then the need to be poetic or even the need to be admired, became extinguished as a sort of adolescent defensive manuver that had been put in the place of recognizing people around us as both real and important.
As some of you remember, I went as far as India to try to find answers to my own selfishness and my simultaneous self-denigration. All I came away with was the psychobabble kind of thing, such as "You can't love others until you start to love yourself." Not exactly the wisdom of the ages but it was all I had to work with at the time. Or so I believed. "Do not despise the day of small things." Or small beginnings/steppingstones. However, after I came home from India I went from bad to worse until I was forced to give up not only on women but also on myself and relationships in general which I generally managed by clueless strategizing, and de-humanizing other people to suit my own needs. Or should I say, wants. I did not see this experience as very helpful or hopeful, but as Walker Percy and Dostoevsky might aver, giving up on the whole self motivated mess is not so much mental suicide as a chance to start completely over.
Guten Morgen then; more in Der Abend-Post...
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I found "The Fall" online and printed it out and have been reading it during slow times at work. During my early years I read Sartre and Camus and I always preferred Camus' style. There was always an emptiness in Sartre's work for me. I actually liked the work of his companion Simone de Beauvoir better. Perhaps it is my curiosity into the workings of the female mind. I also seek out female film directors for the same reason. There is no denying that women see the world and relationships differently than the male of the species.
ReplyDeleteI was interested in your relationship with your grandmother. I also had a saint for a grandmother. She was my father's mother and from what I can gather had a very hard life. She married my grandfather who was a brass mold maker in Medina, New York where my father was born in 1914. Following a life threatening illness of my father she moved to Buffalo and settled there. My grandfather became a bad alcoholic and my grandmother was forced to separate from him. Being a devout Catholic the thought of divorce was anathema to her. My grandmother raised my father by running a boarding house in downtown Buffalo. She hired her several sisters to help her with all the cooking and cleaning but they survived the depression.
I must confess that growing up I never had an understanding of this women. I viewed her as very old fashioned and her religious devotion used to irk me. She would spend most of Sunday mornings going to mass after mass only taking time to come home to prepare breakfast for my sisters and myself. Before bed she would put a scarf over her bedroom light so as not to disturb my sisters and spent hours doing her nightly prayer devotions. Never can I recall her ever raising her voice to me although I more than often deserved some harsh words.
I can honestly say that I never appreciated her, my Nanny, until I was married with a family of my own. I often meditate on how I was often disrespectful towards her with great regret.
Hopefully it has helped me become a better person.
I can't help but to tell you how much I enjoy reading your thoughts. Many of them mirror my own feelings and experiences. They give me the opportunity to reflect on my own thoughts about life and the unknown.
O YETZ!!!
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