Knee-Jerk Cataclysm
“People react to fear, not love - they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.”
To be sure, when he said those words, Leonardo (di ser Piero) da Vinci was talking more about politics and society than the deep bond between lovers. In fact, he spoke little of love. In fact, the guy was a raving paedophile and made plenty of statements concerning the fact his work would be diluted if he fell into proper love (idea enough for yet another post, there). But this quote of his is interesting nonetheless, and loveless kiddy-fiddler or not, the man managed to turn the roughest woman of the 16th Century into a masterpiece worth her considerable weight in platinum. So I think his words are worth a thought or two.
Let’s consider his phrasing in the way I want you to interpret it. That is; we guide our actions more on our fears than on our loves.
I think that the more heartbroken and fucked among us adhere to this rule – to some extent. The more heartbroken and fucked, the more adherence. Innocence doesn’t bring aversion to pain (touched on here), and the magnitudes at which you've been fucked over are directly proportional to the lengths you’ll go to in order to not be fucked over.
The “lengths you go to” to avoid the pain of loss don’t even have to be active. Usually they aren’t: Nobody strangles the people they might fall in love with. They’re more passive measures, taking the form of not opening up to people, dismissing the fact of love as something you look for, crusted scar tissue on your heart. There are posts to do with these things all over this site, spreading back over the six months’ combined whining of many broken romantics and their myriad wounds.
That, in itself, doesn’t prove that we react more to fear than love. It just proves that we do react to fear; or through passive results, effect such a reaction. Cool. But just as Mozart’s seemingly happy Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, when deconstructed and examined, actually contains the saddest music ever written in C Major, the sprawled mass of poisonous gibbering we do on here actually contains the most lovestruck literature ever written in E-Flat Fuckover. We all, of course, worship love more than most which is precisely why - when it stridently tears our aorta out and plays our heart and ribcage like a grisly set of bagpipes - we don’t think “oh, too bad, move on”, we think “god is a cunt”.
So we do act on love, there’s no doubt of that either.
Thus, my ponder of the day:
Do we, and those that have suffered much at the clawed hands of a gloveless love, act more out of fear than love when it comes down to it? Fear of the impending heartbreak, the shadows behind us, the cunt on the horizon? Or do we recklessly throw ourselves into the hurricane and hope to reach the eye? And do we all have this crazy tendency to put everything into tenuous metaphors and analogies? Or is that just me?
The serious question is left open to debate. As for myself, I think it’s an unhealthy mix of the two. I will try to pursue love, whilst shielding my heart in its cold, desolate bastion until the very end. Unfortunately, the very end comes about from the very fact that my heart is in its bastion. It never opens its doors until it’s moments too late.
Oh and it’s Leonardo’s birthday today (spotted it on Google's infinitesimally educational title graphic), hence the intro. Remember to raise a glass to him this evening, to toast the fact he made interesting statements despite sodomising young boys. Bravo.
To be sure, when he said those words, Leonardo (di ser Piero) da Vinci was talking more about politics and society than the deep bond between lovers. In fact, he spoke little of love. In fact, the guy was a raving paedophile and made plenty of statements concerning the fact his work would be diluted if he fell into proper love (idea enough for yet another post, there). But this quote of his is interesting nonetheless, and loveless kiddy-fiddler or not, the man managed to turn the roughest woman of the 16th Century into a masterpiece worth her considerable weight in platinum. So I think his words are worth a thought or two.
Let’s consider his phrasing in the way I want you to interpret it. That is; we guide our actions more on our fears than on our loves.
I think that the more heartbroken and fucked among us adhere to this rule – to some extent. The more heartbroken and fucked, the more adherence. Innocence doesn’t bring aversion to pain (touched on here), and the magnitudes at which you've been fucked over are directly proportional to the lengths you’ll go to in order to not be fucked over.
The “lengths you go to” to avoid the pain of loss don’t even have to be active. Usually they aren’t: Nobody strangles the people they might fall in love with. They’re more passive measures, taking the form of not opening up to people, dismissing the fact of love as something you look for, crusted scar tissue on your heart. There are posts to do with these things all over this site, spreading back over the six months’ combined whining of many broken romantics and their myriad wounds.
That, in itself, doesn’t prove that we react more to fear than love. It just proves that we do react to fear; or through passive results, effect such a reaction. Cool. But just as Mozart’s seemingly happy Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, when deconstructed and examined, actually contains the saddest music ever written in C Major, the sprawled mass of poisonous gibbering we do on here actually contains the most lovestruck literature ever written in E-Flat Fuckover. We all, of course, worship love more than most which is precisely why - when it stridently tears our aorta out and plays our heart and ribcage like a grisly set of bagpipes - we don’t think “oh, too bad, move on”, we think “god is a cunt”.
So we do act on love, there’s no doubt of that either.
Thus, my ponder of the day:
Do we, and those that have suffered much at the clawed hands of a gloveless love, act more out of fear than love when it comes down to it? Fear of the impending heartbreak, the shadows behind us, the cunt on the horizon? Or do we recklessly throw ourselves into the hurricane and hope to reach the eye? And do we all have this crazy tendency to put everything into tenuous metaphors and analogies? Or is that just me?
The serious question is left open to debate. As for myself, I think it’s an unhealthy mix of the two. I will try to pursue love, whilst shielding my heart in its cold, desolate bastion until the very end. Unfortunately, the very end comes about from the very fact that my heart is in its bastion. It never opens its doors until it’s moments too late.
Oh and it’s Leonardo’s birthday today (spotted it on Google's infinitesimally educational title graphic), hence the intro. Remember to raise a glass to him this evening, to toast the fact he made interesting statements despite sodomising young boys. Bravo.
posted by Juliet is Bleeding... | 2:06 pm
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
It would be nice if you exhibited even trace amounts of thought or humour when crack whoring your link, you shameless chickenshitstain.
Thankee, though I think your comment is fluid and interesting enough. And unfortunately, you're right; it's always better if your fears are born of your own neuroses and hangups, because those can be dwelt on and hopefully exorcised by our developing wisdom. However, when the fears are born of something that someone retarded did to you, then there really is no way around an ever-dimming view of humanity and the fecks that plague it.
I wish I could say I trust anybody with myself these days, but I've had the wool pulled over my eyes by so many perfect incarnations of the devil that it's hard to do. My light starts at amber and tends to red. It takes quite a bit for it to go green anymore.
As you say, though: We live in hope.