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1.12.2006
Re: Karenin's Smile
- We can never establish with certainty what part of our relations with others is the result of our emotions—love, antipathy, charity, or malice—and what part is predetermined by the constant power play among individuals.
2 Comments:
I read over your blog, and i found it curious. Relationships aren't bipolar objects of powerplay vs. emotions... Or are they? Kundera is so good (and therefore bad) at over-simplifying the truth and sounding vaguely philosophical. I loathed the book the first time I read it. Maybe it's time to read him again and see if I've grown up somewhat.
I'm curious as to why this quote has meaning for you. (It has no meaning for me, primarily because I do not believe that relationships are "things" to be divided into "parts". Relationships consist of events, a multifarious streams of events. We are in the habit of interpreting this stream as a "thing" but that doesn't hold up to close observation, just as a beautiful face is not recognizable from a picture of a single fold of skin.)
However I definitely agree that individual actions can be driven by various attitudes, for example the urge to dominate, or the urge to express love. But this is a problem with *all* action, not just that which relationships are made. Our minds are patchworks of emotional instability, unsatisfied (and sometimes unsatisfiable) need, and mindless clinging to the familiar. In a new romantic relationship, these two patchworks are wrapped together with a patina of hormones and mutual ignorance, and it's generally not pleasent to delve too deeply. :)
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