Has anyone read A River Sutra by Gita Mehta? I just finished reading it for my English class, and loved it.
Anyway, one of the topics that she really digs into is love, and desire, and how they tie into life. One of her characters says "without desire there is no life" and another talks about how difficult it is to imagine love without the symbols of love. I found this to be an interesting idea, that if we didn't have the flowers, the rings, etc, that we wouldn't be able to imagine what love is.
My question; do you think this is true? How do you think that people can show their love without symbols? Obviously through actions, but what if actions are symbols too?
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
Love is the ebb and flow of the tides of the human psyche. You've got your land, and you've got your water. You've got a sun pulling a big daily tide around, and a moon pulling a big monthly tide around. When the water is up, that is you loving someone because of who you are. When the water is down, that is you loving someone because of who they are.
Posted by Joldo (Member # 6991) on :
Stupid hippies . ..
Love makes the world go 'round and my lunch come up.
Posted by Foust (Member # 3043) on :
Yep, actions are symbols. Things are only understandable if they fall into a system of symbols.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"I found this to be an interesting idea, that if we didn't have the flowers, the rings, etc, that we wouldn't be able to imagine what love is."
I think it's absolutely true. Love has a language, just like almost every symbolic emotion has a language, and that language shapes our perception of it. Without those symbols to provide us with context, we would have no concept of the emotion, nor recognition of its existence.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
I really don't buy the bit about the necessity of symbols for feeling and communicating love. While things aren't going so well in my marriage right this moment, I've been madly in love with my wife from pretty much the moment we met, and we've had a successful marriage for eight years without the use of symbols like rings, flowers, anniversaries, exchanges of Valentine's Day gifts, and the like. Those things can be okay, but they aren't necessary to convey love. We've pretty much constantly telegraphed our love for each other by caring, and acting on that caring to make the other's life as good as it possibly can be. This includes intense and nearly constant communication (and the reason that we're having some trouble right now is because the communication has become pretty patchy, due in part to being on different continents), exploration of the other, advice when it's needed, and an ear always. One of the most profound evidences of Christine's love for me has been the level of mental health she has simply demanded from me. If I'm anything less than I can be she sees it as a tragic waste. She's incredibly sensitive to what is going on inside people--she's a natural therapist--and very good at helping them to work through whatever is going on within them. She'll do this with me even when she's pissed as hell at me.
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Of course, if you want to argue that all action is symbol then yeah, of course the only way to convey love is through symbol. That seems to me, though, to reduce the concept of "symbol" to a point of uselessness, since it means that what you're really asking is "is it possible to convey love without taking any action that could be construed as loving".
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
I don't believe that all action is symbol, no.
But I do believe that symbols -- be they linguistic or pictoral or whatever -- make it not only possible for us to express abstracts but also shape our conception of those abstracts.
In fact, I'd even go so far as to assert that you and your wife, who do not go in for many of the "traditional" symbols of love, may well have a different concept of love and perhaps even feel a slightly different sensation than a couple who buys into the American cultural semiotics. What you call "love" may very well not be what someone who includes chocolates and flowers and long walks on the beach in their mental image of love considers to be "love." In fact, it almost certainly isn't. But precisely because there is no hard and fast definition of the term, we're left to pin it down with shared symbology.
Posted by Yozhik (Member # 89) on :
Love is an illusion created by chemicals.
Posted by Eaquae Legit (Member # 3063) on :
One man I lived with wasn't able to speak, sign, and only communicated - with help - via an alphabet board.
Some time during an incredibly frustrating and tiring week, he took my hand, dragged me upstairs, sat me on his bed, and he sat in his chair. And we just sat there together in silence for a quarter hour or so.
No, love doesn't need symbols.
Posted by Danzig avoiding landmarks (Member # 6792) on :
Love might be expressed via chemicals, but it is not created by them. Nor is it an illusion; anything you feel is real to you.
I view love as the lover prioritizing the beloved's well-being above their own. I am not sure how or who determines "well-being".
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
quote: that language shapes our perception of it
So you are an adherent of the Sapir Whorf theory, then?
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Oh, come on. Someone's gotta say it:
quote:Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
-H.L. Mencken
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote: I found this to be an interesting idea, that if we didn't have the flowers, the rings, etc, that we wouldn't be able to imagine what love is.
That is *so* bogus. What really matters is finding out how someone perceives love and to show it in that way. If they like flowers and rings, fine. But not everyone does. And they shouldn't have to. That is what society tells us love is, and they are wrong.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote: (and the reason that we're having some trouble right now is because the communication has become pretty patchy, due in part to being on different continents)
I didn't know you were far apart. That sucks. Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote: But I do believe that symbols -- be they linguistic or pictoral or whatever -- make it not only possible for us to express abstracts but also shape our conception of those abstracts.
I think it isn't so much about symbols as communication. A symbol can communicate effectively to one person and be totally lost on another. If I bought Porter flowers, he would recognize that I was trying to do something sweet, but he'd really wish I hadn't done that. And I know him well enough to know that he would feel that way. Therefore that particular symbol is an ineffectual way of communicating my love for him.
Making him a tasty meat on the other hand, that communicates love in a symbol he understands.
quote: I view love as the lover prioritizing the beloved's well-being above their own. I am not sure how or who determines "well-being".
Wow, President Hinckley said almost this *exact* same thing.
[ January 25, 2005, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: beverly ]
Posted by Noemon (Member # 1115) on :
Heinlein has said more or less the same thing too.
So has Spider Robinson, but he was paraphrasing Heinlein, I think.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
I could have love without the cultural symbols. Love is what ties people together. Love is mutual caring for each other. That can be shown in myriad ways.
Posted by Corwin (Member # 5705) on :
Love is what makes the world go round. Love of gold...
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
Noemon, it sucks - totally sucks - that you and your wife are on different continents. Of course that will put a strain on the relationship. How could it not? I hope you two can be together again soon.
Love is what makes the world go round. Posted by JonnyNotSoBravo (Member # 5715) on :
quote:Love is an illusion created by chemicals.
Chemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
quote: I could have love without the cultural symbols. Love is what ties people together. Love is mutual caring for each other.
*whispers* You just used symbols to tell me what you think love is. Now try it without symbols. (Or don't. It would be a waste of time.)
Love is only what we, as two people having a conversation within the context of our societies, call it. It's a nebulous concept, and the mere fact that it can be defined as broadly as "mutual caring" and "willing to put another person's interests above your own" (from Danzig) suggests that there are different perceptions of love based on different priorities. But we knew that.
What is interesting, however, is that I strongly suspect that a large part of what we consider to be love is shaped by our expectations of love and the trappings we apply to it.
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Love changes everything - hands and faces, earth and sky. Love can make the summer fly or a night seem like a lifetime. Love changes everything - nothing ever, ever will be the same. Love lifts us up where we belong, where the eagles fly, on a mountain high. Love makes us act like we are fools, throw our lives away for one happy day. Love is just a game.
[ January 25, 2005, 10:12 AM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
Posted by Da_Goat (Member # 5529) on :
Love is real, real is love Love is feeling, feeling love Love is wanting to be loved Love is touch, touch is love Love is reaching, reaching love Love is asking to be loved Love is you You and me Love is knowing We can be Love is free, free is love Love is living, living love Love is needing to be loved
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
quote: My question; do you think this is true? How do you think that people can show their love without symbols? Obviously through actions, but what if actions are symbols too?
Well, if you are arguing that *every* form of communication (actions, touch, words) counts as a symbol, and that you can't have love without communication--well DUHHH.
What was the point again? Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
I bet you could turn that into a pretty catchy song, Kat.
Hobbes Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
Love is consisted of millions of tiny robots in your bloodstream that distribute select quantities of Necco* extract around your body. The resulting chemical reaction is love.
*You know those little hearts with stuff written on them that taste like chalk?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Someone just got their heart broken...
Hobbes Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled. --Ellison
Love is a perky elf dancing a merry little jig and then suddenly he turns on you with a miniature machine gun.
Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come.
— Matt Groening, Love is Hell
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Hmmm, apparently that someone is Storm Saxon. Want to talk about it Storm?
Hobbes
[ January 25, 2005, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: Hobbes ]
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Oooooh, someone's feeling more cynical than I am! Cool. Particularly the ice weasels part. Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
What is love? Baby, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me. No more.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
I keep my heart in a duck's egg, in an ironclad box, at the bottom of the ocean. So, it is impossible for me to get my heart broken.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Maybe the egg hatched.
Hobbes Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Now that's just silly.
Posted by WheatPuppet (Member # 5142) on :
quote: At night, the ice weasels come.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Tom, I said cultural symbols. I could never say "love" and still feel love. That's the one problem I had with The Giver, which I otherwise adore.
Posted by Kama (Member # 3022) on :
quote:I keep my heart in a duck's egg, in an ironclad box, at the bottom of the ocean.
Stormy, are you saying you're that evil old man from Russian tales?
Posted by Danzig avoiding landmarks (Member # 6792) on :
I do not think love requires mutual caring. I can conceive of loving someone who did not love me. Not a desirable state, but possible.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Love, unrequited, keeps me from my rest.
quote: Tom, I said cultural symbols. I could never say "love" and still feel love. That's the one problem I had with The Giver, which I otherwise adore.
Could you elaborate, kq? I don't know what you mean by this. I read The Giver -- and love it -- but don't remember/understand the issue.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
Jonas has never heard of "love" until he gets a memory concerning it, and he goes home and asks his parents if they love him. They chide him for "imprecision of language". Because they don't use the word for love, they say it doesn't exist.
Off topic, but related to this, have you read the two "sequels" to The Giver? I really liked them. (Also, I was glad to know that Jonas and Gabe survived. That was left kind of ambiguous at the end of the book, and I like happy endings to stories I get that emotionally invested in, at least for the main characters.)
Posted by Uhleeuh (Member # 6803) on :
There were sequels? I have to get those now. I read that book in 7th grade and loved it beyond words. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
quote: Jonas has never heard of "love" until he gets a memory concerning it, and he goes home and asks his parents if they love him. They chide him for "imprecision of language". Because they don't use the word for love, they say it doesn't exist.
Ahhhh! Ok, I remember that. But I'm not sure what your objection is -- to them, with no previous experience contextualizing "love," it IS an imprecise use of language.
The sad part, IMO, is not so much that they cannot express love for him. It's that there's no particular evidence that they FEEL it.
quote: Off topic, but related to this, have you read the two "sequels" to The Giver? I really liked them.
There are SEQUELS?!? *jawdrop*
quote: (Also, I was glad to know that Jonas and Gabe survived. That was left kind of ambiguous at the end of the book, and I like happy endings to stories I get that emotionally invested in, at least for the main characters.)
Yeah, I totally was sure that it was like The Little Match-Girl. But in a thread we had a while back (over a year ago, IIRC) about the book, someone linked to a Q&A with Lowry where she confirmed their survival.
Posted by ketchupqueen (Member # 6877) on :
The sequels are Gathering Blue and The Messenger. The last one is a little sadder, but still fulfilling.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
*adds to library list*
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
Heh. I'm with Storm.
Love is the word used to label the sexual excitement of the young, the habituation of the middle-aged, and the mutual dependence of the old. -- John Ciardi
Love is the same as like except you feel sexier. -- Judith Viorst
Love: the delusion that one woman differs from another. -- H. L. Mencken
Love is the self-delusion we manufacture to justify the trouble we take to have sex. -- Daniel S. Greenberg
Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock. -- John Barrymore
The one who loves least controls the relationship.
Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies. -- John Donne
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
Hey, are those from The Cynic's Lexicon? Posted by Grisha (Member # 6871) on :
quote: *adds to library list*
*does the same*
also, nice refrance ryuko, but now i have that haddaway song stuck in my head. Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
Well, I should the Donne one isn't. Though my favorite is the Haddock one.
Posted by Storm Saxon (Member # 3101) on :
quote: Stormy, are you saying you're that evil old man from Russian tales?
I'm not saying it...though I am implying it quite heavilly. Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
quote:What you call "love" may very well not be what someone who includes chocolates and flowers and long walks on the beach in their mental image of love considers to be "love." In fact, it almost certainly isn't. But precisely because there is no hard and fast definition of the term, we're left to pin it down with shared symbology.
I would say that people who find out what love really is have learned that it isn't chocolate and flowers. I would say that people who think love is chocolate and flowers (and going further, every emotion related to that - stupid giddyness and irrational anxiety) don't really know what love is yet.
Of course, I would also say that there is only one kind of love. I don't think the love between you and your spouse is a different thing than the love that should exist between you and every fellow being. Different manifestations, different appropriate manifestations, sure, but the actual substance of love is the same.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
"Of course, I would also say that there is only one kind of love."
I'm sure this is the only point on which you and the ancient Greeks would disagree.
-------
"I could never say 'love' and still feel love."
Whereas I disagree. I believe that if there were no word for love in our language, you would not in fact recognize nor acknowledge the emotion.
[ January 26, 2005, 10:31 AM: Message edited by: TomDavidson ]
Posted by Lady Jane (Member # 7249) on :
Bobble, you break my heart.
Posted by margarita (Member # 6856) on :
quote: "Of course, I would also say that there is only one kind of love."
I'm sure this is the only point on which you and the ancient Greeks would disagree.
The Greeks have...9 words for love? I think?
I'm currently learning a language that has 27 words for love. It's maddening.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
quote:"Of course, I would also say that there is only one kind of love."
I'm sure this is the only point on which you and the ancient Greeks would disagree.
Oh no, I disagree with them on a great many things.
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
Hence the smiley.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
I'm a part of the problem here, aren't I? No wonder you had so much trouble with the j/k.
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
If it makes you feel any better, Katie, I think you're a very pretty haddock.
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Could you elaborate, kq? I don't know what you mean by this. I read The Giver -- and love it -- but don't remember/understand the issue.