2003-04-18 - 12:19 a.m.

optimism, or denial, or both

There is a song that has been buzzing around inside my head in the last few days. And since I feel like it, I'm going to try to translate it while still making it rhyme, something I haven't attempted in a while, I might have a go:

As jy my sien, op die straat loop,

Na die hemel kyk, my twee voete sleep,

Jy gaan my verby, dit maak my nog huil,

Maar jy kan my opnieu volmaak

En as jy my met 'n ander meisie sien,

Lag en grap, die beste dat ik hiervan kan maak,

Ek wil nie jou neerslagtigmaak,

Liefie, ek wil jou nog hier,

Want jy kan my opnieu volmaak.

Toe die dag ons eers ontmoet het,

Ek kan nie ontkom, en kan glad nie vergeet,

Liefie jy's dié een,

Jy spoor my nog aan,

Jy kan my opnieu volmaak.

Myn hart broei baie hard tyd,

Dit lyk vir my te veel, deur ons apartheid,

My vriende gee my laggie, alhoewel net vir 'n oomblikie,

Maar jy can my opnieu volmaak.

Toe die dag ons eers ontmoet het,

Ek kan nie ontkom, en kan glad nie vergeet,

Liefie jy's dié een,

Jy spoor my nog aan,

Jy kan my opnieu volmaak.

Op die oomblik moet ek wag,

Maar liefie as jy van plan verander, sukkel seker nie,

Want ek kan net nie aanhou nie,

Dit het al héél te lank gewees,

Maar jy kan my opnieu volmaak.

Toe die dag ons eers ontmoet het,

Ek kan nie ontkom, of glad nie vergeet,

Liefie jy's dié een,

Jy spoor my nog aan,

Jy kan my opnieu volmaak.

....

2003-04-17 - 11:18 p.m.

can someone please define love for me?

I'd best give an account of what I did today while it is fresh in my mind so as to avoid confusion and so I don't fool myself or others...

I arranged to meet a girl in the city, Gh.Be. We met at Central. We went to my uni. This sounds familiar...

We made smalltalk. About uni, study, her exes. But unlike with Gh.B, there was no chemistry between us. It was like a job interview. We then had lunch at Subway. We then went back to uni, sat, talked, until such a time that she had to go home.

I was uneasy and not myself for most of this time. She recognised it. I later told her online that it was Because I had feelings for another girl and I think the reason I went out with her was out of longing to feel the same thing again. She seemed to totally understand, and all was cool. It is unlikely we will see each other again. I went to soccer and had a pretty good time.

Before soccer, I called Gh.B on the premise that I was responding to her SMS of the previous night. In fact, I was still crazy about her... during the course of the smalltalk that followd, she asked me what I did today. I said that I went into uni, but I didn't get any work done. Although not technically a lie, I felt such guilt that I had failed to tell her that I had met another girl in similar circumstances to the way in which we had met, that I felt terrible when I hung up.

I will now attempt an analysis of my behaviour:

Propositions regarding my behaviour today:

1. I went into the city to meet Gh.Be Because I wanted so badly to recapture the feeling that I had experienced with Gh.B that I recreated that same environment, thinking that it would produce the same results.

2. My justification for doing this with a girl other than her was a combination of the theory I mentioned yesterday that was proposed to me by her, that love doesn't exist, it's just chemicals, and also by the advice given me by Lesley, that I should be able to overcome these feelings of attachment to Gh.B by pursuing intimacy with someone else.

3. My awkwardness and resulting lack of chemisty between Gh.Be and me were due to a feeling of guilt, that I was somehow cheating on Gh.B, even though we are not currently an item in any tangible way.

Conclusions:

1. By all accounts, I was not at all successful in acheiving my aim as described in proposition no. 1.

2. Conclusion number 1 would therefore suggest that the justifications as described in proposition no. 2 were completely wrong.

3. Today's experience, and in particular its legacy as described in conclusion no. 2 would provide compelling evidence for the case that true love does indeed exist.

Or, perhaps I have missed something?

2003-04-17 - 12:37 a.m.

it was all a figment of my imagination

OK, so I think I am slowly accepting what they are saying to me, that I om not simply in love with her, but that I am in love with being in love. So simple to type up on a keyboard, so Impossible painfull to convince my heart that it is true.

Let me repeat it through my head a few times so as to convince myself. I'm not in love with her, I'm just in love with the feeling of being in love.

Hang on. If I were not genuinely in love with her, then I could not therefore be in love with this feeling, because if it indeed doesn't exist, I can't be in love with it...

Let's try it again then shall we... I am not in love with her, I am in love with the illusion of the feeling of being in love that I may or may not be feeling towards her.

That makes more sense now. But that raises an interesting question then. Can you be in love with something that doesn't exist? If it is a person, of course not. All but the staunchest existentialists or most fundamental Hindus would agree that the object of my affections, namely Gh.B, does indeed exist in a tangible sense. So there is no problem here. The problem lies with the definition of "being in love".

If, indeed, the feeling, desires and will towards her that I have experienced in the last few days do indeed fit the description of "being in love", then it is plausible that I may have an addiction of sorts to having these sorts of feelings, irrespective of their subject. But then this would make this latter point irrelevant, because the point in case was that it is these feelings constituted a negation of the will towards her that we earlier defined as "being in love (with her)", as opposed to being in love with these feelings themselves. Therefore, this definition can not be valid, if indeed I am not genuinely in love with her.

Another proposed definition of "being in love" follows: having a certain sequence of chemical reactions imposed upon your brain over which you exercise limited control, but which significantly alters you disposition towards a certain person, typically causing you to become persistently occupied with the subject's well being and hapiness, even to the point of sacrificing one's own well being.

Substituting this definition into the proposition, the sticking point now is, whether it is possible to be in love when the subject is no longer a tangible entity, for example, a person of the opposite sex, but in fact an intangible, perhaps spiritual, force of energy whose only evidence in the physical world is the presence of certain chemicals in the brain in particular sequences. Since there is virtually no empirical evidence for this either way, I will assume this then to be true.

In this case, I believe that the proposition could well be true. Hence, I am not genuinely in love with her.

But then this raises a disturbing point, one which she herself suggested: that love itself doesn't exist. I find this very hard to swallow, to believe that this feeling of wanting to make her happy and be everything she ever wanted, is simply a by-product of chemical reactions, and has no spiritual significance.

I can understand then, why this belief is so popular in our society. Firstly, it alleviates the pain, gives an explanation to and provides an escape for those who have had such promises made to them which have subsequently been broken. Secondly, it provides relief from guilt and commitment from those that have felt or have purported to feel such feelings but have decided for whatever reason not to follow through on them.

I find this disturbing because I have seen the pain that this belief causes. Both I and her have seen this in our parents' marriages. And whereas I have resolved not to allow this to happen to myself, she has taken this as evidence that love does not exist. This only compounds this feeling, because I just want to show her by my own love and committment that this is simply not true! But this seems unlikely to happen.

However, I also realise that in order to cope, it is best not to press any further with Gh.B unless something changes dramatically.

Perhaps a few more marathon sessions in front of the computer and my head will be more sorted out. My life is not a complete disaster, I am not that sad... I'm going to bed now.

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