Love and Affinity
November 8th, 2008
when i step back to observe the aftermath, i always think it’s so strange how sometimes all it takes is one second. or one minute. for something big to sweep into our lives unexpectedly and change everything. it feels somewhat inconsistent to some major foundation of life. a woman spends 9 whole months bearing a child, not one minute. we spend days or weeks studying for our finals or putting together an important proposal, not mere seconds. we mourn for ages when someone we love dies. yet… sometimes all it takes is one moment for something incredibly beautiful, or incredibly disastrous, to happen. and we are taken completely by surprise. but i guess the unpredictability of each day is a major foundation of life too.
:)
anyway. i wanna share with you guys something interesting that i read today. this is part of a short speech by the greek writer Aristophanes on the subject of love. prior to this passage, he is telling his audience this myth of how humans originally had two faces, four legs, four hands, two sets of sexual organs. there were also three types of humans – male, female and hermaphrodites (an individual possessing both male and female characteristics and sexual organs). one day, the humans attempted to overthrow the gods, and when the gods saw this, they decided to punish the humans by cutting them in half and then scattering these halves across the world, thus weakening them.
so each human now had one face, two legs, two hands and one set of sexual organs; in other words, they have the human form that we now know of. if they were previously male, then their own other half would be male, and likewise with the females. but if they were previously hermaphrodites, their other half would be of the opposite sex. whichever way, because their natural form had been cut in two, each human longed painfully for its own half.
and thus Aristophanes says:
“this then is the source of our desire to love each other. love is born into every human being, it calls back the halves of our original nature together; it tries to make one out of two and heal the wound of human nature.
and so, when a person meets the half that is his very own, then something wonderful happens: the two are struck from their senses by love, by a sense of belonging to one another, and by desire, and they don’t want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment.
these are the people who finish out their lives together and still cannot say what it is they want from one another. no one would think it is the intimacy of sex – that mere sex is the reason each lover takes so great and deep a joy in being with the other. it’s obvious that the soul of every lover longs for something else; his soul cannot say what it is, but like an oracle it has a sense of what it wants, and like an oracle it hides behind a riddle. suppose two lovers are lying together, and Hephaestus stands over them with his mending tools, asking, “What is it you human beings really want from each other?”
and suppose they’re perplexed, and he asks them again: “Is this your heart’s desire then – for the two of you to become parts of the same whole, as near as can be, and ever to separate, day or night? Because if that’s your desire, I’d like to weld you together and join you into something that is naturally whole, so that the two of you are made into one. Then the two of you would share one life, as long as you lived, because you would be one being, and by the same token, when you died, you would be one and not two in Hades, having died a single death. Look at your love, and see if this what you desire: wouldn’t this be all the good fortune you could want?”
surely you can see that no one who received such an offer would turn it down; no one would find anything else that he wanted. instead, everyone would think he’d found at least what he had always wanted: to come together and melt together with the one he loves, so that one person emerged from two. why should this be so? it’s because, as i said, we used to be complete wholes in our original nature, and now ‘Love’ is the name for our pursuit of wholeness, for our desire to once again be complete.”
Extracted from The Speech of Aristophanes, in Plato’s Symposium.
this speech really resonated with me. for many reasons. it made me think about my own beliefs about ‘The One’, and how it is always so obvious to us when we find our true other halves; when there is affinity, there just is, and you just know. i’m a big believer of affinity, be it towards our partners, potential partners or friends. not all of us are lucky enough to find our The Ones though, or even someone remotely close.. but then there are some of us who do :) and i think when that happens, it is the epitome of harmony and happiness.
it also caused me to think about the question that Hephaestus (the god of craftsmanship) posed to the two humans lying together – what is it that humans really want from each other? it made me think about the reasons we fall in love, the reasons we want to stay in love, and the reasons that make us fight for our love so that we may never lose it. i came up with no answers. i guess we love because we love. i used to hate it when any of my boyfriends say that to me – “i love you because i just do”. i always thought it was such a cop-out answer, something you say when you dont really know why you love the other person. but now i see that there is little more you can add to that, that would add any real, significant, larger meaning to the fact that we love each other. i’ve been asking the wrong question all this time. what i meant to ask was, ‘what do you love about me?’ instead of, ‘why do you love me?’. so silly. i spent so much lost time feeling angry.
i did a lot of thinking today. am i happier? i dont know yet. maybe. we’ll see :)
Entry Filed under: Musings
30 Comments Add your own
1. Cherie | November 8th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
It makes me shiver, the effect and cause of love transforming two individuals into one single entity that's so… wholesome and strong and scary, but it's also beautiful. :) I wonder what we'd do without Love sometimes.
2. yizhen | November 8th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
ahhh love. its a great thing to have. its also a luxury that some of us can't afford. but its definitely something everyone yearns for. :) i'm not sure if your post increased my hope in finding the one true love, but i sure enjoyed it. :))))
3. clem | November 8th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
i can't help but wonder (serious question ok!): so the hermaphrodites who are cut in half would be considered heterosexuals, while the entirely male/female humans who are cut in half would be homosexuals, when they find their other halves?
4. May | November 8th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Putting 1 and 1 together seems difficultly possible taking into account of the number of people in this world and the possibilities of meeting 'The One'. In my opinion, there's a very high uncertainty as to whether the love one is having now is his or her true love, the perfect Key for its Lock. The love that most of us are sharing now is only mutual affection which co-exist with acceptance, contentment, compromise and minimal desire for affection from someone else, of which it merely represent true love.
5. MIchelle | November 8th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Each time I think, it makes me sadder. I choose not to think then. But I can't live without thinking.
And there's this whole talk about desire. Do humans desire that much? Because love is not desire. Desire is more like lust…
6. Jules | November 8th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Affinity may not be love. And love may not be affinity. If you have an affinity towards someone you love…thats great. And sometimes you may not love those you have an affinity towards. Having chemistry may not mean you fall in love with the other…and I suppose when you only think with the chemical primal part of your brain you fail to see other fairly obvious things. But couples who *do* click on some chemical level just don't know why they're attracted to one another. At least thats what I think anyway. It could be for more than just chemical reasons, but the initial attraction could be just completely unexplainable.
Which leads me to the whole “what do you love about me” and “why do you love me questions”. Honestly….its the same question. Except maybe dumbing it down a little and leading the question in an explicit manner. LoL!
7. nyrac | November 8th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
i was thinking that too!
8. f.a. | November 8th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
i'm liking u – post by post! hee! keep it up~
9. isa. | November 8th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
i love this.
its beautiful.
yes, it strikes a chord in me.
love is…complicated.
but if it was simple, hell, it wouldnt be worth it.
i like the idea of watching over two people entwined in sheets
hearts beating together,arms crossed upon each other..
and wondering: is this what they really want?
how many people out there, in new york, california, or malaysia
are entwined in bed with people they just find to fill the empty space of the now
not the right person theyre supposed to be with.
love, is like walking in the rain.
sometimes you run for cover.
sometimes your tucked away somewhere nice and warm
sometimes you dont even know its raining.
but sometimes, just sometimes..
when the mood, situation and yes, company is just right.
you walk out in the rain, and get completely drenched from head to toe.
ever done that pinkpau?
10. Bunbread | November 8th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
I had to read Tuesdays with Morrie for homework. I quote Morrie, “Love each other or perish.” Similar to tt speech you quoted? :D
It's a little strange tt everything seems to run on love yet love is so intangible.
11. chilliking | November 8th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
haha there's actually a song on it you know! Its called Origin Of Love by Hedwig And The Angry Inch
12. povege | November 8th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Thank you pinkpau for sharing. I love the story. You made me feel more secure about my LDR. Stay happy.
13. Ai | November 8th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
<3
14. Shinyi | November 8th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
this reminds me of a great film i've watched on youtube. apparently it was the first feature length film shown on youtube. the filmmakers were novice, filming with their own gadgets, equipment and money. their story was about how they fell in love and its called Four Eyed Monster – which is why your post reminded me of it (four legs, four arms, two lips etc). As a film student I really admired how they pull it off and achieved so much publicity, but most espcially how they just wanted to tell their love story to the world. The film is quirky, fun and very unique. You can give it a go at:
http://foureyedmonsters.com/feature_film/
By doing this film, the couple went into so much debt they had to ask people to donate on their website. Poor things. This really is the epitome of the 'starving artist', which i always wanted to be. hahaha
15. Gin | November 8th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
*o* oh i read that before!!! hahah.a. i totally forgot about it wei. i used to piss off my homophobic friends with that cuz of the female and male counterpart part.. wtf
16. Alynna | November 8th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
As a psychology student, I read a study about how participants who couldn't verbalise what they loved about their partners stayed together for longer than those who tried to put it into words.
Strange, huh?
But this whole idea of The One… it's hard to accept. Couldn't there be TWO but we've only found One of the Two? What happens if The One slips past? I could ask much more. So many questions, and only one lifetime in which we hope to find all the answers.
Thanks for sharing Aristophanes' words. They are beautiful. =)
17. dr.lychee | November 9th, 2008 at 4:21 am
my boyfriend used to get soooo annoyed when he asked me : why do you love me?..my answer was and still is : because la.
now I can show him this post and say, see? my answer doesn't suck:P
18. kiasu andrew | November 9th, 2008 at 5:28 am
ya the song is the bomb pinkpau must listen
19. kiasu andrew | November 9th, 2008 at 5:48 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YO9FpWX57E
20. Yau | November 9th, 2008 at 6:26 am
thank you su ann now i feel like a better person.
21. hui wen | November 9th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Wow, this is beautiful! And you made me think on a Sunday morning, haha.
Love the words by isa. as well. Now I will go find my boyfriend to hug, whee!
22. Mei | November 9th, 2008 at 6:54 pm
it was very beautifully written by ……
so nice that u actually get to read these stuffs! =)
23. kim | November 9th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Hi Su Ann,
Your post made me think of the correspondence between John Adams and his wife, Abigail.
Humanity obliges us to be affected with the distresses and Miserys of our fellow creatures. Friendship is a band yet stronger, which causes us to [feel] with greater tenderness the afflictions of our Friends.
And there is a tye more binding than Humanity, and stronger than Friendship, which makes us anxious for the happiness and welfare of those to whom it binds us. It makes their [Misfortunes], Sorrows and afflictions, our own. Unite these, and there is a threefold cord — by this cord I am not ashamed to own myself bound, nor do I [believe] that you are wholly free from it.
- Letter from Abigail Smith to John Adams, 11 August 1763
I have yet to encounter a more skillful and beautiful way for a woman to tell a man that she loves him, and that she knows he loves her too :)
Just something I thought I'd share because you might appreciate it as much as I did!
24. yingxian | November 10th, 2008 at 2:07 am
This was mentioned in the book 11 minutes by Paolo Coelho. :)
25. lishun | November 10th, 2008 at 5:39 am
that's a great myth to explain love. =) i would be more impressed if i actually believe in romantic notions of affinity and “the one”. unfortunately i've grown *cough* old and cynical and have lost the ability to appreciate all that. sigh.
26. Grouchy Smurf | November 10th, 2008 at 10:16 am
love is overrated.
27. De | November 11th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
beautiful interpretation of sex 0.0 how sad it is for a person to walk through life without finding their other half, to be forever searching till the day they die..
28. Anon. | November 15th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Mmm… I think it's alright to ask why/what someone loves about you. I personally, cannot accept something I do not comprehend. I don't believe one can love another 'just because'. That's just… infatuation or passion/ in-the-moment-thing. To fully appreciate another person, you must know why you appreciate them, what makes them different, special, from everyone else. This way, you can also realize what are his/her weaknesses and strengths. Love is not blind, but it can turn a blind eye because it thinks that the pros are worth the cons. Only then, will you know why you really want to be with and remain with XYZ for the long haul.
Ah, there's a new requirement to post with email address now? Lol.
29. Lalamui | November 15th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
Eh how come you and KY (http://www.kyspeaks.com) are advertising the same product one ah? how much are you guys getting paid for this? LOL
30. kojack united kids of Oi! | November 18th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
nice body girl!!!
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