Maybe
it's the season, but a lot of the relationships of people in my social
circles seem to be falling apart these days. Ever since I started
reading Tom Robbins' books, I have been struck by the enormous
challenge that he describes in many of his books: How to make love last.
 A couple of years ago, Robbins wrote an article in Harper's called In Defiance of Gravity (it's also included in his book Wild Ducks Flying Backward). In it, he describes his personal experiences with
near-suicidal depression, and how he was able to pull himself back from
the brink of what he calls Weltschmerz (world-weariness) The trick, he said, was to
rediscover playfulness, or what the Tibetan Buddhists call Crazy
Wisdom -- "the
wisdom that evolves when one, while refusing to avert one's gaze from
the sorrows and injustices of the world, insists on joy in spite of
everything".
At the time, I wrote this about Robbins' article:
Robbins says the epitome of Crazy Wisdom is the cat. I have seen cats
of all ages, cats of amazing wisdom and style who otherwise show
themselves to be cunning and astonishingly self-sufficient, chase a
piece of string dragged by a child around the house for an hour or
more, indefatigably and with enormous concentration, creativity and
energy. What is the purpose of this unexpected playfulness? Is this the
cat's way of discharging the tension and anxiety that preoccupies her
more sombre and sober moments? Is it her way of teaching the child (or
the adult, since I get great pleasure from such games, at least until
some intrigued child coaxes the string away from me to learn more about
this magic trick) important lessons about instinct, about reflexes,
about strategy, about the need for play, and a hundred other lessons we
are too besotted with Weltschmerz to appreciate?
Perhaps
that rediscovery of playfulness is also the secret to making love last.
Expecting us to love one person forever, come what may, is demanding a
lot of us, and arguably unnatural. Popular music is full of references to this challenge:
You're here, what if you weren't, what would have happened to me?
That candle, unburnt, is history
One thing I guess this place would be a mess
For my standards at best are undemanding, and that takes some understanding.
Still here, but what if we weren't, where'd you think I would be?
For love I have learned depends on geography
Fortune found us when all around us,
Half the couples we knew were disbanding, and that needs your understanding.
And do you know even when we disagree, and freedom holds out a hand to me
You know I would never want to be without your company.
We have reached an understanding...
-- Everything But the Girl, Understanding
But every morning I wake up and worry what’s gonna happen today
You see it your way and I see it mine but we both see it slipping away.
You know we always had each other baby; I guess that wasn’t enough.
-- The Eagles, Best of My Love
Look at us baby, up all night tearing our love apart
Aren't we the same two people who lived through years in the dark?
Every time I try to walk away something makes me turn around and stay
And I can't tell you why.
Nothing's wrong as far as I can see; we make it harder than it has to be.
-- The Eagles, I Can't Tell You Why
First you make believe I believe the things that you make believe
And I'm bound to let you down
Then it's I who have been deceiving, purposely misleading
And all along you believed in me
So we circle around one another, playing a guessing game
Strangers at this masquerade, pretending to know each other
We strain to catch a name, and never see the mistakes we must have made
-- James Taylor, BSUR
and my favourite:
How do you keep the music playing? How do you make it last?
How do you keep the song from fading too fast?
How do you lose yourself to someone and never lose your way?
How do you not run out of new things to say?
And since we're always changing, how can it be the same?
And tell me how year after year, you're sure your heart will fall apart
Each time you hear his name
I know the way I feel for you, It's now or never
The more I love the more that I'm afraid
That in your eyes I may not see forever, forever.
If we can be the best of lovers, yet be the best of friends,
If we can try with everyday to make it better as it grows
With any luck, then I suppose, the music never ends.
-- James Ingram, How Do You Keep the Music Playing?
Lots of wishful thinking but no magic secrets there. The advice we often get is not particularly encouraging: It
takes a lifetime of hard work. You have to compromise, not expect too
much. You need to be forgiving. You need to give space.
When
I was younger, breakups were tempestuous, and usually provoked by an
indiscretion. But now, its just as if the force of gravity that held
couples together has been repealed, and they're just drifting apart.
Relationships are ending not with a bang, but with a whimper.
Perhaps
this is nothing new. Maybe it's been going on for generations and its
just that, when you reach a certain age, you start to notice it, you
see through the thin veneer and pick up on the signals and tones of
estrangement.
The pragmatist in me says that you don't try to
"keep the music playing" -- when the music stops, you acknowledge its
end to your dancing partner and move on. The idealist in me says that
the problem isn't trying to make feelings of love with one person last,
it's that we don't love enough
people throughout our lives so that, when one love wanes, there are
dozens of others to keep us loving. Because I do believe that without
love we are nothing.
If we loved more people, freely, openly,
would we feel less grief at the loss of love from one person? I'm not
so sure. We might, however, be able to cope with that loss better,
because we would see and feel love as an abundant and indefatigable
resource. In our terrible modern world where love is treated as a scarce
resource, jealously guarded and limited to one person at a time (and in
some societies, to one person in a lifetime), its loss is inevitably
more profound in its impact on us.
Here's an analogy: People
with enormous financial wealth don't worry much about losing a small
part of it. People with no wealth at all, when they acquire something
briefly and easily, don't worry about losing it -- easy come, easy go.
It's those people who have just a little
wealth, acquired with difficulty and all tied up in one thing, who feel
the greatest stress and grief and sense of loss when it suddenly
disappears. Is it the same with 'emotional wealth'? Is that why some
people who have lost love become unable, or refuse, to love again?
What
do you think? How do you keep the music playing? Is more playfulness the answer, and if so, how do we engender that? Is it even important
to keep the music playing? And do you see "half the couples you know
disbanding" (disengaging psychologically if not legally), or is it just
me?
Cartoon: By Peter Steiner from The New Yorker, in the Cartoon Bank. |
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
