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Monday, February 14, 2005
Arinday: Even love is in crisis
By G.H. Arinaday Jr.
Sunfare
AMBER-COLORED glass of wine, a bunch of red roses and candlelight, perhaps the eternal flame of love and eternity within? And in rustic ambience, the lilting sounds of guitar weeping with the breeze beneath the young maiden's window.
But these are gone now, except in simulated cafs with the strains of violins sharing the lyrics of unspoken love and only the eyes speak of one of those of physical desires contemplated under the promise of happiness.
Perhaps you have the philosophy of love as Charles Baudelaire did eons ago who was uncomfortable with love, and yet proclaimed Love as "burning draught which inspires the soul." And again, this expansive feeling is now gone save for the very few who still prizes the clean nectar of Love from the streams of innocence.
Today, we have paper roses merely to signify the yearly ritual overwhelmed by the obscenities of commercialism. Among our youth, with their own language coupled with the gayspeak, they "wear out the digestive faculties of Love" with drugs to stimulate the heavenly malady. Saint Valentine would be squirming in his unmarked grave. And again, they say we have to honor the changing times and heap no derogation upon the nuances of Love the youth practices. The sunset generation is now a minority with the promiscuous demands of the young overwhelming the basic right conduct and good manners, now cast away into the furtive winds of Cyberspace generation of vainglory.
Now, even Love is in crisis. The dialectics of material needs have won over the elemental mystics of unadulterated feelings of genuine desire and dreams. Coupled in himself or herself are the personas of physical desires and material necessity--a body absent of soul. The heart vibrates not more of genuine tenderness or homage to the spiritual significance of what this mysterious feeling is all about. No longer can one witness a truly tender gaze and only the reclusive allure one subtly played. Chaste love as in Romeo and Juliet, crossed-star lovers though, is a rarity nowadays because of nuances of love included in the lyrics of infidelity. How explain the proliferation of cases of spousal abuse, annulment or declaration of nullity of marriages, when those sacramental celebrations have all the touches of solemnity.
In some distant shores, the echoes of love music are deadened by the deathly encounters of ideological forces. Lovers are separated forcibly by the passions of their creed and faith, others through betrayal.
These ingredients give rise to enthrallments of poets and novelists giving us sweeping tales of sadness and scorched love as a consequence of the perils of love in war or terror.
Matthew Arnold, a poet once wrote of lovers' disillusionment about the war and its effects on love, genuine love:
"Ah, love, let us be true/To one another! For the world, which seems/To lie before us like a land of dreams,/So various, so beautiful, so new,/Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,/nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;/And we are here as on a darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,/Where ignorant armies clash by night." What a sorrowful state of mind would find the lovers in an environment of hostility? What future could they dream in a thunderous atmosphere when the strains of sublime feelings are driven away by fear? Erotic love is another thing. It's an earthly satisfaction devoid of any inner turmoil, bereft of any longing, not even Platonic reasoning. It's neither an exercise of physical freedom without remorse nor reciprocity of unselfish love.
Love vigorously without torment and that is how is Love is celebrated without the mental terror of the Original Sin.
If perchance tonight, you find yourself alone, dreamily sipping your wine in a crowded place, insulate yourself and commune in silence how you really missed your loved one. Who knows that across your table one sits with similar feelings and probably a smile could start your togetherness. What a lovely imagination!
What matters most on Lover's Day, even if love is also in crisis just like any other human undertaking, take heed of what Charles Baudelaire said: "Do not climb balconies or give trouble to the public authorities; do not on any account deprive your mistress of the happiness of belief in the gods; and when you accompany her to the temple remember to dip your fingers in orthodox fashion in the pure, refreshing water of the stoup."
Good night, sweet dreams.
(February 14, 2005 issue)
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