Since it’s Valentine’s Day this week, let’s chat about the mysterious of all things, love. To paraphrase the French writer Simone de Beauvoir, as humans we are all in charge of the empire of the unattainable, the empire of love.
Film, song, literature and psychoanalysis have all grappled with the concept of love. Let’s start with film.
- Films: Virtually every great film concerns itself with love and its problems. Even shoot-em-up films like “The Matrix” has a love interest with Trinity yearning for Neo. “John Wick,” the film with serious kill counts, is based upon the loss of John Wick’s wife. She left him with a dog which was then killed and thus we have the beginning of the “John Wick” franchise.
- The action crime film “Miami Vice” starred Colin Farrell and Jaimie Foxx and the plot of that film centered upon the romance between Sonny Crockett and Isabella played by Gong Li. “Man on Fire” starring Denzel Washington was all about the way the character played by child actress Dakota Fanning ignited love in the heart of a seasoned killer. “The Last Samurai” was a period action drama starring Tom Cruise, who played a burned-out alcoholic soldier who fell in love with the wife of the samurai he killed in battle.
- And, of course, dramas like “Amadeus” and “Lost In Translation” and romantic comedies like “Shakespeare in Love” focus on love and its loss. The recent film “Birdman” starring Michael Keaton was largely based upon the short story by Raymond Carver titled “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.” This film concerns a sad and hapless film star turned Broadway playwright who seeks redemption from guilt by trying to become a serious writer. All of these films blindly search for the answer to how to find and how to keep love.
- Music: The Beatles became famous with songs like “She Loves You,” “All You Need Is Love” and “I Want to Hold Your hand.” They tapped right into the heart and they were rewarded with world fame.
- “In Search of Lost Time,” one of the finest novels ever written, is about the life-long and hopeless unrequited love Proust has for Gilberte Swann. “The Divine Comedy” is driven by Dante’s unrequited love for Beatrice. “Don Quixote” was a founding work of Western literature and was about an elderly man who decided to become a knight-errant and revive chivalry. His devotion to Dulcinea is a reminder that the need for passion and love never dies.
- Victor Hugo’s “Les Miserable” is the remarkable story of Jean Valjean’s devotion to the orphan child Cosette. You may note thus far that all of the films and books just referenced explore the loss of love as opposed to the joy inherent in it. This should indicate to the reader that love is one of mankind’s greatest desires but also mankind’s greatest mystery.
- One of my favorite writers is Donald Barthelme and one of his most sardonic stories is entitled “The Glass Mountain,” the journey of a man who climbs up the side of a glass skyscraper on 13th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan. He quests for an enchanted symbol at the top of the building and when he finally gets there, the symbol turns into a princess whereupon he throws her off the roof. This is the story of a man who has quite obviously been hurt by love. Even the classic American play “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder struggles to answer the question of love. Dr. Gibbs and his wife seem to have found love, but all the other characters in the play are loveless or die young.
- The field of psychoanalysis has been charged with the effort to help patients find love or resolve their traumatic losses so that they are open to love. Patients lose parents, spouses and children and they often show a notable inability to face this loss and resolve it. Long ago, Freud established the basic positon that mental health is achieved when one obtains satisfaction in the areas of work and love. Freud simplified matters by suggesting that love derives from the sublimation of sexuality.
- Since then, however, there has been little theorizing about romantic love or ways to keep love alive with the exception of Ethel Persons’ book “Dreams of Love and Other Fateful Encounters.” She makes the unique observation that love is so compelling because when we find love, we fuse with the other and no longer feel so alone or isolated in the world. She goes on to say that one of the basic aspects of love is that you are made to feel you are priority No. 1 in your lover’s eyes and this feeling of being No. 1 is a very special and unique experience.
So if you are looking for a valentine this week and are still seeking love, know that you are not alone. Seeking love is similar to embarking onthe quest for the Holy Grail. The quest is a worthy one because when you find love, it has the power to restore life, youth and energy to the one who finds it. So be like Perceval or Don Quixote, be brave and go find some. That make take some flirting, which Proust referred to as “the silent prayer.”
To quote the English poet John Keats, who said, “I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart’s affectations.” Seeking love is the worthiest of quests. And if you have already found love but want to keep it alive, make sure you remind your lover that for you, they are No. 1 in your eyes.
