21/10/06

i've come to know that wandering and wondering are two of the most valuable activities a person can participate in during a lifetime.

this afternoon, i've found myself wondering at what point a person--a character--can be loved the best and most accurately: during their life, or after their life. upon first entering the discussion with myself, i was decided that a person could be loved best in retrospect...after a life was lived and another could reflect upon it, seeing it as a cohesive whole, as history and tangible.

i was watching a biography on Jane Austen, and that is what sparked the debate in the first place. if you don't know who she is, she was an English writer who lived in the late 1700s/early 1800s. she wrote stories that have become worldfamous, stories that in her time were basically unacceptable because A) they were written by a woman and B) they were written about women who defied normalcy... in a time where a woman should be married off before her mid-twenties or become a useless burden, should be visible but uninvolved in society and influence, should disregard human emotion and rights... she was basically a huge idealist and rebel as far as i've come to believe. jane herself never married, though she wrote of great romances and second chances. she once accepted a proposal, but (appallingly to many i'm sure) called it off when she realized that she did not and could not love the man (she accepted because she was getting old and "should" accept)...she sacrificed social acceptance, comfort, and even a sort of love because she could not build a life on a lie.

as i watched this life and lack of "life" unfold before me, i grew a deep admiration and a deep sorrow for this woman. i am a product of a society and culture that loves love and where marriage is as normal as it was then, and is probably more available and flexible even. so i'm sure it's hard for all of us to imagine a life spent alone. i've thought about it, wondered if it would be doable or a good idea...if more good could come of a solitary outward-focused life or from a shared and balanced life (shared and solely self-focused is not an option as far as i'm concerned). i know that if jane had married, her books would probably have been lost to us. her life, sacrificed to the status quo. there is a freedom now that was not hers though, so i suppose i have no answer yet.

i am chronically drawn to revoutionaries. last night i got to thinking on V for Vendetta again, which is an absolutely engaging film to me in certain respects. i am sickeningly (and probably dangerously) intrigued by characters who sacrifice a life, a love, an existence, experience, in the interest of many lives, loves, existences and experiences that will never be theirs. whether in the way of Jane or of V. it strikes me when i consider a life spent alone or ended early (here i stop to consider "alone" and "early"...the meanings i've been told they hold, and then the meanings they could hold outside of those) , well when i consider these lives that seem to be impoverished in a certain way, it makes me think that really, Who do i think i am anyways? is my individual existence really important enough to infuse with self-affirming indulgences like True Love and relationship and validation and accomplishment? or is it granted in this short time to me to be spent on an Idea that clearly exists before, during, and after it? or could both be complementary to one another? (not that this is a crisis of choice. i simply mean to question destiny. not what should be, but rather what will be. i am horribly interested in owning answers that are not mine and never will be! hahah)

one answer i uncovered, though, as i argued opposite ends with myself (which, to interrupt me, is probably my very favorite thing in the world...the tension between complete opposing ideas...the fact that we have the capacity to believe as wholeheartedly in one idea as in its very opposite and the delicious difficulty of reconciling the two...ah! i think it's this mystery that draws me to God...this is one of the secret characteristics we exhibit as the Image of the Invisible...it drives us out of our linear human range (of thought) and therein drives us insane...the closest state to the next world i sometimes dare to think...a wall, thin and opaque, permeated by the frustrating and incapacitating Unknowable...absorbed and lost all in the same moment, by those who care to notice...) anyways, here is what i discovered:

a person is probably loved best during life.

i wondered as i argued with myself that a person could be loved better after life, if any man has fallen in love with Jane as he read her writing. if a man seemingly born in the wrong time has longed to love a woman who went before him, because he has the power of perspective that allows him to see her entire life and to wish himself into it. i wondered if this woman who spent a life alone has seduced suitors within a spiritual realm that is active beneath layers of flesh and blood and time.

i love Jane Austen, this person, this life of hers. i admire her and i can look at her existence from start to finish to onliving influence. but at the end of my perusal and consideration, she is a book on a shelf. it is a tragic and inevitable thing, this assumable ability to manipulate another person's entire existence as you would a bound set of pages. to own the dead is an offense like no other. it is to end them.

and can a love divided by an end really be called love?

i love my friends who are living life alongside me better i think. i love watching them find things out about the world, about themselves, about God...watching the transition from What Always Has Been to What Could Be or What Should Be...the realization of a whole new realm of possibility...i love learning the same things myself from them...best of all i think i love when we go together, when we see something simultaneously, for the first time. neither of our lives are containable yet...they cannot be owned or analyzed, discovered or forgotten...they can only be lived. i am addicted to potential. a life unfinished is a curious thing. Vincent Price said, "If you're curious, you'll never be bored." it seems a simple statement, but ooooh is it true! i'm so unbearably curious about me, about you! (did you know that i love Dr. Seuss too? maha.)

ohhh i should get back to my textbooks... to me, a blog is something akin to medievel blood-letting. hahah..truly, truly.


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