distillation
In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke argues that Love requires a purely private response because labels create the bondage of dogmas. Since Modern society is desensitized to sex and has an obsession with it, the experience of love becomes corrupted.
Bell Hook’s argument in All About Love echoes Rilke’s sentiments on the corruption of love in modern society, yet her argument presents an opposing angle. Rather than striving for a private response, she argues that reaching a consensus on the definition of love is important because it creates a starting point for conversation. Without proper terms to describe love, loss becomes easier to talk about than love. Hence, she defines love as a mixture of care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, trust, and communication to counter the phenomena that love has become dominated by consumerist culture. Her method of returning to love involves breaking down the patriarchy, which Rilke mirrors with his call to turn inwards instead of succumbing to societal shackles.
Ultimately, though there are disagreements about the act of defining love itself, love is deeply rooted in spirituality. Both agree that love is rooted in solitude, with hooks stating, “Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving.”
books
quotes
- “The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light” — James Baldwin
- “True love is two people inspiring each other to live” — Hayao Miyazaki
- “Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking” — Carl Jung
- “We are asleep until we fall in love” — Leo Tolsky, War and Peace
- “Man was born for love and revolution” — Osamu Dazai, The Setting Sun
- “If there is no love, there can only be death”
- “When we really understand love, our love will include all beings, living and so-called non-living” — Thich Nhat Hanh
- “As an absolute end, love passes through death” — Byung Chul Han, The Agony of Eros
eros
concepts
- Love makes people afraid of death
- Love is vulnerability
- Love is the desire for the power to make another happy (Giovanni’s Room)
- Love is hard, for it is the ultimate trial of humanity
- Love is a verb
- Love is a force that binds and moves the universe, coexistent with intellect and truth
- Love and death are similar