Saturday, March 13, 2010

"In the context of lifelong partnership, love is not an emotion.  Love is a course, an utterly steadfast, stable path that deviates not in the face of hardship or challenge.  It is an undeniably fixed and invariable promise that does not waver, even in the face of death.  While we look for a mate who shares our hobbies, is sexually attractive, makes us laugh, and helps us to feel good, these things are not the substance of love.  All of our criteria for finding a mate - the person has to look this way, have that kind of job, dress like this, be hip, have this much money, etc., are all things that will disappear with time.  None of them will last.  All that will last is the love that was given and the love received.  True love must transcend our limited views of love, for true love stands in its own category.  As such, it is not dependent upon the endless ebb and flow of our emotions and on the ever-changing agendas of our current likes and dislikes."
 
Katherine Woodward Thomas

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Have you ever read Antoine de Saint-Exupery? He has some very similar things to say. The Little Prince is kind of a good distillation of the larger part of his philosophy on life, I think. It is the time you waste on something that makes it important to you.

In other books, he talks about a relationship in terms of farming - that a woman is like the ground which must be aerated, fertilized and worked over carefully and patiently, and only then can you expect any return. I think it's quite interesting, linguistically, that farming is also called husbandry.

You have to realize that a relationship is something which must be committed to every single hour, and after a while, once the lines between you and the person you love become very very short, that hourly commitment is, if you could only do one thing, the one thing you would choose.

Kristin Tieche said...

Hi Dave - Thank you so much for these comments. You are the second person this week to mention St. Exupery. The Little Prince is the only book of his that I've read, and it seems like I'm going to have to read it again!

What's the title of his other book?

The relationship in question is over now, and I think fortunately, because I think the fertilizer that was being used was extremely toxic, if you know what I mean.

I am now seeking greener pastures.

:-)

Anonymous said...

I would recommend all of his books, but the one I was referring to is Wisdom of the Sands (in English) or Citadel (in French).

It's a pretty heavy book, the kind where you want to stop every couple of pages to think about it, but it's one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. It's as close as any one single book has come to describing how I would like to see and live life, I think.

I know what you mean - both people in the relationship have to be in it all the way for it to really work well. I hope you find the right cultivator :)

Kristin Tieche said...

Thank you! I honor your opinions and will check out these books! Much needed! :-)

Anonymous said...

Just remembered, I have a number of passages from various books of Saint-Exupery's posted at my personal blog, here: http://spindulys.blogspot.com/search/label/antoine%20de%20saint-exupery