“I have tried to describe a feeling that has often troubled me: I revenge myself on it by giving it publicity”
-Friedrich Nietzsche-
THE SOLIDARITY OF MIND-BODY-WORLD
In my life, desire has been a ceaseless problem.
I have always possessed an unquenchable, ravenous, hunger for knowledge, relation & sex.
For the first time (in nearly 45 years) I can see it as a wholism.
I could read & reflect in the literature and learning of the world 18-20 hours a day without tiring.
I could engage & evince sexual fulfillment and bodily orgasm repeatedly without complaint.
I could interact & dialogue with another willing human around issues of being 18-20 hours a day without exhaustion.
These seem equalities; totalities; wholisms.
The refusal of dualities and scissions.
Inasmuch as my mindbody organism never tires and perpetually desires experiences of stimulation, information, novelty and introduction : research – literature – science – philosophy – style of expression – CONTENT-RICH, CURIOUS, CREATIVE, IDIOSYNCRATIC, NOURISHING, INFORMATIVE OR CHALLENGING...
so does my body: traditional/conventional intimate relationships seem characterized by graphable, chartable periods of intimate craving passion of new love (novelty) / regulation of growing familiarity (intimacy) / rhythmic relational ritual regarding sexual (bodily) ecstatic experience…yet NEVER has that satisfied me. I have always longed for CONTENT-RICH, CURIOUS, CREATIVE, IDIOSYNCRATIC, NOURISHING, INFORMATIVE &/or CHALLENGING bodily pleasure AS MUCH AS I have for my learning mind…with my bodily experience.
As with sex, so with reading (& vice-versa): the IMPORT is the quality, stimulation & unique learning & fulfillment that each author / partner / interaction / experience brings…NOT a quest for repetition or sameness…
I can read Kafka, Dostoevsky, Musil, Proust, Scripture, Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Foucault, Gendlin, Rilke – indeed THOUSANDS of thinkers/artists OVER AND OVER again NEVER tiring or failing to notice / learn / experience some new insight / perception / feeling / LEARNING / ecstasy …
LIKEWISE – physical human partners – I WOULD NEVER tire, grow used to, familiarize, exhaust, cease or lessen to crave, desire, starve for – unique, intriguing, wonderful physical bodies for stimulation, perception, experience, learning, ecstasy …
Seems a Wholism to me. With what is GOOD – nourishing, stimulating, fulfilling – I NEVER CEASE TO CRAVE IT, & NEVER AM FULFILLED – or “accustomed,” “familiarized,” “apathetic,” “exhausted” of detail, inquiry, pursuit, exploration…
Long and long I have felt BAD about this:
feeling that I am weird, a sexually addicted person, uncannily erotic, unnaturally intellectual/abstract etc…
No more. I realize my MIND and my BODY are the same thing: ONE THING : a PERSON…and that exactly as much as I ache/lust/pine/hanker for intellectual stimulation and inexhaustibility in great works of human creativity and expression/reflection…SO I ache/lust/pine/hanker for stimulation and inexhaustible pleasure of bodily interaction…
FOR ONCE…PERHAPS I AM NOT THE “WEIRD” ONE
The one desiring equally and inexhaustibly ecstasy of mind and body, untiringly, unceasingly, unsatisfiably…
The perpetual “quest” for the “endless joy of erotic experience”
MIND & BODY – Aristotle, Augustine, Heidegger, Agamben…
Sappho, Rumi, Rilke, Pessoa…
MIND & BODY EVER CRAVING
PERPETUAL DESIRE
PERPETUAL JOY
impossible to fulfill
impossible to fail
ECSTASY
the perpetuation of joy and desire
WHOLLY
Well-matched, then. Identical, then. SELFSAME, then: mind & body
desire & fulfillment
joy and longing
selfsame in me
and I am not ashamed.
LIFE: REALMS OF PERPETUAL DESIRE AND FULFILLMENT VIA THE JOY OF DESIRE AND PERPETUAL FULFILLMENT NEVER SATISFIED ALWAYS CRAVING ALWAYS NOURISHED CRAVING MORE
PERPETUAL
DESIRE/FULFILLMENT
IDENTICAL
RECURSIVE
NO DESIRE WITHOUT FULFILLMENT
NO FULFILLMENT WITHOUT DESIRING
WHAT I AM.
I can relate to every word written here!
And, as you have always gifted me with great new bands, let me (in case you haven’t already met them) introduce you to American Football. Terrible name, but great music. Try the song Never Meant for a taste.
What a loving, restless state to be in.