4/11/24

I need yet another bite of the apple on this subject, because even after a couple edits, my last attempt at differentiating connections based on mental conceptions from those with physiological impacts didn’t seem right to me.

I need to take myself out of this essay as much as possible, lest I end up seeming like I’m trying to say something to someone in particularly, and that’s not the case. What I’m really trying to do is note that there are numerous ways to construct mental experiences that can help people caught up in them understand their feelings and help them moderate behavior. In my view, the anima/animus construction is the most successful, but others might feel more comfortable with Stendhal’s crystallization or the modern concept of limerence.

The idea behind all of these concepts is bringing the unconscious to the surface so it’s no longer so powerful. Once you know what the head is up to, it won’t tie you in knots so easily.

What concerns me, however, is that sometimes taming your head doesn’t fully deal with the problem. I can get my head around the situation and know that I don’t really love someone who I haven’t spent that kind of romantic time with, that I’m only making an extrapolation of that person’s non-romantic qualities and mixing them with my own desires. And I can examine the situation I’ve created to see what it tells me about myself and what my strongest hopes and desires are.

Unfortunately, a person can do all of this work and your body can still rebel against you. It can make you feel the effects of seeing this person so that you can’t deny the reality. It can shut down your desire for others to make you pay attention. Now, someone tell me how to apply the same rational formulas to the body that we apply to our minds.

I don’t want to say that our somatic experiences of feelings are necessarily superior to all others. Rather, they are farther from our control. And to be honest, I think these experience permit us to freedom from responsibility. If we’ve done the work to mentally detach ourselves from someone but the body still insists on an outcome, how can anyone reasonably critique the autonomic responses of the body?

By the way, what I’m describing isn’t really lust. These aren’t sexual desires playing out, they seem almost metabolic. And I think I’ve described them better this time, but in the process, I might have revealed even more about myself along the way.