tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31258360.post6695662558919796506..comments2023-12-19T07:34:45.677-08:00Comments on wordstrumpet: The Theory of HeartbreakRachel Lodenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07643048091966293914noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31258360.post-74005393712942445492009-03-20T18:04:00.000-07:002009-03-20T18:04:00.000-07:00Thanks, Zo -- completely agree with you that "the ...Thanks, Zo -- completely agree with you that "the concept of love renders understanding things like futility and unfeasibility quite inane." Well said.<BR/><BR/>I don't think the force behind our attachments begins in viciousness, although (alas) sometimes they appear to end that way. There is a certain ferocity to it, as one can see any time a baby lunges for a nipple. But there's no meanness in the baby's heart -- even when (as I can attest) such a lunge makes the nipple-owner wince. All of this is just a hint of the power of the engine of survival.<BR/><BR/>Amazing that we can be musing on the theory of heartbreak over all these miles. I hope you (and your ex-girlfriend) are soon free of pain and sailing on.Rachel Lodenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07643048091966293914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31258360.post-40418241903020067192009-03-20T12:53:00.000-07:002009-03-20T12:53:00.000-07:00Hello,You don't know me, and I happened across you...Hello,<BR/><BR/>You don't know me, and I happened across your blog almost purely by accident.<BR/><BR/>I say accident, but the truth is, currently I'm sat in an airport hundreds of miles away from where I would call home. I came out here to win back my ex-girlfriend. We both still have strong feelings but the long distance made it kind of difficult.<BR/><BR/>Ofcourse the concept of love renders understanding things like futility and unfeasibility quite inane, and we ended up making love again one last time before we said our long goodbyes.<BR/><BR/>Thats my story in a nutshell for why I'm sitting here now, googling, "Theory of Heartbreak", because to be honest, I don't understand this pain and this loss. I was fine alone before so why do I feel so dependant on a person who doesn't share the same feeling any longer?<BR/><BR/>The fact is that we only understand pain in hindsight. And once we understand it it devolves from the experience - if it is rationalised and affirmed it no longer hurts us because we are immune. But initially, to start with, one must first suffer pain, and that pain can only be felt through loss.<BR/><BR/>The loss requires there to be something there in the first place. So it creates a bit of a chain. At the end of the day, it feels like human beings are almost symbiotic in their nature - they survive on their own for a period but once they come into contact with a suitable other they attach viciously - letting go is almost too painful, often fatal.<BR/><BR/>So I'm sat here, trying to understand my pain, and I have to admit your theory makes a lot of sense. I just hope what I said adds a little to the value your argument builds.<BR/><BR/>All the best,<BR/><BR/>ZoZo Hashimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11364540238915466754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31258360.post-44665791641866556062007-11-09T10:11:00.000-08:002007-11-09T10:11:00.000-08:00Great post! I love the "surf's up in the feelings...Great post! I love the "surf's up in the feelings department!" <BR/><BR/>Very interesting perspective on poetry making no noise...it makes no physical noise, but can be much more powerful than things that do.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31258360.post-44580031007743050962007-11-04T05:23:00.000-08:002007-11-04T05:23:00.000-08:00Thanks, Cris -- I like what you say about the Life...Thanks, Cris -- I like what you say about the Lifetime Guarantee of Denial (and accompanying anaesthesia), which certainly maps to my experience of this plane. It's why we're okay with torture, or at least why we're not in the streets making it stop.<BR/><BR/>The life of poetry seems to promote everything from social intimacy to its dark underbelly in the form of contempt and loathing, which of course ricochets all over the blogosphere.<BR/><BR/>Poetry itself, though, promotes another sort of intimacy: I mean the bond between writer and reader, which seems to me to be as powerful as (and in some ways not unlike) the fierce, unconditional connection between parent and child.<BR/><BR/>Both are crucibles of soul-making and (for those of us whose parents fell by the wayside) poetry was perhaps the more important forge in that it was something we could choose, rather than something that hammered us into rough shape through experience.Rachel Lodenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07643048091966293914noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31258360.post-48255420675674438562007-11-03T16:32:00.000-07:002007-11-03T16:32:00.000-07:00Very insightful and moving, this post! The story ...Very insightful and moving, this post! The story about the little boy's disappointment in looking for his mama, and your story of losing your parents as "theories" of poetry. Amazing. I have a theory about these theories (I like what Bromige says about being able to substitute the three nouns interchangeably (poetry, heartbreak and theory) and his sentence is still true) that pretty much everyone has them in some form-- but some people are better at denying that they ever happened than other people. The people who can't keep themselves in the mood for duration of the Lifetime Guarantee of Denial, which promises anaestheia in return for signing, may choose instead some form of sublimation of the suffering (as Freud describes in "Civilization and Its Discontents"), including, possibly, poetry. <BR/><BR/>My primary theory of heartbreak comes out of the loss of my sister when I was a teenager. It was a long time before I knew that I'd signed the Guarantee and that I could only get out of it by going back into the inferno and writing. The choice of poetry came out of a belief, backed up by a few million words of experience, that no other idiom would allow me to match the intensity of the event in the language I was using to describe it. Eleven years later it is not yet complete, but the process of its completion has been my poetry education-- and the fact that all my training (besides 8 years of literature in college) is on-the-job maybe explains why I'm so ignorant of what other people are doing. <BR/><BR/>Last night there was a party here where I'm staying in Brooklyn and I knew almost no one and the music went on and on, very loud, until 6am. I don't know what they call this music (Trance, maybe) but it's very popular here in NY for dances. It is entirely electronic (NO acoustic instruments, no human voice) featuring a steady WHUM-WHUM-WHUM of a single electronic bass note that vibrates all the walls and floors. The bass note never changes in pitch, rhythm or dynamics through fifteen minutes or more-- except that occasionally it stops, while some higher electric razzmatazz is going on, which creates "tension" (the only tension in the music), wondering when, exactly, the whum-whum will resume. This party proves nothing, but (another theory of theories) I think the cumulative effects of Denial manifest in the almost complete absence of social intimacy. It seems to me that most people in NY are asleep completely to this "problem", which, I guess, means it isn't a problem to them. Though I don't really think poetry promotes social intimacy either. Does it?<BR/><BR/>Thanks Rachel for the gift of this post.Crismanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08699907077408306092noreply@blogger.com