Love and Marriage - An Aenean Perspective
About a week ago, I answered a question, "What religion are you?" with a few choice sentences pulled out of thin air. Drawing deliberately from some of my favorite bits of fiction, I intentionally chose effective expressions of my ideas in a way that neatly summarized them. I've been thinking about trying to expand that into a full-out essay, but I haven't had the time, nor do I really believe the thoughts are that cohesive. However, in letting this percolate, I've realized that I can address something else through this exercise: love and marriage.
So this ought to be the start of some kind of series, but I doubt that will happen. :)
Aenea: A girl in Dan Simmons' Endymion and Rise of Endymion, prophecized to be a messiah. Her tale, through the eyes of the title character, is the story.
I expect this essay to contain significant excerpts and spoilers. This is your forewarning. It is an excellent book that deserves to be read on its own terms, without the personal and mythic interpretation I am about to give it here. Simmons has no idea I'm writing this, and thus cannot endorse it whatsoever. Also, while this essay does lend significant insight to why I chose Aenea as a member of my spontaneous pantheon, it is not intended to be a complete picture and should not be construed as such. (In another ten years, I'd expect my choices to be completely different.) Thanks.
Onto the essay itself.
===
Let's set the scene with a hefty excerpt.
"All right," I said, "but if you were the messiah, what would your message to humanity be?"
Aenea chuckled again, but I noticed that itw as a reflective chuckle, not a derisive one. "If you were a messiah," she said between breaths, "what would your message be?"
I laughed out loud. A. Bettik could not have heard the sound through the near vacuum separating us, but he must have seen me throw my head back, for he looked over quizzically. I waved at him and said to Aenea, "I have no fucking clue."
"Exactly," said Aenea, "When I was a kid... I mean a little kid, before I met you... and I knew that I'd have to go through some of this stuff... I was always wondering what message I was going to give humankind. Beyond the things I knew I'd have to teach, I mean. Something profound. Sort of a Sermon on the Mount."
I looked around. There was no ice or snow at this terrible altitude. The clear, white steps rose through shelves of steep, black rock. "Well," I said, "here's the mount."
"Yeah," said Aenea, and I could hear the fatigue once again.
"So what message did you come up with?" I said, more to keep her talking and distracted than to hear the answer. It had been a while since she and I had just talked.
I could see her smile. "I kept working on it," she said at last, "trying to get it as short and important as the Sermon on the Mount. Then I realized that was no good--like Uncle Martin in his manic-poet period trying to outwrite Shakespeare--so I decided that my message would just be shorter."
"How short?"
"I got my message down to thirty-five words. Too long. Then down to twenty-seven. Still too long. After a few years I had it down to ten. STill too long. Eventually I boiled it down to two words."
"Two words?" I said. "Which two?"
We had reached the next resting point... the seventieth or eightieth three hundredth step. We stopped gratefully and panted. I bent over to rest my skinsuit-gloved hands on my skinsuit-sheathed knees and concentrated on not throwing up. It was bad form to vomit in an osmosis mask. "Which two?" I said again when I got some wind back and could hear the answer over my pounding heart and rasping lungs.
"Choose again," said Aenea.
I considered that for a wheezing, panting moment. "Choose again?" I said finally.
Aenea smiled. She had caught her wind and was looking down at the vertical view that I was afraid even to glance toward. She seemed to be enjoying it. I had the friendly urge to toss her off the mountain right then. Youth. It's intolerable sometimes.
"Choose again," she said firmly.
"Care to elaborate on that?"
"No," said Aenea. "That's the whole idea. Keep it simple. But name a category and you get the idea."
"Religion," I said.
"Choose again," said Aenea.
I laughed.
"I'm not being totally facetious here, Raul," she said. We began climbing again. A. Bettik seemed lost in thought.
"I know, kiddo," I said, although I had not been sure. "Categories... ah... political systems."
"Choose again."
"You don't think that the Pax is the ultimate evolution of human society? It's brought interstellar peace, fairly good government, and... oh, yeah... immortality to its citizens."
"It's time to choose again," said Aenea. "And speaking of our views of evolution..."
"What?"
"Choose again."
"Choose what again?" I said. "The direction of evolution?"
"No," said Aenea, "I mean our ideas about whether evolution has a direction. Most of our theories about evolution, for that matter."
It continues on from there, ultimately talking about diversity being an essential mandate of life. By now, due to Simmons' excellent dialogue, I hope you're getting a picture of what I'm going to talk about.
Choice
Aenea, in my framework, represents choice: the exercise of volition to bind one moment of time together with another. Choice is the purpose of knowledge, which I consider to be an axiomatic Good. (Knowledge is used for Choice; Choice is the basis of Action; Action is a means to gain Knowledge. A directed triangle.) And since knowledge is good, its purpose may also be called good.
The idea of choice demands the question of free will: do you, in fact, ever have a choice? To this, I simply handwave the idea. Free will, and choice itself, step into the perpetually nebulous territory of the idea of an identity, the norms of which I have already violated quite drastically. It is an interesting domain, no doubt, but it is too tangential to discuss it here.
Instead of self-knowledge in specific, we'll turn to knowledge in general.
Knowledge
Knowledge is a difficult beast. People have a weighty misconception about knowledge: they believe it is a thing written in books, heard in classrooms, found in itemized lists of facts: they believe it is a thing called truth. It isn't. This isn't what knowledge is at all: this is a miniscule subset.
Knowledge is that which comes from cognition. And cognition is the process of taking perceived sensory information and reflecting on it. Whether that comes from reading a book or holding a beloved's hand, it is still sensory information, it is still cogitated, and it still results in knowledge. That this knowledge may not be new is irrelevant: it is still knowledge, regardless of its novelty.
Knowledge is a medium: the medium of relation. It is through knowledge that we relate to each other: through a constant pattern perceived through the shifting sands of time. It is this same ability that allows us to recognize cultures and personalities long dead, simply by examining their artifacts. Knowledge is what we pass between each other, by interacting, by knowing one another: it is the bridge across time. Time, across which relations fade away into memory and then into nothing, is held at bay by the presence of knowledge. Even a moment as brief as turning away is bridged by knowledge.
Long ago, I wrote a definition, which I will paraphrase: to grow in equality by a growth in knowledge. The first part is important because knowledge is a bridge, and bridges may be burned. And if it is, then the growth of knowledge does not proceed to a growth in equality.
That definition was of love.
Love
As I foreshadowed with my pointers towards human interaction, all relationships are founded on knowledge. You know someone exists, to begin with, and then you know their name, their appearance, their habits, the sound of their laugh, the brilliance of their smile, the depth of their eyes, the feel of their hand, the taste of their lips, the strength of their character, the story of their life, the dreams they have, the doubts they ponder, until you find yourself finishing their sentences for them.
And you love them. You bring them in, deep inside yourself. You choose to do this, because you love them, and it actually happens, because of this choice, and their mutual choice to bring you into their self. In a way, you have changed who you are. (Though such change is entirely possible through different means.)
And in our society, this eventually means you'll marry them. Romantically, to the squawking objections of friends and family who think this is a terrible match, of course, after which they delight in your wedding and subsequent reception. C'est la vie.
Is that it? One great choice at some arbitrary point in your life, assuming it wasn't arranged, and then... nothing? No more choices? What kind of love is that? I'll tell you: it's not. It's not love at all, because love is an action, and actions are based in choice. Because you aren't choosing.
What did Aenea say? "Choose again."
Choosing to Love
A fresh excerpt, now that you are properly scandalized. If you have read Rise of Endymion, you may be wondering what I'm getting at: after all, there is no denunciation of marriage in the book. Honestly, I think Simmons simply missed this implication of his work. Or he didn't care to remark on it as a theme; it doesn't matter. This is my interpretation.
Choose again. Aenea and I made love in the darkened living pod, despite our fatigue and the late hour. Our lovemaking was slow and tender and almost unbearably sweet.
Choose again. They were the last words in my mind as I finally drifted... literally... off to sleep. Choose again. I finally understood. I chose Aenea and life with Aenea. And I believe that she had chosen me.
And I would choose her and she would choose me tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and in every hour during those tomorrows.
Choose again. Yes. Yes.
Choice comes from knowing that there's an alternative. It means that you're allowed to choose to go left, rather than right, because you know that you can go left, and you know what the probable consequences of that are. And it means the permission to choose your partner over and over again... or not.
In a proper marriage, they should hold a wedding daily, hourly. Of course, that's not practical, not least because we've turned the wedding into a spectacle, but in practice, one of the best pieces of marriage advice I have ever heard is to continue dating your partner. This is an excellent practice, and you should continue it even when you have kids. Not to keep the magic; that's silly. But dates are an opportunity to get to know one another: that's the point of them: and continually refreshing a ritual that focuses on understanding is important.
I said something untrue, earlier. I implied that, in marriage, there is no further choice. This is untrue. While it is accurate to say that the point of marriage is that no further choice should be necessary, it is always possible to violate your vows: and generally speaking, most people know this. Thus, it is true that they are choosing their partner again and again.
But to paraphrase Aenea, "And speaking of our views on marriage..."
Choose again.
So this ought to be the start of some kind of series, but I doubt that will happen. :)
Aenea: A girl in Dan Simmons' Endymion and Rise of Endymion, prophecized to be a messiah. Her tale, through the eyes of the title character, is the story.
I expect this essay to contain significant excerpts and spoilers. This is your forewarning. It is an excellent book that deserves to be read on its own terms, without the personal and mythic interpretation I am about to give it here. Simmons has no idea I'm writing this, and thus cannot endorse it whatsoever. Also, while this essay does lend significant insight to why I chose Aenea as a member of my spontaneous pantheon, it is not intended to be a complete picture and should not be construed as such. (In another ten years, I'd expect my choices to be completely different.) Thanks.
Onto the essay itself.
===
Let's set the scene with a hefty excerpt.
"All right," I said, "but if you were the messiah, what would your message to humanity be?"
Aenea chuckled again, but I noticed that itw as a reflective chuckle, not a derisive one. "If you were a messiah," she said between breaths, "what would your message be?"
I laughed out loud. A. Bettik could not have heard the sound through the near vacuum separating us, but he must have seen me throw my head back, for he looked over quizzically. I waved at him and said to Aenea, "I have no fucking clue."
"Exactly," said Aenea, "When I was a kid... I mean a little kid, before I met you... and I knew that I'd have to go through some of this stuff... I was always wondering what message I was going to give humankind. Beyond the things I knew I'd have to teach, I mean. Something profound. Sort of a Sermon on the Mount."
I looked around. There was no ice or snow at this terrible altitude. The clear, white steps rose through shelves of steep, black rock. "Well," I said, "here's the mount."
"Yeah," said Aenea, and I could hear the fatigue once again.
"So what message did you come up with?" I said, more to keep her talking and distracted than to hear the answer. It had been a while since she and I had just talked.
I could see her smile. "I kept working on it," she said at last, "trying to get it as short and important as the Sermon on the Mount. Then I realized that was no good--like Uncle Martin in his manic-poet period trying to outwrite Shakespeare--so I decided that my message would just be shorter."
"How short?"
"I got my message down to thirty-five words. Too long. Then down to twenty-seven. Still too long. After a few years I had it down to ten. STill too long. Eventually I boiled it down to two words."
"Two words?" I said. "Which two?"
We had reached the next resting point... the seventieth or eightieth three hundredth step. We stopped gratefully and panted. I bent over to rest my skinsuit-gloved hands on my skinsuit-sheathed knees and concentrated on not throwing up. It was bad form to vomit in an osmosis mask. "Which two?" I said again when I got some wind back and could hear the answer over my pounding heart and rasping lungs.
"Choose again," said Aenea.
I considered that for a wheezing, panting moment. "Choose again?" I said finally.
Aenea smiled. She had caught her wind and was looking down at the vertical view that I was afraid even to glance toward. She seemed to be enjoying it. I had the friendly urge to toss her off the mountain right then. Youth. It's intolerable sometimes.
"Choose again," she said firmly.
"Care to elaborate on that?"
"No," said Aenea. "That's the whole idea. Keep it simple. But name a category and you get the idea."
"Religion," I said.
"Choose again," said Aenea.
I laughed.
"I'm not being totally facetious here, Raul," she said. We began climbing again. A. Bettik seemed lost in thought.
"I know, kiddo," I said, although I had not been sure. "Categories... ah... political systems."
"Choose again."
"You don't think that the Pax is the ultimate evolution of human society? It's brought interstellar peace, fairly good government, and... oh, yeah... immortality to its citizens."
"It's time to choose again," said Aenea. "And speaking of our views of evolution..."
"What?"
"Choose again."
"Choose what again?" I said. "The direction of evolution?"
"No," said Aenea, "I mean our ideas about whether evolution has a direction. Most of our theories about evolution, for that matter."
It continues on from there, ultimately talking about diversity being an essential mandate of life. By now, due to Simmons' excellent dialogue, I hope you're getting a picture of what I'm going to talk about.
Choice
Aenea, in my framework, represents choice: the exercise of volition to bind one moment of time together with another. Choice is the purpose of knowledge, which I consider to be an axiomatic Good. (Knowledge is used for Choice; Choice is the basis of Action; Action is a means to gain Knowledge. A directed triangle.) And since knowledge is good, its purpose may also be called good.
The idea of choice demands the question of free will: do you, in fact, ever have a choice? To this, I simply handwave the idea. Free will, and choice itself, step into the perpetually nebulous territory of the idea of an identity, the norms of which I have already violated quite drastically. It is an interesting domain, no doubt, but it is too tangential to discuss it here.
Instead of self-knowledge in specific, we'll turn to knowledge in general.
Knowledge
Knowledge is a difficult beast. People have a weighty misconception about knowledge: they believe it is a thing written in books, heard in classrooms, found in itemized lists of facts: they believe it is a thing called truth. It isn't. This isn't what knowledge is at all: this is a miniscule subset.
Knowledge is that which comes from cognition. And cognition is the process of taking perceived sensory information and reflecting on it. Whether that comes from reading a book or holding a beloved's hand, it is still sensory information, it is still cogitated, and it still results in knowledge. That this knowledge may not be new is irrelevant: it is still knowledge, regardless of its novelty.
Knowledge is a medium: the medium of relation. It is through knowledge that we relate to each other: through a constant pattern perceived through the shifting sands of time. It is this same ability that allows us to recognize cultures and personalities long dead, simply by examining their artifacts. Knowledge is what we pass between each other, by interacting, by knowing one another: it is the bridge across time. Time, across which relations fade away into memory and then into nothing, is held at bay by the presence of knowledge. Even a moment as brief as turning away is bridged by knowledge.
Long ago, I wrote a definition, which I will paraphrase: to grow in equality by a growth in knowledge. The first part is important because knowledge is a bridge, and bridges may be burned. And if it is, then the growth of knowledge does not proceed to a growth in equality.
That definition was of love.
Love
As I foreshadowed with my pointers towards human interaction, all relationships are founded on knowledge. You know someone exists, to begin with, and then you know their name, their appearance, their habits, the sound of their laugh, the brilliance of their smile, the depth of their eyes, the feel of their hand, the taste of their lips, the strength of their character, the story of their life, the dreams they have, the doubts they ponder, until you find yourself finishing their sentences for them.
And you love them. You bring them in, deep inside yourself. You choose to do this, because you love them, and it actually happens, because of this choice, and their mutual choice to bring you into their self. In a way, you have changed who you are. (Though such change is entirely possible through different means.)
And in our society, this eventually means you'll marry them. Romantically, to the squawking objections of friends and family who think this is a terrible match, of course, after which they delight in your wedding and subsequent reception. C'est la vie.
Is that it? One great choice at some arbitrary point in your life, assuming it wasn't arranged, and then... nothing? No more choices? What kind of love is that? I'll tell you: it's not. It's not love at all, because love is an action, and actions are based in choice. Because you aren't choosing.
What did Aenea say? "Choose again."
Choosing to Love
A fresh excerpt, now that you are properly scandalized. If you have read Rise of Endymion, you may be wondering what I'm getting at: after all, there is no denunciation of marriage in the book. Honestly, I think Simmons simply missed this implication of his work. Or he didn't care to remark on it as a theme; it doesn't matter. This is my interpretation.
Choose again. Aenea and I made love in the darkened living pod, despite our fatigue and the late hour. Our lovemaking was slow and tender and almost unbearably sweet.
Choose again. They were the last words in my mind as I finally drifted... literally... off to sleep. Choose again. I finally understood. I chose Aenea and life with Aenea. And I believe that she had chosen me.
And I would choose her and she would choose me tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and in every hour during those tomorrows.
Choose again. Yes. Yes.
Choice comes from knowing that there's an alternative. It means that you're allowed to choose to go left, rather than right, because you know that you can go left, and you know what the probable consequences of that are. And it means the permission to choose your partner over and over again... or not.
In a proper marriage, they should hold a wedding daily, hourly. Of course, that's not practical, not least because we've turned the wedding into a spectacle, but in practice, one of the best pieces of marriage advice I have ever heard is to continue dating your partner. This is an excellent practice, and you should continue it even when you have kids. Not to keep the magic; that's silly. But dates are an opportunity to get to know one another: that's the point of them: and continually refreshing a ritual that focuses on understanding is important.
I said something untrue, earlier. I implied that, in marriage, there is no further choice. This is untrue. While it is accurate to say that the point of marriage is that no further choice should be necessary, it is always possible to violate your vows: and generally speaking, most people know this. Thus, it is true that they are choosing their partner again and again.
But to paraphrase Aenea, "And speaking of our views on marriage..."
Choose again.