The past few of his books I have read were from the library, so sadly, they have to go back, but the last one I finished, "Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates" was pretty intense, and I wrote down a few of the things that really struck me:
He owed much of his greatness as an artist, and as a man to the fact that he was simultaneously epicurean and pious, hedonistic and devout, that he made little or no distinction between his lobe of wine, women and song, and his love of God.
I think for a long time I have struggled with the duality of my nature, and am still very much struggling with it. Both the painter referred to in this passage, and the main character in the book, Switters, seem to be at one with their internal contradictions.
You are a complicated man, but happily complicated. You have found a way to be at home with the world's confusion, a way to embrace the chaos, rather that struggle to reduce it or become it's victim. It's all part of the game to you, and you are happy to play.
I don't think I am anywhere near this point in my struggle to reconcile the two sides of myself. Perhaps the point is that no one ever actually blends their sides into one, perhaps humans just accept their dual natures and learn to live with the fact that we are good and evil at the same time, all the time.
The Devil doesn't make us do anything. The Devil, for example, doesn't make us mean. Rather, when we are mean, we make the Devil. Literally. Our actions create him. Conversely, when we behave with compassion, generosity and grace, we create God in the world.
I feel that I am a kind and good person, though there are things about the old me that would make some truly "good" people cringe. I am, by nature, very epicurean and hedonistic, and, let's admit it, demanding. But as I am learning more about relationships (of all kinds), and what I want out of life, I am realizing that the things I want are not always the things I need. (Yes, Mom... you heard me!)
My inner fratboy has been yelling at me that there are certain things it wants that I have not been focusing on, because I have been focusing more on the pursuit of self, and love, than of nookie.
Sex and emotion often get too closely tied to each other. People assume they love the people they fuck, and they assume they should fuck the people they love. Neither of those is always the case. If you can fall in love with someone without having sex with them, then you know you love them, and that it's not infatuation or lust.
Our society has such an infatuation with passion and intense love, the focus has been shifted away from the sort of lasting love our grandparents and great grandparents had, and in some cases still have. I used to think the divorce rate is higher now than ever because it has become more socially acceptable to get divorced. Working in the funeral home all the time I see older couples still together, or a husband mourning his wife, and I realized that pervious generations understood the value of friendship in a marriage, and trying through the toughest conditions, war, poverty etc, to truly love each other and be the best spouse they could be instead of always looking for the next person or thing to whisk them away from reality into the hollywood world of love. Passion is great while it lasts, but too many relationships are based only on that, and once it's gone, it leaves behind nothing but a sour, empty taste, or perhaps some fond memories of crazy nights.
I want the kind of love that lasts forever, and I am willing to wait forever to find it.
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