Thursday, April 19, 2012

Wonder

That's the answer.

Lust is to love as wonder is to wisdom.

Wisdom is success in the way of dealing with wonder. It is not wise to remain merely in "a state of wonder".

Likewise, in love we must deal with lust, but not be enslaved by it.

We might say, in both cases, that we need to liberate ourselves from the "base" experience. But really it is only our lust we need to be liberated from (it is the paradoxical impulse that seeks to enslave us through our desire to be free). Wonder needs to be reigned in, disciplined.

As I've said before wisdom determines a limit, a limit to belief, which is essentially the same thing as checking our capacity for limitless wonder. Love frees desire from our receptivity to slavish lust.

But I don't want to put either wonder or lust down. There is an aesthetic component to this liberation and de-liberation. Lust and wonder indicate a particular kind of pleasure, which the base experience challenges us to pursue. In satisfying it, we may simply addict ourselves to pleasure, or we may find a way to transcend the basic impulse.

Of course, we may also simply repress lust and wonder. Not recommended.

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