Category Archives: love

On unpacking my library

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Dedicated to the memory of Walter Benjamin. I moved from one office to another last week, which means I had to take down all my books, put them on carts, and unpack them in my new office. A simple enough task, but handling each book, picking a new location for it, tugs at the heartstrings and stirs old ideas from hibernation. You see, no one remembers all of the books that they have. This particular copy of “1984” was left on my desk in chemistry by someone–never knew who–in the spring of ’76. They had written my name it. My copy of “Ghost Story” came from the English book section of Casa de Libro in Madrid in 1979. Over the course of even a few years, one forgets individual volumes that were acquired in odd ways in dark, smelly, book shops off of equally dark and smelly streets deep inside a grimy urban setting. A copy of Borges’ short stories was a birthday gift from a beloved friend and still bears her dedication. I found a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” which was inscribed “To Helen, completely unforgettable, London, 1961.” I had completely forgotten several titles which I had never gotten around to reading, but I was warmly surprised to see old friends that I had indeed read, albeit decades ago. Having an analogue library, though quite superfluous today, appeals to my medieval sensibility of scribe. The physical presence of the books reminds me of how much there is to think about just being human. Flipping through familiar pages, reading familiar passages, gazing on forgotten book covers, I am often reminded of other periods, other times in my life when I lived in other towns and knew other people. My worries and concerns were different when I first read “Don Quixote” or “The Name of the Rose.” While I was unpacking I was assailed by both nostalgia and pathos, remembering a warm rainy afternoon in Madrid when I found that one book about Cervantes that I always wanted to read. Or perhaps it was a copy of “Cien años de soledad” that I found abandoned in a train station in Toledo (Spain). Some books had been gifts, and others had been borrowed by me, but never returned. I found an old, beat-up paperback of “Dr. Zhivago” that I bought for fifty pesetas from an outdoor vendor in the plaza of Alonso Martínez, which I read during the winter of ´84′-’85, one of the coldest winters in Madrid’s history. My copy of Shakespearean sonnets which was bought for less than a dollar out of a remainders bin at a mall in Mankato, Minnesota over thirty years ago which still bears my innocent marginalia of my youth. I had to throw away, with much regret, several books with broken spines and molding pages. At one time this would have horrified me, but these works are easily recovered given the digital nature of the internet. I noticed that I now have two copies of “The Lord of the Flies,” but that I still haven’t read it after all these years–I suspect I know what it’s about and don’t want to stare at the horror of humanity unleashed. I have dropped an ancient copy of “Beowulf” on my desk–a discard from my high school library. I first read this book when I was fifteen, so it will be a new read for me when I pick it up later this week. I will donate three boxes of books to the local library sale to make way for new titles because space is always finite for a book lover.

On unpacking my library

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Dedicated to the memory of Walter Benjamin. I moved from one office to another last week, which means I had to take down all my books, put them on carts, and unpack them in my new office. A simple enough task, but handling each book, picking a new location for it, tugs at the heartstrings and stirs old ideas from hibernation. You see, no one remembers all of the books that they have. This particular copy of “1984” was left on my desk in chemistry by someone–never knew who–in the spring of ’76. They had written my name it. My copy of “Ghost Story” came from the English book section of Casa de Libro in Madrid in 1979. Over the course of even a few years, one forgets individual volumes that were acquired in odd ways in dark, smelly, book shops off of equally dark and smelly streets deep inside a grimy urban setting. A copy of Borges’ short stories was a birthday gift from a beloved friend and still bears her dedication. I found a copy of Dante’s “Inferno” which was inscribed “To Helen, completely unforgettable, London, 1961.” I had completely forgotten several titles which I had never gotten around to reading, but I was warmly surprised to see old friends that I had indeed read, albeit decades ago. Having an analogue library, though quite superfluous today, appeals to my medieval sensibility of scribe. The physical presence of the books reminds me of how much there is to think about just being human. Flipping through familiar pages, reading familiar passages, gazing on forgotten book covers, I am often reminded of other periods, other times in my life when I lived in other towns and knew other people. My worries and concerns were different when I first read “Don Quixote” or “The Name of the Rose.” While I was unpacking I was assailed by both nostalgia and pathos, remembering a warm rainy afternoon in Madrid when I found that one book about Cervantes that I always wanted to read. Or perhaps it was a copy of “Cien años de soledad” that I found abandoned in a train station in Toledo (Spain). Some books had been gifts, and others had been borrowed by me, but never returned. I found an old, beat-up paperback of “Dr. Zhivago” that I bought for fifty pesetas from an outdoor vendor in the plaza of Alonso Martínez, which I read during the winter of ´84′-’85, one of the coldest winters in Madrid’s history. My copy of Shakespearean sonnets which was bought for less than a dollar out of a remainders bin at a mall in Mankato, Minnesota over thirty years ago which still bears my innocent marginalia of my youth. I had to throw away, with much regret, several books with broken spines and molding pages. At one time this would have horrified me, but these works are easily recovered given the digital nature of the internet. I noticed that I now have two copies of “The Lord of the Flies,” but that I still haven’t read it after all these years–I suspect I know what it’s about and don’t want to stare at the horror of humanity unleashed. I have dropped an ancient copy of “Beowulf” on my desk–a discard from my high school library. I first read this book when I was fifteen, so it will be a new read for me when I pick it up later this week. I will donate three boxes of books to the local library sale to make way for new titles because space is always finite for a book lover.

On Henry James’ "The Beast in the Jungle"

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I first read this longish short story over thirty years ago, and I was just as floored then by the ending as I was last night when I read it again for perhaps the twentieth time. The complexity of the author’s discourse, a labyrinth of syntactic juggling and back-tracking, embedded clauses, and hyperbolic double-talk, is daunting because he manages to talk about love and falling into it for the entire story without ever saying anything directly. The story revolves around the dynamics of a couple, May Bertram and John Marcher, who definitely are a couple, but they never marry, have children, or formalize in any serious way their informal relationship. Everyone who knows them understands that they are a couple. May considers them to be a couple, but Marcher just can’t seem to formalize the relationship even though he participates fully in the relationship as if they were married, but they aren’t married, and are not having sex, which their particular society would frown upon. On the other hand, Marcher is obsessed with some imaginary “great thing” to which he will be exposed and which will change his life significantly. He has shared this delusion/idea/tragedy with May, and she agrees to “watch” with him for the horrendous event. He dismisses the question of love almost outright, but he enlists the help of May to help him watch for this “great thing” he is to experience. They discuss the nature of this “great thing” but one gets the sensation that Marcher is only ever more clueless about what this great thing might be, and one also understands, as does Marcher at some point, that May Bertram knows exactly what the “great thing” will be. She knows, he doesn’t, awkward moment. Over the decades through which the relationship endures they grow to love each other to the exclusion of all others, but they each maintain a dwelling, so they are never in an economic situation which might force them into living together–getting married, that is. Marcher is an independent fool who cannot get past his own ego, cannot understand that he is a man like all others, cannot understand that he is much more common than he pretends to be. He believes himself to be “above average” or “special” but the entire story only proves that he is of the most common type of man who lives under the delusion that he is in some significant way special. May, on the other hand, is paralyzed by the fear that if she expresses her love for Marcher that he will disappear and never come back. For her, his companionship is enough, going to the opera, the theater, out to dinner, eating dinner at her home. Their intimacy is mental and occurs through their conversations about Marcher’s “great thing.” Since their intimacy is not centered on sex, their verbal intimacy, based solely on their conversations, their shared meals, their public companionship, serves to bring them together in a way that is much more emotionally based than physical. Since they go together so well, their natural interactions are taken for granted by Marcher and treasured by May. Only when she gets sick and things happen, does Marcher realize what their relationship has been about all along, and he has been an all-too-willing participant. Whether the story is a bitter ironic comedy or a stone-cold tragedy is for each reader to decide. In the end, the reader is the only witness to Marcher’s comic/tragic suffering. Ultimately, one must decide to live in each day, never take anyone or anything for granted, and take great joy in relationships no matter what form they might take.

On Henry James’ "The Beast in the Jungle"

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I first read this longish short story over thirty years ago, and I was just as floored then by the ending as I was last night when I read it again for perhaps the twentieth time. The complexity of the author’s discourse, a labyrinth of syntactic juggling and back-tracking, embedded clauses, and hyperbolic double-talk, is daunting because he manages to talk about love and falling into it for the entire story without ever saying anything directly. The story revolves around the dynamics of a couple, May Bertram and John Marcher, who definitely are a couple, but they never marry, have children, or formalize in any serious way their informal relationship. Everyone who knows them understands that they are a couple. May considers them to be a couple, but Marcher just can’t seem to formalize the relationship even though he participates fully in the relationship as if they were married, but they aren’t married, and are not having sex, which their particular society would frown upon. On the other hand, Marcher is obsessed with some imaginary “great thing” to which he will be exposed and which will change his life significantly. He has shared this delusion/idea/tragedy with May, and she agrees to “watch” with him for the horrendous event. He dismisses the question of love almost outright, but he enlists the help of May to help him watch for this “great thing” he is to experience. They discuss the nature of this “great thing” but one gets the sensation that Marcher is only ever more clueless about what this great thing might be, and one also understands, as does Marcher at some point, that May Bertram knows exactly what the “great thing” will be. She knows, he doesn’t, awkward moment. Over the decades through which the relationship endures they grow to love each other to the exclusion of all others, but they each maintain a dwelling, so they are never in an economic situation which might force them into living together–getting married, that is. Marcher is an independent fool who cannot get past his own ego, cannot understand that he is a man like all others, cannot understand that he is much more common than he pretends to be. He believes himself to be “above average” or “special” but the entire story only proves that he is of the most common type of man who lives under the delusion that he is in some significant way special. May, on the other hand, is paralyzed by the fear that if she expresses her love for Marcher that he will disappear and never come back. For her, his companionship is enough, going to the opera, the theater, out to dinner, eating dinner at her home. Their intimacy is mental and occurs through their conversations about Marcher’s “great thing.” Since their intimacy is not centered on sex, their verbal intimacy, based solely on their conversations, their shared meals, their public companionship, serves to bring them together in a way that is much more emotionally based than physical. Since they go together so well, their natural interactions are taken for granted by Marcher and treasured by May. Only when she gets sick and things happen, does Marcher realize what their relationship has been about all along, and he has been an all-too-willing participant. Whether the story is a bitter ironic comedy or a stone-cold tragedy is for each reader to decide. In the end, the reader is the only witness to Marcher’s comic/tragic suffering. Ultimately, one must decide to live in each day, never take anyone or anything for granted, and take great joy in relationships no matter what form they might take.

On Goethe’s Werther

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The protagonist and principle voice in Goethe’s novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, is an odd, if not slightly pathetic, incarnation of the human experience. The novel is comprised of a series of letters, irregularly spaced over a period of almost two years in which Werther narrates his love and infatuation with a local girl, Lotte. On its face, this epistolary novel seems rather old hat, derivative, unoriginal, but the levels to which the narcissistic narrator carries his obsession for Lotte are almost epic. Readers would recognize from the beginning the childish infatuation upon which Werther fantasizes about Lotte, being in love, and their occasional encounters in which Werther acts in an infantile and childish way. He idealizes this poor woman all out of proportion, ascribing all kinds of fantastic emotion and behavior to her without really knowing hardly anything about her at all. Lotte is betrothed to another man, and Werther knows this, so his love for her is unrequited, and they are a cliché, star-crossed lovers a la Romeo and Juliet. Werther completely denies the cold, hard facts of the betrothal that make impossible any real sentimental relationship with Lotte, unwilling to even recognize on even the most minimal level that he understands why they cannot be together. The unfulfilled or unrequited nature of their relationship drives Werther into a deep depression, agonizing to Werther because she is both too close and too far away. I’m not entirely certain, though, that Werther would have reciprocated any physical moves made by Lotte. There is no sense that Werther would have known what to do if Lotte had moved in on him. Werther was in love with being in love, but a physical relationship with Lotte would have horrified him. He probably would have run away had Lotte suggested that they actually do something. Werther, as a man, is totally dysfunctional, pretending to be in love, but unwilling to experience anything real for fear of losing his dream to reality, fearing that the reality might not live up the dream. I called Werther narcissistic at the beginning of this note because Werther is not really in love with Lotte, he’s in love with Werther, with himself. Since he is the object of his own affections, a real physical relationship would destroy all of his illusions about the beauty and art of his imaginary girlfriend. As long as they don’t touch or kiss or have any other physical contact, Werther is safe from having to face the shortcomings, the disappointments, the realities of a physical relationship. He wallows in his misery as star-crossed lover, a character of his own invention, pining away for a woman who can never love him, enjoying every single moment of this degrading experience, which may only be an example of his low self-esteem. Nothing that he undertakes or plans comes to fruition, and he constructs himself as itinerant poet and artist, working alone on various and in sundry projects. Werther seems to enjoy his pain more and more as the situation between himself and Lotte becomes increasingly more untenable, including the marriage of Lotte to Albert, her fiancée. Werther is his own worst enemy, his own worst counselor, his own worst friend. The imaginary Wilhelm, the object of Werther’s letters, never seems to have any effect on Werther. Readers have marveled at Werther’s descent into the psychological maelstrom that is his failed artist’s life–some have admired his dedication to an ideal, others have walked away horrified. I tend to fall into the second category, horrified by the way he over-idealizes his relationship with Lotte, horrified by his childish narcissism, horrified by his inability to understand his own reality and move on.

On Goethe’s Werther

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The protagonist and principle voice in Goethe’s novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, is an odd, if not slightly pathetic, incarnation of the human experience. The novel is comprised of a series of letters, irregularly spaced over a period of almost two years in which Werther narrates his love and infatuation with a local girl, Lotte. On its face, this epistolary novel seems rather old hat, derivative, unoriginal, but the levels to which the narcissistic narrator carries his obsession for Lotte are almost epic. Readers would recognize from the beginning the childish infatuation upon which Werther fantasizes about Lotte, being in love, and their occasional encounters in which Werther acts in an infantile and childish way. He idealizes this poor woman all out of proportion, ascribing all kinds of fantastic emotion and behavior to her without really knowing hardly anything about her at all. Lotte is betrothed to another man, and Werther knows this, so his love for her is unrequited, and they are a cliché, star-crossed lovers a la Romeo and Juliet. Werther completely denies the cold, hard facts of the betrothal that make impossible any real sentimental relationship with Lotte, unwilling to even recognize on even the most minimal level that he understands why they cannot be together. The unfulfilled or unrequited nature of their relationship drives Werther into a deep depression, agonizing to Werther because she is both too close and too far away. I’m not entirely certain, though, that Werther would have reciprocated any physical moves made by Lotte. There is no sense that Werther would have known what to do if Lotte had moved in on him. Werther was in love with being in love, but a physical relationship with Lotte would have horrified him. He probably would have run away had Lotte suggested that they actually do something. Werther, as a man, is totally dysfunctional, pretending to be in love, but unwilling to experience anything real for fear of losing his dream to reality, fearing that the reality might not live up the dream. I called Werther narcissistic at the beginning of this note because Werther is not really in love with Lotte, he’s in love with Werther, with himself. Since he is the object of his own affections, a real physical relationship would destroy all of his illusions about the beauty and art of his imaginary girlfriend. As long as they don’t touch or kiss or have any other physical contact, Werther is safe from having to face the shortcomings, the disappointments, the realities of a physical relationship. He wallows in his misery as star-crossed lover, a character of his own invention, pining away for a woman who can never love him, enjoying every single moment of this degrading experience, which may only be an example of his low self-esteem. Nothing that he undertakes or plans comes to fruition, and he constructs himself as itinerant poet and artist, working alone on various and in sundry projects. Werther seems to enjoy his pain more and more as the situation between himself and Lotte becomes increasingly more untenable, including the marriage of Lotte to Albert, her fiancée. Werther is his own worst enemy, his own worst counselor, his own worst friend. The imaginary Wilhelm, the object of Werther’s letters, never seems to have any effect on Werther. Readers have marveled at Werther’s descent into the psychological maelstrom that is his failed artist’s life–some have admired his dedication to an ideal, others have walked away horrified. I tend to fall into the second category, horrified by the way he over-idealizes his relationship with Lotte, horrified by his childish narcissism, horrified by his inability to understand his own reality and move on.

On Valentine’s Day

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Perhaps we might invent a holiday that torments single people and makes them feel isolated and alone. Wait, we already did that with Valentine’s Day. I think marriage was invented so that the vast majority of people would not have to worry about getting a date for that day, or not getting flowers, or not going dancing, or not giving away chocolates. The pressure is always on during the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. Single people are tormented by the endless parade of happy people, their flowers, their heart-shaped balloons, their romantic dinners, their Valentine’s Day cards. What if you don’t get any? And romantic music is like a stake in the heart for a vampire. For those lucky folks who find themselves paired up during the Valentine, the holiday in mid-February is a wonderful time to love stuff, but for those folks who have recently broken up with their significant other, every loving couple is only another reminder of their own loneliness and failure. Every Valentine’s Day party, every bouquet of roses, every couple dining in a romantic setting, is a reminder of their own solitary condition. This is supposed to be happy occasion, and for many people it is, but the irony is bitter, difficult to swallow because solitude is the only part of the human condition for which there is no solution, unless it be other people. I don’t know which part of Valentine’s Day I hate most–the stuffed bears, the bunches of balloons, the red, frilly hearts, the roses, the chocolates, or kissing couples. The clichés are not endless, but they are repetitive, and they are boring. People in love just make me sick. In another lifetime I might not have felt this way, but the years have tanned my hide, so to speak, and any romantic bone that I might have ever had has long since petrified, cold and unfeeling. Yet, this strange red and pink-hearted holiday is about an ideal after which most of strive at some moment in our lives. Our crushes, our loves, our obsessions all come home to roost on Valentine’s Day when we remember, perhaps ponder, our emotional attachments, the loves of our lives. What most bothers me about Valentine’s Day is how the multi-national corporations that sell Valentine’s Day have turned a sweet, emotional fun day into an out-of-control consumer nightmare of buying and splurging and spending. One is delinquent if one has not bought a diamond or chocolate or roses or lobster or mink or electronics or whatever. Since when is love about money and spending a whole bunch of it? I am often disappointed in my own culture’s inability to find meaning and value in something without attaching a monetary value to it. Savage consumerism has wrecked this holiday, and there is probably no way to save it from unbridled spending and uncontrolled materialism. Materialism is the dialectic opposite of love, which is a self-less emotional response to another human being. Things, stuff, can only get in the way, and are often the cause of so many break ups. Perhaps love can only survive Valentine’s Day when it is not controlled by a capitalistic market that is marked only by dollars and cents. Diamonds are not the solution to Valentine’s Day, but real emotion might be. Valentine’s Day, the way it is sold in stores, is fake, phony, a waste of time. Valentine’s Day really only exists in the heart, and that is the only place where it will ever be found.

On Valentine’s Day

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Perhaps we might invent a holiday that torments single people and makes them feel isolated and alone. Wait, we already did that with Valentine’s Day. I think marriage was invented so that the vast majority of people would not have to worry about getting a date for that day, or not getting flowers, or not going dancing, or not giving away chocolates. The pressure is always on during the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. Single people are tormented by the endless parade of happy people, their flowers, their heart-shaped balloons, their romantic dinners, their Valentine’s Day cards. What if you don’t get any? And romantic music is like a stake in the heart for a vampire. For those lucky folks who find themselves paired up during the Valentine, the holiday in mid-February is a wonderful time to love stuff, but for those folks who have recently broken up with their significant other, every loving couple is only another reminder of their own loneliness and failure. Every Valentine’s Day party, every bouquet of roses, every couple dining in a romantic setting, is a reminder of their own solitary condition. This is supposed to be happy occasion, and for many people it is, but the irony is bitter, difficult to swallow because solitude is the only part of the human condition for which there is no solution, unless it be other people. I don’t know which part of Valentine’s Day I hate most–the stuffed bears, the bunches of balloons, the red, frilly hearts, the roses, the chocolates, or kissing couples. The clichés are not endless, but they are repetitive, and they are boring. People in love just make me sick. In another lifetime I might not have felt this way, but the years have tanned my hide, so to speak, and any romantic bone that I might have ever had has long since petrified, cold and unfeeling. Yet, this strange red and pink-hearted holiday is about an ideal after which most of strive at some moment in our lives. Our crushes, our loves, our obsessions all come home to roost on Valentine’s Day when we remember, perhaps ponder, our emotional attachments, the loves of our lives. What most bothers me about Valentine’s Day is how the multi-national corporations that sell Valentine’s Day have turned a sweet, emotional fun day into an out-of-control consumer nightmare of buying and splurging and spending. One is delinquent if one has not bought a diamond or chocolate or roses or lobster or mink or electronics or whatever. Since when is love about money and spending a whole bunch of it? I am often disappointed in my own culture’s inability to find meaning and value in something without attaching a monetary value to it. Savage consumerism has wrecked this holiday, and there is probably no way to save it from unbridled spending and uncontrolled materialism. Materialism is the dialectic opposite of love, which is a self-less emotional response to another human being. Things, stuff, can only get in the way, and are often the cause of so many break ups. Perhaps love can only survive Valentine’s Day when it is not controlled by a capitalistic market that is marked only by dollars and cents. Diamonds are not the solution to Valentine’s Day, but real emotion might be. Valentine’s Day, the way it is sold in stores, is fake, phony, a waste of time. Valentine’s Day really only exists in the heart, and that is the only place where it will ever be found.

On narcissism

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(How narcissistic is this: write one’s own note on the subject–sweet!) I have always thought that narcissism was a very strange malady from which to suffer, but the older I get, the more I think that it might be the most common national past-time in America. Far be it from me to judge, but our “me first” society, where we give participation trophies for breathing, seems ready to plunge head-first into its own image in a nihilistic search for eternal youth, breaking new records every day in what it spends on make-up, hair products, Botox, gyms, and plastic surgery. Our obsessions, however, don’t stop with the purely physical, but extends to all of the things our consumer society deems necessary for a happy and successful life–cell phones, flat screen televisions, fast cars, Caribbean vacations, tablets and other personal computing devices, large homes–the list is probably endless. Our narcissism extends to our obsession with digitally mediated communications and our involvement in social networks and the adulation we demand from our “friends,” who are probably anything but friends. We are constantly craving more and more interaction with our friends when they “like” a status, or a post, or a picture. The more we let others stroke our egos, the happier we are, plunging us further into the watery reflection at which we stare, hopelessly in love with the changing image floating in front of us, leaving real family and friends wondering where we are. Of course, a certain amount of narcissism is healthy when mixed with a healthy dose of self-deprecating humor. When you start believing your own press clippings, you really need to be dragged back into reality. The truth is, narcissism is a debilitating and unhealthy belief that one is too smart or too beautiful or too talented to mix with the regular rank and file. The Lake Wobegon syndrome, “that all the children are above average” only leads us all to the unhealthy belief that we are special, that we walk above the masses, that we are exceptional. that we are not a part of the hoi-polloi. I would suggest that the contrary is true: that average is average, and most of us are just that, average. The myth of Narcissus exists primarily as a cautionary in which the foolish exemplar dies, alone and unloved because he believes that his personal beauty is exceptional and above all others, yet his self-obsession drives him to madness, isolating him from Echo, the woman who would save him. The story of Narcissus is both tragic and ironic because he rejects the nymph who would love him, causing her great unhappiness, but the love of the forest nymph could have saved him if he could only get outside of himself. Consumed by his own image, Narcissus becomes isolated and still more self-absorbed, which I would suggest is a metaphor for the excessive egotism which assails our obsessive consumer society. We see the narcissism everywhere–on the road, at the supermarket, speeding through a school zone. The weird side of this problem is that it defies solutions–Narcissus never came around, there was no solutions to his obsession. He was incapable of self-awareness, a self-awareness of himself as just one small part of a much larger whole. Consumed by the superficiality of his own good looks, he was incapable of loving anyone else. In the end, it was his ego which robbed him of any kind of humility which might have averted his death.

On smiling

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It seems that it takes, according to experts, lots of muscles to smile, but that babies learn to smile before they can even talk, imitating the faces that their parents make at them. I am no expert, but I think that trying to analyze what a smile is, exactly, takes all the sunshine right out of a smile. Perhaps the most positive sign of affirmation that anyone can receive is a smile: when we do something right, when we meet again after a long absence, when we need reassurance, when we wake up in the morning. We all smile for lots of different reasons: we are glad to see someone, we are feeling happy, we are getting exactly what we want, we want to reaffirm the efforts of someone else, we are euphoric, we are relieved, we are in love, we want to cheer up someone who might not be smiling. When I see others smile, it warms my heart even when I am not involved in the conversation. Seeing that someone else is happy, reaffirmed, right, creates in me a positive light in a dark world. With all the tragedy, chaos, and sadness that troubles our world (and has always troubled our world, let’s face it, we are far from perfect creatures), a smile is like a beam of sunlight on a cold winter’s morning when you know it’s not going above zero that day. A smile reaffirms the idea that this whole business of life is worth pursuing for a bit longer. Smiles are also sexy, and in the right situation, speak about desire, pleasure, love, longing, intimacy, craving. Smiles between a man and a woman are about more than anything that might expressed in words, and perhaps there are no words to express those kinds of feelings. Poets, philosophers, play-writes, mystics, barbers, bartenders, and theologians have tried to express the ideas and emotions behind the smile, but they have been at it for several millennium without getting it exactly right. What the smile communicates is complex, positive, and happy, and it’s happiness that illusive thing that we all pursue? In a world which often seems arbitrary, cold, and uncaring, a smile is often a light for a soul lost in the dark night of life. I would suggest that smiles, even when we are alone and only smiling to ourselves, are a sign of mental health, of an upbeat, positive view of the world. Of course, we have all seen creepy smiles on the faces of sales people, receptionists, and others who are paid to smile regardless of how they feel. I wonder if smiling actually helps them deal with tough situations (customer service, blech) in which those fake smilers must deal with unhappy and demanding and unsmiling folks who are bringing trouble–me, for example, when I have to take back a defective product. Could a smile be a shield against ill-will and anger? Does a smile defuse and angry heart? In the end, a smile, as opposed to a frown, seems almost to carry with it supernatural powers for healing, loving, caring in a world of frowns, of negative energy, of violence and chaos. So we smile at each other–non-verbal communication–and hope that the message gets across, but maybe a smile is not just a one-shot deal, maybe it’s a promise, or an ethos, or pathos, unwritten rhetoric of hope that cannot be truly expressed in words or any other verbal way. Maybe smiles are more about communication and less about words?