Communion: Bell Hooks, Me and Our Thoughts on Love (Part One)

So last night I started reading another book by Bell Hooks… It centralizes on the Search for Love. It examines the dynamics of the family and the patriarchal system… She analyzes how these effects shape how we envision romantic relationships, and how those decisions help or hinder us in finding love.

Now, normally I would say Hooks has a tendency of impressing me. Her ability to conceptualize abstract constructions and apply them to the dynamic of relationships is innovative… and yet, even with my continual underlining of this book I have yet to be moved.

Maybe its’ because I feel as if I could have written this, and I think she has more to offer than my simple examinations or understanding of love and relationships.

Or maybe because her quest for fulfillment and love mirror mine… and though she is the voice for the marginalized, the silenced and the downtrodden .. nevertheless she is preaching to the choir.

For many reasons, I don’t feel the pain depicted in her loss of acceptance from her family, though I can honestly say I experienced something similar, and have yet to entirely recover from it.

Though I can empathize with her quest to find love outside of herself (when ultimately freedom and the actualization of love is an internal struggle, while the connections we form are the consequences of those developments), I am still unmoved.

Maybe it’s because I am frustrated. Frustrated at the notion of what we represent. As women we are acculturated, taught to be secondary, until it is apart our collective consciousness. Because of this we have an inherent need to prove that we are worthy of love. That our worth equates to the evaluation or devaluation of the people around us, while the manifestation of love (or our connections) is the measuring stick with which we define ourselves…

By discarding love for power, we perpetuate the patriarchal system. Acquiring control at the loss of our internal sense of self, of worth, and love.. is the new status-quo.

By disguising desperation and neediness as love.... we are given a false map, blindfolded, then asked to follow it in the hopes of seeking fulfillment… and no matter how lost we get, we rarely connect within ourselves to take off the blinders, and even when we do we rarely question the map, let alone ask anyone else for directions.

Nevertheless I learned today that I live between and within two factions:
The first faction lives in the past… They yearn and plead in loud clamors for me to discard love entirely. Or if I so chose to engage in the notion of marriage (cause god who wouldn’t want to get married!?!?), I should do it soon.
Conformity and Submission is key…and in return I may acquire and retain my sense of sanity, comfort, wealth, and potential autonomy…. In exchange I get to allow someone to take of me (have a roommate so to speak), remain alone (emotionally and psychologically), play into what society has laid out for me… and be safe…. For the rest of my life…

Sounds tempting…

The second faction I would like to call ‘the iconoclasts‘… they think it’s okay to destroy what we currently have in place…. They love the notion of dismantling all modes of constructions that beget domination. Which is nice on paper… but I left that idealistic sense of anarchy at the door when I was 15, and I don’t think I want to relive that period ever again…

So, why do I think this is ridiculous? Well…. It’s one thing to destroy the world, it’s another thing to reconstruct it.

They’ve spent so much time braking down walls, and still have yet to engender ways of creating a new world (and the ramifications of that world) to take it’s place. There is no discourse in how to enable girls to balance actual love and autonomy, let alone the ways in which society can generate a transformative way of creating such connections.

I remember once in my feminist theory course, everyone was all about dismantling the notion of a woman’s work within the home. And my caveat to that was… who replaces that role? Do we denigrate men into a role subjugation? And what are the consequences of such an upheaval? Why would someone want to dismantle a foundational part of our existence, something many derive power from….?
For example, women of color, derive a significant amount of power as the provider (and emotional bedrock) for their families….. They are forces that connect and strengthen our ties to the past, ourselves, and others. Why would anyone want to dismantle that?

Instead why can ‘t we just change our outlook, nurture the roles all people fill, instill respect and self-love and hope that filters out into the world…? We might not be able to change the way things are, but we can help ourselves and the people within our own worlds…. And if we play our cards right that should be enough.

Maybe if I read more I’ll change my mind about this book… maybe not… I’ll let you know.

Redeeming redemption

About a week ago I was listening to the guru gita. It’s a chant I tend to do every morning. Its 182 verses long and about 60 minutes (give or take long) in length. In these restless times I have finally resorted to chanting to gain a sense of clarity. It always seems to happen that after about 48:20 seconds into it I always have a difficult time concentrating and thoughts begin to linger. People begin to race around in my head.

The unfinished stuff.

So I began to clean my room, to regain some clarity and focus…and in the course of that found a lost treasure.

An archive of my past, and found one of the best gifts I've ever been given. The realization of some things triggered a resounding sadness within me. A longing I haven’t felt in a months, and in that wanted to redeem the gifts he once offered me.

Though I would be saddened if I never saw him again, I didn’t need him to come back, or even to see me for the acknowledgment to matter.

And so I wrote him a letter.

Today I was rereading it and thought about all of the people in my life, who have shaped or influenced me in some way... I thought about how much that actually means to me. To know I have hurt someone I care about effects me so much, that I thought maybe I could ask this of everyone…. So that even if it couldn’t be given, the invitation would always be there…

I would like to redeem these.

Forgiveness, because there is nothing else that I could ever ask of you or desire more than this.

Love, because in spite of it all, no matter where you go, or who you become I will always love you for you.

Reverence, because that is all I see and hope one day we can meet and share in the greatness of this.

If you are incapable of redeeming these gifts I harbor no ill will or sadness. And hope with all of my heart that can you give and receive these with all of your heart. For as much as you have made an impact on my capacity to love I hope you are able to experience that and so much more.

Take care of yourself,
Love always,
Elizabeth

An answer to my random question

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_wood_could_a_woodchuck_chuck_if_a_woodchuck_could_chuck_wood


thought it might be worth checking out.

Drinking the Kool Aid

I think the course has made me more sympathetic to the religious,
and slightly wary of those who fervently subscribe to
secularism/science.... It seems as if there's no impartiality to
either side, and the only way people will ever open themselves up to
such discourse (in a serious way) is to honestly listen to not only
theists and atheists, but everyone else in-between....

Maybe understanding the agnostic's perspective on spirituality and
science might shed some light on the conflicts and reconcilation
upon which this topic rests.

Reading authors like Roughgarden and Gingerich have diswayed me from
taking the religious seriously, while Dawkins and Hitchens unnerved
me with their dogmatic satire (actually Dawkins more than
Hitchens.... he actually makes it quite entertaining). Are they (the
atheists) fighting against religion or the existence of God? Is it
one in the same? Does denouncing what religion has done to the world
diminish the potentiality of the metaphysical?

I think the religious might need to persuade others (as Lane said),
through morality and emotionality. Not focusing so much on tradition
or ritualism, but instead connecting through the spiritual and
mystical experiences commonly shared.

I don't know what that would accomplish, but it might give skeptics
room to take believers somewhat seriously in this neverending debate

I think at the beginning of this course I started skeptical of
religion, but now I am truly skeptical of both. My ears are open to
both sides now, I'm just waiting to hear what they have to say.

--- In sciencereligion@yahoogroups.com, "marinating7"
wrote:
>
> has anyone had a change of heart regarding thier feerlings toward
> religion after all we have learned?? any comments?
>