As I prepare the speech Ill give tonight in honor of the bride, Im musing over marriage, and what it means - REALLY means - to be married. Today on the beach, I read one of the most profound explanations of love and marriage Ive ever heard (encompassed in the pages Ive screenshot, below), and summed by the legendary Joseph Campbell here: Marriage has nothing to do with being happy. It has to do with being transformed, and when the transformation is realized, it is a magnificent experience. But you have to submit. You have to yield. You have to give. You cant just dictate. Romantic? No, not in the conventional sense, at least. Not in the sense of the falling in love with the proverbial white knight or beautiful maiden, rescuing us from ourselves. There is no such thing, not really, not at the most root level. We are the only ones who can rescue ourselves. So, no, Campbells definition is not Disney romantic. But it is deep. It is hopeful. It is the epitome of courage. And all of that is pretty romantic. So maybe - just maybe - there could be romance in reality. ;-) The goal of therapy is to help the patient go beyond intellectualization and rationalization to the point where he can seek and find the anguish and terror of total realization and discover he can survive. To know that life can be truly absorb and capricious; that one is not omnipotent; that without magic as the ultimate defense, there is pain at times which hurts more than words can describe. And after the grief and the mourning, not only for the lost objects of ones fantasies, but for the fantasies and illusions themselves, to be able to live relatively without illusion. To know Time as a friend as well as an enemy. To recognize that happiness is not a condition, but an ephemeral and precious experience, that ifs one lives without illusion one must impart meaning to ones life; that hope must replace expectations and demands; that activity must replace passivity; that realistic hope must be directed towards the expansion and growth of ones potentialities, which implies experiencing more richly BOTH sorrow and joy. YESSSSSSSSS! #RealMarriage
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 19:39:01 +0000
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