Friends, what is love anyway? We shall try to investigate that question through the lens of Existentialism. When I use the word 'love,' I will mean the In-Love state unless I otherwise indicate. And I will contrast love with desire, the In-Desire state.

I would like to begin by first referencing the myth of Narcissus. Here it is in summary: once upon a time there was a young lad of astonishing beauty called Narcissus. As he traipsed all around Greece, a bevy of lovely women, in quick succession, threw themselves at him. He snubbed them all. A consensus seems to have developed among the women that Narcissus was stuck on himself, conceited, thought he was too sexy for any and all of them. One of the women prayed to the goddess that "he who loves not" should be struck with unshakable love upon sight of the very first person he sees. Directly after that he caught sight of his reflection in a lake and became hopelessly enthralled and entranced.

Let's keep a few things in mind about this and other ancient myths that we have. I do not speak or write Greek, not even modern Greek. I am not an archeologist, nor a classicist, nor a scholar of any kind. But these myths come to us by way of archeology and are therefore de-contextualized.

If we are to take this story at face value then we must conclude that the tale is absurb, without edifying value whatsoever. How do we know it wasn't part of some ancient, longer tabloid piece? I'm serious. I think it is appalling that poor Narcissus has to take the blame for personifying vanity, conceit, and selfish self-absorption, that from him we get our word Narcissistic.

We have to give ourselves permission, given the origin of the myths we have in western culture generally, and the Myth of Narcissus in particular for our purposes, to say to ourselves 'If this is all there is, this tale is absurd. What if the story means this instead of that? What if things means this instead of that? What if we looked at things this way instead of that way? Where might that take us?'

More on this tomorrow.

wingedcentaur