A written piece on characters through the lens of relationships and love. Happy Valentine's Day.
Indecision: The inability of a character to arrive at a confident and sound decision. In matters of love, many characters are of the belief that if they pick a specific partner, they will find themselves missing out on every other available person that might be better suited for them. It is not unreasonable for someone to want to assess their options. But when a character always finds themselves in the mode of pursuit, to always be chasing, to always be hunting, even though some would argue that is how they retain their own youth, and that is how they stay sharp, it can also mean that they are constantly in-and-out of relationships like revolving doors. And when exactly is said character supposed to arrive at a place where they are happy with their chosen partner, how would they even know it having been in the dating game for so long?
Impermanence of Emotion: If love is only a chemical reaction in the brain, and fleeting emotions are not to be trusted, than what are the tried and true tests for some characters when trying to determine sincerity in love? They may feel intensely at the onset of their relationship, but their love for someone will not always prove to be a lasting sentiment. So what then do we have? A bunch of characters running around chasing the next love high, chasing the next chemical reaction, chasing the triggers that release the desired emotional responses they seek? The impermanence of feelings in a character and when they find themselves coming down from a love high, and when the love feels as though it has gone and fled from a relationship can encourage the attitude and belief that love is only an experience to be chased. And so love becomes a reservoir that certain characters look for in others to service and supply themselves with. When a character experiences the drought of love,they go searching for another replacement.
Self-love, is becoming a subject more widely preached about, and aside from how cliche and self-obsessed it may sound, it is grounded in certain truths, and should not be ignored. Because contentedness, and the capacity to love does start with the individual and their ability to find love and acceptance in themselves.
Dating: Dating for some characters is a less than enjoyable experience, and there are many comedic scenes and parodies that exist of dating scenarios that accurately characterize the awkwardness and the disappointment that a lot of people seem to go through. Dating is strange these days. It is not difficult to see why people hate dating and avoid it altogether. It is not hard to see why some don't bother to have, or seek out relationships in the first place, and they relegate themselves to a life of being single. Who in fact, actually wants be shuffled in-and-out of relationships every three-to-six months, it is tiresome and an utter waste of time for some characters. Dating can also be an obvious distraction for a characters work life or whatever future plans they might have. If they are always wondering about another person, or even a number of them, they cannot properly achieve their goals. The reality is that people only have so much of themselves they can give to others or to one specific person. When people talk about being 'burned out' at work, the same applies to 'love and dating'. A character can just as easily be burned out from relationships.
Love's Burdens: We are all apologizing for someone else's sins: What is meant by that exactly? For many people, when they enter into a new relationship, they do not fully know and understand what emotional harm or negative experiences have come to the new partner from their past relationships. That being said, the faults and the sins they experienced from their former partner, have caused them to become cynical and distrusting towards relationships and new partners in general. And so in comes the new partner, they are ushered into this new relationship unaware of what they are up against, and they find themselves having to apologize for faults and transgressions from a past relationship that they never even committed in the first place. Because some characters are always apologizing for someone else's mistakes. They are always at the mercy of someone else's past traumas. They are always shouldering someone else's past grievances.
Scoundrels in Love: There are many people that use the courtship practices of love to abuse, dupe, embarrass and humiliate others. Dating is quite literally a game for them, and they only view every new prospective partner as just another opponent who needs to be defeated, whether that is at the present date, or eventually in the near future they plant to get rid of them. Some characters only want to date or pretend to fall in love merely to play tricks on other people. This is the inverse of the previous example. Where new partners are made to apologize for the sins of others, there are then those types of characters who run around committing the same wrongdoings that were done to them. For example, a persons partner breaks up with them, and in turn, they then go on to find another new person while their ego is still wounded, and they do the exact same thing to the new person. They drop them, to assuage their own wounded pride from the past relationship. The unsuspecting new person walks away wondering what happened, what exactly went wrong, and unbeknownst to them, they were simply being used for this specific end to appease someone else's sore feelings and resentment over their previous breakup. And so it goes, everyone is running around perpetuating this vicious cycle of catch-and-release, all the while, they are still no closer to any kind of real love, if anything, they are further from it.
This is very revealing of a persons character, and it is also very telling how a person responds when they do not get their way. If they have to harm or slight another person who does not return their affections, if their first instinct is to inflict pain and hurt on them, or destroy altogether the person that does not love them in return, how can it be said that they ever really loved them in the first place? There are many people in life who will happily turn on a dime over the ones they love. Those of us with a more piercing and acute perception and understanding of other people can see this coming even before it has happened. But the benevolent side that exists in some of us wants to see if the outcome will play out differently, we want to see if the other person will not behave as predictably, or in the emotionally immature manner that many people would expect them to behave. Often times, they wind up doing exactly what we anticipate they will do. And there you have it, another one bites the dust.
And then there are those wholly detestable persons, who have no real desire at all to fall in love with anyone at all. They want no real plans for a future with a significant other of some kind. All they merely want to do is rise to the top of whichever given environment they belong to, preferably one where there are ripe pickings in their chosen dating pool, so they can have whoever they want and discard them whenever they please. For many of us, there are likely some examples of people who a automatically come to mind; certain notorious characters who use their own stature and influence to steal the partners of others simply for the fun of it, simply because they can. There are people who will only ever enjoy something when they have taken it from another person. And this is another example of what is meant by scoundrels that exist in the arena of love.
Love's Greed: Love shows us that there are those characters who can have everything, and be perfectly set up in their life and destiny, but they still find themselves wanting for others. We often think of love in terms of an emotional battlefield or a war being waged, and those are accurate descriptions, but Love is also incredibly greedy. Love's greed shows us that it can never have enough available partners to chose from. But we forget that the character of Love has the largest jar of hearts of them all, because it owns all the hearts of everyone and never gives any of them back. And many people go around trying to mimic this caricature, trying to play God in the arena of love, by claiming the hearts of others not knowing they have already been pledged to a God that is greater than they.
People often talk about not getting complacent, not settling, and not ever reaching satisfaction with anything in life because then there is nothing left to strive for. But let us use that kind of thinking interchangeably and apply that attitude to relationships. It would not take long to stack up a large body count of failed relationships and disgruntled ex-partners. And that pile is a reminder of the churning wheel of progress, that relationships and love, like everything else, get sacrificed in the name of advancement and moving forward.
Love's Value Scale: When characters use love and relationships as a way to climb a social ladder. Maybe there are those individual who have indeed successfully slept their way into the esteemed chambers of the houses they so wished to reside within. In many respects, who can blame them really? Along comes a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and it should not surprise others when someone takes up on the opportunities and the advantages that may come with a certain kind of relationship. But for many characters who are especially ambitious, it is important to remember that there are only so many slots at the top, there is only so much room for all the people who perceive themselves to be number one, and who believe they are in fact, or should be, the 'top dog'. In playing this game a character is also tying their value and worth to a numeric figure. To a number. As if their existence alone cannot be justified because it does not rank from one to ten, or from zero to one-hundred. These are very poor metrics to evaluate the scale of life upon.
On Settling: When does one settle, if ever? Every character, every person has to decide that for themselves obviously. There is no map of pathways, guidelines, or instructions that will arrive at the perfect partner or outcome. If there were, everyone would be using it. That being said, there are many people who settle down when they are not in fact ready for it. And this is where dissatisfaction is found in a relationship. And for those people who have been in long term relationships or marriages, or even couples who have only just recently announced their new relationship status, this is where we find people, who are known to be in serious relationships, still sending their feelers out into the world, and they are still sending out signals to others of their availability. 'Going-Steady' for many couples, is really just an illusion, like many other aspects of a supposed relationship. It is noticeable and can be witnessed on social media all the time. And many people are mentally and privately, still on the hunt. Many characters walk this kind of slippery slope of still pretending to be in a stable and happy relationship or marriage only to still be pining away in secret for other people. And this is the sad tragedy of many relationships in the world today.
Film/Fiction: What are some films and stories that immediately come to mind?
Anna Karenina: The story by Leo Tolstoy is centered around the socialite Anna Karenina and the affair she has with the Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky outside of her marriage. Anna is married to a government official named Alexei Alexandrovich Karenin, a gentleman who is significantly older than her. In the recent 2012 film made, many will remember the relationship and the breakup of Anna and the younger Count. She falls for this younger scoundrel that has tempted her out of her marriage, and upon discovery of her dalliances, her husband divorces and severs ties with her. After the young Count has successfully broken up her relationship with her husband, Anna finds that the young man she had fallen for has turned away from her and left her for other women who appear to be younger than her.
The Picture of Dorian Gray: The beautiful young man who sacrifices his morals and soul to retain his youth. His likeness is captured in a painting and he himself never ages, while the portrait of him accumulates all the years of his aging process, and all his transgressions over the course of his life become blended into a horrendous rendering of his true likeness, the true character of his ugliness that resides beneath his beautiful exterior. Only until the painting is revealed and destroyed does he transform into a hideous old man befitting his age and character. Dorian is a scoundrel of love and is a proud womanizer, having had many conquests over the years, and his is also a criminal and a murderer. The women he is known to have slept with go on to age into old maids, still remembering who Dorian is, and all the while, he never ages.
Murder by Numbers: Anyone that has seen this film will remember the murderous dynamic duo at the center of the plot. An investigation has been made into the murder of a young woman whose body has been strangled and dragged from her home. The murder has been committed by two young teenage boys who intended to kill the victim and successfully dupe forensic teams into believing another person had committed the crime. Their plan ended up unsuccessful and foiled, and they fortunately wind up getting caught in the end. However, throughout the course of the film, audiences are made to know about a love triangle that occurs between the two teenagers and another female classmate of theirs. Of this pair of boys, one is a menacing, chaotic, rich and entitled jock. He drives nice cars, has rich parents, does not study very hard in school and everything in life has been offered up to him on a silver platter. The other young man is more contemplative, methodical, and even philosophical. He is shown to manage a green house filled with orchids and has refined culinary tastes. The more sensitive of the two boys falls for a female classmate that he is tutoring for exams. They end up dating and they are seen spending more time with one another. All while their relationship is budding, the aggressive jock is watching in secret and becomes jealous of his friend and his new girlfriend. He spies on the two of them while they are studying. To spite his friend, at a later date during school he approaches the girl, disarms her and befriends her. He invites her back to his home where they have sex and he secretly films her. He then takes the film footage and gives it to his unsuspecting friend, who is enraged and feels betrayed by both his female crush and his best friend. This kind of vengeance displayed in their love triangle speaks to larger issues today of revenge porn and the like. There are certain characters in this film like the rich jock that roam the world hating and using women, and they only see them as pawns for the purposes of exploitation.
Star-crossed lovers: Romeo and Juliet, and every other literary pair similar to them. When people use the expression 'It's you and me against the world,' what is also implied in this statement is that the very act of falling in love, is to go up against the whole world. In the example just mentioned, this pair of lovers did precisely that, they defied the societal norms and the expectations of their times, and they ignored the guidance and counsel of their betters and got romantically involved with one another. They went up against the whole world they were apart of, and they paid for it with their lives.
Poetry: One of the oldest and finest poems in human history comes from Mesopotamia and describes the exchange between the warrior Gilgamesh and the Goddess Ishtar. It is a lesson about beckoned love that is unworthy, a love that is drawn between two persons and is wholly unsuitable, and would leave both parties at a disadvantage. Where one party asks that of the other, that which they cannot give, and where the unfair and futile attempt is made to leverage mere mortals to the status of the Gods when it is known they cannot muster up their strength or the ability to ever match them. It is also a lesson in the inherent nature of certain characters who discard and dispose of others. It speaks of faulty love, and those who falsely try to tempt other suitors into a love knowing that it will not be lasting, and that only destruction lies ahead. It is a reminder that there are many characters and figures who behave like the Gods in this world, and they cannot help but mix love and malfeasance with one another. From The Epic of Gilgamesh;
Tablet VI
He washed his filthy hair, he cleaned his gear,
Shook out his locks over his back
Threw away his dirty clothes and put on fresh ones.
He clothed himself in robes and tied on a sash.
Gilgamesh put his crown on his head
And Ishtar, the princess raised her eyes to the
Beauty of Gilgamesh.
'Come to me, Gilgamesh, and be my lover!
Bestow on me the gift of your fruit!
You can be my husband and I can be your wife.
I shall have a chariot of lapis-lazuli and gold harnessed for you,
With wheels of gold, and horns of elmesu-stone
You shall harness umu-demons as great mules!
Enter into our house through the frangrance of pine!
When you enter our house
The wonderfully-wrought threshold shall kiss your feet!
Kings, nobles, princes shall bow down beneath you.
The verdure of mountain and country shall bring you produce,
Your goats shall bear triplets, your ewes twins,
Your loaded donkey shall outpace the mule,
Your horses shall run proud at the chariot,
Your ox shall be unrivalled at the yoke.
Gilgamesh made his voice heard and spoke,
He said to Ishtar the princess,
What could I give you if I possessed you?
I would give you my body oil and garments,
I wold give you food and sustenance,
Could I provide you with bread fit for gods?
Could I provide you with ale fit for kings?
If I possess you,
You would be ice,
A draughty door that can't keep out winds and gusts,
A palace that rejects its own warriors?
An elephant which its covering
Bitumen which stains its carrier,
A waterskin which soaks its carrier,
A juggernaut which smashes a stone wall,
A battering ram which destroys of war,
A shoe which bites into the foot of its wearer.
Which of your loves lasted forever?
Which of your masterful paramours went to heaven?
Come, let me describe your lovers to you!
For Dumuzi the lover of your youth
You decreed that he should keep weeping year after year.
You loved the colourful allallu-bird,
But you hit him and broke his wing,
He stays in the woods crying "My wing!"
You loved the lion whose strength is complete,
But you dug seven and seven pits for him,
You loved the horse, so trustworthy in battle,
But you decreed the whip, goad, and lash for him,
You decreed that he should gallop seven leagues non-stop,
You decreed that he should be overwrought and thirsty,
You decreed endless weeping for his mother Sililu.
You loved the shepherd, herdsman, and chief shepherd
Who was always heaping up the glowing ashes for you,
And cooked ewe-lambs for you every day.
But you hit him and turned him into a wolf,
His own herd-boys hunt him down
And his dogs tear at his haunches.
You loved Ishullanu, your father's gardener,
Who was always bringing you baskets of dates.
They brightened your table every day;
You lifted your eyes to him and went to him
"My own Ishullanu, let us enjoy your strength,
So put out your hand and touch our vulva!"
But Ishullanu said to you,
"Me? What do you want of me?
Did my mother not bake for me, and did I not eat?
What I eat (with you) would be loaves of dishonor and disgrace,
Rushes would be my only covering against the cold."
You listened as he said this,
And you hit him, turned him into a frog,
Left him to stay amid the fruits of his labors,
But the pole goes up no more, his bucket goes down no more.
And how about me? You will love me and then treat me just like them!'