This is a problem for everyone - but I'm not going to discuss it from a philosophical viewpoint - even if I was capable of that, which I'm not. It's about one's own understanding of the past - what we remember and our interpretation of it. Everyday experiences with other people are similarly difficult. The way people respond to us and the way we interpret their responses.
I'm thinking currently of that extreme form of wishful thinking that we sometimes call unrequited love. I have suffered this at various points during my career: the most extreme and recent outbreak occurred a couple of years ago - it was begotten by Despair upon Impossibility as Andrew Marvell says... but the rational is swept away in an emotional tsunami. Is it possible to say that one understands what the other person is feeling - even if they are giving another message verbally - is the fact that they give mixed messages inevitable? They may not want to respond to your interest, but they are...? Or are they not responding, just being polite? Somehow you become convinced that there is some possibility of a deeper relationship, because of something they do/say or how they look. Crystallization as Stendahl would say... there are endless emotional snapshots... you collect them as evidence. But the evidence you want - the full admission - never comes, the relationship dwindles and you just feel silly.
And then it comes back for some reason... you think "Why? I am getting on better in other areas of my life", and suddenly you start thinking about your object of desire again... and getting misty when you hear certain songs, and yearning. Damn, it, life is unfair. And then you wonder.... is it coming back for a reason - is he unsettled somewhere too... or is just the onset of depression, or what? One might go mad - I think I'll have to go and find out what Stendahl said about getting over love. A book on how to fall out of love could be really useful.
I'm thinking currently of that extreme form of wishful thinking that we sometimes call unrequited love. I have suffered this at various points during my career: the most extreme and recent outbreak occurred a couple of years ago - it was begotten by Despair upon Impossibility as Andrew Marvell says... but the rational is swept away in an emotional tsunami. Is it possible to say that one understands what the other person is feeling - even if they are giving another message verbally - is the fact that they give mixed messages inevitable? They may not want to respond to your interest, but they are...? Or are they not responding, just being polite? Somehow you become convinced that there is some possibility of a deeper relationship, because of something they do/say or how they look. Crystallization as Stendahl would say... there are endless emotional snapshots... you collect them as evidence. But the evidence you want - the full admission - never comes, the relationship dwindles and you just feel silly.
And then it comes back for some reason... you think "Why? I am getting on better in other areas of my life", and suddenly you start thinking about your object of desire again... and getting misty when you hear certain songs, and yearning. Damn, it, life is unfair. And then you wonder.... is it coming back for a reason - is he unsettled somewhere too... or is just the onset of depression, or what? One might go mad - I think I'll have to go and find out what Stendahl said about getting over love. A book on how to fall out of love could be really useful.
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