Chapter 4: Marriage and Infatuation

For this weeks blog I am mostly just going to quote some of the sentences I appreciate in this weeks chapter. We can talk more on these aspects coming Thursday :-) .

I haven't read the treatise 'The Symposium', but I think it beautifully describes the desire to be one. Back in the days, we humans didn't look like we look now. We had two heads and four legs and four arms- a perfect melding of two people. We each had the perfect partners (male or female) sewn into the very fabric of our being. We lacked for nothing and there was no strife and no chaos... doesn't that sound just perfect. The problem was we became overly proud and were punished by Zeus, he split us all in half. This is the reason why we have a dull and constant sense that we are not quite whole. We are all searching for that other soul.....

Well in this chapter it seems like Lizzy has found the magic formula for a successful, divorce-free marriage:
"First, you must find yourself two people of the same race, age, religion, cultural background, and intellectual level whose parents had never divorced. Make these two people wait until they are about forty-five years old before you allow them to marry- without letting them live together first, of course. Ensure they both fervently believe in God and that they utterly embrace family values, but forbid them to have any children of their own......."
Maybe this is the perfect recipe, but I must admit there aren't many couples I know that fit this description. I also do know many couples (me included) who don't fit this description and seem very happily married!

I liked the way Lizzy mentioned that she doesn't want to sell Felipe a bill of goods or offer up some idealized seductive performance of herself. I guess this is something that is often done. Don't we all always want to show people are best character traits.....but we all have those character flaws too....and we all are able to name them....but that is definitely not one of the first things we tell/discuss with our future spouse, right? I thought it was interesting to read both Lizzy and Felipe's "inventory of lamentable character defects". Once the initial madness of desire has passed and we are faced with each other as dimwitted mortal fools, how is it that any of us find the ability to love and forgive each other at all, much less enduringly?

This I think is a beautiful quote and I agree with it: Maybe creating a big enough space within your consciousness to hold and accept someone's contradictions is a kind of divine act. Perhaps transcendence can be found at your own kitchen table, in the daily acceptance of your partner's most tiresome, irritating faults.

.....and will be get to know more about the monk and Carla?