The world is full of indiscreet neighbors with whom I must share the other. The world is in fact just that: an obligation to share. The world (the worldly) is my rival. I am continually disturbed by intruders: a vague connection, met by chance….even an object, a book in which the other is absorbed. Everything is irksome which briefly erases the dual relation, which alters the complicity and the relaxes the intimacy: "You belong to me as well," the world says.
~ The Orange, A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, Roland Barthes
o, how utterly amusing i am!
i have long vainly boasted of my agility to outcast vexing emotion—avarice, anger, envy, jealousy.
yet, i have come to realize how petty and truly simple am i. for the minutiae which intervenes upon the intertwining, in reality, irks me to no end.
i find the flashbacks quite entertaining, as they enlighten me to the follies of my forays and the foolish ways and thoughts that make me believe that my beloved are more than mortal.
colds, irked temperaments, womanly inconveniences, and all those little things which rarely have anything to do with me, still push me aside into petty fits of stewing jealousy.
and there, alone, i reside in a wallow to pitifully pout, even though Her pulling away has nothing much to do about me.
~ Much Ado About Nothing (IV, i, 19-21), William Shakespeare
the art of love
l.m