soul chemistry

[gurdonark]

dystatic's documentation for a recent mail art show arrived today. The documentation was really cool--a little oblong booklet, bound with a simple Acco clip, with photos of the art enwrapped in pages of scientific content. My own contribution, a curious combination of an opaque corruplast card, a transparent corruplast card, and play dough sandwiched in between to serve as "chemicals" within the sketched beakers, looked almost good when rendered as photos in the documentation. Other contributions were positively breathtaking, and all were entirely in earnest, even when satiric.

As is the way of such things, though, my mind's eye did not linger long on the "art" of it all, and certainly not at all on the technique of it all. Instead, I started to ponder this notion of chemistry. I was reminded last weekend of a man who was abruptly moved from a PhD program to an accomplished master's in chemistry through the simple expedient of blowing up the laboratory one time too many. But I don't mean that kind of chemistry at all. I mean
spiritual chemistry.

Because most of us are easily infatuated creatures, we all are all too familiar with the chemistry that arises from physical attraction to someone. I remember the first two times I was in the throes of this incredibly chemical reaction. Heaven can hold no such pleasure--Hell can hold no such heat. This form of 'chemistry' has an importance, but it does not concern me here. After all, this sort of thing is intensely hormonal and pheronomic and reminds me of that illegal drug folks took a few years ago, in which one used a little smelling-salt-like beaker to get a quick rush. The problem is that the rush fades. It's like a dangerous magick--inflamed, alchemical, transmuting lead into gold--but the magick wears off! If the underlying metal is base, then the entire reaction proves to create only dross.

I'm also not as interested in that fellow feeling that results when a friendship utterly "makes sense". I remember once being in a college church group, when one of the participants unhappy with the group's camaraderie pointed out that his hockey team back home was much more close-knit than ever the church group had been. In some ways, this was an effective rebuke. In other ways, though, I found the logic of this position flawed. It's easy to like people with common interests, common goals, and common outlooks. But this sort of scientific matching of similarities is less a mark of genuine closeness than a mere alignment of the tinkertoys. I find nothing wrong with friendships among identical people, of course--I have many friends who are not altogether different from me, as much as I like to think that gurdonark is utterly unique, and perhaps even weird in a very good way. But this sort of friend is not really my topic today.

Instead, I am intrigued by the chemistry of soul which arises although neither hormones nor logic dictates that it should appear. I have presumptuously titled this "soul chemistry", but neither the first word label nor the second word metaphor is entirely accurate. Sometimes one meets someone who bears no possibility as a lover, a co-parent, a leader, a follower, a helper, a family member or any of the other whimsical or logical roles in which people "serve us" in our lives. Once in a while
we just meet people with whom we connect, in ways we don't understand, for reasons we cannot explain, and without defined goal.

How often does life become a matter of acquisition? We interact with boss and subordinate, merchant and client in a world in which economic and "small p" politics are everywhere--advantages gained, advantages lost. We seek out affection or warmth or reassurance or release or ways to act out our private melodramae in dozens of relationships we form and break throughout our lives. We have a permanent family, to which we sometimes add or subtract, which serve all sorts of rooting functions for us. Nothing is particularly wrong with any of that--it is the lubricant that makes our life wheel turn.

But I think tonight of friends I have known, some close, some less than close, in whom the only sympathy or likeness we have had is merely the means of connecting our thoughts, one with one. I think of long drives and midnights in pancake houses. I think of telephone calls that last a million years. I think of people whom I never kissed and never will kiss, people with whom I've shared no intimacy at all. I think of people wholly dissimilar to myself, but people with whom I have shared a moment. I am not sure about literal heavens and figurative hells. But I am sure about moments when ideas connect. I'm sure of that feeling when, just for 60 instants, someone understands.

If I have a "culture rant", it is that our culture now lauds sensation over all things. Even the word "love" acquires a physicality--it's eros or philios all too often, agape never enough. I think that in this world in which we are all a bit desperate and misunderstood, it is sad that insight and understanding are less prized than a hundred more immediate and less lasting rewards. We live in a time of seekers after arcane mysteries, when all the mysteries reside in the pupils of a listener's eyes. I'm not arguing for a mind/soul/body connection, as I think the distinction is only rhetorically useful. I'm certainly not arguing that love and family and infatuation and intimacy are unimportant. I'm just saying that in this time we prize a form of emotions we call "love" so highly, but we don't
cherish "understanding" nearly enough. The founder of the Baha'i faith said that "the earth is one country and mankind its citizens", but all too often we live as if we were all individual citizens of little islands, satisfied only by emotion.

I write tonight, to put in a quiet word for what I'll call "soul chemistry". Soul chemistry is the concoction by which two people
with no particular reason or compulsion to do so somehow link in some way imposing obligation on neither. It's not about physical or economic or familial or power sharing or exploitation. It's just when two people can speak to one another, and really "get" each other. It's a form of friendship based not at all on greed or lust or need. It's based on the communion of two saints. Sometimes, it's true that other relationships grow out of this beginning. But I celebrate the fact that a friendship struck based on sympathy of mind alone is a tremendously valuable thing in and of itself.

In my life, I have had a handful of situations in which this peculiar "soul chemistry" has arisen. The result of such evenings and moments did not provide me with physical release, or material comfort, or a meaningful advance of my goals. The product of this chemistry is merely a look of deep insight, a live-wired mind, and endless conversation less notable for its "achievements" than for its interconnection. I have never gained anything by this. Like Faust, though, I would trade my soul to achieve it. For it is this type of "love" which is, in the words of the Corinthians letter, truly patient and kind, asking nothing, seeking nothing, and trying to avoid seeking its own way. But rather than that freighted word "love", I will choose another word--I choose "understanding". All of my alchemy and all of my logic and all of my inmost dreams seek to understand, and to be understood. Odin proferred an eye for wisdom, the myth says, but what price would one pay to be understood? What price would one pay to understand? I want my friendships to be less about making sense, and more about making a connection.

Comments

[wildgarden.livejournal.com]

I hear you. Amen to this!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much for commenting! :)

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

You should see The Good Girl when you get a chance. This idea of being *gotten* by someone-- as in someone finally *gets* me. A very poignant and sometimes funny/heartbreaking film.

Connections can be made--sometimes they seem to be quite deep--and yet, I have found-- being *gotten* is just as mercurial as any other *chemistry*--you think someone really *gets* you--and then you realize they don't at all. It's a fleeting moment maybe-- but I've found it doesn't last. And yet we expect it to. Like this momentous realization that FINALLY someone *gets me*!!!--We assume it's an unchangable intangible. A fact. A truth. But everything changes. I think even facts and truths. In the end there are only tiny little flashes of connection, like lights flickering on an old telephone switchboard.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I will put that movie on my "must see".

I agree with you that this sense of connection can be, and often is, transitory. It's funny, too. Sometimes it's transitory because someone once got us, then lost the thread. Other times it's transitory because we only imagine someone "got us". Sometimes in my own case, it's all just my perception that changed, and the poor person "getting me" or "not getting me" didn't change at all.

There's also something about non-verbal conversational cues. I know a woman who can give the impression of "getting" anyone, but actually "gets" almost nobody. She does it through a slice of charm, but more importantly, through having mastered those non-verbal "I get you" cues. I found it disconcerting for some time, until I realized that was just who she was, and then I could overlook it.

Still and all, when people "really do get you" over a long period of time, it's heaven.

Re:

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

And then again--no one can *get* anyone else on ALL levels. :-) (even for a moment, IMHO)

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes. All people can do is give the impression of "getting" one.

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

Yes! I saw that this weekend and am meaning to write something about it. I thought it was a really good film, with something to offer, yet not trite in the least. It was much darker/true/thought-provoking than I expected.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

That's two votes for that film. My wife and I will have to see it soon.

Re:

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

I'm always glad when I see an actress (or actor) who heretofor has portrayed rather vapid characters, be able to expand into a role of more depth and potential. Yay for Jennifer Aniston.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Jennifer Aniston is always a better actress than the roles she plays. I'm glad she got a role worth playing.

[sushimonkey.livejournal.com]

I wrote a "review" of it a few entries back. It was very intriguing-so that's 3 votes!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I had seen the preview some time ago and said "looks interesting", but the overwhelming enthusasism here is a ringing endorsement.

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

What do you think people are doing here on LiveJournal? Looking for love? Maybe. But I think most people really do seek and cherish connections. It's over-simplifying, I think, to lay everything at the feet of "acquisition" and sensation. Most everyone I know is not quite that shallow. In fact, I don't think I know anyone that shallow. You're interested in mail art--what do you think that's about? Forging connections. I'm confused as to why you think the desire for connection, the spiritual over the material and physical, is so lacking. I see that desire running rampant. What about society's current love affair with books? People are interested in ideas and making connections intellectually. My real worries are that, even though this is happening, we find ourselves in the state we are in. To me that's the real crisis. Perhaps I have misunderstood.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think you make interesting points, and may be right. I posit as a working theory that the participation in the LJs, nervousness, mail art networks, and postcardxes of the world--all places seeking connection--is a tiny fraction of the population. I theorize that there's a reason why people want to watch TV shows in which critics slam performers and in which staged romantic relationships are contrived to give a thrill to the audience. In my theory, a world of people stay in bad relationships because they cannot imagine being comfortable without the relationship. In some instances, they will put up with a particularly rogue-ish lover because of romantic attraction alone.
I do not think it is a "deep" or "shallow" thing.
Some of the deepest people I know are driven by impulse and sensation to a great extent. I think that LJ is about searching for connection, and I almost drew the parallel in the post. I am fairly certain LJ is not about "looking for love in all the wrong places" :). But I must respectfully, while acknowledging your points, disagree that our culture is not driven by sensation. I further suggest that sensation takes as its prey more than just the shallow people.

It's interesting to think on, though.

Re:

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I need more concrete examples, since I have a hard time seeing that, as a whole, we are driven by sensation. Perhaps it's just another misconception I hold dear. I don't know, I guess I need to think on it more. In a way it's a luxury to be concerned with anything other than survival. But one reason I liked The Good Girl so much, was the "everyman" aspect of it. These were not small-town geniuses aching to be understood and appreciated. The characters are everyday people. They are not wealthy or privileged or even college-educated/duped. And that's why I found it so refreshing. The longing for connection, to "be got," is a fundamental human trait, I would argue. Maybe everything else is merely a substitute or a consolation prize when early attempts at connection fail.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Already I am dissatisified with the body/mind dichotomy inherent in my construct. I need not express it as "pleasure is bad" and "connection is good". That may be over-simplistic. But for the pleasure principle, I'd raise the fact that fathers statistically don't pay child support to any great extent unless the child is at hand. The pleasure of the money exceeds the rightness of the fulfillment of the duty. Obesity, alcoholism, cigarette addiction--all chemical betrayals of bodies originally motivated by the desire for pleasure.
The pursuit of happiness over meaning--we see this over and over again.

But frankly, as I think about this, I see the post as inexact. But it was interesting to write.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

oh, and it's a side point, but book sales are actually stagnating right now. The stats at www.publishers.org show that recent sales of books, particularly in trade hard cover, have not been
increasing, and in some lines have decreased.
This doesn't show much--economic conditions evolving and alternative delivery of information evolving, but it does suggest we are not an exploding nation of readers.

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

Well, I was actually thinking more of the "Oprahfication" of reading. That it's now chic to be part of a reading group. It's hip to read and be well-read. I actually saw a commercial, on television, last night, a commercial, for a novel--Alice Sebald's The Lovely Bones.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes, the Oprah phenomenon is a good case in point for how reading is "cool". I believe that reading was always cool, and that marketers just failed to realize it. Oprah showed that books will sell, if someone with a trusting public promotes them. I wonder how many more things of worth would be more popular if people just promoted them. Marketing always is a bad term, but it has a place, I suppose.

[(Anonymous)]

you said: "I want my friendships to be less about making sense, and more about making a connection"

...in other words, you want trans-sensual friendships, i.e. to be perceived intellectually or spiritually rather than through the physical senses. ok. just don't run outside anytime soon proclaiming you're a trans-sensual…

but seriously, how is this state of grace achieved? does it merely arise? is it a matter of somehow adjusting one's own inner mechanisms [or alchemy, to use your metaphor]? does arcane esotericism have a clue, or buddhism, or psychology?

i think the kind of perception you are talking about is the default mode of angelic beings and those with non-material bodies. to them it is a given. we, however, experience it only as an intimation

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think that people, being non-angels, can only achieve this state of grace for brief instants,
usually over pancakes at an International House of Pancakes lathered with blueberry syrup, in that moment in which something is carefully said, and attentively understood. But I think it's the syrup that makes the difference :).

[(Anonymous)]

so it IS the syrup...damn, i think yr right

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes. Syrup is the glue that binds.