I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
True that. That genius line is written by a doubly genius poet. Unabashedly my favourite poet/author. And I stumbled upon this article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/23/chile-neruda-airport-rename-outrage-admitted-rape-memoirs
Not that I did not know of his controversies or his 'abuse' admission in the biography. I pondered over this for some time. Should this news about him affect my love for his poetry? Does personal lives of artists matter to us?
I remember having this debate with a friend who admitted that he stopped reading Neruda's books because of the rape memoirs. He wondered why would people publish it.
How harshly and how linearly do we judge people.
I obviously am not OK with the fact that Neruda assaulted/abused someone. Doesnt matter Srilankan or otherwise. Transgression has happened and the universe remembers it.
What bothers me is how singularly do we judge people. How self righteous are we. We forget facts about ourselves. We may not have raped people. BUT. We must have committed other transgressions which we dont record. Like. Have we never committed sins? And how do we measure ourselves?
I think it is extremely difficult to live with ourselves. I dont know about Neruda. But I know that I have transgressed. Unknowingly. Unintentionally. BUT. I also know that I live with the pain of repentance. I dont think there's a bigger punishment than that. Try breathing.
I dont side with Neruda. But I wonder at the indignation we all have to judge other people and forget to look at our own flaws. As if. We are all saints. Or something.
As I write this, I am also worried that I would encourage a train of thought that veers to a dangerous assumption that I am normalizing abuse. Am I? No. I am not. I condemn abuse. We just sometimes underestimate the power of weakness. We also underestimate strength of character. Our penchant for the 'absolute' is weird.
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
True that. That genius line is written by a doubly genius poet. Unabashedly my favourite poet/author. And I stumbled upon this article: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/23/chile-neruda-airport-rename-outrage-admitted-rape-memoirs
Not that I did not know of his controversies or his 'abuse' admission in the biography. I pondered over this for some time. Should this news about him affect my love for his poetry? Does personal lives of artists matter to us?
I remember having this debate with a friend who admitted that he stopped reading Neruda's books because of the rape memoirs. He wondered why would people publish it.
How harshly and how linearly do we judge people.
I obviously am not OK with the fact that Neruda assaulted/abused someone. Doesnt matter Srilankan or otherwise. Transgression has happened and the universe remembers it.
What bothers me is how singularly do we judge people. How self righteous are we. We forget facts about ourselves. We may not have raped people. BUT. We must have committed other transgressions which we dont record. Like. Have we never committed sins? And how do we measure ourselves?
I think it is extremely difficult to live with ourselves. I dont know about Neruda. But I know that I have transgressed. Unknowingly. Unintentionally. BUT. I also know that I live with the pain of repentance. I dont think there's a bigger punishment than that. Try breathing.
I dont side with Neruda. But I wonder at the indignation we all have to judge other people and forget to look at our own flaws. As if. We are all saints. Or something.
As I write this, I am also worried that I would encourage a train of thought that veers to a dangerous assumption that I am normalizing abuse. Am I? No. I am not. I condemn abuse. We just sometimes underestimate the power of weakness. We also underestimate strength of character. Our penchant for the 'absolute' is weird.
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close.”
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