GENIUS FORUMS

A while ago I read that the concept of romance is actually a very new concept. It actually originated in the Romantic Period and, therefore, will soon die out someday.

I never seek out romance fiction but I live in a world where it is frustratingly unavoidable and so I have seen some of it. I have noticed that in a lot of romance fiction - especially when it was created recently, the characters involved barely believe what they are feeling. I think this reveals the subconscious of the author of said fiction. Most people, consciously or not, know that romance is dying and will be dead soon.

What is romance then? I look to Nietzsche for answers.

"Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not."
-Nietzsche

I don't think that all love is a source of delusion (I have nothing against family love) but I think that romance is nothing but a source of delusion and we will never evolve as a species until we are purged of it - and that will hopefully happen soon.

Does anyone else here hope romance dies out soon?

Gremln wrote:Does anyone else here hope romance dies out soon?

Without romantic thinking ( love, poetry, art , music, wine, creativity, etc.)
This place will be naturally beautiful...but no one will notice, appreciate, love it , respect it,
value it.

The Romantic is the evolved human.

Kunga wrote:[...but no one will notice, appreciate, love it, respect it,..

..fuck it...

Gremln wrote:A while ago I read that the concept of romance is actually a very new concept. It actually originated in the Romantic Period and, therefore, will soon die out someday.

I don't think that all love is a source of delusion (I have nothing against family love) but I think that romance is nothing but a source of delusion and we will never evolve as a species until we are purged of it - and that will hopefully happen soon.

Does anyone else here hope romance dies out soon?

Yes, it appears the notion rose to its current status in the Middle Ages and from "courtly love" as documented by many researchers (eg Love in the Western World. Especially the epic Tristan and Isolde story was a big marker here.

My current idea is that the concept (and feeling) seems to rise with a certain level of abstraction and complexity of the mind. Or idealization. In our landscape of symbols and signs certain "honey pots" arise which will push many buttons. Idealization of appearance (female beauty or even childlike form) or erotics, relationship and unity will always appear stronger (if they occur at all) in the more idealizing and abstracting type of minds. Of course one can see many people go through the mechanics of romance: setting the mood and appearing attractive but then it's mostly lust, tradition and need for power and status as the new rulers. The deeper romance ("in love") goes a bit beyond this and really can trigger a profound idealization of the other, even cause strong physical reaction (illness) or erratic or mildly psychotic behavior in worst cases. It can also open portals to deep crevices in the mind like jealousy, murder, suicide... well, see also Tristan & Isolde. It seems to function as a powerful conduct and certainly not always wholesome.

Can we call it a delusion? It most certainly is but like many big illusions it can still aspire people to do big things - good or bad. The ideal, which used to be projected on the religious but now often ends up seen in the romantic or traveling, housing and materialism, Fashion, is essentially still the desire for purity, the natural: being at peace and whole in an abstract and idealized form. A proper evolution as species would be to grow out of the current ideals which are becoming way too small and petty to accommodate and facilitate any proper orientation. This is why Nietzsche talked about the need "new commandments" now the old God died and his long shadow fading (including all current notions of romance).

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Kunga wrote:[...but no one will notice, appreciate, love it, respect it,..

..fuck it...

Morons are incapable of anything else ....

Kunga wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Kunga wrote:...but no one will notice, appreciate, love it, respect it,..

..fuck it...

Morons are incapable of anything else ....

The "evolved" human has fucked up the earth just as much as it has written poetry. And nothing has ever contributed as much to storytelling, poetry, movies and science as war, so far.

Romance is about idealization and applies just as much to war, murder, delusions, domestic violence as it applies to the higher arts. But also romance itself is becoming romanticized perhaps...

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:The "evolved" human has fucked up the earth just as much as it has written poetry.

The spiritually evolved are trying to heal the Earth from the diseased cancerous cells of hatred & ill-will .

These spiritually evolved are suicidal. Hatred is a perfectly reasonable reaction to ignorance even when born from ignorance.

These spiritually evolved hate hatred.

Aw Kunga, you're such a hippie, still confusing John Lennon with philosophy, LOL.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:These spiritually evolved are suicidal.

Yes

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Hatred is a perfectly reasonable reaction to ignorance even when born from ignorance.

Hatred is ignorance.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:These spiritually evolved hate hatred.

The spiritually evolved cannot hate anything... as they see with Wisdom Eyes.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Aw Kunga, you're such a hippie, still confusing John Lennon with philosophy, LOL.

The love of wisdom is all inclusive .

Kunga wrote: The spiritually evolved cannot hate anything... as they see with Wisdom Eyes.

And at the same time they (these evolved "romantics") have judged a few things to be like a bad disease which needs to be cut out and destroyed?

And yet ignorance is also blessed existence after all. But yet again, better to start hating your family if you want any change.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:

Kunga wrote: The spiritually evolved cannot hate anything... as they see with Wisdom Eyes.

And at the same time they (these evolved "romantics") have judged a few things to be like a bad disease which needs to be cut out and destroyed?

And yet ignorance is also blessed existence after all. But yet again, better to start hating your family if you want any change.

I see the Buddha (for example) as someone spiritually evolved, whom I highly doubt had the emotion( hate) within him.

You judge me as judging . Come on baby...lets dooooooooooooo the twist !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r28ONuvA9rA

Kunga wrote:Hatred is ignorance.

A small infant is also ignorant, yet innocent. Not a cancer to cut out and destroy as your Romantics would have it.

It needs to grow up of course and any hindrance taken away. The hindrance could be anything: love, hate, attachment, disconnect.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:A small infant is also ignorant, yet innocent.

And incapable of hate...

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Not a cancer to cut out and destroy as your Romantics would have it.

I said nothing about cutting/destroying , you are twisting my words . I said spiritually evolved try to heal the world of the cancerous hatred. They do this by promoting peaceful solutions, kindness, love,generosity,
and sometimes a kick in the ass when those methods fail. lol

naming things is practical but not actual because thing doesn't exist from its own side.
thing depends on causes/conditions.

romance is a trick of nature to get the next generation born.
scientific study shows that what happens is when the immune system of a female and the immune system of a male interact via the sense of smell (pheremones),
a possibility of a higher order of immunity is at hand for improved progeny.
If that's the case the brain is flooded with endorphins giving rise to the pleasurable sensation of 'romantic love'.
lots of fucking takes place in order to get 'the baby'.

'romantic love' soon dissipates on baby's arrival because nature wants the couple to keep their hands off each other and concentrate on the arduous task of 'raising baby'.

machinery.
welcome to the machine.

The true Romantic doesn't need sex to be complete....only love.

fortunate indeed for the personhood fully experiencing that condition you describe on a day to day basis.
considering that it is conditional, arising out of causes,
a list of 'in order to's' must be subscribed to for the ultimate sake of the condition being generated.

It's no good lecturing about it and not have it in the form of 'love nazi'.
Beating others up for their failure to conform to it.
Indeed, idealising it is not it.


It has to be the full and pure experience.

For the ultimate sake of fully experiencing 'love' on a day to day basis.
What activities are required in order to have it.

What is there to be mindful of?

It doesn't grow on trees, fall out of the sky or found to be purchasable at Walmart.

Kunga wrote:

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:A small infant is also ignorant, yet innocent.

And incapable of hate...

You say hatred is ignorance. A baby is ignorant and expresses its fears and demands without shame or control. Growing up it becomes just more complicated.

I said nothing about cutting/destroying , you are twisting my words . I said spiritually evolved try to heal the world of the cancerous hatred. They do this by promoting peaceful solutions, kindness, love,generosity, and sometimes a kick in the ass when those methods fail. lol

Healing a cancer is generally done by cutting away that what is deemed cancerous and hoping it doesn't return. But spirituality is the ability to know the whole of nature as perfect and complete. It doesn't need adding or removing. Diseases and suffering are coming out of a surplus or lack of resistance, adding or removing - a shadow movement of nature itself.

It's hard to embrace this idea of everything being alright. And it's not passive or escapist when done all the way: it burns brightly, it burns the world.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:You say hatred is ignorance.

Yes, I was thinking about how everything is empty,interconnected,interdependent,ONE. To hate another is to hate yourself. To love another is to love yourself. To neither hate nor love is to have equanimity. To have equanimity is to find peace. But I'm still a romantic (1/4). The rest of me disappeared.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote: It's hard to embrace this idea of everything being alright. And it's not passive or escapist when done all the way: it burns brightly, it burns the world.

Yes. I've had a real hard time with this one, still do, even though I understand the logic. It's hard to accept the real shitty things.

You read nothing.

Neither I am me,
nor you are you,
nor you are me.
Also, I am me,
you are you
...
and you are me.
We have become one
in such a way,
That I am confused whether
I am you,
or you are me.


The Lovers
will drink wine night and day.
They will drink until they can
tear away the veils of intellect and
melt away the layers of shame and modesty.
When in Love,
body, mind, heart and soul don’t even exist.
Become this,
fall in Love,
and you will not be separated again.


Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript of a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.
Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,
you are already that.


Tonight
is the night.
It is the creation of that land of eternity.
It is not an ordinary night,
It is a wedding of those who seek unity.
Tonight, the bride and groom
speak in one tongue.
Tonight, the bridal chamber
is looking particularly bright.


Go ahead: ask me!
Ask me about Love,
and I will tell you the essence of madness.
Ask me of an intellect gone mad,
and I will show you a soul departed for good.
Ask me of a hundred calamities,
of a hundred life transformations.
Ask me of a hundred deserts engulfed in fire.
Ask me of a hundred oceans red with blood.


I am an atom;
you are like the countenance of the Sun for me.
I am a patient of Love
you are like medicine for me.
Without wings, without feathers,
I fly about looking for you.
I have become a rose petal
and you are like the wind for me.
Take me for a ride.


By day I praised you
and never knew it.
By night I stayed with you
and never knew it.
I always thought that
I was me--but no,
I was you
and never knew it.
RUMİ...............................

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.
But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may livethrough its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows - then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, - then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

- Gibran

"I must first protest against the notion that romanticism can be enclosed within a concept; for romantic means precisely that it oversteps all bounds". - Kierkegaard

Romanticism is like a sword. If you're a fool, you'll impale yourself on your own ignorant usage of that sword. However, if you're careful, you can use the romantic mode of consciousness to transform memory, transform sorrow, transform consciousness.

The Gnostic Origins of Valentines Day

Hi Patrick, would you happen to know the precise source of that quote? Or did you just quote a quote of a quote :-) ?

Romanticism in the broader scope outlined here would be a generalized form of idealism. And ideals provide vision (faith) beyond your horizon (bind), vision provides goals, goals provide roads, roads lead to movement and all movement is transformation.

The key is therefore not romanticism as every human already projects his ideals through his actions but it was there locked between your own words: "be careful".

Yes, be careful with the baby - and be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

The way I value romanticism, of course, is quite opposed to the ideal of John Lennon, as he seemed to advocate pairing. I see woman as an inspiring stream to drink from, and then to quickly move on with as little fuss as possible.

An individual would likely need only one such woman, perhaps two. Beyond that, it is vice.