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BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,The Jester Date: 17 May 02 - 08:14 AM I've paid the price of solitude but at least I'm out of debt. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Amos Date: 17 May 02 - 03:06 AM Michaelr, forgive me -- but I believe that the "all in the brain" version of existence is a distorted and untenable (and self-referential) argument. I urge you to review the actual evidence! :>) Especially the part where communication and understanding start occuring. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: hesperis Date: 17 May 02 - 01:49 AM Very interesting... I recently "fell" in love myself, with ideas, work, and a specific person... Regarding the person: I've had crushes before, of course, but this time the feeling wouldn't go away when I tried all my usual tricks on it. *g* When I finally gave in to the inevitable, it was like falling upwards and downwards at once, and widening outwards, too. We're friends, he lives too far away for it to be anything more, but all I know is that I am very glad that he is in my life. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Art Thieme Date: 17 May 02 - 01:22 AM Frank Warner sang...
"Love, it is akillin' fit ---------Art Thieme |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: michaelr Date: 17 May 02 - 01:13 AM Good one, Capri - I'll have to mull that one a while! Ol' Bucky was a deep one. BTW, I just read that the only geodesic dome he ever lived in, on the campus od U. of Southern Illinois, has fallen into disrepair. Shame... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 01:04 AM Actually, Michael, if I remember the story dad has told, I think those were pretty close to the exact words my grandfather used to define love: Love is a chemical imbalance Of course a chemical imbalance isn't necessarily bad. If there were no shifts back and forth between the different brain chemicals, we wouldn't feel anything at all... I seem to remember walking being discribed as: losing your balance and catching it again befoere you fall. So maybe we need imbalance in our lives in order to move forward. And speaking of falling and love... I think it was Bucky Fuller who said that Gravity=Love. That may be the connection right there... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: michaelr Date: 17 May 02 - 12:54 AM Bill Kennedy - isn't it "I love you more today than yesterday/I'll love you twice as much tomorrow"? That's how I remember it. I agree with Sharon A: "runaway hormones". After all, the events/perceptions we call "feelings" are nothing but minute chemical reactions inside our brains, no matter how huge and earth-shattering we think they are. Falling in love = OXYTOCIN OVERDOSE! Lovingly, Michael |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 12:38 AM Don't worry, Helen. I'll be sure to post it. It's the least I can do after all the help I'm getting here! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Helen Date: 17 May 02 - 12:34 AM I'm finding this whole discussion of the use of the word "falling" really fascinating and if I were writing something - having now read this thread - I would consider doing just that: discussing the ideas/concepts behind "falling" in love. (Have a look at an etymological dictionary for a lovely surf through the interrelatedness of words and their origins. Mine is old, called Origins, published by Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1966) Part of the discussion, like talking to myself in the mirror over a period of time, would be musing about why it had never "happened" to me (passive not active verb), why I had never experienced this thing which everyone talks about. And then, musing about what might happen if I did "fall", who it would be with, and how I would feel etc. I can see this whole thread as a story, with different takes on the idea, with different people rolling the idea around like a new (OR previously experienced) and interesting chunk of food in their mouth - tasting, testing, evaluating, trying to put this whole experience into words, trying to explain the relatively unexplainable, trying to help other people to experience a part of what they have experienced. It's a whole philosophical and emotional and scientific question: what does "falling in love" mean? In my experience, I had only ever had less satisfying experiences of "love" and its variations, until I met up again (we were friends, but not close friends, more like friendly acquaintances, 15 years before) with the man I later married and realised within minutes of our initial conversation that "this was it". Something significantly different happened to me on that day and although later I "fell" in the sense of having little control and of reaching the point of no return, it was that realisation on that day which was the start of something different from previous experiences. Kat's idea of "falling upwards" describes it well because many of my previous experiences seemed to start from the not-much-different-from-ordinary and seemed to go downhill from there. CapriUni, I hope we get to read this creation of yours when you finish it. Helen |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 17 May 02 - 12:34 AM John Grey, you wrote: If you've never been in love don't even try writing about it. Well, I wasn't planning to... The thing is, I have been in many loving relationships (friends, parents, pets, et alia) but I haven't done that thing that's typically called "Falling in love"... I asked my dad what it was like when he and mother fell in love -- and he said "We didn't! We just sort of realized one day that we get along really well together, and we might as well get married." So it might be a family thing. I never grew up with the "falling in love" expectation, so when my hormones started kicking in as a teenager, I didn't go looking for it. I asked the organizer/editor if I could expand the subject to just "love", and she said I may if I absolutely must, but I didn't have to write about falling in love with a human. I do, however, have a lot of experience with falling (physically), so I might use that as a starting point: I know what it feels like to fall. I know what it feels like to love. But I've never experienced both together... Or something. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,ozmacca Date: 16 May 02 - 11:41 PM And wasn't it Ambrose Bierce who said something along the lines of..."It would be better if, when you fell into the arms of a woman, you could avoid falling into her hands..." I think I'll run away now and hide. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,John Gray @ work Date: 16 May 02 - 11:26 PM CapriUni, If you've never been in love don't even try writing about it. Pick another subject like - why have I never fallen in love? Who was it that said - men fall in love with women, but women fall in love with love. JG / FME
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Celtic Soul Date: 16 May 02 - 10:46 PM Shite! I just cleared my post accidentally. I hate it when that happens...this won't be near as good, but: I don't know what the actual history of the phrase is, but I have been through the experience, and it was definitely like "falling" to me. It's like jumping off a high cliff into water...you feel excited and exhilerated, and you think that you're probably safe...but there is a little fear and anxiety as well which only adds to the feeling of intoxication! I write a little, but unfortunately, it is the end of love that sparks the best stuff for me. But, perhaps a glimpse into the death of someone elses "fallen for love" might help to better understand it's beginnings. OK...here goes :::she said a little nervously::: Warmth bleeds from me like heat from the cracks in an old and tattered foundation in the dead, cold of winter... It seeps like lifesblood from a mortal wound, deep and ragged. My heart and mind grow numb. A snakes venom poisoning me slowly, inching it's way to my souls demise. His form is still here, but the light is gone. Lifeless automotons, we move about the task of daily routine, occasionally running into one another. Like blind fish, we bump, and then scurry away, nerves raw, wounds to lick. Trying hard not to remember when that which now poisons me was sweet as mulled opiate, blazing in my blood like fiery quirari, setting my mind, my heart, my soul afire. Cursed, wretched memory comes unbidden. Is it the doom of us that we forget? I think not. I think it is the doom of us that we remember. Sweet forgetfulness, if only in slumber. To forget the warmth, for now that is is gone, it is a torture. To dream of other worlds, of lives outside of the one dying in my grasp, slipping through my fingers like sand. To wake and live a day without the knowledge. To wake and have even the first thought be blissfully ignorant of the reality of yesterday. And yesterdays yesterday. And so, I wait. I wait for the cold to overtake me. It is the remnant of the warmth that taunts me so. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 06:19 PM Gee, thanks, Gang! See? I knew Mudcatters were metaphorically-minded! I love your take on "falling" in love, Kat! Love may indeed be like a raging river (or an ocean QV The Water is Wide), McGrath, but I've yet to experience that {Thank goodness! Sounds awfully Soggy ;-)}. My first impulse, on hearing the topic back in November (Well, second, after the "Well, I'm stumped!" response) was to write about falling in love with language, as a very young child -- learning its rhythms and cadences, and the tricks it could play, and what it could do for me... But that was so long ago, that I don't remember when, or if, I first had the sudden recognition of it. Learning to use it well certainly changed my world, though. Right now, that is looking more and more like the best bet for me. BTW, the Art Garden is in Garrison, NY (across the Hudson from West Point Academy, more or less), at the Depot Theater -- if any 'Catters are around that way, and want to meet... |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: katlaughing Date: 16 May 02 - 05:33 PM You could explore it as a gradual thing just as the leaves change their colour in the Fall, so you went "Falling" for your four-leggeds or whomever, you could get into describing the colours you felt with the gradual changing from friend to in love, etc...sort of make up an autumnal falling thing.:-) How about falling in love with life in an afternoon of lying on your back in the grass, looking up at the sky and experiencing that surreal feeling of falling, which can make one so aware of the earth beneath them, the different perspectives on life/Nature, etc....a falling in love with Being Here? |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 16 May 02 - 04:56 PM Surely the image implied is of falling into a river - no longer in control, swept away by the rushing water, held up by it, but possibly you might be drowned. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 03:59 PM Sorry about that, Bill! (why is it that so many songs with good lyrics have silly tunes?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 16 May 02 - 03:35 PM it was a song in the 70's by a group called Siral Staircase here's something from a web site Artist : Staircase Spiral Song : I Love You More Today Than Yesterday I don't remember what day it was I didn't notice what time it was All I know is that I fell in love with you And if all my dreams come true I'll be spending time with you Every day's a new day in love with you With each day comes a new way of loving you Every time I kiss your lips my mind starts to wander And if all my dreams come true I'll be spending time with you Oh, I love you more today than yesterday But not as much as tomorrow I love you more today than yesterday But, darling, not as much as tomorrow Tomorrow's date means springtime's just a day away Cupid, we don't need ya now, be on your way I thank the Lord for love like ours that grows ever stronger And I always will be true I know you feel the same way, too Oh, I love you more today than yesterday But not as much as tomorrow I love you more today than yesterday But only half as much as tomorrow Every day's a new day Every time I love ya Every way's a new way Every time I love ya Every day's a new day Every time I kiss ya Every day's a new day sadly, now I can't get the sily tune out of my head!
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 03:18 PM Bill, I'm vaguely familiar with the first song, but not the second. What's it from? |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 16 May 02 - 03:15 PM how about 'You'll never know just how much, I miss you, you'll never know just how much I care, and if I tried, I still couldn't hide, my lov for you. You ought to know for haven't I told you so, a million or more times. you went away, and my heart went with you I breath your name in my every prayer. If there wre some other way to tell you I love you I'm sure I don't know how. You'll never know if you don't know now. then there's 'I love you more than yesterday, but darling, not as much as tomorrow..' |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 03:08 PM Yes, Amergin, I may write about falling in love with a non-human (the editor/organizer has let me know that she is writing about falling in love with her garden... But that's not how I would use the term) Earlier, Bat Goddess made the point that it's not so much "falling" in love as being surprised by love... Personally, I think that that may be where the idea of falling in love came from. You never expect to fall over, but all of a sudden, there is a split-second of zero gravity, and the ground beneath your feet isn't there any more (it's under your rear, or your nose, or your knees, instead ;-)). So I've always equated "Falling in love" with a sudden, unexpected feeling for some one or thing, accompanied by a change in perspective about your own world and assumptions. (same sort of associations with getting shot by an arrow... interesting that in Eros's/Cupid's case, he shot both arrows of love and hate -- a sudden, strong feeling for someone need not be warm fuzzies) Most love, I imagine, is "grown" rather than "fallen" into -- a gradual growing awareness of the value of this person or thing in your life. Turning this to a music thread -- there are lots of songs about "falling" into love... what about the "growing" into love? Off the top of my head, I can't think of any -- not intense enough? |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Amos Date: 16 May 02 - 02:50 PM OKay, gang: back to Plato 101; everyone has to bone up (ewww! poor choice of words!) on agape versus the other six or so forms described before next class. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 16 May 02 - 02:46 PM it's the entering unawares thing, that meaning of fall, Spenser uses it in an early poem, though it has a couple of earlier usages, I think King James Bible, for one. I think a lot of the English usage is related, but shades of meaning, like to fall in with someone, an idea of happenstance, chance, etc. 'it so befell them that...,' but I still think the piece for the literary reading could be about the difference between that state and 'Love'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: SharonA Date: 16 May 02 - 02:38 PM Interesting... in the dictionary I have (Webster's), "falling in love" is used as an example of the definition "to pass suddenly and passively into a state of body or mind or a new state or condition", but next to "falling in love" is another example: "falling asleep". It never occurred to me to equate the two! Also, the expression "fall for" is defined as "falling in love" but also as "to become a victim of" (as in "he fell for the trick"). I wish the dictionary said more about the origins of the various meanings of the word "fall", instead of one origin of the word itself (Middle English fallen from Old English feallan akin to Old High German fallan and perhaps to Lithuanian pulti [how did pulti get into this?]). Without some info, I don't know if it's proper to equate the "fall" of "falling in love" with being born (like lambs "fall"), or with issuing forth (like words that fall from the lips), or with entering unawares (like falling into error), or with suffering ruin (as in "the city fell"), or with complying (like falling into line). All of the above menings sound to me like some of the aspects of falling in love! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: SharonA Date: 16 May 02 - 02:07 PM "Falling in love" a.k.a. Runaway Hormones! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Pseudolus Date: 16 May 02 - 01:55 PM When you fall (physically) there is a point at which you can't stop or save yourself from falling, you just fall. when the phrase is used in terms of falling in love, I think it means you've reached that point where you can't catch or stop yourself even if you wanted to.
Frank |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Kim C Date: 16 May 02 - 01:41 PM I dunno, I think love tends to fall on people, sometimes like a ton of bricks! |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: GUEST,Bill Kennedy Date: 16 May 02 - 01:38 PM a phrase that comes directly from the French into Norman English, tomber en amour, or tomber amoureux, 'fall in love'. Even our phrase 'in love' comes from the French 'n amour' which we also use as 'enamor', or to be 'enamored of' someone or something. The key here, and what would make the most interesting essay, is the contrast between 'being enamored of' and 'loving' someone or something. To love is not the same as to fall or be in love. And in Sanskrit there are different roots entirely for love that is affection, devotion or passion. (and I know the French goes back to earlier Latin usage and vocabulary, but English gets it through the French, I think. I can't remember, but would be interested in seeing how this concept is treated in Old Norse, or the Celtic languages. I think German uses a different construction to mean the same thing.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Amos Date: 16 May 02 - 01:32 PM Fiction can only take you so far -- push it beyond, and it kinda sucks you inside out. But that is only one part of the equation. The expression, "falling" in this instance, resonates with the tumble of misbehaving angels, the first condition that led to the establishment of Hell in Christian mythology. There is a similar abandonment of serenity -- the condition is usually described as highly energized -- and a similar sense, at least in the Puritan ethic, of abandoning a position of studied virtuosity, which I prefer to think of as an overwhelm of faith made real in human terms -- there is a sense of absolute trust and safety and uncriticality involved in what people usually describe as falling in love. The other, whether rightly or wrongly, is accepted with high trust. The other reason why the term has acheived such popularity is the sense of a higher set of forces at work, things one cannot strategize against; when you take a serious fall physically there is always a frozen instant where your impulse is to do something about gravity, which you then just as instantaneously realize is not subject to management action! And in love as in gravity's well, there is a certain feeling that you have been taken up by a stream that cannot be brooked. The fact that it is really a river of your own energies, unleashed, the governor uncoupled, usually escapes one's attention!:>) All around, growing in and into love is a much wiser approach, IMHO. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: Amergin Date: 16 May 02 - 01:20 PM like I asked in the Annexe...are the topics open for interpretation? if so...what about falling in love with a four legged member of the family? or write about what you would like... |
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Subject: ? (maybe) 'falling' in Love? discussion From: CapriUni Date: 16 May 02 - 12:03 PM Copied from a discussion we had in the Annexe yesterday, when the 'Cat was down... thought I'd continue it over here where more people can see it. Posted - 5/15/2002 6:38:55 PM Not sure whether to put this in the "Personal Wellbeing" section, or here... but as this question touches on culturral and folkloric ideas that have been addressed in numerous ballads, I figgered Mudcat would be as good a context as any. Twice a year, I participate in something called "The Art Garden" -- structured like a semi-annual literary magazine with theme-based issues... but instead of having the work printed and distributed, writers get up on stage and read their work before a live audience (The piece I did for November 2000 ["Child of the Spirits"] is on the Mudcat's storytellers' Page). Anyway, the next Art Garden is June 1, the deadline is the 27th, and the theme is "falling in love"... And that got me thinking of all the loving relationships I've been in, and I don't feel like I've "fallen" into any of them. I was there, the other person (or animal, or entity) was there, and the love was there as just part of the equation -- no sense of falling, or getting shot by an arrow, or hit by lightning, or anything. So I'm kinda stumped. I've never failed to come up with something for the Art Garden for fourteen years, so I doubt I'll let writer's block get me down this time... I just thought I'd "process" the question with the (generally) metaphorically-minded Mudcatters: So what does falling have to do with love? Amergin: Posted - 5/15/2002 6:46:57 PM not sure if this is any help...but what I would do is to write something based on your experiences...take the best part of them and write...and change a few things here and there...it does not have to be anything special...it could just be about sitting at a table...or watching a movie...or just talking.... JenEllen Posted - 5/15/2002 6:54:53 PM Perhaps that is your piece right there? *g* I agree with you totally. I always equate 'falling' with 'painful'--barked shins, skinned knees... Love isn't painful, not really. For myself, I see it as more of an amnesiac episode. My best friends and dearest loves all have come through usual channels, and then one day you realize just how much you care for them and wonder 'when did this happen?'. I've, to this point in my life, been unable to pinpoint an exact moment of 'falling' in all cases save one. Love doesn't fall, it blossoms. Keep us updated on your progress, eh? And best of luck, ~JE MMario Posted - 5/15/2002 7:08:20 PM So go with that -What *does* falling have to do with love? "Love doesn't fall - it blossoms" like it JE! Amergin Posted - 5/15/2002 7:13:29 PM the love may blossom...but the victim can fall....and see stars....i think it means that folks in love can do stupid things...like some one who has hit their noggin too hard... Alice Posted - 5/15/2002 8:30:35 PM You could take the difference between infatuation, which is what most people are talking about when they say "falling in love" and genuine love, which requires knowing the person well enough to have more realistic and concrete feelings about them. Infatuation happens between people who barely know each other, when people project a fantasy on their love object. Love is deeper, because it is connected to who the person really is, not just a fantasy image of them. Alice
Mary In Kentucky Posted - 5/15/2002 10:06:34 PM I agree with Alice. Waaaaaaay back when I "fell," we had a term that I thought was very appropriate. I knew immediately that I was "snowed." I resisted for almost a year before I got engaged, then another year before I got married! Pip Freeman Posted - 5/16/2002 12:02:17 AM When you "fall" for someone you go weak at the knees, your head spins, and you feel faint, and then you may quite literally fall, maybe thats what it's all about?! Why not do a discourse on all the songs with the theme of falling in love? Falling in love again--Marlene Dietrich What do you get when you fall in love---very funny words, particularly-"what do you get when you kiss a girl, you get enough germs to catch pneumonia, after that she'll never phone ya" Cant help falling in love--Elvis To mention just a few!! Pip Alice Posted - 5/16/2002 12:05:17 AM all together now... "Falling in love with love is falling for make believe...." Mary in Kentucky Posted - 5/16/2002 12:10:05 AM When I fall in love, it will be forever... Bat Goddess Posted - 5/16/2002 12:42:32 AM I don't think it's so much "falling" in love as being surprised by love. Linn Allie Kiwi Posted - 5/16/2002 2:30:02 AM I think we 'fall' for the fairytale sometimes. Love isn't always about the starbursts etc, but when you expect it to be, you can turn your back on something really special. Allie CapriUni: Posted - 5/16/2002 4:59:00 AM Amergin, you wrote: "but what I would do is to write something based on your experiences...take the best part of them and write..." That's just it -- I don't have any experience with the "falling" sort of love. I've yet to be in a loving romantic relationship. I have the love of friends, and family, and four-leggeds. But I've never had a "significant other" ... I had a couple crushes when I was in high school, but I was too shy to do anything more than admire from afar. I've had guys insist they were in love with me (when it was unrequited on my part) only to back out at the last minute when I decided that maybe I was being too picky. Other than that, all my relationships have been platonic. ::::Sigh:::: I was getting really down about that fact at the start of this last winter, too, when the topic was first announced. Now that it's spring/summer, I'm feeling a lot better, and rather than depression, all I have is a really big, frustrating case of writers' block!
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