- To be whole.
- To be a part.
- To be apart.
- To be wholly present.
- To be a present.
- To be free.
- To be treasured.
- To be changeless.
- To be infinitely malleable.
- To be indescribable.
- To be given multiple terms of endearment.
- To be at rest.
- To be in motion.
- To be emptied.
- To be filled.
- To be sovereign.
- To be of service.
- To be amusing.
- To be amazing.
- To be amazed.
- To be wildered.
- To be lost.
- To be last.
- To be all things.
- To be no thing.
- To be not.
- To be.
__________
Thanks to SB for posing the question on her Facebook profile.
Oh, what a lovely surprise to see your old friend! And with wonderful answers to a deep question.
Diogenes, you mean? Yeah, he’s deeply skeptical about this whole online social networking fad.
Oh, this is wonderful!
I’m going to post a poem for you…
well that pretty much sums it up! And the photo has left me feeling nostalgic for my student days.
SB – And what a poem it was! Too bad I already just Smorgasblogged something from Watermark.
Gina Marie – Yeah, I’ll bet you even had classes in that building in the background. I had at least two there that I can recall, including East Asian Literature with John Balaban, the poet and translator from the Vietnamese.
right on!
:~)
I feel as if I should add a disclaimer, though:
Be advised that the author has not been romantically involved with anyone for years, that he’s not very good at maintaining friendships, and that he hasn’t even prayed or spoken with invisible friends since he was a child. He even gave away an adorable little kitten that the Universe dropped on his doorstep last spring. In short, he is almost unredeemably anti-social, notwithstanding his recent decision to join Facebook.
Dave, I think your disclaimer must be cribbed from my own secret life. Well, except for the part where I am married (still unsure how that could possibly be) and I kept the cat, we could be anti-social twins. Nice to see Diogenes again.
love the photo, and the love compilation…
You do know I’m real?
(don’t answer that)
Oh, wait, how do I know YOU are real?
(don’t answer that ether)
robin andrea – Someone should start an answer to Facebook for people like us – an antisocial networking site. (Setting it up would be easy; getting people to join might be a tough sell.)
SarahJ – Thanks. Glad this resonated with you.
Keith – I just realized that in fact I do speak to invisible friends all the time – bloggers I haven’t met, like robin andrea. But you and I met at the Diner, which is a whole different order of unreality. (By the way, did you hear it got shut down the other week for health code violations? But it was up and running again yesterday, I noticed.)
Two more items for the list of what love wants, from Wm Blake:
The Clod & the Pebble
Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hells despair.
So sang a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with the cattles feet;
But a Pebble of the brook,
Warbled out these metres meet.
Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight:
Joys in another’s loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.
Thanks. That’s one of my favorites. Good to read it again.
Great list. I’d agree with all of it except for Infinitely Malleable. Being InfMall in love is the ruin of many good relationships, especially bad for the one being, um, malleated? manipulated? Moulded into something they’re not?
to be played with?
to be verbalized out of existence?
to be played with
to be verbalized out of existence?
Wildered. Like!
In the comments you make yourself sound Thoreau-ish. Thinking of that comment where Emerson said that as for taking Henry’s arm, he should as soon think of taking the arm of an elm tree.