• TheMadFool
    13.8k
    W. H. Auden (1907 - 1973) Poet

    Thousands have lived without love, not one without water — W. H. Auden

    The words of Auden, despite the simplicity, has a sting in its tail.

    Love here stands for all that we humans consider to be distinctly identifiable as attributes/objectives/aspirations/abilities/talents
    of superior beings, viz. us. These attributes/objectives/aspirations/abilities/talents
    then are believed to set us apart from other beings like animals, becoming the basis of an hierarchy in the great chain of being wherein we award ourselves the highest rank.

    Water, here serves as the reality check, the sometimes gentle reminder and the sometimes painful slap in the face, consisting of those hard-to-ignore facts of life, like death, sickness, hunger, thirst, etc., that restores us to our rightful place in the great chain of being - not at the top as we're wont to believe but with and among what we've considered beneath us, animals. A case can be made that when things start going south for the world, humans may turn out to be worse than animals but that's another story.

    That said, in those attributes/objectives/aspirations/abilities/talents that humans have used as justification to distance themselves from animals, we can see an opportunity to effect a great transformation - the earth, the world, will change forever and for the better if we nurture some of these decidely human "qualities". Perhaps I haven't felt thirsty in a while. Perhaps I haven't loved in a while
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    Thousands have lived without love, not one without water — W. H. Auden
    I wonder if either "love" or "water" here refers to g/G.

    Perhaps I haven't felt thirsty in a while. Perhaps I haven't loved in a whileTheMadFool
    What a lonely oasis :smirk: ...
  • Outlander
    1.8k
    If you could live without both, which would you prefer?
  • frank
    14.5k
    Thousands have lived without love, not one without water — W. H. Auden

    You need water. Love isn't a necessity. To live without love is to be powerful and capable of anything, to rob, to betray, to exploit, to maim, to kill.

    Love brings you low and makes you forget yourself.
  • Outlander
    1.8k


    So like an animal, an unintelligent person, or someone gripped by psychosis.

    Hey if any of these things are 'yourself' forgetting sounds like a service to just about everybody. Can be argued robbing someone wealthier than you to eat or teaching an overly trusting person the value of skepticism is not without it's own morals but anything beyond that is depravity. Meanwhile when they end up in prison who pays an average of 50 grand a year to house and feed them and just about any surgery they need some that would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? The law-abiding taxpayers of course. So let's not act like there's some sort of macho independence factor in degenerate criminality. The lions made things so much simpler.
  • 180 Proof
    14k
    To live without love is to be powerful and capable of anything, to rob, to betray, to exploit, to maim, to kill.frank
    "What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love." ~Fyodor Dostoyevsky

    Love brings you low and makes you forget yourself.
    So ... no ékstasis ... no anatta ... no moksha ...?
  • frank
    14.5k
    be argued robbing someone wealthier than you to eat or teaching an overly trusting person the value of skepticism is not without it's own moralsOutlander

    Love is amoral. 'That which is done out of love takes place beyond good and evil.' ---Nietzsche
  • frank
    14.5k
    "What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love." ~Fyodor Dostoyevsky180 Proof

    Yes.

    So ... no ékstasis ... no anatta ... no moksha ...?180 Proof

    I don't know. Maybe the highest love is those things?
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    I wonder if either "love" or "water" here refers to g/G.180 Proof

    I don't know. Perhaps, we don't need to water our love as much as we need to love water.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    What a lonely oasis180 Proof

    W. H. Auden's life was anything but lonely. He had two lovers, a wife and many off the record sexual liaisons. It amazes me how someone who was succesful in love could form such a low opinion of it.
  • Outlander
    1.8k


    So is a bartender's. He could've had ten times that. A hundred even. Doesn't mean he ever loved or was loved back. Words are words and gestures are gestures. You know that.

    Edit: As far as the bartender analogy I meant to suggest presence of people doesn't always equate social fulfillment or absence of lonliness. Especially for a great mind. Not to say I know a thing about you personally just from what few posts of yours I've read in my short time here they've always been rather intelligent.
  • Braindead
    37
    Some people simply don’t feel the need to have love. Or maybe they believe that this world cannot provide the love they desire. It isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just another way of life. Bet there are plenty of decent human beings out there whom happen to be bachelors.
  • TheMadFool
    13.8k
    I could never remember the names and locations of the places I had to pass through on the frequent trips I had to take between my home and my school. I knew a few people who did though.
  • remoku
    29
    Love is not without trust, or hate.

    To say we are not to love is fine, we ultimately aren't there are predispositions involved in love that point to hate and do science.
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