Slow Havamal: 93

[kylec]

The 93rdverse says not to mock others for falling in love. That a woman’s beauty can often affect a wise man even more strongly than a fool.

The love-struck seem to lose their senses. To the unaffected, it’s a peculiar phenomenon. How can a man who thought and behaved one way suddenly undergo such a profound change? It seems to defy reason, and the odd turn lends itself to mocking because he appears to have fallen for a temporary and embarrassing delusion. Everyone can see that this new passion is out of proportion to its object, so why can’t he?

Odin says that we shouldn’t be so quick to pass judgment. Of course, most of us have been there, or will be. The object of one man’s passion is definitely not that of another’s. Who are we to say what’s worthy of love? My personal preference might be unappealing to my friend. That is to say, love is relative. There are two parts to it, and they have to be in harmony. No person is an absolute object of love for all others. It’s the relation of two different things in a certain manner that brings it about.

We can just as well apply this to passions other than romance. People become obsessed with some hobby that we find weird but they find fulfilling. For example, I love knives. I have more than I would ever need to cut everything I might encounter for the rest of my life. Why am I constantly battling my urge to collect with a faltering rationality? Other people have no such shortcoming. Instead, they devour romance novels, or pour themselves into a martial art, or line every flat surface of their home with gnome figurines.

Carl Jung describes falling in love as the projection of the anima or animus, respectively—that opposite-gendered aspect of the self that complements you and longs to be reconciled. We fall in love with an archetype. I’m sure something similar is at work with collectibles and hobbies. The physical object is merely a suitable medium to carry the projection that captivates us.

So why is the wise man more affected than the fool at times? In the case of a woman’s beauty, and beauty in general, perhaps it’s that the wise man has a better eye, and accepts fewer substitutes. He sees the details others gloss over. Appreciates the rarity. For him, the divine is alive in that earthly object—a projection if ever there was one. Though maybe “embodiment” is a better word. The fool may fall in love often, but lightly. The wise are not immune. When loves strikes, though it may take some time, they will be all the more blindsided. The fool could pass over the wise man’s object of affection with confounding ease due to his shallowness of vision. Most objects are suitable to him. His love frivolously skips from surface to surface, never sinking very deep, while the wise may never escape.

If falling in love is to project an anima/animus, then to mock someone for it is to project one’s own shadow. The more aware we are of our passions and what wells they spring from, the more understanding we can be toward others, though I doubt it liberates us from having to go through our own falls in turn.