Aesthetic
Realism Seminar
Can
A Woman Make Sense of How She's
For & Against a Man, the World, Herself?
by Nancy Huntting
What happened? At one time Jim was for me and I for him,
big-time. Then I felt: “I can’t live
with him—and I can’t live without him!” I
had no idea that this mix-up about a man arose
from how I was for and
against the world.
“Every person
is troubled by being for and against in a way that doesn’t make sense,”
writes Ellen
Reiss,
Aesthetic Realism is
the study of how to put for and against
truly together: to oppose what is unjust in a person out of respect for
that
person; to be terrifically against what is ugly in the world out of
love for
that world. [The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known
#1128]
These sentences represent good will, the
thing most necessary
for us to make sense of for and against in any aspect of our lives.
Good will is “the desire to have something else stronger and more
beautiful, for
this desire
makes oneself stronger and more beautiful [The Right Of # 121].”
I. Do Girls Have
Motives?
My life began to make sense when I
saw that I had
motives—two principal ones: A desire to see meaning in the world, and a
desire
to look down on things, have contempt, feeling in this way I’d be for
myself.
When I came to
New York from Ohio after college, I felt daring as I signed the lease
on an
apartment and got a job with a news magazine. And
the minute I met Jim Parkson, six-foot-four,
funny, full of life and
seemingly confident, I thought here was someone I could really go for.
Our
first meeting was an explosive mingling of for and against: I was
lounging on
the couch in my current boyfriend’s apartment, and Jim said something
teasingly
critical of my laziness. I jumped up and
punched him in the stomach. Thus began a
relation that was to last four years with “the man of my dreams.”
In his lecture "Aesthetic
Realism and
Love," Eli Siegel
explains:
...most [women] are
like most men: they think they're
surrounded by a world…that…. is oppressive.
A girl, for instance, has undergone being "oppressed" by her
mother.... she wants to think that somewhere there's ecstasy for
her.
[I]nstead of having her mother tell her what
to do, she's going to be a queen telling a young man what to do.
I thought the right man would give
me “unconditional
love”—which I would later see actually doesn’t exist, because every
person is a
work-in-progress and needs criticism. I didn’t know that what I really
wanted
was a friend who would be against the things I despised in myself, such
as my
indolence.
After my
initial reaction against him, I essentially acted as if I was for
Jim’s every
wish, making it clear he was the decision-maker, which made my life
easier
anyway. Years later, in an Aesthetic Realism class, Mr. Siegel
accurately described my
motive with Jim as: "I give myself entirely to you, so later I can
manage
you entirely." When a woman yields
to a man, seemingly uncritically—it is his weakness she is really for,
not his
strength.
I yearned to
be wider, to grow: I had thought of being a journalist and considered
studying
architecture, but I sat idly in the antique store Jim helped me open,
waiting
for when he would come. I couldn't seem
to make myself do anything worthwhile, and out of desperation I went to
a
psychological counselor and told her my growing fear: "I'm too
dependent
on a man." She listened, but said
very little, and I was as confused as ever.
That same
Spring I met a young woman who told me about Aesthetic Realism, and I
began
having consultations. When I told my consultants I felt I was too
dependent on
Jim, they asked:
Consultants. Is the dependence honest? Do you think
Mr. Parkson feels there's some need in you that doesn't have too much
to do
with him? Is he suspicious?
Nancy
Huntting. Yes.
Consultants. Is there
some justification? Do you think Mr.
Parkson represents...a safe harbor for you in this world? Is the world
you are
in good enough for you?
NH. No.
That day I began to learn that how
I was with a man arose
from how I saw reality itself. The logic
thrilled me. I thought a man would be my
ally against a world I saw as against me. But
instead of feeling secure, I felt more locked in
myself and less
deserving of love. My and Jim Parkson’s largest hope, I saw, was to
like this
world we were both in, and love has to be for that purpose.
In
an Aesthetic Realism class about a year later,
Mr. Siegel asked me: "What is your complete self?"
"A person wanting to know?" I said.
Can you put it
another way?: "My complete self wants
to like the world, and if I know a person who can help me in my desire
and is
interested in my desire, I certainly hope to rejoice in his
existence.
But if I have to choose between liking him in
an isolated way or liking the world, I should see that my whole self
wants to
like the world."
To know what to be for in myself
and in a man and what to
be against freed me. I began to read again, to care for poetry and
history, to
be interested, with new respect, in people—my parents, and men and
women
everywhere.
2. For and Against in an American Actress
Jane Fonda has done important work as an actress in “They
Shoot Horses, Don’t They?,” and "Klute,” and films she
both produced and acted in, such as “The China Syndrome,” and "Coming
Home.” In her acting there's a sweetness
that’s not superficial, and a strength that has warmth with it. You see
her
keen mind; and there's a fresh, uncovered quality, an almost raw
showing of
depth.
When
Fonda was 31, in 1968, she came to feel that the one way to be for her
country
and for herself was to do everything she could against the Vietnam War. She herself was surprised by what she
felt. She left France and an unhappy
marriage, used her celebrity, most of her time and money, withstood
vilification and continued to work with her second husband, Tom Hayden,
to end
that war. The central section of her book is about Vietnam and her trip
to
Hanoi in 1972 and it is valuable, ever-so needed now. Meanwhile,
photographs
taken of her on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun were used to say
she was
against American GIs, and she has publicly apologized for allowing that
to happen.
But she says she’s proud of going there to try to stop the bombing,
and is
asserting that pride now.
Ms. Fonda has
also suffered, and in her preface she says that at 59 she realized she
was
raising the curtain on her third act. She
writes:
The big difference
between life and acting, though, is
that in life there’s no rehearsal and no “take two.” This is it: better
get it
right before it’s over. To have a good third act, you need to
understand what
the first two have been about…. I don’t want to die without knowing who
I
am….What I am terrified of…is …being filled with regrets, and having no
time to
set things right….
I respect this very much. While a
lot could be
said about her, I deal
here with the drama in her of for
and against as to men, and
love.
|
