Just watched Two Weeks Notice...

[rabid1st]

...a quirky little film with loads of soft charm and a pat ending. I sniffled and felt that giddy uplift of spirit that comes standard issue with romantic comedies. But then I settled down to sleep and started thinking (as I tend to do). I thought about the future of Hugh Grant's low ambition philanderer and Sandra Bullock's obsessive untouchable as they embarked on that uniquely adult journey known as "COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP." I wondered if they had a smidgen of a chance of being remotely content...

CONTENT...not HAPPY...

Happiness, is the mirage of our culture. We invest a lot of energy into pursuing it, finding it, securing it. We track across the desert of our life always believing we will someday reach this Happy State. But even when we have it...it really is a very fleeting thing. Happiness is the orgasm of existence. Contentment on the other hand is like Tantric Sex (it just goes on and on and on...if you're doing it right anyway ;-D ). Unlike happiness, contentment is a state of being which is both achievable and sustainable. Just ask the Buddha or Neo(Keanu Reeves knows everything).

The problem, I think, is that contentment is not really modeled in our society. We don't value it. And we seldom see it because we are too busy looking ahead to our next HAPPY. We want the rush. In America, our films and our television shows tend to end on the HAPPY moment...the moment when all differences are set aside for a second and true love is declared. We so seldom see love as committed contentment.

Love, we feel, is the glass slipper fitting Cinderella. It is the kiss that awakens Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. It is the maid learning she is good enough for the rich man and the rich man seeing her true worth and risking his career for her. Love is that happy moment. And when the movie ends on the kiss...the message it sends is, "THEY LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER."

And if THEY can do it so can WE! But can we? Can they? Did they REALLY?

Is LOVE the same as being "in love." Most people prefer the latter state. They might even say "I love you but I'm not IN LOVE with you" and mean..."I don't have that heady rush of happiness when I'm with you"...or in the end stages of a relationship they might mean, "You no longer make me giddy or fill me with breathless longing."

Anyway...I have no conclusions to draw here...I just can't sleep and my beloved has a cold so I don't want to keep him awake with the tossing and turning and such. This leads to the thinking...and the live journal update.

Everyone sing "The Circle of Life" with me and then quietly disperse. :-D

But before you go...think about the last time you saw contentment modeled as an acceptable or desirable state in our culture? Okay, let's give the point to conflict in storytelling. Maybe it's just BORING to be contented...THERE'S NO STORY THERE...

But what about this: Think about the last time you saw a film or television show about a couple working to solve their problems rather than just sweeping them under the rug or going their separate ways? When is the last time you honestly felt, on reflection, that a fictional couple had a real chance to become contented committed partners for the long haul?

And not one of you better say BUFFY and SPIKE or I will be forced to say, "HA!"

Comments

[chrisjournal.livejournal.com]

I loved this post. I guess I'd point at some of the fifties family sitcoms, maybe Home Improvement or Cosby Show. The thing is, it feels fake when we watch those, just as much as the 'happily ever after' movies you're writing about.

(thinks again...Dharma and Greg had something like this didn't they?...) In real life, even contentment is ephemeral. I can't believe I'm going to quote a reality show, but I saw this little bit of one on MTV (dunno which), which beautiful barbiedoll chick was saying "real love is when he knows how you like your eggs, and he doesn't like them that way, but he makes them for you every Saturday and eats his that way too, without complaining or making a big deal."

Contentment, like happiness, is something that comes in moments, little snatches that we have to pay attention to. Real life, after the swelling music and the I-love-you-forever kiss, is filled with dirty laundry and bill paying and flooded basements and late nights with horrible bosses, and dinner cooking and fighting about whose parents to visit first or longer at Thanksgiving time. Maybe that's why only sitcoms manage to portray it in an interesting way -- finding the humor in the mundane is pretty much the only way for it to be fun in real life, too. The trick is in appreciating the good we've got rather than longing for what we don't. And just for the record, from a ten-year married, 15-year together couple, those moments of pure bliss, happily ever after? They're still there too. They're just not things you tumble into willy-nilly anymore, but things you have to work for.

And hey -- sorry for pontificating in your journal. You really struck a chord.

Hey...yes, Darma and Greg...good one...

[rabid1st.livejournal.com]

As a member of a 10 year couple I also can attest to the moments of continued bliss...on occasion I find my sweetie to be heartstopping. But those are indeed MOMENTS and what we don't see modeled is the equal balance of doubt and fear and confusion. Also, as you note, just the daily grind of living. It is, as shamanistic tradition says, "all about where you put your energy."

And yes, again, contentment is also less of the whole of life than say...irritation (which for me is a constant ;-D ). Okay, that, too, is an exaggeration.

I suppose emotions are fleeting but truely blissful moments are as rare and as brief as truely horrific moments. And yet, bliss is our goal...or rather...our model of perfection...rather than contentment.

So...now I am going to mention B/S because you mentioned sitcoms...and because in mentioning "interest in the mundane", I think you hit the nail on the head. Humor, in my opinion, is what is needed for a couple to deal with the drudgery of reality. Humor and a certain level of trust in the other person.

Both of these things provide perspective when the horrific moments hit. But beyond that they let you deal successfully with NOT being in a drama...but instead being worn away under the drip-drip-drip of mundane existence. And personally, I thought B/S always excelled in humor. Which is not to say they were perfect...but they made each other smile in the worst situations. And they stood by one another in situations that could so easily have led to dissolution (physical assault, infidelity, lots of angry lashing out and mutual confusion).

Finally, by all means, feel free to pontificate Chris...Lord knows I do!