Broken heart, despair, agony, unrequited love

[Ostrinski]

These are things that have caused a lot of emotional trauma for me in my life and I am sure for many others as well. My experiences with them have kindled (somewhat) of an interest in them and I find myself looking things up on them a lot.

I was wondering what philosophical approaches to them exist, specifically within the realm of existentialism but I also know that psychoanalysts have covered these issues as well.

[Blake's Baby]

The only worthwhile philosophical approach is listening to the Sisters of Mercy, the Smiths, and Leonard Cohen, surely you already know that.

Pathos, as a (rhetorical) style, enabling emotional identification in art, allowing an emotional journey which in turn leads to catharsis, is pretty much the point, isn't it?

Seems a bit of a jokey reply, but, hey, us Goths are a laugh-a-minute.

[hetz]

Pouvons-nous étouffer le vieux, le long Remords,
Qui vit, s'agite et se tortille
Et se nourrit de nous comme le ver des morts,
Comme du chêne la chenille?
Pouvons-nous étouffer l'implacable Remords?

Dans quel philtre, dans quel vin, dans quelle tisane,
Noierons-nous ce vieil ennemi,
Destructeur et gourmand comme la courtisane,
Patient comme la fourmi?
Dans quel philtre? — dans quel vin? — dans quelle tisane?

[Decolonize The Left]

These are things that have caused a lot of emotional trauma for me in my life and I am sure for many others as well. My experiences with them have kindled (somewhat) of an interest in them and I find myself looking things up on them a lot.

I was wondering what philosophical approaches to them exist, specifically within the realm of existentialism but I also know that psychoanalysts have covered these issues as well.

Nietzsche called it "overcoming nihilism." He suggested we ought to do this creatively, by claiming and understanding and accepting our pain and turning it into something beautiful - an act which is entirely human.

[cyu]

Sorry if you think this is hijacking the thread - was debating whether I should create a new thread or find an existing one =]

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/12/19/3973908/where-do-the-worlds-happiest-people.html

The people least likely to report positive emotions lived in Singapore, the wealthy and orderly city-state that ranks among the most developed in the world. Germany and France tied with the poor African state of Somaliland for 47th place.

Some say that's a dangerous path that could allow governments to use positive public perceptions as an excuse to ignore problems.

Singapore sits 32 places higher than Panama on the Human Development Index, but at the opposite end of the happiness list.

"We work like dogs and get paid peanuts. There's hardly any time for holidays or just to relax in general because you're always thinking ahead: when the next deadline or meeting is."


http://www.gallup.com/poll/159254/latin-americans-positive-world.aspx

Higher income does not necessarily mean higher wellbeing. Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and Princeton economist Angus Deaton found in the United States that income only makes a significant impact on daily positive emotions when earning up to $75,000 annually -- after that, additional income does not make as much of a difference.


Top:
Panama 85%
Paraguay 85%
El Salvador 85%
Venezuela 85%

Top "Western" Nation:
Canada 80% (below Ecuador's 81%)

New Zealand at 78%
United Kingdom at 77%
United States tied with China and Swaziland at 76%
Australia at 75%

Israel at 68%
Rwanda at 66%
Italy at 65%
Greece at 63%
Palestine at 59%
Egypt and Pakistan at 58%
India and Bahrain at 57%
Afghanistan and Haiti at 55%
Iraq at 50% (third from bottom / not all countries included)
Singapore last at 46%

[hetz]

The people least likely to report positive emotions lived in Singapore, the wealthy and orderly city-state that ranks among the most developed in the world.
That's because Singapore is the closest you can get to 1984, a place where you get beaten for chewing gum.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Heartbreak sucks. It's important though (and this is my quasi-philosophical take) to be philosophical and emotional in equal measure. Extreme versions of the former tend to lead to a lack of passion and make you a less desirable partner in all probability, thereby extending your cycle of sadness/depression because you can't move on by finding an acceptable new partner. The latter in extremes obviously means that you can't analyse either where you've gone wrong, why certain things have happened, or you over-analyse through an emotional - rather than a philosophical - lens and end up doubting yourself, when sometimes shit just happens and it's not your fault.

I say this as someone going through an extreme heartbreak at the moment. It's important to stay strong and not totally lose your way!

[Comrade #138672]

I tend to interpret them in a Freudo-Marxist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freudo-Marxism) way.

[Luís Henrique]

Top:
Panama 85%
Paraguay 85%
El Salvador 85%
Venezuela 85%

Top "Western" Nation:
Canada 80% (below Ecuador's 81%)

Panama, Paraguay, El Salvador, and Venezuela are all "Western" nations.

Luís Henrique

[Let's Get Free]

I've never felt this emotion known as "love."

[Yuppie Grinder]

I've never felt this emotion known as "love."
You don't love your family?

[Yuppie Grinder]

Unrequited love is just plain unhealthy. Try to not get attached to people until they're attached to you. Remain aloof.

[Narcissus]

Unrequited love is just plain unhealthy. Try to not get attached to people until they're attached to you. Remain aloof.

This was my strategy when I was 15. Looking back at the results I can't recommend it. However the depression and the isolation and the pain made me who I am today, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Screw 'suffering is noble' and 'stiff upper lip', cry your eyes out, spend your nights and days looking deep, because those moments are what humanity IS. If your not or never have been at rock bottom, good luck to you in the big wide world. Come back scarred but not wounded - that little bit wiser, and give only a wry smile when people try and bring you down.

Wince at the pain of others with a level of empathy never before possible. Give them your hand, help them onto their feet. Solidarity. Fight the injustices, feel them as you did when you were young, do not blunt your feelings. Choose that raw social consciousness over the sense of ease and peace that comes with accepting the world as is - that's experience. Stay human. Tremble with indignation at EVERY injustice. Liberté égalité solidarité.

[Red Economist]

I'd reccomend Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving. Whilst it is somewhat limited it does spell out some philosophical foundations for understanding love not as an emotion but as an activity and capacity and goes on to assert that it is possible to love unconditionally, but identifies several kinds of love.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Loving
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm

Personally, I have found that unrequited love is closely associated with sexual repression and would suggest Wilhelm Reich's The Sexual Revolution as a starting point if you find this to be the case. (I'm bisexual, so I can't really speak for the experience heterosexuals, but if society accepts sexuality you do have to ask why people would repress their sexuality and where that social function originates from?).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Sexualit%C3%A4t_im_Kulturkampf

He argues that sexual repression in society is caused by the requirement of a compulsive monogamy ('till death do us part') or marriage which serves the interests of private property through inheritence. Unrequited love in this sense is an economic necessity of ensuring that one person has a 'single' partner based on procreation rather than on sexual-romantic pleasure/mental health. (i.e. sex/love is only for procreation so that property can be inhereited).

Hence unconditional love becomes a question of breaking free from psychological repression (much easier said than done); Riech's Character Analyisis and Fromm's Fear of Freedom is useful for this (if you argue that marriage is a symobiotic relationship and a form of sado-masochism based on emotional poverty). I've found the later have seriously changed the way I look at politics and power in terms of psychology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_from_Freedom
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_Analysis

This logically leads on to what kind of realtionships are psychological healthy and opens up questions about open relationships and non-monogamous relationships/polygamy. Based on what I've read, I think Reich would probably argue however that promisiciuty is a compulsion due to the inability to gratify sexuality by emphasis on the physical rather than the psychological nature of sexuality. (although saying such a thing is sex-negative and promiscuity is probably 'more healthy' than monogamy).

Riech edited his works later to correspond to a theory of transcendental sexual energy or 'orgone' and so it is worked into many of his books. there's also good reason to suspect he went mad in later life as well; (although fleeing from the Nazi's and having the CIA burning books was probably not that helpful).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich

Most of these books are free or online on the internet, but amazon has them as well.

[cyu]

I would say in its simplest form, romantic love is just getting regular praise (or self-esteem) from someone you find attractive.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Unrequited love is just plain unhealthy. Try to not get attached to people until they're attached to you. Remain aloof.

Didn't know one could pick and choose that sort of thing!

[Os Cangaceiros]

Didn't know one could pick and choose that sort of thing!

I think you really have to have a bunch of interactions with an individual before you "love" them. I don't really believe in love at first sight. I've experienced many, many instances of lust at first sight, but love? Like how I feel about my parents, or how two people who've been together for many, many years feel about each other? No, I don't think that can really occur with just a casual interaction.

So in that sense I think that if it becomes clear that the person you're interested in is not interested in you, you can cease and desist early on, make a mostly clean break and move on with your life. In any case obsessing over the matter is quite unhealthy, as GP mentioned.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I think you really have to have a bunch of interactions with an individual before you "love" them. I don't really believe in love at first sight. I've experienced many, many instances of lust at first sight, but love? Like how I feel about my parents, or how two people who've been together for many, many years feel about each other? No, I don't think that can really occur with just a casual interaction.

So in that sense I think that if it becomes clear that the person you're interested in is not interested in you, you can cease and desist early on, make a mostly clean break and move on with your life. In any case obsessing over the matter is quite unhealthy, as GP mentioned.

I must say I disagree. I've never felt lust for anyone in reality, never had any desire to engage in any sexual antics or similar, yet plenty of cases I have felt a desire for closeness and what I would call love - oh, that all-devouring anxiety-breeding pressure in the chest! The fact that this naturally will be largely a composite of naïve fantasies and wishful thinking do not make the feeling as such any less real (though if one is lucky it will vanish quickly.) The fact that love can transform into something different as time leaks like petrol from an auto and become something quite different and perhaps at times even stronger, does not mean that the first feelings are also not love; infatuation, sure, but that's a form of love as far as I can judge, and even that can last a very long time--