The Virtue of Discomfort
In the beginning of a relationship, she said, both people were happy to be a little uncomfortable. It was a voluntary suffering. She said the Latin root for the word passion was ‘passio’ which meant ‘to suffer’. It made sense, she said. You were so passionate about someone you were willing to make sacrifices. You watched a high brow film and ate salad afterward not because you liked it so much but because your partner liked it a lot and you wanted to see the world through their eyes and you knew they would do the same for you. So at this stage of your love, passion triumphed over authenticity and you didn’t mind it at all. The discomfort made you feel alive.
Then time passed and the desire to be uncomfortable for the other diminished. It was time for frankness, for complete ‘authenticity’. Society made you believe this was the ‘real’ stage of the relationship. Now it was a win-win, you could ‘settle down’ and build an honest, comfortable life together. But, she said, this is where her heart always sank. She hated comfort. And marriage, to her, was really a way of legitimizing comfort and indifference with the carrot of stability, of security.
So here’s the thing, she said. Once you had a relationship that was not so comfortable but very passionate. And now you had a relationship that was very comfortable but devoid of passion and curiosity. Which was better?
After a pause, she said she would choose passion, even if it meant a little discomfort. In other words, she wanted to suffer for her partner and she wanted her partner to want to suffer for her.
She wanted them both to give up a little of their ‘authenticity’ to change for the other. Otherwise what was the point of love?
If you wanted to be yourself all the time, get an aquarium full of fish, she said. Why be with a human being?
Being your true self all the time, being ‘authentic’ was for her not a virtue in relationships but a kind of selfishness.
Philip John, Labyrinths
In the beginning of a relationship, she said, both people were happy to be a little uncomfortable. It was a voluntary suffering. She said the Latin root for the word passion was ‘passio’ which meant ‘to suffer’. It made sense, she said. You were so passionate about someone you were willing to make sacrifices. You watched a high brow film and ate salad afterward not because you liked it so much but because your partner liked it a lot and you wanted to see the world through their eyes and you knew they would do the same for you. So at this stage of your love, passion triumphed over authenticity and you didn’t mind it at all. The discomfort made you feel alive.
Then time passed and the desire to be uncomfortable for the other diminished. It was time for frankness, for complete ‘authenticity’. Society made you believe this was the ‘real’ stage of the relationship. Now it was a win-win, you could ‘settle down’ and build an honest, comfortable life together. But, she said, this is where her heart always sank. She hated comfort. And marriage, to her, was really a way of legitimizing comfort and indifference with the carrot of stability, of security.
So here’s the thing, she said. Once you had a relationship that was not so comfortable but very passionate. And now you had a relationship that was very comfortable but devoid of passion and curiosity. Which was better?
After a pause, she said she would choose passion, even if it meant a little discomfort. In other words, she wanted to suffer for her partner and she wanted her partner to want to suffer for her.
She wanted them both to give up a little of their ‘authenticity’ to change for the other. Otherwise what was the point of love?
If you wanted to be yourself all the time, get an aquarium full of fish, she said. Why be with a human being?
Being your true self all the time, being ‘authentic’ was for her not a virtue in relationships but a kind of selfishness.
Philip John, Labyrinths
