Re: GG and relationships

["Robert C. Kunath" <kunath@hilltop.ic.edu>]

From: Robert C. Kunath <kunath@hilltop.ic.edu>
> To: Veronica Xavier <vxavier@sfsu.edu>
> Subject: Re: GG Wish lust
> Date: Friday, April 03, 1998 6:44 PM
> 
> Dear Veronica,
> 
> 	One quick take on this discussion is that we could focus more broadly on
> the issue of interpersonal relationships.  GG seems to have been both
very
> desirous of those relationships but very concerned to keep them under
> strict control where he called the shots in the relationship. 
Friendships
> can work that way, at least for a while, but are hard to sustain in the
> long run.  The evidence does seem to indicate that GG tended to exhaust
his
> friends and move on to others.  Romantic/sexual relationships are much,
> much harder to control in that way, and GG seems to have spent a lot of
> time avoiding them.  That may well be the right decision for someone who
is
> devoted to art in the way GG was, but his discomfort and embarrassment
with
> the whole issue seems to me to have a kind of adolescent quality to it. 
> One gets a sense that he really wanted to have more closeness with people
> but that he was simultaneously frightened of the loss of control that
> closeness required.  So I think you've said it very well when you say
that
> sex was a part of the puzzle that didn't fit.  GG was not indifferent to
> close relationships, but he couldn't make them fit very well with who he
> was.  That seems a pity to most of us, I imagine, but I'm not sure that
GG
> could have produced the extraordinary music that he did without that
tragic
> attraction/repulsion to close relationships.  Art gains a special power
> when it fills the void left by love.
> 
> Robert
> 
> ----------
> > From: Veronica Xavier <vxavier@sfsu.edu>
> > To: f_minor@email.rutgers.edu
> > Subject: Re: GG Wish lust
> > Date: Friday, April 03, 1998 6:21 PM
> > 
> > Hi William (and all)--
> > 
> > >even among my peers (who do their best to be productive, and not
> > >promiscuous, even with so much to shoot for) i know none who hold
> > >such a view as to provide companion to my own convictions on the
> > >matter. as such, i'd be interested to see if gould's view on the
> > >subject was as hopelessly unrealistic as my own.
> > 
> > I'm glad you made the above comments, this is an issue I'm very
> interested
> > in as a creative person, and I agree with you.  I don't think your
views
> > are unrealistic (although I think sometimes they prove to be,
> > unfortunately, impractical).  After reading about Gould and also coming
> > across other stories of celibacy, or near-celibacy, or attempted
celibacy
> > in researching the lives of other artists, I firmly believe that there
> are,
> > and have been throughout history, people who instinctively are pulled
in
> > the direction of celibacy, who operate best creatively without the
taxing
> > obligation of a relationship and insulated from the powerful intoxicant
> of
> > sex. I agree there's nothing wrong with having sex, of course.  But for
> > these individuals, I believe, sexual relationships are not so much a
part
> > of human nature that they eventually succumb to in one way or another,
> they
> > are a piece of the puzzle that never seems to fit quite right.
> > 
> > My personal belief is that Gould was one of these people, but certainly
> > there is evidence to the contrary.  Anyone else have any thoughts on
> this?
> > 
> > 
> > Veronica
> > vxavier@sfsu.edu
> > 
> >