We are conditioned to think that love heals wounds, makes us happy, and gives our lives meaning. When the opposite occurs and love causes fracturing, disenchantment, and existential turmoil, we suffer deeply, especially if we feel that love has failed us or that we have failed to experience what others seem so effortlessly to enjoy.
In this eloquently argued, psychologically informed book, Mari Ruti portrays love as a much more complex, multifaceted phenomenon than we tend to appreciate—an experience that helps us encounter the depths of human existence. Love's ruptures are as important as its triumphs, and sometimes love succeeds because it fails. At the heart of Ruti's argument is a meditation on interpersonal ethics that acknowledges the inherent opacity of human interiority and the difficulty of taking responsibility for what we cannot fully understand.
Yet the fact that humans are often irrational in love does not absolve us of ethical accountability. In Ruti's view, we must work harder to map the unconscious patterns motivating our romantic behavior. As opposed to popular spiritual approaches urging us to live fully in the now, Ruti treats the past as a living component of the present. Only when we catch ourselves at those moments when the past speaks in the present can we keep ourselves from hurting the ones we love. Equally important, Ruti emphasizes transcending our individual histories of pain, an act that allows us to face the unconscious demons that dictate our relational choices. Written with substance and compassion, The Summons of Love restores the enlivening and transformative possibilities of romance.
- Contents
- Introduction
- Love as an Existential Nudge
- An Invitation to Self-Actualization
- The Risks of Love
- Love’s Panoramic Calling
- Love as a Gamble
- 1. The Hall of Mirrors
- The Quest for Wholeness
- The Beloved as Mirror
- The Pitfalls of Narcissism
- The Specificity of Desire
- The Speck of Corruption
- 2. The Patterns of Passion
- The Compulsion to Repeat
- Repetition as World-Structuring
- Missing Our Step
- Riding the Turbulence
- Managing the Repetition
- 3. The Sliver of Eternity
- The Human and the Divine
- The Nick of Time
- The Fall Into Tenderness
- The Process of Becoming
- The Reinvention of Identity
- 4. The Midst of Life
- The True Self
- The Touch of Madness
- The Flight from Passion
- Beyond Romantic Nihilism
- Passion’s Enduring Imprint
- 5. The Edge of Mystery
- The Enigma of the Other
- Messages That Motivate
- The Clearing of Unknowability
- The Softness of Silence
- The Craving for Solitude
- 6. The Ambivalence of Ideals
- Between Reality and Fantasy
- The Generosity of Ideals
- Ideals That Deplete
- Keeping Desire Alive
- Love beyond Ideals
- 7. The Intrigue of Obstacles
- Jumping Hurdles
- When Satisfaction Threatens
- The Desire to Desire
- The Bedrock of Desire
- Love’s Apprenticeship
- 8. The Initiations of Sadness
- The Aftermath of Loss
- From Sadness to Creativity
- Moving beyond Melancholia
- Giving Up Pain
- The Wisdom of the Past
- 9. The Lessons of Love
- The Transience of Romance
- The Mission of Love
- Respecting Love’s Rhythm
- The Fidelity to Love
- Love as a Process
- Conclusion
- The Ethics of Relationality
- A Call for Accountability
- Steering Clear of Masochism
- The Other Side
- Continuing to Care
- Index
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