Shorn of all aesthetics these are men and women who are not ppl who inspire one’s imagination, they just are safety valves of Relief. Depending on them is merely depleting and boring.
Freud in his book JOKES AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE UNCONSCIOUS alludes to a pithy saying:
“ A wife is like an umbrella, sooner or later one has to take a cab.”
I’m sure, every reader has got what it means. That comparison of an ‘umbrella’ with one’s spouse has happened merely because the institution had been reduced to one of RELIEF.
To not fall into it, one has to glorify Romance. What is that? Not that one should pamper one’s spouse with all the material needs – the reason being ‘needs’ met may provide a thankful heart but never a craving mind.
Romance is linked to the MIND. The person has to get preoccupied with the thoughts of the other- that’s Romance. When preoccupied with lovely thoughts our minds imaginatively improve it and make it colourful than reality. Reality may be drab, but the very thought of being with that person alters the surroundings because of an idyllic mental setting created all by they person. To prolong that is Romance.
From this relief there can be culmination but not a ‘relief’ as there is a craving to perpetuate that state of mind.
If one gets into the mode of building pressure through the process of natural welling up, that needs Relief, but when the Mind effervesces and builds up volume it needs Sustaining. That’s why in the first case, one catches a cab. If one enjoys the drops and droplets which splatter on him and the dripping of those edges off the umbrella and relishes each moment, the Mind looks for NO ALTERNATIVE.
When I read this Freudian book as a boy of all 19 years, it was posited by me with a physical meaning, which today feels CRASS, but with mellowing down and cooling of the hotheadedness of youth, the ‘joke’ is to be interpreted to sustain ways to enjoy the umbrella during rains.
OR Is it just that the same data is getting interpreted by a mind that doesn’t remember the exigencies of the youth? Maybe.