Showing posts with label Terentius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Terentius. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Don Juan was a great seducer but a bad dad

Don Juan is a tragical figure. Better: I think that Don Juan is a tragical figure. Why? Not because he's able to seduce woman, a lot of woman. Not because I do not understand his drive, his longing, his kick, his long trail of seduced woman.

He is tragical because he entangles means and end. Seducing a woman - from a male point of view - is the means to the end 'get procreated'. It's just as simple as that. Getting procreated as species 'homo sapiens' is more than make love and make babies with the two of us. The kids also need their parents for love and all the other small, normal and ordinairy things we need for facing life. In other words: life is more than getting laid. The tragedy of Don Juan is that he doesn't act that way. In a way Don Juan is a spoiled kid: always getting what he wants. And in the real world? In the real world kids grow up and  learn that we can't always get what we want. In the real world we learn that we don't need to consume always what we can get. It seems to me that Don Juan never learned that. Don Juan' tragedy is that  he was a great seducer but he was a bad dad.

Is it really that hard not to take every step of 'Terentius' steps of Venus':  (1) see (2) talk (3) touch (4) kiss and (5) make love? Why can't you stop stepping?

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Terentius 5 steps. Online we are offline concerning to 3 of his steps.

Ever heard of  Terentius (190-159 BC)? Ever heard of his 5 steps of Venus? It's the steps we take one after another "meeting" a new lover: (1) see (2) talk (3) touch (4) kiss and (5) make love. When I apply this to our online world I discover - planet Earth year 2010 - that we only are able to take the first 2 steps. Online we will never be able to touch, kiss and make love to a potential new lover. (Or do you take cybersex  for real?) In this respect 'being online' is a strange image because we're offline towards 3 steps. In this respect I do not really understand why so many of us think that the online world is more real, more fantastic, more living, more cool, and more connected to the world. Or am I biased because I like smelling, touching and tasting so much?