How Will I Know

There’s a boy I know
He’s the one I dream of…
Tell me is it really love
How will I know
Love can be deceiving
How will I know
How will I know if he really loves me…
How will I know
How will I know…

Editor’s note: This issue of the deceptiveness of love is multi-faceted. If you’re with the wrong person, with no hope of being together as eternal mates, there’s no way to correct this. You cannot transform any pretty face - with effort, good intention, plus a magic hand-sign blessing from your Bishop - into your cosmic one-and-only. It doesn’t work that way. It’s called being “precisely wrong.” But, even if you’re one of the rare ones who’s caught a glimpse of a destined one, the one with whom you'll eventually explore all of life, love, and the universe, this doesn’t mean, if you were to presently interact with this person, that it would be all peaches and cream. If one or both of you is still immature, then egos will clash, and assuredly it will not be pleasant; not yet. There's a lot of “unfinished homework to hand in” before you get to have the good stuff. In the short term, alas, you will be “approximately correct.”

he needs to agree with the girl’s mother on religion…

Anne Of Green Gables (2015)
Anne (Ella Ballentine) and Matthew (Martin Sheen)

Anne: [Someone said] that, when a man is courting, he needs to agree with the girl’s mother on religion, and with her father on politics. Is that always true?

Matthew: I’m not so sure of it.

Dr. John Welwood:   

What is it that we enjoy most about falling in love? What makes it feel so wonderful, so powerful and compelling? What does it give to us that we value beyond all else?

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Dr. John Welwood:   

“A soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other’s individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on this deeper level… It is a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension – seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence… Someone who loves us can often see our soul potential more clearly than we can ourselves.”

Two beings who have a soul connection desire, indeed, are compelled, to engage in a full, free-ranging dialogue with each other. However, when I place some part of myself as off-limits to discussion, I am essentially saying, “I refuse to be conscious in this place. Stay out.” This makes her feel that we do not have an unconditional connection. The ego does not want to have its cover blown; it wants to live in darkness. If we identify with this cover, we not only erode relationship but we ourselves remain alienated from who we really are. The true mate sees who we truly are and will enter into “sacred combat” to free her lover from his lower nature. She will not “go along to get along” when it comes to the sanity of her mate.

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Editor's last word:

what’s going to happen to me when you’re gone, something deep inside is going to die, how will I live, how can I go on - how can I go on...

I’ve enjoyed the singing of Bobby Vee for a long time. When I was nine, my mother bought his album for me on a trip to Bismarck, and I can still see myself spinning it on the family stereo in the living room. Today, 60 years - several lifetimes - later, amidst 3000 songs on an ancient i-pod, “Devil Or Angel” and “My Girl, Hey Girl” rank in my all-time “top 25” played.

In fact, among “the 3000,” if forced to choose, “My Girl/Hey Girl” just might be my very favorite song, ever; if required to pick one, it might serve as “soundtrack of my life,” so moving is it to me. It’s a difficult decision, as there are so many good songs, but there’s something about “My Girl/Hey Girl” that resonates with me. I actually have seven other versions of “My Girl,” all of which I like a lot, but Bobby’s rendition speaks to me in a special way.

what’s going to happen to me when you’re gone, something deep inside is going to die, how will I live, how can I go on - how can I go on...

There is a view of “what men want,” shallow and materialistic, suggesting that animal interests rule for men. Often this is true, but only for the immature. A day comes, however, when the fleeting nature of libidinous reactiveness is revealed in its poverty. While many songs speak to a higher order of human nature, “My Girl, Hey Girl” poignantly addresses these existential questions. Is it not strange? We are led to believe by materialistic sentiment that a “roll in the hay” is all that men want. Well, we do need that but, unless subsumed by something more profound, as everyone comes to learn sooner or later, mere sexual thrill very quickly loses its savor; that is, if all she is to you is mere pretty face.

Think about the haunting lines of the song: “What’s going to happen to me when you’re gone, something deep inside is going to die, how will I live, how can I go on – how can I go on?” This is more than a thrilling rendezvous behind the bleachers. This is life and death.

True romance, the true mate, the true marriage, far from the optional, whimsical, and materialistic status to which it’s so often relegated, is life and breath to us. As the proffered research on the Word Gems site presents, we will not survive “the terror of eternal life” without finding authentic romance. But then, in our secret fears, we already sense and know this. That’s why we can have a popular song, grieving to melody, “What’s going to happen to me when you’re gone, something deep inside is going to die, how will I live, how can I go on – how can I go on?” We already perceive we’re in very deep trouble if we cannot find that true mate, or, if having found her, she issues a rejection slip. But then, if she does, and if she truly is your eternal mate, she’ll be “sawing off the branch she’s sitting on.” There is no such thing as unilateral, unrequited love in the kingdom of God. The extreme misery, mounting and gathering, will yet bring the wayward mate to bear.

what can make me feel this way... hey, girl, I want you to know...

The real problem here is, we can’t just do this with any pretty face. She has to match one's soul-essence, or it’ll never work. She may or may not be your “choice,” but she will be your soul’s, your higher self’s, choice. But it’s not really a choice, in the popular sense. It’s a cosmic realization that wells-up from one’s deepest recesses.

Samuel Johnson, I believe it was, said that nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of being hanged in the morning. So, too, nothing leads a song to favored acceptance as the addressing of life and death issues, the question of surviving eternal life without one’s true mate.

Little wonder, as we discussed in “The Wedding Song,” that the metaphoric Adam named his true love, Eve (“life”); which is to say, “You are very life to me. I cannot live without you. This is not poetry or hyperbole. Only you can reach me on that deeper level of the prison of my great aloneness. And if you, ‘my girl,’ were to leave, or to act like you want to, then something deep inside me is going to die, how will I live, how can I go on – how can I go on?”

Editor’s note: For more discussion on “how will I live, how can I go on,” romantic love as existential life and breath, see my essay, “The Meaning of Beauty.”

Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) falls to her death in the 2014 Amazing Spiderman 2 but originally presented to Marvel readers in 1973. Fans judged this cinematic tragedy as just about the most disturbing event in comic book history: “The death of Gwen Stacey shocked the American comic book community. Previously, it had been unthinkable to kill off such an important character… This story arc has been proposed as a marker of beginning of the end of the Silver Age of Comic Books, and the beginning of the darker, grittier Bronze Age (Wikipedia).” Editor’s note: After witnessing Gwen’s demise in the Spiderman movie, before learning of Marvel fandom’s widespread lament, I too felt deeply moved. Why the outsized reaction, I wondered? But the answer is plain. Critics asserted that the chemistry between Gwen and Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) was “off the charts,” utterly believable. Gwen’s beauty, intelligence, self-respect, and graciousness conflated to produce, it would seem, almost everyone’s idealized dream girl. Gwen Stacey in Amazing Spiderman 2 is the embodiment of “what we stay alive for,” the “O thou soul of my soul,” one’s life and light of heart and being. And the loss of this kind of girl, real or imagined, is no small matter.

In 1892, settler Rosalee Quaid and her family are attacked by a Comanche war group who kill her husband and also shoot her three children, two little girls and an infant son. Only Rosalee manages to escape. In Fort Berringer, NM, Captain Joseph Blocker, with directive from President Harrison, is to escort dying Cheyenne war chief, Yellow Hawk, and four members of his family back to their tribal lands in Montana. En route, Blocker rescues a frantic and fear-crazed Mrs. Quaid, who then joins the escort group only to encounter many new lethal dangers. In the above scene, during a rain storm, Captain Blocker informs Rosalee that she is to have the tent for the night while he remains outside. With her life having been saved by Blocker more than once at this point, she will not hear of this "nonsense" and demands that he come in out of the rain. 

Ironically, I discovered this movie only a few days after the death of Mr. Redford. I like this movie. I think one needs to have entered one’s senior years to feel its impact. Starting with the title, I like this movie. With advancing age, our souls are different at night – more vulnerable, easily terrorized, readily plunged into nightmare realizations. When we’re younger, with jobs and children, we distract ourselves, beguile our sorrows, as Shakespeare used the phrase, with duties and full schedules. But a senior, especially one who lives alone, sleeps alone, has more difficulty escaping oneself. He or she can find the late hours as one long tribunal judging one’s life. The inner person after dark is unforgiving, restless and demanding, enters one more episode of the soul’s long dark night. This movie is about two seniors who make pact to share platonic relationship to defeat the mental hobgoblins plaguing at day's end. It sparked many thoughts, but one in particular. I think the younger versions of ourselves have it wrong. Our junior selves believe that sex is the best game in town – Emily Dickinson, because she never married, was convinced that “Wild nights, Wild nights!” issued as apex of experience. But “our souls,” our senior souls, “at night” come into clearer view. What we really want – at any age, if we had eyes to see – is a mate with whom one might defeat the nocturnal ego’s clamorings and condemnations; a mate who becomes to us the loving face of God; that only one who might deliver the soul's greatest source of pleasure, “the great relief of having you to talk to” – especially, in whispered tones, while touching foreheads, late at night.

much more than eros, a man wants, from a true mate, shared life purpose

Andrea the painter imagines what might have been if Lucrezia (his wife) had shared his inner values, artistic integrity, and moral aspiration:

“Had you — oh , with the same perfect brow [attended to my purpose]… Some women do so.”

He desires more than a house and bed; he longs for a partner who truly participates in his soul and work, someone who mirrors his ideals.

Browning transforms this longing into a meditation on the nature of the ideal love relationship: much more than eros, true partnership is shared life purpose, mutual moral and creative striving, and deep recognition of each other’s inner lives.

This redefines the stakes of ambition, art, and partnership: the nobility lies in the striving itself, not the flawless result.

What does this line of famous poetry really mean?

Ed: “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?” -- what does this statement mean in the context of wanting a mate to share a life's work?

Chat: In the context of Andrea’s longing for a partner who shares his life’s work and values, that line takes on a very intimate, existential resonance. Let’s unpack it carefully:

1. Surface Meaning

• Literally: “A man should aim higher than he can fully achieve; otherwise, what is the point of striving?”
• Traditionally read as a general meditation on ambition and human limitation.

2. Applied to Desire and Partnership

• Andrea’s “reach” isn’t just about artistic skill — it extends to his relationships, moral life, and shared aspirations.
• He wants a partner who matches his integrity and inner life. That’s a high standard, perhaps unattainable: most people, including Lucrezia, do not or cannot fully meet it.
• So the “grasp” is the reality of Lucrezia’s limitations — she cannot fully inhabit his moral and artistic world. His “reach” is his desire for emotional and intellectual mirroring.

3. Existential Layer

• Browning frames Andrea’s longing as part of the human condition: we always desire more than present reality allows.
• Andrea’s aspiration for a soulmate who truly participates in his soul and work is part of what makes him human.
• The line implies: striving for an ideal partner is itself meaningful. It validates Andrea’s longing while highlighting the gap between desire and reality.

4. Integrated Insight

• Andrea is aware that his “reach” exceeds his “grasp” in both art and life.
• The line encapsulates his dual regrets: the limits of his artistic mastery and the impossibility of a fully aligned partner.
• It also subtly justifies his dissatisfaction — striving beyond grasp is natural, even necessary, for human aspiration, moral integrity, and deep relational desire.

In short: the famous line becomes both artistic and relational philosophy. Andrea’s yearning for Lucrezia to share his soul and work is noble yet presently unattainable — and Browning frames this impossibility as intrinsic to human striving.

Ed: This poem, not popularized as such but, becomes a meditation on the nature of what the ideal love relationship truly is or ought to be. Much more than eros, it is shared life purpose.

Chat: That’s well framed. In Browning’s Andrea del Sarto, the poem transcends conventional romantic desire (eros). Andrea’s longing for Lucrezia isn’t primarily about physical or superficial affection; it’s about a deep, existential partnership: someone who mirrors his moral integrity, artistic vision, and life purpose.

This transforms the poem's monologue into a meditation on the ideal love relationship:

• Love as mutual engagement with life’s work, not just emotional comfort or domestic stability.
• Love as shared moral and artistic striving, where each partner elevates the other’s soul.

So the poem becomes less about romance and more about the philosophical and existential stakes of human connection: the true partner is one who engages fully with your inner life, ambitions, and ethical vision.

Ed: Just to further clarify: The question might be asked, why is it that this painter cannot rise above “technical perfection”? He seems a passionate fellow, why is this fervor not transmitted to his art? The implied answer, from the painter himself, is that his inner dearth and longing somehow stultify a transmission of feeling as represented in his art. He has to settle for mere technical perfection, like the flawless copy from a Xerox machine – but without the “character” that we like to infer from great art. What this means is, in practical terms, a man cannot attain to his best work if his heart is burdened with a misaligned mate.

Chat: That insight is crucial. It explains why Andrea’s life and art are inseparable in their failure to achieve fullness. Here’s a polished articulation of your point:

Clarifying Note on Andrea’s Artistic Limitation

The central tension is not lack of skill and ability—Andrea’s technical mastery is undeniable—but a failure of inner transmission:

• Question: Why can’t Andrea rise above technical perfection to achieve soulful art?
• Implied Answer: His inner life is stunted by compromise, sorrow, unshared aspiration, and relational limitations. Passion exists in him, but it fails to flow outward, so his art is flawless yet emotionally inert.
• Metaphor: Like a Xerox copy of a masterpiece, his work is exact in form but lacking in character, vitality, and moral resonance.
• Existential insight: Artistic achievement, like human fulfillment, requires alignment of skill, soul, and relational integrity. Without this inner richness, both life and art are diminished.

Editor's Restatement

One begins to feel the force and burden of this sometimes-hidden principle of eternal love. It’s a force that cuts both ways; meaning, as one moves higher on the ladder, intimacy is reinforced, made more durable.

But a “rung” refused or dishonored works against them. It degrades what little they might have. Couples who fail to enter common life-purpose, shared life-meaning, assure an inability to create intense oneness.

John and Mary tend to believe that congeniality and pleasantness, co-laboring with mortgage and household duties, and a mutual perception of pretty faces, or even raising children together, will be sufficient to create a good level of harmony. But, concerning children, no couple in the history of the world, if their only glue is common offspring, have sustained marital love.

Two mates who do not arrange their lives to progressively entertain shared lofty purpose ensure lackluster union.

Chat: Couples who rely on comfort, congeniality, household co-labor, or raising children as the glue of the relationship cannot achieve true oneness. Mere survival, convenience, or sexual intimacy is insufficient.

Universal Resonance: Andrea and Lucrezia exemplify this principle: they share a household and social life but lack shared life mission, moral and creative alignment, and mutual aspiration. Browning shows that this absence of higher rungs ensures emotional stagnation, relational dissatisfaction, and, by extension, a stunted artistic soul.

Existential Insight: The poem thus becomes a meditation on the cost of compromise in human life: without mutual engagement in shared purpose, intimacy and fulfillment remain elusive.

This principle extends beyond Andrea’s story, offering readers an unforgiving lens on what sustains deep relational and existential harmony.