A Love Affair: An Essay on Life, Love, and Being Together

By Richey Novak PH.D.

This is an essay about love, one of the most powerful but elusive emotions in the human repertoire of feelings. Only a fool would attempt to define it, yet we all know what it is and whether or not it is at hand in a given situation. The following is my attempt to delineate it in terms of my experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504910781

Richey Novak PH.D.

Richey Novak was born and raised in Texas, served in the US Navy, and then studied in the United States, Paris (where he met Sigrid at the Sorbonne), Heidelberg, Germany, and Mexico City. He holds the BA and MA in philosophy from Columbia University and the PhD in German from the Johns Hopkins University. He has taught language and philosophy at Wilson College in Pennsylvania, Duke University in North Carolina, the Abadan Institute of Technology in Abadan, Iran, the McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and the State University of Ceara in Fortaleza, Brazil. Sigrid Scholtz Novak was born and raised in Silesia at a time when it was part of Germany. She went to school in her hometown of Breslau and after the war in Jever, North Germany. She studied in London and Paris before coming to America; there she continued her education at the Johns Hopkins University, earning the master’s degree in creative writing and the PhD in German. She taught language and literature at Wilson College in Pennsylvania, Mary Baldwin College in Virginia, the Abadan Institute of Technology in Abadan, Iran, McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and the State University of Ceara in Fortaleza, Brazil. Ziggy and Richey are now retired and live in Southern California. They have published several books, together and independently. They have two sons, four grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

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2015 Richey Novak, PH.D. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 05/27/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1077-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-1078-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015907269

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Contents

Foreword

Introduction Getting Started

Chapter I Richey As Actor Basics: Family, War, Education, Work

Chapter Ii Ziggy As Actor Basics: Family, War, Education, Work

Chapter Iii Getting Together: How We Met

Chapter Iv Our Journey Together

Chapter V Elements And Aspects Of Love

Summary: Love And Life Merge

Conclusion

Foreword

Himmelhoch jauzend, zum Tode betrübt, Glücklich allein ist die Seele, die liebt.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe

(Jubilating to the high heavens, depressed unto death, Happy alone is the soul, which loves.)

This is an essay about love, one of the most powerful but elusive emotions in the human repertoire of feelings. Only a fool would attempt to define it, yet we all know what it is and whether or not it is at hand in a given situation. The following is my attempt to delineate it in terms of my experience.

Introduction

GETTING STARTED

Recently Ziggy and I watched a splendid movie entitled The Bridges of Madison County with Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. Although we had seen it before, it deeply touched me and left me with a lot of thoughts and feelings about love, life, and our sheer existence here on earth with all these millions and billions of other people. It seems to me that the two characters in the movie had a brief but very meaningful and problematic love affair, the kind which most of us can perhaps only dream about.

The movie led me to think about what a love affair really is, what its elements are, what role it plays in our life, and how many people have had a real love affair in their life. The film also led me to think about morality, sinfulness, adultery, etc., and of the many legal restrictions and personal inhibitions about having intimate relations and sex outside of marriage. It caused me also to think about other films I’ve seen in which one might say that a real love affair was being portrayed.

Another such film is Dr. Zhivago, a movie which also involves breaking the normal patterns of morality about having an adulterous affair. Love is of course a major topic in a great many movies, and the problems and complications of morality are almost always in the forefront with such movies. In many modern films, the main thrust of the story seems to revolve almost uniquely around strong sexual desires or attractions, as though they are the key or predominant element in love affairs. But in films where an authentic love affair is portrayed, physical sex seems to play only a secondary role. It is these deeper, more complex elements which I want to discuss in this essay. In The Bridges of Madison County, as well as Dr. Zhivago, the persons portrayed are mature, experienced adults in the middle of life, and the sexual aspect of the relationship actually plays only a minor role. But why do these films make such a deep impact on the viewers?

The time elapsed in The Bridges of Madison County is hardly more than a week or so, whereas the affair in Dr. Zhivago extends over several years. Yet both films portray deep, meaningful aspects of sincere human interaction, and call up, at least in my mind, questions about what it means to be a human being. In both cases, the two people meet by accident, are strangely and strongly attracted to one another, and cautiously develop a powerful, more complex relationship.

In all such films, as in life itself, the big questions about the meaning and purpose of life arise and are sometimes answered, at least partially, during the course of the story. Questions such as: What is the force of attraction between humans? Why are we strongly drawn to some people and not at all to others? What is love? What is sexual attraction and what prompts it? What is a human being? What is life? What is a meaningful relationships between two humans? In the course of my story here I will try to give my thoughts on such matters as I go along. What we’ve seen portrayed on the screen in two or three hours turns out, in my view, to be only glimpses into vastly more complex aspects of being human living with other human in a sometimes topsy-turvy world. Such artistic presentations, if well done, can cause us to think long and hard about being human and what our existence might mean. This essay is my attempt to get clear in my own mind on such matters. I want to clarify my thoughts by telling about the development of my own great love affair.

The specific story begins in Paris in 1952 while I was studying at the Sorbonne, the Liberal Arts Faculty of the University of Paris. I was already almost 26 years old and brought to the encounter my own complicated history of life, travel, study, and experiments with sex, religion, women, and philosophy. I soon discovered that the girl I was falling in love with also brought with her into the encounter similar relationships and an equally complex personal history of her own. My essay consists therefore really of two stories involving two young people and their individual development prior to and after their initial meeting.

Bouncing around in the story

Little by little I’ve come to realize that Ziggy and I have had a really great love affair during our many years together: complex, often difficult, very enlightening and expansive, deeply, deeply rich and rewarding. I have also come to realize that probably many other couples have also had a similar relationship without perhaps fully realizing it. Especially those couples who have stayed together over many years and experiences. Our love affair is perhaps a little unusual in the sense that we come from two quite different cultures, she from Germany of the 1930s and I from Texas during the Great Depression. We have also had some unusual experiences during our life together, but at the same time I suspect that many other people have had similar experiences. Trying to determine what a love affair is inevitably causes me to wonder and inquire into questions of what an individual is, what love is, what life is, why we are here, etc.

In trying to come to terms with my whole life, before and then with Ziggy, my story will unavoidably bounce around a lot, so I want to give fair warning that the narrative may often strike the reader as perhaps less than coherent. Right now, for example, I’m sitting here at my computer trying to learn how to use this MacSpeech Dictate, a clever system which allows me to speak into a microphone and my words then show up in typed form on my screen. I have a lot of the ideas in my head that I want to get out onto the computer, but I have to learn how to do it. Since I’m a slow typist, I need to master this headset and microphone in order to get my ideas clearly typed out on the computer.

One of my basic ideas is that I feel that I’ve had a great love affair with Ziggy during the past decades, a love affair which involves many different aspects and complex ideas. The more important thing is that I believe many couples, perhaps even a great many people who have lived together for a long time with their lover, husband, wife, or dear one, have quite likely also had what could be termed a great love affair. Ziggy and I have had a colorful experience over these many years, with many typical ups and downs and problems of all sorts, but I think this is probably true of most couples. But the very fact that they continue to live together and interact on a daily basis means in my mind that there are powerful and important elements holding them together. But what are those elements and how general are they? The longer I live, the more convinced I become that we are all very much alike. I think this idea of human similarity is brought out every time we see a film such as Dr. Zhivago or The Bridges of Madison County, or read a novel or poem touching on intimate human affairs. At such times, our communality can become all the more obvious and transparent. It can also become rich and deeply satisfying if we can muster the courage to talk about it to one another openly and honestly.

In this book I want to talk about love, life, and love affairs, but I want first to set the proper scene and establish the larger context. This can perhaps be done tersely but most economically by the following short pronouncements.

Preface to the love discussion

I am here.

The universe is here.

There is a relationship between us.

What is that relationship?

I want to understand it.

I am a product of the universe.

I consist of universal matter and energy.

Universal laws are manifested in me.

The process of producing me was complex.

Producing me took a long time.

And if me, then also you.

Is consciousness a product of the universe or of me?

I think it may be a product of me,

And of the many similar minds who taught me.

We are all creations of the universe.

The universe is in part a creation of us.

Articulate humans create in an intellectual world of words, theories, and ideas,

In much the same way that the universe creates in a physical world.

The universe creates us,

And we create the universe.

This is the relationship between man and the universe.

Consciousness and self-awareness are things which the universe produces,

But only through man.

The universe cannot produce consciousness.

Man cannot produce the universe.

Consciousness is man’s and the universe’s crowning achievement.

Exploring this man-universe and the human-human relationship,

Is what my books Me and the Big Bang and A Love Affair are all about.

Fragmentary thought #1: beginnings

Aller Anfang ist schwer, sagte der Dieblehrling.

Und stahl den Amboss.

‘Every beginning is difficult,’ said the apprentice thief,

And stole the anvil.

Every explanatory myth has a beginning that states: In the beginning…

In the Jewish-Christian-Muslim religion, Jehovah-God-Allah speaks,

And things come into being.

The talk continues, and everything comes into being.

In the newest scientific religion, the beginning is called The Big Bang

And starts with a mighty explosion.

The explosion continues, and the universe is created.

All this creation is external, physical, and follows its own laws.

After seemingly endless generations of things, stars, planets, and creatures,

Man appeared and learned to think, ask questions, and talk.

He tried to answer his own questions with words, spirits, gods, and theories.

After much stumbling, fumbling, blind alleys and dead ends,

He began piecing together a coherent story of the universe.

This is the scientific explanatory myth which modern souls embrace.

Like the anvil, this new explanation is heavy, difficult, and hard to deal with,

But it seems to be truer and more realistic than the older divine accounts.

It excites thinking men and women to create the universe,

In the inner, mental sphere of rational concepts and intellectual terms.

Everyone is invited to participate, to create one’s own reality,

And to find his or her own place in and relationship to the total universe.

Beginning the explanation is difficult, continuing it is even more so.

Everything is complex and involved and hard to grasp,

Until we begin to see the outlines of the larger configuration,

The big picture.

It’s all a big struggle and hard work,

Before we begin to see what it’s all about:

A personal and cosmic coming to consciousness.

To which reality, experience, and intelligence,

Are inviting me.

And if me, then perhaps you as well.

Fragmentary thought #2: the Big Bang

It all started with a big, big, banging explosion and created—over time—everything.

And your head will be banging and exploding if you try to grasp it.

And you cannot help but try, once you hear about it.

It’s really more than anyone in his normal mind can take.

So you won’t be normal after struggling with the creation of time, space, motion,

And ultimate physical reality of the entire cosmos.

But what the hell!

It’s better than being trapped in the persistent vegetative state

That most of us are caught up in.

Fragmentary thought #3: the appearance of life

You might think that dealing with life will be pleasant after struggling with the Big Bang,

But don’t be fooled.

Your head will continue to reel, rock, roll, and ache after entering this discussion,

And trying to imagine life’s slow progression over billions of years.

It left no traceable evidence for the first three billion,

So your imagination has to fill in all those years.

Then life had only half a billion years to go from single-celled creatures,

To its splendid examples like you and me.

The modern story is that all life is one and had a single origin.

This means that we humans are ultimately related to grass, trees, fish, earthworms,

And everything, everything, that lives.

Trying to grasp this idea shakes my mind down to its foundation.

Consider, for example, the shape of our ear.

Many of our fellow creatures have ears which can move and focus on the sound.

Ours, by contrast, are fixed and cannot twist and turn.

So we must have the optimum shape and form to hear well,

With our fixed ears,

And discern where the sound is coming from.

All human ears have the same shape: a large flap for gathering sound.

And a smaller inner resonance cup for determining its origin.

It must have taken eons of trial and error,

To come up with this efficient shape of the human ear.

I had never thought much about human ears,

Until I learned recently about their shape.

I think life must be trying all things at all times.

Thinking about life causes me to wonder about being conscious of life.

I wonder what life is trying with me.

Fragmentary thought #4: the evolution of man

Finally something we can grasp and relate to,

Or so we naively think.

We humans are strange creatures,

And far more complex than meets the eye.

We are walking, talking, conscious miracles,

Without even knowing it.

We have been trying to understand ourselves