Adam Phillips, one of my favorite writers, in his new book, Missing Out:
1. “…what was not possible all too easily becomes the story of our lives.”
2. And—something that Avital Ronell (my teacher) also says—if someone doesn’t rattle you, it is not a real relation. Hence the shock (frustration, animosity, attachment) that lovers in old screwball comedies experience when they first meet each other (Susan Bordo describes the important role of frustration in the old screwball comedy this way: “The hero and heroine of the [1930s] screwball comedy may decide to attempt a life with a more conventional person (e.g., ‘the rube’). It can’t work, and learning that—learning who one really is and whom one really needs to be with in order to fully realize that—is the arc of the comedy”).
Adam Phillips: “People become real to us by frustrating us. If they don’t frustrate us they are merely figures of fantasy.”
3. And, in BOMB, something I always say, and deeply believe:
“a world in which there is less art and better relationships…The only game in town is improving the quality of people’s relationships.”
4. In the Guardian:
“To fall in love is to be reminded of a frustration that you didn’t know you had (of one’s formative frustrations, and of one’s attempted self-cures for them). You wanted someone, you felt deprived of something, and then it seems to be there. And what is renewed in that experience is an intensity of frustration, and an intensity of satisfaction. It is as if, oddly, you were waiting for someone but you didn’t know who they were until they arrived.”