Hi Project,
I read on the forum a very interesting discussion entitled: “Gay affectivity and divergent thinking”. It is a discussion from more than eight years ago that particularly attracted me not because I’m or feel like a guy capable of a really divergent thinking, I’d like a lot if it was so! But because my boyfriend, whom I will call Elio here, is so, in my opinion, and I would like to bring my small contribution to the discussion by considering the question from another point of view slightly different. I state that to understand that we are dealing with divergent thinking and not just with petty rhetoric or a show of exasperated intellectualism, a counterpart of a certain cultural depth is needed.
I have read some books but frankly I don’t feel quite up to these speeches. Elio, who in my opinion is a refined intellectual, one who reads a lot and above all who thinks a lot, has not won me over for this aspect of his personality, which I think serves him above all as a defense weapon when he doesn’t really trust someone, and even a little to hide his fragile ego. I’m not doing intellectualistic speeches in my turn, Project, I mean that in the end the affective research that you yourself associated with divergent thinking, in Elio’s life ended up being the prevailing element. When the affective dimension creaked or failed, then divergent thinking came out. A little as if the genius was born out of the frustration of feelings.
I remember now that I have not yet told you that I am 35 and Elio is 32. Fortunately for us we both work, Elio in a much better situation than mine, and it is right that it should be so because objectively his work commits him much more than mine commits me. He may be proud of what he has done but he is absolutely not proud, on the contrary, he underlines in a thousand ways that he has done much less than he could and that I think he is a great person, while he is just one who strives to do what others do spontaneously without any effort. Those who only know him through work respect him and in a sense fear him. I, who have known him for almost 10 years and have followed step by step all his studies and all his work successes, I also know the human side of Elio, his weaknesses, which in my opinion are the most fascinating side of his character.
Some days he comes back from work very tired, because he often works even in the afternoon, he goes into the house, he leaves his shoes near the entrance and puts on some house slippers, then he goes into the dining room and I make him find the table set and he sits down and lifts his neck towards me because that’s the moment for a kiss on the forehead, a use that we inaugurated many years ago, when we met. During dinner we don’t see TV, sometimes I mess around his hair or stroke his hand and he squeezes it tightly. During the dinner he uses only one plate, he is very careful not to dirty the tablecloth because he knows that I should wash it later. Sometimes he tells me some anecdotes of his work but always in brief.
After dinner we go into the living room and he takes off his slippers because he likes to walk on the carpet only with socks, he says it’s a bit like walking on grass. I sit on the sofa and he lies down and rests his head on my legs and when he is very tired he falls asleep like this! We talk little between us, we are able to tell each other everything with a hug.
We have been living together for 4 years now and we share the costs, but not at 50%. He earns 1.45 times what I earn, and pays 1.45 / 2.45 of all expenses. He tells me that that is the minimum of the equity and that I work at home while he does practically nothing at home and it is obvious that I contribute in other ways to the functioning of the house. This precision in the division of expenses, however, is a kind of game, because Elio, who in the past has always had very little money, is not in the least stingy and leaves his salary together with mine without distinguishing mine and his, the one of us who needs money takes freely what he needs. We have a joint account which by law is half his and half mine, although obviously he contributes much more than me. At first I thought that there could be money problems between us but it never happened.
His parents once found themselves in the faculty to redeem the apartment they lived in but they didn’t have all the money they needed and we gave them (not lent) all our savings. Please note, Project, that we weren’t expecting any money back and instead they returned everything to us in just three years. I no longer have my parents and Elio’s parents are a bit like my family. They cuddle me more than Elio because they know that he appreciates a lot such a behavior. We see them every week, as far as possible, and I think that the fact that Elio is a man inwardly calm is largely due to them. In Elio’s attitudes I see many attitudes of his father.
Sometimes we talk about cultural things, that is a bit of the “highest systems”, and I am often amazed because he listens to me. He makes me talk and listens to me, he never silences me, he tries to follow the logical thread of what I tell him. When I have finished, he keeps quiet for a few seconds and then takes up all the points of my speech, enriches them, develops them, and if they weren’t already part of his way of thinking, he makes them his, integrates them into his way of seeing things, tells me that I give him often some tips that are also useful to him in his work and that you don’t need to have studied philosophy to be a philosopher. Note, Project, he tells me this very seriously. He often tells me that I reassure him, that I am his anxiolytic, his antidepressant. He is very rational but easily goes into crisis when he sees people suffering.
When we first went to live together, in our building there was an elderly lady, the lady or rather Miss Adele, who treated us very well from the beginning, when she met us on the stairs she always smiled at us and I think she understood very well that we were a couple, then, after a few months, we never saw her again, Elio inquired and learned that Miss Adele could no longer leave the house, she lived alone and was assisted by a voluntary association. We went to see her when the guys from the association were there, the house was clean and tidy, thanks to those guys, even though the young lady couldn’t get out of her wheelchair. But she was very alert mentally, she joked with us and treated us well and so we got into the habit of spending two evenings a week with her and having dinner with her. I can tell you, Project, they were beautiful evenings, nothing forced, everything was very spontaneous, it was a bit like having a grandmother.
Then Miss Adele’s health deteriorated and they hospitalized her, and after three weeks she died. For us it was a real family mourning. At the funeral it was just us and we paid for the funeral. Less than a week later, a notary called us and told us that the Miss Adelina had made her will and had left us the apartment and all the money she had, as well as a sealed letter. In the letter she told us that she would pray for us from Heaven and that she had left us her things so that we could do with them what we thought was right. Three days later we returned to the notary with the legal representative of the association who had assisted the young lady and we left everything to them.
Project, it may seem incredible to you but when we left the notary’s office we hugged each other tightly for the happiness of having done what had to be done. You can understand, Project, that in my opinion these gestures are the real divergent thinking, because Elio is not only cultured and intelligent but he is good, he is a good man that I can only admire. He is not narrow-minded, he does not think only of himself. When I embrace it, I know I hold the rarest treasure in the world. And do you know what he told me? He said when he realized that about Miss Adele’s legacy we were thinking of doing exactly the same thing, he felt the happiest man on Earth because both of us were inclined to divergent thinking but to a divergent thinking in exactly the same direction.
When you meet such a man there is no need for words! This divergent thinking is not intellectualism, it is absolutely another thing. When I think of Elio, tears come to my eyes, being together we have learned to be better. You can understand why we get along well. Sometimes I read stories of jealousy, sex and power play within the couple on the forum. Before meeting Elio I too lived that kind of situation and he probably lived them too, but then we met and our life really changed.
In Miss Adele’s house the voluntary association has accommodated two elderly ladies, we went to visit them but they looked at us as if we were two intruders, so we said goodbye and left. They weren’t like Miss Adele who used to smile at us when she saw us, showing a face full of happiness and when we dined together she was all well dressed and combed and hugged us tightly to make us understand that we were important to her.
Yesterday Elio came home in the evening all wet, he did not have the hood of his raincoat on his head but he carried it with the utmost care, I approached and he motioned me to shut up, then he opened the hood of the waterproof and there was a not so small kitten inside, all wet. We dried it, we made a kind of kennel for him and then we tried to give it some milk, after having warmed it a little in our hands, and the kitten was able to eat on his own which was a huge relief for us. We have a veterinary friend to ask for advice but if the kitten eats alone it means that all in all he’s fine. We set him up in our room and spent the whole evening cuddling the kitten who also looked in great shape. Today our vet friend told us that the kitten was actually a she kitten and that she was in good health and we decided to call her Adelina. You can’t imagine how carefully Elio treats the kitten and the kitten trusts him, and actually me too, as if she had always known us, a bit like Miss Adele had done, that’s why we chose that name.
Today Elio began to call her “the baby-girl” and many thoughts came to mind about how nice it would be to have a real baby-girl. I know these are just dreams, but Elio would be a really good dad and I would try my best too. Now I’ll send you the email, otherwise I won’t finish it anymore. Of course, you can use it as you like better.
Thanks for what you do, Project. Keep it up.
_________________________
If you want, you can participate in the discussion on this post open on the Gay Project Forum:
http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-gays-between-divergent-thinking-and-intellectualism
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