The Beginning of Wisdom

"The Beginning of Wisdom," the Psalmist (Ps. 111) said, 

"is Fear of God" (ראשית חכמה ... יראת ה׳.) 

The Writer of Proverbs (Pr. 4), 

the son of Psalmy King David, was, perhaps, a tad more cheeky: 

"Wanna get on with Wisdom? Purchase it! And in all your purchases, get deep understanding" ... (ראשית חכמה ... קנא חכמה ... ובכל קנינך קנא בינה)

In any case, the Beginning of Wisdom is rarely found in Falling in Love. One knows -- at the beginning of a Romance -- very little and, like with anxiety, Love comes with a strong connection to the Old Brain and a disconnection from the Analytic Brain of Reason. With Anxiety, reason is out the door ... even near vision is gone. After all, what need is there for looking for cavities in the Tiger's mouth when it is about to close on your head. One Runs for the Hills or Kicks the Ever-Lovin' Crap out of that unforgivin' Cat. 

Love is different and, yet, similar. The Anxiety-Producing-Other has something that sets off terror; the Love-Producing-Other has something the would-be Lover beneficently envies. I see in my Beloved a trait that is beyond me ... that I imagine, at least, that I may share with her. In heterosexual love, I suppose, this is easier to see, but it is no less true in homoerotic love. Indeed, these -- Love and Anxiety -- represent two center-poles of being ... the need to stay far away from that which hurts us and the equally impelling wish to be close to that which protects and lets us taste vicariously what is otherwise beyond us. More about this, later.

When we come to our Loved Other, Rationality is replaced by the Pleasure of the Protective Gaze and Embrace. When I came to Psychoanalysis, there was much that was implicitly promised. When each of us arrives at our Love, our Calling, the sense that (s)he/it provides all is compelling. The Social Psychologists refer to one of the resulting behavior as Group Think ... the sense of a We that Knows and Others who Don't. This, too, cuts into our Anxieties in the simplicity of its Answers. The Pyrrhonian Skeptics of Ancient Greece would argue that this relaxation of anxiety is a false comfort ... that true comfort (ataraxia) arrives when one gives up the need to know. But that's another story, too.

All this is to say that there must be some truth in the aphorism: Love makes us Stupid ... or, at least, blind to the faults of the Beloved. This is not limited, in my way of thinking, to only Romantic Love or to the Psychoanalysis that I came to see as the font of all that was Good. I remember, for instance, my Dentist, Dr. Bob, a bright man, looking me squarely in the eyes and saying:

"Flossing is the most important thing you'll ever do."

And I can recall some 32 years ago, my son's College Counselor telling me in all seriousness that my kid was about to make the most important decision of his life -- which college he would attend. Truth be told, I'm not particularly adept in keeping the Cheekiness I've ascribed to the Writer of Proverbs hidden on my face and I'm confident that Dentist and Counselor both recognized my sense that their comments were arguably absurd.  In any case, I arrived at Psychoanalysis expecting it to hold the answers to every question that the Sphinx may have posed or might yet pose to Oedipus, and more.