Negative Capability

In the nineteenth century, contrary to popular belief, courtship was no easier as it is today. It is perceived now that it was as simple to give another one's heart as it was to press a handkerchief into the hand of your beloved. This was not the case. The fears and uncertainties of another's affections, whilst seeming new to each who feels the first pangs of doubt, are centuries old. Indeed, by the nineteenth century, most languages even had a name for it. Keats called it negative capability.

Since the time of the Anglo-Saxons, intuition has played a part in communicating with another. This art of communion sans words has been rendered necessary in feeling what one is trying to say, alongside hearing it. As one may find, in talking to another with whom ones affection lies, that there are insufficient words to describe the commonplace, concrete things. This has arisen from the highly inconvenient notion of favoring to converse in abstract terms over definate. This is where negative capability has played its fiendish role. For fear of rejection, questions and statements such as 'I adore you',  'Do I terrify you?' and even 'I have confidence in you', have been lost in ones efforts to disguise the true feelings of the heart, and we find, with staggering breathlessness in the moment that we desire the deepest to say things of great import and value, that the terms 'I love you', 'Do you fear me?' and 'I trust you', fall painfully short of everything we wished to say, merely brushing the surface of implications.

This is where the art of intuition has arisen. For deep down in each of our hearts, we know that the language we utter with timid lips is not the fullest representation of the emotion we feel in our hearts, in our lungs and in our stomach. And so we stretch out invisible fingers to tentatively feel the air between two beings, trying to grasp with our minds what the other might actually be saying, when his from his mouth comes the words 'I feel as if I haven't seen you in an age'. And this intuition, which as C.S Lewis writes, stands for what we know not, for the unknown and the unexplainable, tells us that what he is actually feeling is more along the lines of, 'I've missed you in my life, I used to enjoy so much spending time with you, and because of your absence, I feel as if you no longer want me in your life. Please, tell me what I can do to fix this'. Sadly, however, even to this day, the art of intuition is slowly dying, and as much goes unheard as it goes unsaid.

However, when words fail, one may have found that each feeling could be expressed through the hands. The feeling of doubt of another's affections through the running of the first three fingers down the jawbone from the ear, the smallest resting on the chin. Uncertainty through the upwards twist of the wrist towards the heart. Restrained affection in the bent elbow, a deep-seated ecstasy at another's attention in the rhythmic tapping of the elbow with ones fingertips. This inherent bodily expression of all that we feel but never say has taken the place of the unspoken declarations once felt with one's intuition. One may find this the saddest of all of societies developments, and is the equivalent of falling asleep. One may still be inside of the world surrounding her, but she may no longer be a part of it, as much as an old, unused chair is in the corner of a busy room.

In the time that it would have taken for her to wake up, the world has already changed. Time, which had previously dwelt always in obscure corners of abandoned rooms, in the folds of curtains and on the backs of strangers necks, has emerged, crying loudly for attention and demanding action. Action which, deafened to intuition and blinded to expression, is of less potency than in ages of old. It could be argued that it is in this state of weakness, in sightlessness and dumbness, we have found it as difficult as before to give ones heart to another. Where once it was a matter concerning inadequate expression, there is now a plague of ignorance. Where the fear of the possibility of rejection once lay, now lies the fear that ones heart may go unnoticed in its offering.

But the desire to feel, to hear and to see does not long go muted. If, by chance, you find yourself amongst the company of those whom you feel most strongly for, begin to observe. You will begin to see the shadows, the infantile imitations of what used to be a thriving language of the hands. You will start to notice that the silences are no longer as silent as they used to be, for now they are layered full of meanings and desires and those feelings felt between your heart and lowest rib. You will begin to hear in those silences an awakening desire to be heard, to be seen and understood, and then you, feeling what each is trying to feel, must stand up, and in a brazen act of kindness, move over to those, who like children are beginning to learn how to walk, clasp their hands in yours and whisper to them, 'Yes, I understand you. Don't worry, you're doing well'.