Tosh's Journal: July 26, 2023

I just finished the 5th volume, The Prisoner of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, and it reminds me of when I was a jealous lad. From High School to my early 30s, I was driven by jealousy, and I eventually realized that it was a sexual turn-on for me. My first real hardcore relationship with a woman was when I was 22, and I never felt so much alive when I felt the jealousy pain running into my mind. She consistently ran off with other men, even men I knew, which is horrible. But in truth, I got a kick out of it. It didn’t feel that way then, but at the end of a troubling day in those years, I was sexually charged and full of spite.

I would forgive, and how could I not, because I was so in love with her, but each time she would go out with someone else or have sex with another, it made me feel more alive. There is a line of security of feeling that someone has your back, especially in a love relationship. But you realize she is not there to catch you falling when you fall backward. After a while, I was looking forward to the betrayal of our “love,” which made me write poems of such profound feelings that they are unreadable these days. If I read Proust in my twenties, I would realize that jealousy is a practice, not a practical activity. Those who feel jealous have a lot of time on their hands.

One can be in love with someone, but you don’t like them. One realizes that you have nothing in common except friends (some of who she slept with) and the cultivated study of one’s jealousy toward that person. You can’t help it, of course, but in truth, like a pig in the mud, you’re delighted to be on that landscape. Misery is eros working overtime and enjoying the pains, the sorrows, and most important, the disappointments are something to treasure throughout one’s life. The sad thing is that you realize jealousy is the most exciting part of that relationship.

It’s funny now that when I come upon a jealous person, I ‘tsk, tsk’ toward them and chuckle softly, watching their ego at work. But in truth, I miss jealousy because that feeling was a great friend of mine. It comforted me on my lonely nights, drove me to read and write (badly), and also exposed me to a valley of deep feelings that I couldn’t feel unless provoked by a beautiful partner. No one dies due to jealousy unless the jealous person goes on a murder spree, but in most cases, it is a reflection of who you see yourself as, and it is a portrait of one in action.

Oh, The Prisoner is magnificent.