Flippant remarks about “Sean Penn Has ‘Never Felt Loved’ & We Can See Why”
Blogger 51 at cafemom.com, Adriana Velez, speaks for millions of Americans—male and female, in “Sean Penn Has ‘Never Felt Loved’ & We Can See Why”:
Shh, what’s that I hear? I think ... I think ... it’s the smallest violin in the world playing a dirge for Sean Penn’s narcissistic little heart.…I mean really. He’s NEVER felt loved by anyone? Not his former wife of 14 years? FOURTEEN YEARS! You would really have to love someone to put up with him for 14 years.
So it’s safe to say that Adriana Velez—and billions of humans on the planet—don’t give a f’ about Sean Penn. I’m not too sympathetic for Sean Penn either—he should appreciate that I respect him as an artist—but for someone apparently in need of “love” it’s probably not enough. Nevertheless, Sean Penn is making a point in public about what so many men—mistaken as barbarically macho, suffer from in pathetic privacy.
First of all, Adriana Velez is not married (I infer this from her bio) so she may be mistakenly swept away by the 14 years figure. This also implies (to me) that Ms. Velez has had parents/caregivers who provided her with the role-modeling of what 14 years of marriage should look like. 14 years don’t mean shit to me from an esoteric, inner-life-consciousness point of view. I’m sure Sean Penn has seen more than 14 million dollars pass through his financial hands—and his former (?) wife could spend 14 years prudently and meticulously administering their household with it in complete preoccupation. Many, many women keep themselves busy—too busy to be self-loving let alone loving to some chain-smoking frown of a guy. This does not make his wife some kind of “villain”—she just would be yet another one married to a role in a system of unsustainability.
This is why I remain convinced that marriage in economic poverty is a ‘blessing’ because a ‘fake’ bond will fall apart faster when it is based on bullshit-inner-child fantasies. Having “a lot” of money around marriage often ‘protects’ the marriage from real stress—and, in the case of Sean Penn (and other several-hundred-thousandaires), there’s enough money around for each marriage “partner” to live completely separate lives—but when they stand in front of the camera to take that photo it certainly looks like they are together.
It would be disappointing to find out that Sean Penn made public statements about not being “loved” in order to “get back” at his any of his exes. This would imply that he is yet another old man that found out too late these wonder-less realities:
- Women are not born with a loving/nurturing gene. These matters of thoughtfulness, grace, compassion and kindness are based on cultural wealth. Often in the urban maze there is no there there… we expect something from nothing…
- Too many women—even so-called wealthy women—are preoccupied with issues of safety/survival and they have no cognitive (or even subconscious) time to give a f’ about anyone else as a being in isolation.
- Too many women—even so-called wealthy women—would expect their “life partner” to be grateful for being chosen to participate in the partnership—and this gratitude is meant to compensate for any lack of “love.”
- Too many women—especially urbanized women—expect most things in life to happen to them (to be overcome by an aggressor). They do not expect to take action to have shit happen to others—especially loving shit.
- Most of us (urban people) expect to get things out of a system—never dream about putting anything back in…
- The act of “love” (as we “know” it) is an act of opinionated courage that must be taken in isolation, apart from all social bonds—how many women do we know that are known for their opinionated courage?
I will die with the ‘certainty’ that “loving” is most like cultivating a garden. This implies (to me) that “loving” is an “old-fashioned,” rural, communal activity. Most “real” people in the “real” world are urban—individualistically urban. The idea that an urban woman drapes herself in the aesthetic of being a radiant source of nurturing compassion, making the photosynthesis of true humanity possible is simply a joke for too many in the greatest empire television has ever seen. The idea that a woman being without her personal garden, her haven of “love,” is regarded a profound form of nakedness is surely a laugh for most…
All of this whining from me might deserve yet another sub-atomic serenade from an Ångstrom-scale Stradivarius—but beyond the simplistic, unicorn shit around the battle of the sexes is the fact that too few women in this “real” world come of age saturated with affection and attention. In my dream world, women would ‘escape’ out of childhood, full of complaints about how much care was lavished upon them—and how eager they are to “give back” what was “given” to them… Like those old ladies from the temperance movement, my dream women would have an almost religious zeal about what they can do for others—only because so much was done for them…
So my actual complaint, Sean Penn, is not that I have not been loved. It is that so many women in this crazy world have not been loved—making it impossible for them to love in return (in spite of their best efforts). The greatest thing we will ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.