I’ve been doing quite a bit of thinking about who I am and the relationships I am in. I’ve come to a few conclusions.

1) Through some sort of inherent social conditioning, Japanese women in their 20s all seem to be stuck in the pre-conventional stage in Kohlberg’s stages of moral development.

2) I share Dante’s enthrallment with the concept of courtly love. However, I believe in its virtue because it is predicated upon complex ethical abstractions around universal principles. (Stage 6 of Kohlberg)

Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur michi.
“Behold, a deity stronger than I; who coming, shall rule over me.”

It seems the connectivity of the modern world, particularly in Japan, where women are primarily motivated by self-interested, precludes any possibility for the existence of my own personal Beatrice. Although she died at 24, and Dante’s courtly love was with her memory, it seems that the virtues Beatrice embodied to him – love, companionship (as seen in the Divine Comedy), and ultimately salvation – are concepts so foreign in today’s world they ought to be considered naught.

Maybe that is the paradox of the post-modern digital lifestyle – although we are all connected together in ever-expanding, ever-enriching social graphs – we have connected ourselves at the expense of finding true salvation in devotion to another person. Perhaps this is most evident in Japan, where women (and Japanese men) are guided first and foremost by principles of self-interest. It explains the low birth-rate and late marriages; although, I’m sure it is similar globally, and my bringing it up in context of Japan is only out of latent Orientalism. I mean, hell, look at Sex in the City.

I suppose, put in a less abstract way, that I’ve finally realized that women are interested in games, just as I. But they are interested in games of social interaction with a base set of rules manipulated to serve their self-interests. But I play games at work and at home for fun. I don’t want to play games where the rules predicate a less than desirable outcome. The nobility of courtly love is ancient history. A passage like this could never be written today:

…And betaking me to the loneliness of mine own room, I fell to thinking of this most courteous lady, thinking of whom I was overtaken by a pleasant slumber, wherein a marvellous vision was presented to me: for there appeared to be in my room a mist of the colour of fire, within the which I discerned the figure of a Lord of terrible aspect to such as should gaze upon him, but who seemed there-withal to rejoice inwardly that it was a marvel to see. Speaking he said many things, among the which I could understand but few; and of these, this: “I am thy Lord.” In his arms it seemed to me that a person was sleeping, covered only with a crimson cloth; upon whom looking very attentively, I knew that it was the Lady of the Salutation, who had deigned the day before to salute me. And he who held her held also in his hand a thing that was burning in flames, and he said to me, “Behold thy heart.” But when he had remained with me a little while, I thought that he set himself to awaken her that slept; after the which he made her to eat that thing which flamed in his hand; and she ate as one fearing.

Dante published La Vita Nuova around age 28. I’ll be 26 in 3 months. Perhaps I have truly accomplished nothing.

I’m pretty sure no one else is interested in this sort of thing, but I’d love comments if you are.