Rational Philosophy

Paper Heart - Charlyne Li, Michael Cera

We’d had the NetFlix DVD of “Paper Heart” sitting next to the TV for a couple of weeks, never quite summoning up the necessary enthusiasm to stick it in the player and watch it. (I’m sure that others are familiar with this phenomenon — the movie malaise of not knowing whether one will enjoy the experience enough to justify the time spent watching.) “Well,” said my wife eventually, “Shall we just get it over with so that we can send it back.” Since she put it that way…

For me, Paper Heart turned out to be well worth the time spent. It is a mindful movie. The participants set out to make a quirky, deliberate, deliberative movie, and achieve their aim. Just when you think that no movie can avoid cliche one pops up that proves you wrong. (This has been a bonanza week for such movies — Paper Heart, A Serious Man, and Cold Souls. More of which in future posts.)

Paper Heart follows Charlyne Li on her examination of the question “does love exist.” She claims never to have felt love and to feel herself incapable of love.

In her pursuit of an answer two fascinating philosophical concepts pop up:

1. Is it possible for a person to find true love for another when the love is not reciprocated?

2. Is it possible for someone to lack the capacity for love (even though love, in general, exists)?

A positive answer to the first question might be rather unromantic, but I would say it is the correct answer.  If we consider true love, as opposed to infatuation, objectively we see that it represents an overwhelming interest in the well-being of another person. Here I use the term “well-being” very broadly. It includes their health and welfare, and their growth and blossoming. Our love reflects our understanding and awareness of the positive forces of life onto the object of our love.

This description is entirely one-sided. It doesn’t call for a reciprocation. Of course, it’s much more likely for us to be able to love someone and continue loving someone who reciprocates our love. But that’s beside the point.

And what about lacking the capacity for love? By our definition of love this would either mean that someone doesn’t perceive the positive forces inherent in life, or that someone perceives them but doesn’t or can’t reflect them onto another person.

So then, in fact there can be several reasons why someone would lack the capacity for love.

a. Life experience may have brought them to the point at which they can’t appreciate the positive things in life: Someone who has suffered misfortune, cruelty, or chronic depression, for instance.

b. Their disposition may make them incapable of reflecting positive feelings about life onto another person. A narcissist or sociopath, for instance.

But Charlyne was interested in something slightly different. She wondered whether something in a person’s brain chemistry might inhibit their ability to love. Why not? Despite appreciating life and other people the chemical impulse to love, for some, may be absent… An interesting thought.