Is there no help for it?  What I mean to say, I cannot conceive how to avoid the abyss of the irrational, that which eludes language. Language is the ease by which the mind constructs reality out of binary symbols, black is not white, sweet the opposite of sour, etc.  These words are successively filled by exchange with others, into a rich surrounding penumbra of meaning.  Black as midnight and — white like a swan.  And those others, through whom we learned to speak, are they friend or foe?  Years pass, life experience discloses our fellows to be Other, as hidden as the subsurface of an iceberg, 87% underwater. 

This “revelation” makes one shudder, if one is fortunate or unlucky to be given that vantage point at some crisis event in life.  Does that make one lucky or unlucky?  Does it make sense to ask “What is truth?”  Is truth “a what?”  A majority of us tread on down life’s road, oblivious, persisting in the illusion that “what you see is what you get.”  Are they the lucky ones?

This morning a friend wrote to me, challenging me to offer a definition of ‘self-defense,’ rather than “retreating to bemoaning the role of the relativity of perception…”  This is not a retreat, or an expressed infantile self pity.  

The best that I can do, or better said, what I desire to do is offer a song, as a description of our predicament, the inevitability of finding ourselves in a cul-de-sac due to our miscalculation of the surface presentation of things.  Perhaps this is most obvious in relationships with members of the opposite sex.  This anthem, and this video by “Cutting Crew” offers an accurate portrayal of our very human dilemma. 

Now I understand the affection which we have for animals, for the domesticated pets which are part of our lives.  With our animals, what you see is what you get…

(I Just) Died In Your Arms

By Cutting Crew

Oh, I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight

I keep looking for something I can’t get
Broken hearts lie all around me
And I don’t see an easy way
To get out of this

Her diary sits by the bedside table
The curtains are closed, the cat’s in her cradle
Who would’ve thought
That a boy like me could come to this?

Oh-oh-oh, whoa
Oh, I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight
Oh-oh-oh, whoa

Oh, I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been some kind of kiss
I should’ve walked away
I should’ve walked away

Is there any just cause for feeling like this?
On the surface, I’m a name on a list
I try to be discreet
But then blow it again

I’ve lost and found, it’s my final mistake
She’s loving by proxy, no give and all take
‘Cause I’ve been thrilled to fantasy
One too many times

Oh-oh-oh, whoa
Oh, I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight

Oh, I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been some kind of kiss
I should’ve walked away
I should’ve walked away

It was a long hot night
She made it easy, she made it feel right
But now it’s over, the moment is gone
I followed my hands, not my head
I know I was wrong

Oh, I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been something you said
I just died in your arms tonight

Oh, I, I just died in your arms tonight
It must’ve been some kind of kiss
I should’ve walked away
I should’ve walked away

Lyrics by Nicholas Van Eede

NOTE: “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” is the title of a song written by Nick Van Eede and introduced by his band, Cutting Crew, in 1986. It was their biggest hit, peaking at number-one in the United States, Canada and Finland, and reaching the top five in the UK, South Africa, Sweden and Switzerland.

The lyrics of the song are inspired by a real romantic affair that Nick Van Eede (lead singer of Cutting Crew) had. According to Eede, he wrote the song about a girlfriend of his whom he had been separated from for about a year and was “pining away” until he eventually met her on a New Year’s Eve. The meeting led to a brief affair that apparently lasted only a night. Eede said the legendary line “I just died in your arms tonight” came to him while he was in bed with her that night. According to Eede, the next morning he wrote down the line.

The brief affair eventually led to the pair having a daughter named Lauren.

The title refers not to death, but to ejaculation. It comes from the French “petit mort”.