Repetition

C S Lewis, story teller par excellence

No I am not doing a pep talk on C S Lewis. There are too many others out there doing that, and doubtless better than ever I could.  Suffice it to say that his fiction had a significant part in moulding my upbringing.  In this post I am merely using his insight.

Although repetition can be used to good effect, for example in education or to convey a superlative in poetry, some things are too good to be repeated in too small a timeframe.

"Now he had come to a part of the wood where great globes of yellow fruit hung from the trees... He picked one of them... Then by accident one of his fingers punctured it and went through into coldness. After a moment's hesitation he put the ' little aperture to his lips. He had meant to extract the smallest, experimental sip, but the first taste put his caution all to flight... It was like the discovery of a totally new genus of pleasures, something unheard of among men, out of all reckoning, beyond all covenant. For one draught of this on Earth wars would be fought and nations betrayed. It could not be classified. He could never tell us, when he came back to the world of men, whether it was sharp or sweet, savoury or voluptuous, creamy or piercing. 'Not like that' was all he could ever say to such inquiries. As he let the empty gourd fall from his hand and was about to pluck a second one, it came into his head that he was now neither hungry nor thirsty. And yet to repeat a pleasure so intense and almost so spiritual seemed an obvious thing to do. His reason, or what we commonly take to be reason in our own world, was all in favour of tasting this miracle again; the child-like innocence of fruit, the labours he had undergone, the uncertainty of the future, all seemed to commend the action. Yet something seemed opposed to this 'reason'. It is difficult to suppose that this opposition came from desire, for what desire would turn from so much deliciousness? But for whatever cause, it appeared to him better not to taste again. Perhaps the experience had been so complete that repetition would be a vulgarity - like asking to hear the same symphony twice in a day."  Lewis, Perelandra.

I concur wholly with this principle.  Sometimes even a long interval may not validate a repetition - I would love to repeat the walk I described in Euphoria but I doubt if the magic would work again even after so many years. Somehow forced repetition does not satisfy. The thrill in listening to Rachmaninov's second piano concerto wears thin if repeated too soon. The ecstatic first few bites into a crisp rhubarb crumble served with clotted cream dull in that unnecessary second portion (memories of last Sunday).

Without doubt we were created to enjoy delight to the full. But perhaps forced repetition is the divide between delight and lust.