Love

The Greeks regarded it as a form of madness inflicted by means of mythological love darts. Fortunately, Gustave Flaubert was there to help clarify things in mid-nineteenth century with his novel Madame Bovary (1856) in which Emma Bovary escaped the banalities and emptiness of provincial life by reading "the refuse of old lending books" which were all about "love and lovers, damsels in distress swooning in lonely lodges . . troubles of the heart, vows, sobs, tears, kisses, rowing boats in the moonlight . . . gentlemen brave as lions and gentle as lambs too virtuous to be true, invariably well-dressed, and weeping like fountains." Hallmark has kept us up to date ever since.

May we begin by first giving a shout-out to the other types of love beyond Eros, the ones that may be more stable or readily available and, especially in the longer term, prove more healing and fulfilling: Philia, loosely friendship, the foundation of ultimate happiness in the eyes of Epicurus (see MM, Chasing Epicurus, click: 10-02-17); Storge, familial love; Agape, universal love e.g. as to strangers, nature or God; Ludus, playful, uncommitted (think hookups); Pragma, practical love founded on reason or duty (certain celebrity, political, or arranged pairings); and Philautia, self-love (self-esteem if healthy, hubristic if not).

But, no, it's the relatively recent popular construct of romantic love that gets all the attention. Our focus discussion piece is "Falling In and Out -- of Love", a splendid fifty-minute audio of what's behind this seemingly mysterious and unknowable force (click: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ted-radio-hour). It's a listener-friendly overview of several Ted talks on the subject by synthesizing five perspectives, ranging from brain science to personal anecdotes. You may choose to simply listen to the piece. Or, you may augment it by reading the transcripts of the actual (and fuller) underlying Ted talks attached below (Pdfs). Or, you may decide to skip the above altogether, show up with your own stories, and simply rely on the nuggets below.

In order:

Thirty-Six Questions: in her NYT piece of five years ago, Mandy Len Catron reported on the findings by psychologist Arthur Aron that prior strangers might achieve a level of intimacy after four minutes of intense eye contact followed by series of mutually-posed personal questions, fostering closeness through shared vulnerability; the article went viral due, in part, to its title, "To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This"; Ms Catron discusses here how things worked out for her and provides some further explanatory insights, including the fact that the seductive title to the piece was not actually hers.

It's All In Your Head: biological anthropologist Helen Fisher goes deep into brain science applying functional MRI scanners to detect what specific parts of the brain (e.g. ventral tegmental area) are activated in those who are happily in love, those recently dumped, and those still in love after a decade or two of marriage; she identifies the brain functioning associated with the drive for love e.g. risk assessment and longing for deep attachment; among the take-aways -- it is indeed a drive (distinguished from the sex drive) more than it is an emotion and can lead to very physical addiction; the good news is in the success of mapping the brain activity, the challenge (for this Match.com consultant) is still to identify the secret sauce behind the generation of such activity.

Dessa's Story: Dessa moves out of her rapper-singer persona to describe the pain associated with the eventual break-up of her ten-year relationship with the guy who had become the center of her professional niche i.e. romantic devastation; she could have been Exhibit A to Helen Fisher's brain scan talk (above); she moved on from there to embark on "neurofeedback" treatment through which she eventually excised that devil spot from her brain.

Unhealthy/Abusive Relationships: Katie Hood, a member of One Love, started by a family whose daughter was killed by her ex-boyfriend, describes the five tell-tale markers of unhealthy love: intensity, isolation, extreme jealousy, belittling, and volatility; particularly poignant is that some such signs may be evident early in the relationship yet are ignored or otherwise overlooked until they are finally addressed when it's almost too late.

Thoughtful Healing: Psychologist Guy Winch discusses heartbreak as a complex psychological injury and the counter intuitive notion that the coping mechanism associated with other life challenges may not be effective in this matter (and may actually make things worse); the good news is that much more is known about how to minimize such suffering.

And so, even as we started with Emma Bovary's world of lovers, damsels, vows, tears, kisses, brave gentlemen, and rowing boats in the moonlight, one should also be prepared for a glimpse of the skull that may lie just beneath. The subject of a very early book club discussion (2006) was Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita, chronicling the relationship between middle-aged Humbert Humbert and twelve-year-old (but precocious) Lolita. Putting aside for the moment the absolute Epstein-esque inappropriateness of the interaction, the novel does say something about a "love, marked by a fierceness that so often destroys adult lives." Take Lolita out of that lengthy, passion-laced road trip and the world reads like a description of the surface of the moon. 

But maybe that's the point -- this one flower colored the universe. But, seen another way, even an oil slick is iridescent when the light strikes it right. The light shifts and . . . .  and another country/western song is born.