(Benjamin) – Temistocles, what is to fall in Love? People seek this experience so much, either as an equivalent to happiness or as a symbol of the greatest human achievement.
(Temistocles) – Falling in love, in the sense of feeling intensely attracted to someone, is a neurophysiologic process of partial deactivation of certain functions of noble areas of the brain convolutions. When that happens, the critical sense is blocked and the person under its effect is unable to perceive facts reliably and evaluate them with clarity. That’s the reason why people frequently fail to see obvious truths about the person they fell in love with, whereas everyone else (or almost everyone), like friends and family members, can see them clearly. The original purpose of falling in love came to blur reason so procreation means can be achieved, even by polished intellects (then obscured). Because of this intrinsic connection with the reproductive process, the duration of passion came to be estimated between one and a half to three and a half years – a time long enough for a couple mate, deliver and look after the baby on its first moments of life. However, due to the complexity of the human being – especially in the actual level of civilization on Earth – the experience of falling in love is happening in more complex situations, which no longer correspond to the main biological-evolutionary design. As a result of this neurophysiological base of enchantment, falling in love with a same sex person or with older people (no more fertile) naturally cannot cater to the demand of reproduction.
(B) – But couldn’t passion be something good?
(T) – No doubt it can, but when you ask this question, you’re referring to enthusiasm, the self motivation to undertake a certain task, to perform an appointed task. This is not the passion in the affective-sexual area I claimed above. Confusion is just a matter of semantics. The term is used to define two psychological states completely different to each other.
(B) – Could Passion, as a romantic outbreak, be considered healthy under any circumstances?
(T) – It can be natural in the course of adolescence but not in adulthood when it indicates a trace of immaturity for personal relationships, which will severely jeopardize the sense of wholeness of the individual. Teenagers between 14 and 19 years old disassemble (and reassemble) the brain at almost 50% of their synaptic connections. In other words, they almost deconstruct (and rebuild) the brain, while they suffer at the same time the most acute explosion of hormones of their existence. No wonder they suffer delusions at times. However, idolatry to young patterns of conduct, in force in the contemporary western culture, has brought up an occurrence which has been recently called “serial monogamy”, one that typifies those who are faithful to their partners but exchange them at each period of two or three years by the wishes of their “moody” passion. They live the relationship fully and intensely, however when the heat of novelty wears off they immediately lose their interest in the partner and decide to break up. Thus falling in love again with someone else, repeating the whole cycle of extravagant discharge of endorphins in the blood stream, and a breakdown in the functioning of the brain. The years pass by, successively and relentlessly, and these individuals never achieve affective profoundness with anyone, in any relationship. They live, year after year, decade after decade, on the surface of mining love and bliss, without ever being able to reach the precious gem of a complete inner fulfillment.
(B) – Temistocles, and what to do to help them?
(T) – Speak clearly with them – as much as possible, calmly – when the opportunity comes, and pray when they’re distant.
(B) – Sometimes, in my opinion, they seem to develop a similar behavior to those victimized by the “Syndrome of Stockholm”.
(T) – Yes, when they feel financially or emotionally dependent on the person they focus their erotic attention. In these circumstances, it is extremely frightening for someone to see the truth that they prefer to accept well prepared theories forced by rationalizations. Sometimes bizarre and preposterous, these rationalizations seem to feed their relative sanity amid strong conflicts of character with the partner.
(B) – How to detect that a romantic relationship is not very healthy?
(T) – When constant arguments happen, when there is disregard for the principles or values of the other, when welfare comes only with sex, when one or both stand against factual evidence ignoring the opinion of family members and/or friends who know them well, and know what goes on with them.
(B) – Is any of these items more serious?
(T) – Perhaps we could highlight the constant fights between lovers. Frequent arguments normally point out the end of a sexually romantic union of any kind. If there’s no respect and harmony, if disagreements get intensified, ending up in frequent clashes, the relationship is not healthy and its days are numbered. And when it doesn’t end in a humanly reasonable way it may be finished by a passional tragedy. Couples should not banalize their clashes but to strive earnestly to dispel them, so they can live as much as possible in a regimen of peace and happiness.
(B) – But can we generalize saying that because of passion a relationship is doomed to failure?
(T) – Of course not. There are several cases of people that have started a very intense love life (in two ways) – sometimes oscillating between one extreme and the other, on the seesaw of depression/elation or ecstasy/hopelessness. But slowly they came to know how to chisel their differences building mature relations, backed by a genuine interest of being with their partner through profound affinities of values and existential goals, as also grounded by mutual respect, sincerely desiring to make the other half happy and counting on each other’s indispensable mutual admiration. The big test though is to overcome boredom, the discouragement that follows the initial eruption of sensations and excitement; it is to cross the stage of delusion that comes after the breaking of the typical enchantment after the first moments of their psyche’s romantic dance. This transcendence of lack of romance, let’s say, comes with the edification of emotional bridges (and conceptual ones) between consorts, within deeper levels of sentiment and empathy, as the primary incentives of communion, merely sensory and emotional, naturally dilute with time.
(B) – For those less experienced, these last assertions of yours – I believe – may sound like an excuse for a monotonous affective life, almost between siblings, with an uninteresting and semi-incestuous sex?
(T) – Yes, it may do. For less mature minds, this can really happen (and it happens a lot). As the subject is abstract or too subjective, I’m going to use a metaphor to bring light upon this baseline of reasoning, and to facilitate the translation of what in theory is untranslatable in human language (only those who’ve already lived what I assure can in fact understand what I say). Imagine a film producer which chooses to take in a large amount of scenes of sex and violence instead of improving the scripts, the actors’ performance, the texture of lighting, photography and visual effects, as well as the quality of the soundtracks, so he can increase the audience of its film. Could we say that the most pleasant and satisfying film is the one with more scenes of obscenity and punching? Those are who prefer (and feel satisfied) with intense and primitive emotions only. However, this is never enough for more complexes psyches. It is for this reason that maturity brings along an indescribable and unfulfilling emptiness when truly achieved. Involving and wandering all experiences merely sensory-passional, it makes people to feel tired of them, so that they seek more quality, consistency, lucidity, purpose and reason to live in their interpersonal relationships.
(B) – What else could help a couple to go through a transitional crisis?
(T) – Marriage counseling, share religious or spiritual activities, caring for their affective bonds with family and friends (to not suffocate the partner and wear off the relationship with requirements pertaining to other areas of emotional needs). Also through a hard work of self knowledge, self control, with much love for the partner, real true love: which means responsibility for their general welfare and long lasting desire of instigating their progress, so that both grow in dynamic balance – for statics is not feasible (because both lovers’ rhythms and meanings of growth hardly happen at the same time) – in the magnificent choreography of each other’s psychological matureness in particular, and the couple’s as a whole. Thus, they will not need to split up to restart their love life with someone else because they will finish their relationship several times and will restart it again with the same partner, without being necessary to seek somewhere else what is inside their own heart – projected, refracted and distorted in the mirror, which is the presence of the next nearest: their bedroom partner.
(Mediunic dialogue occurred in February 15th, 2008. Revised by Delano Mothé.)