Our 21st Century Should Pursue Collective Progress, Not Individualism!

An article in Forbes last week was brought to my attention; “Why Millennial Women Do Not Want To Lead” by Julie Zeilinger, founder and editor of FBomb.org.  In it, she concludes that despite “impossibly high” standards of achievement for women vs. “upsettingly low” standards for men, women should not shy away from leadership for “their intelligence and integrity are more than enough”. 

OK, but part of women’s trouble is that they are pigeonholed for their intelligence and their integrity:  perfect for constituting the dossier, and then have others take all the credit.  Or being outcast for being overly ambitious. 

There’s no doubt that women are given a harder time (as Ginger Roger summed it up, “I did everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in heels”).  But the problem goes much deeper, for it touches on a societal trait that transgresses questions of gender and sex:  it’s our societal love affair with shows of power, of domination. 

It’s suggested that women lead with intelligence and integrity.  But are we socially prepared for such a switch? 

Do we collectively value integrity?  Not so often; or at least we waive it when it’s a figure we like – why else do mafia sitcoms and movies make blockbuster ratings?  A couple of years ago, there was the joke what if Lehman Brothers had been “Lehman Sisters”?  But safe bets and risk-taming measures and regulations do not have rock star kind of value and are systematically refused by half of the American population. 

Do we value intelligence?  Street smarts, maybe; business acumen that can make someone rich and powerful, sure.    But nuanced thinking?  It’s often seen as “weakness” – just consider the last couple of presidential debates and elections.  Critical thinking?  It’s slowly disappearing from educational curricula increasingly focused on skills and trivia rather than a solid, well-rounded education rooted in knowledge and critical thinking. 

And what about some of the other values Americans learn in kindergarten:  kindness?  Sharing?  No, we still trump with whatever will stoke the dream of making it rich, fast, with cold razor-sharp calculations or with no effort at all.  No, in our current mores, fame and fortune are exciting; kindness and sharing are for the suckers. 

For some of us, it’s a no brainer.  Cooperation is a key asset for performance and for survival.  It’s a key part of Darwinism – survival of the fittest is not only about competition but knowing how and when to cooperate.  But explain that to a conservative American who accuses any positive collective measures put forth by Obama of being “socialism” (as if it were a great evil!).  The truth is we are societally in awe of the powerful and aim to get there ourselves, at whatever our level. 

Love is often leveled out to sex which is leveled out to domination

Work, which used to include loyalty toward a company-wide endeavor and allegiance to the workforce, is all too often leveled to outsourcing, productivity fragmented into individualized skill sets so that some few individuals can get ahead while the many more get ever lower

Profit, which used to be reinvested into a company to improve R&D (research & development) and boost its employees, is now often leveled to a few wealthy shareholders’ returns, widening the gap if the figures are good… and widening it further if the figures are bad as they will choose to cut heads before lowering dividends.

We are letting it happen because of our awe of the rich and powerful

And/or out of fear for our own personal survival, attempting to be part of the elite so as to not find ourselves entirely disenfranchised.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.  We can have a very productive and healthy society if we move away from such dogma (performance society, still-life identities, monotheistic beauty…).

One of the legs of the women’s movement was making the personal political.  But we’ve lost control of what makes up “personal”.  At the time, it meant using collectively each individual’s experience to help society progress.  But through the 1980s, then on through the 90’s and 2000’s, the “personal” because a very “personal” singular recipe for making it on one’s “own”.  Every person has been composing with his/her “own” to get ahead, make it big, make a break… or just make it through the day! 

And where has this left us?  “Every second’s a calculation”.  Each woman strives to live the archetype of each facet of a woman’s life, simultaneously… locked into her “own”.

And our current societal model is exacerbating that:  Nuclear family as opposed to community.  A walking portfolio of skills as opposed to a company of people.  A still-life, projected identity for others as opposed to a solid self concept with a sense of our individual and collective worth.  Personal/individualized intelligence and integrity as opposed to having higher expectations of our society for an environment conducive to collective progress.

It’s even got to to the extent that a single mother in the US is one of the most isolated members of our society as described in the NY Times.   And firing-up the debate as to whether women can “have it all”.  But how can we when we’re set up for every woman to take on the entire battle single-handedly and separately, individually?  Another article showed mothers proudly taking no breaks (no maternity leave), having babies for whom they’ll have no time and for whom they have no intention of making any space… because they’re going to try to do it all… individually.  And, with such models, how will those children cope?  Individually! 

The solutions we need now is to get back to the original call for the personal… A shift for making the “personal”… collective!

What does that mean? 

-          Continue protecting family planning and pushing for universal healthcare. 

-          It means reconsidering the nuclear family and how we can raise future generations more collectively (to at least give them a more collective mindset while freeing up more time for parents to balance career and family).  As says the Nigerian proverb, and taken up by Hilary Rodham Clinton, “It takes a whole village to raise a child”.  This is a great way of summing it up – we cannot do everything each on our “own” – economically and energetically, it isn’t sustainable.  Even these powerhouse, “superwomen” cannot sustain indefinitely doing it all on her own. 

-          It also means reconsidering work, collectively.  As says one mother who took very little maternity leave, “there is no way to have a ‘blissful maternity leave and also stay in the game’”.  Work is more cut-throat than ever and, she’s right, a short absence can be an irretrievable set-back.  But, is that necessary?  Must it be this way?  This is our society, our world, it’s up to us to demand change – but we must do it collectively.  There is enough scientific research to convince us that a company is most productive when its employees are in a trusting and empowering environment and feel a certain amount of security and motivation.  If a woman wants to have a baby and not miss a beat at the office, why can’t she do it from a distance? 

We must break out of this narrow-minded idea of individual gain and remember there’s little lasting individual gain without collective progress. 

Let me know what you think.

Talk to you soon for another bite from the apple,

Eve

The 21st Century Should Carry a Cult of Living

“Quel age?  Jeune!”

Our Society Lives a Cult of Youth.

Everyone is trying to conform to the societal love affair with youth, which we have made synonym for performance, dynamism, attractiveness, potency, fun.   In this societal myth we’re living, youthfulness is considered a sign of an accomplished individual whereas old age, which was once equated with wisdom and maturity, is now associated with conservatism, stagnation, or obsolescence.  Age and aging seem to be something to fear and dread. 

To slow this fate, we are giving into looking and pretending to be younger.  Sort of like “blonds have more fun”, we seem to believe the Young Have More Fun, are more attractive within our performance society, more successful within our media age.

 “Things are happening so much younger these days – 19 year olds start companies like Facebook - 26 doesn’t feel like a spring chicken anymore so there’s pressure not to show your age even when you’re still pretty young” – states a 26 year old woman who is a regular Botox user.

And so, many are developing a coping strategy to remain performing in this context, using our affluence and scientific /medical advances to help every age be a happy youth. 

-      The general backdrop is that we’re getting closer to beating out our mortality.  Scientists are predicting that we will be able to prolong our lifespan.  Michael Rose, professor of evolutionary biology at the University of California at Irvine predicts that the human longing for immortality may be partly satisfied by the 22^nd century, at least to the point of extending the average human life to 140 years.  Others say that absolute immortality may be possible by then thanks to full-body regeneration or organ replacement which may be within reach.  It’s an on-going debate that includes whether or not to qualify aging as a disease in order to gain more funding.  Most medical scientists believe that advances should be used first and foremost to improve the quality of life of people who suffer from particular diseases or degenerative conditions but some, such as Rose, believe that early use of some methods / substances in a person’s life would prevent wear and tear, as well as lengthen life and improve its quality. 

-      Many medical academies and institutions are proponing usage and exhibiting impressive results, notably Dr. Jeffry Life, now 72, who uses testosterone and human growth hormones on himself and on his patients, and who stands as a poster boy of how we can all fight age and aging.

-       In light of all this Possibility, individuals are wanting to age on their own terms… and are turning to anti-age products and procedures to beat out age as best they can.  A lifegoesstrong.com poll found that 1 out of 5 boomers either have had or would consider cosmetic surgery.   Anti-aging product market in the US already represented about $80 billion in 2008 and is forecasted to reach over $291.9 billion worldwide by 2015.  Growing numbers of middle-aged people pay over 15K$ per year for Human Growth Hormone injections.  The American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) states that there were 13.1 million cosmetic plastic surgery procedures performed in the US in 2010, a 77% increase over a decade and which does not include cosmetic medicine, which is also on a sharp increase (procedures like Botox and wrinkle fillers are up 99% since 2000, according to the ASPS). 

-      Thanks to the increasing accessibility to these strategies, increasingly younger individuals are pulled into the anti-aging game. The average age of going in for a first face lift has gone from 50 (in the 1990s) to 42 in 2000 in France… and today in the US, the average age starts at 45.  Even young people are obsessed by it and turning to Botox in their 20s as a way to ward off future wrinkles- reportedly, many don’t have lines when they go in to get injections.  Botox has become the most popular cosmetic procedure for female patients ages 19 to 35, with nearly 400,000 wrinkle-reversing (or preventing) treatments in 2007.  In 2010, over 78,000 people in the US in their 20s received Botox in the US, up 11% vs. 2009 according to the ASPS. “I don’t want to look like my mother,” they say.  Note that these figures do not include procedures performed outside of the country. 

-      And this fervor is growing despite questionable efficiency.  National Institute on Aging states, “our culture places great value on staying young, but aging is normal… Despite claims about pills or treatments that lead to endless youth, no treatments have been proven to slow or reverse the aging process.”  Furthermore, many of the products aren’t required to be tested or reviewed by independent or governmental commissions.   Some hormone replacement drugs can have harmful side effects.  

So What?  Why not leave people their liberty to choose what they do with their money?  

The problem is that for these rather limited gains, there are some unintended consequences that are a far heavier price to pay for society at large. 

As more and more jump on the bandwagon, we are, as a society, creating a new norm that makes aging shameful… and which allows for little alternative than to give into anti-aging.  According to some studies, the goal is no longer to simply look good for her age but to not age at all. 

“J’aurais peut-être accepté de vieillir, sans cette pression” – Maybe I would have accepted aging... if it weren’t for all this pressure.

As with all norms, the mechanism is self-reinforcing, spreading via peer-pressure not only because it is creating a new standard by which everyone must live to “fit in” socially but by which once one has done it, I’ve been told, thus begins the constant attack within the social circle on others’ wrinkles in order to somehow confirm the first person’s decision (or make everyone look just as awful…)

Because of this, Seniors, and senior women in particular, are losing their place in society.  As has remarked Germaine Greer, men with grey hair gain in status whereas women with grey hair lose it.  To be desired, loved, accepted, many feel they practically have to change themselves into someone else!  Further, this Cult of Youth isn’t only about seniors, it’s also about adulthood in general and our societal focus on its aspects that aren’t… “fun”.

In this 21^st century, it is time for us to move beyond our Cult of Youth to a Cult of Living.

Our current age-boycotting strategies are unsustainable (except for the pharmaceutical companies and surgeons who are enjoying the profits). 

But beyond that, many of our strategies for living the Cult of Youth may be actually counterproductive, our goals somewhat askew, and our fears somewhat unwarranted. 

Today I will tackle the first aspect (that our strategies may be counterproductive) and leave the remaining 2 until next week in order to keep this entry a reasonable length.

1.  Many of our strategies to appear younger are contradictory to the realities of being younger.

For starters, let’s consider Botox.  Is it anti-age… or rather anti-youth? 
Botulinum toxin reduces wrinkles by temporarily paralyzing small muscles in the face.   So, to look younger, we’re freezing ourselves up.  That directly undermines our quest for appearing young.  After all, youthfulness is usually identified by the opposite: fluidity, spontaneity, facility, graceful/easy movements, etc.  As we are freeze up our faces, we’re pushing ourselves directly towards what we’re fleeing.

Second, paralyzing the small muscles prevents the individual from making various expressions that convey emotion.  And, to quote an article heard on NPR, our own facial expressions, researchers now show, may be essential to recognizing the feelings of others… in other words, it hampers our ability to interact relationally with others.  So, to feel more included, greater belonging, and desirability, we’re impeding our ability to build relationships and/or seduce.

Third, as I already mentioned, the fall-out of this normalization of anti-age is ostracism … all in the name of belonging so important to us, social animals that we are.

This isn’t to belittle the impetus for trying out anti-age products or procedures which often a desire to reclaim one’s own life and conquer the frustration due to a gap between “how I feel” with “how I look” and the individual’s desire to “look the way I feel” despite his or her age.  Unfortunately, from botox to facelifts, often anti-age procedures don’t really enable you to be recognized for who you are (often the effects do little to bring back how we used to be and, at times, may even worsen our appearance / make us look even more different from ourselves than we looked as our own aged self).  Worse, they may have you recognized for something else entirely (perhaps vain or superficial), according to some studies.

But it goes deeper than that.   The superposition of “appearing” and “being” can lead to further unintended consequences.   (Granted, in our performance society, in which our projected identity has taken on great importance, the difference between appearance and being has been blurred;  against very real discriminations aging people are facing, “appearance” can be an unavoidable asset.)

All the same, as long as we focus on appearing young to others, we’re wasting energy that could be better spent on being and living younger.  Not for others but for our own well-being (which is a much better recipe for inclusion and social acceptance).  It comes from our daily attitude and activities that we remain / reap the benefits of being young.  Unfortunately, it won’t come from trying to freeze time or denying ourselves all that we are becoming. 

Indeed, staying oneself should include one’s potential, who one becomes, and the experience acquired along the way rather than sacrificing the life-imperative of evolution to trying to convince others of a youthfulness others rarely believe.

In fact, it all comes back to self-hood and a conviction of one’s self-worth. 

With it, we can delve into our own unique resources and richness, into the aspects that are our own and source of meaningful relationships and exchange.  Without it, we catalyze its impoverishment, condemning us all (individually and collectively) to lose out on what age and aging can offer…  plus exacerbating the unnecessary competition for the same role from all ages (I’ll treat this further in next week’s publication).

Aged people possess precious assets to contribute: experience, perspective, wisdom that are gained and refined thanks to aging (see Laura Carstensen’s TED Talk).  As a society, we must revalue all the positive aspects that age has to contribute to both our individual and collective well-being and progress.  Already in my lastblog, I advocated allowing seniors to continue to work at a rhythm more in tune with both the physical realities of aging/burn-out and the intellectual/emotional value accrued with aging.   This idea can be prolonged to putting in place opportunities to break down the linearity of our generations.  Intergenerational activities would be enriching for everybody – not just children and seniors but young adults and adults who would also benefit from this type of interaction and exchange.  It could be conducted based on theme-affinity, using hobbies and/or school curricula as easy conduits to exchange (and which remain public so as to avoid any type of abuse).  This type of exchange can help aged people be and feel young as well as give sharper contours to their daily lives, a benefit that may have its value in pushing back certain diseases like Alzheimer’s.  Meanwhile, it provides children, youths, and adults a larger pool of mentors and/or role models as well as broader and more diversified perspective.  It would be a great means for liberating our society from its narrow cult of youth and help it open up to youthful living.

Let me know what you think and stay tuned for next week on the other passages to a Cult of Living.

Till then, for another bite from the apple,

Eve

Pink Brain, Blue Brain… or How to Stunt Everybody’s Growth

The February 2012 issue of Sciences et Avenir reports on current scientific conclusions that male and female brains are the same; that any theories or postulates stating brains are hardwired according to gender are not founded in scientific proof.  We now know that cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and logic cannot be attributed to one gender rather than the other.  As points out Rebecca Jordan-Young of Barnard College, Columbia University, the consensus of the brain being differentiated by gender is both unscientific and political, “neuro-sexism”, as Catherine Vidal, neurobiologist and research director at the Institut Pasteur calls it. 

The article reports on a number of conclusive studies which both prove this basic, “hard-wired” equality and bring to light the realities of “soft-wired” inequalities rooted in “the stereotype threat” and other socio-cultural factors (math scores directly correlated with the country’s level of women’s emancipation, the clear impact of stereotypes on both men’s and women’s testing performances).

The article also explains that the human brain is made up of 100 billion neurons and one million billion synapses, governed by only 6,000 genes, not enough to control all the connections.  The scientists interviewed explain that at birth, only 10% of neurons are connected. The other 90% will connect progressively in interaction with family, education, and culture.  Nothing is “fixed” in the brain and it will be continually reconfigured through-out one’s life, which is known as cerebral plasticity (“plasticité cérébrale”).   Your brain will be what you do with it.  Any activity you spend time doing will reinforce the cerebral circuits mobilized by that activity, to the detriment of those not used.  Considering the difference in girls’ and boys’ social activities, it follows that their brains develop into functioning differently.  40 years of research show the most differences in gender are due to social, historical, or politic construction and that biology does not justify inequality.

It is this point I would like to build on in what I call my “stunted synapse theory” mentioned in my headings.

Thanks to the plasticity of our brains, we are (and we become) what we do.  This is of major importance in terms of our potential and possibility

• in an era and world in which we increasingly can (and are even required) to make ourselves, this fact of “becoming what we do” is essential to our lives (as opposed to preceding generations were fare more dependent on birth right and externally determined circumstances (place of birth, social milieu, sex, religion, etc.)
• in an era of ‘marketing of me’ and “projected identities”, our activities have more to do with portraying – spinning – storytelling than physically building
• in the virtual orientations of many of our jobs/livelihoods, as well as the economy, et al, this idea of ‘doing seems almost novel

So, we become thanks to our doing.  Indeed, a study conducted in 1997 on 2000 people concluded that multitasking is a myth and that humans can only do two things at once (one on each frontal lobe).   Our brains, thus, can only be focused on two activities at a time (focused in a way capable of creating new synapses – not what we call automatic pilot with which we act without focus).

Here is my thought:

As long as we’re focused on

• Contorting ourselves to maintain our still-life identity
• Constricting our bodies and eating in order to fit into unrealistic norms
• Paralyzing our bodies to meet the Beauty Myth
• Binging on consumer goods to avoid asking deeper questions

We’ll be reducing our brains to a conservative role instead of a constructive one, plus, we’ll be stunting our growth… and even, even more importantly, stunting our capacity to grow!

Many years ago I read a great essay in Rebecca Walker’s To Be Real titled, “The Fat Lady Sings’ in which the author testifies from her experience of not accomplishing her potential as long as her brain, mind, and body were being starved and obsessed by weight loss.  All of her brain waves were mobilized, first refusing to eat that treat, then the pride of having not eaten, then the frustration of not having the treat, then the anger of the refusal, then the eating of it anyway followed by the guilt and then the promise on never starting again… and so on until she realized she barely had the energy or availability to focus on anything else!  On thinking, or innovating, or doing, or building.

I have lived through the same trap.  I have also experienced the liberation of delving into a project instead of getting stuck in the egocentric quest for self-perfection.  As I’ve often exclaimed to friends, there’s no better diet than a project.  It stokes creative energies and canalizes them into constructive flow instead of imprisoning them to a closed circuit of misplaced control and repression.  It fosters  new connections in our brains and represent a learning curve… making new neuronal connections in the brain for real self-improvement instead of falsified (or temporary) self-perfection.

Women:  it isn’t our brains that’s our problem; it’s our choice of activities!

As long as we allow ourselves to be duped into spending disproportionate time on the Beauty Myth, Age-masking, still-life perfectionism, etc., we’ll continue to foster a kind of inertia around our development and progress. 

We have to push ourselves out of our comfort zones.  We must talk not only to like-minded people but also converse with others who are not convinced by the same arguments.  We must open ourselves, and our synaptic connections, to growth!  To creativity!  And above all, we must stop imposing upon ourselves this rigid exoskeleton of perfection.

Sincerely,

Eve

Rendez-vous next week for another bite from the apple.

When will we accept we are like quarks? Part 5: Love need not be crystallized

Once we’ve accepted that identity need not be definitive and individuals need not be singular, it follows that love need not be crystallized. 

This may seem obvious… and yet looking around, it seems that it isn’t quite so easy to apply to our current mores. 

Reading articles and talking around me, women today still are expecting to meet Mr. Right, Mr. Perfect, and/or her very own Prince Charming.  When (if) she does, he’s just right and great… often until the first complication (be it a difference, a misunderstanding, or frustration).  Her reflex?  Jump into the sea of interrogation:  is this really love?  Is he really the one for me?  Is he the man of my dreams?  Where is this relationship heading and do I like where it’s going?  Am I making too many concessions?  Am I losing myself?

These are healthy questions and illustrate that women of today feel entitled to their own demands, to keep control over their lives, and that they’ve at last come into their own:  they are no longer the ones by default to bow with docility to the man’s prerogative.    Women today are primed to avoid making a mistake that will lead to divorce but, just in case, they are also making all the preparations to be financially autonomous to always keep their options open. 

Let me be clear:  this moral, mental, and financial autonomy is crucial progress in the fight for equality and is to be maintained and supported.

However, the comments I hear don’t always breathe empowerment; at times they mask disappointment, resignation, or vulnerability.  Every individual and each of their cases are different, of course, but I see these types of start-and-go romances as serial “shooting star relationships” in which both individuals of the would-be couple begin by correlating their projected identities (who they wish to be and how they want to be perceived) then face disappointment when one or the other discovers that the person doesn’t necessarily or currently incarnate that promise in the day to day.  The most obvious example is the slew of on-line dating services and the promises they make for finding “your other half” or “someone just like you”.  But I have seen this in traditional 100% real-life relationships just as much as relationships beginning virtually on the web.   It isn’t a question of technology; it’s a question of expectations.

What is the expectation?  To meet “my soul-mate” with whom everything is easy, effortless, and pleasant.  An individual who can fulfill “my” every desire:  passion, adventure, friendship, partnership, a good parent for my children, perhaps a good “wife”, be close but give me some distance at just the right time without me needing to say it, with the right mix of challenge, support, empathy, coaching, respect, and playfulness.  The other is also someone presentable, who can carry good status, perhaps good financial prospects, and oftentimes capable of reflecting positively on ourselves and become new proof of our own success in life.  Above all, we expect love to be effortless… and that effortlessness is the ultimate proof of love.  Anything that requires work or effort means we’re forcing the hand of love and that it isn’t the “real” thing… and we throw in the towel.

I am convinced that much of today’s trouble in love comes down to these expectations.

For a long time, neither love nor, for that matter, family or success, was really determined by the individual.  Today, our expectation is to be “happy in love”, a love that matches a romance novel.  …While we’re also looking for the man or woman who will be our “wife” and a good “partner”.  These three roles can certainly be conjugated… but the expectation of perfect three is often a reservoir of frustration and disappointment because it comes down to fragmented perfection and performance in each role, which is never sustainable for a single person.  Worse, not only are our expectations severe, but when we don’t succeed, we suffer the disappointment… or even guilt… of failure.  For me, in addition to the ills of our performance society, the trouble begins with a certain amount of confusion about love. 

First, confusion about the role we expect love to play in our lives:  we seem to believe that the other will somehow authenticate or confirm the identity we are building for ourselves.  I call this the “confirmation maze”. 

Let me explain:  since the post-modernist breakdown of the institutions that used to edify Western societies (patriarchy, marriage, top-down hierarchy, authoritarian government, authoritarian God, etc.), women’s emancipation has opened the floodgates of choice.  Suddenly, we’re wonderfully facing the vertigo of boundless individual responsibility for what we make of ourselves and who we become.  We have the “liberty” of making ourselves who we want to be… but also the “dread” of losing ourselves.  As a result, in looking around, I have the impression that many romances fall into this “confirmation maze” in which the “catch” somehow confirms to us (as well as to others) the attractiveness of the projected identity we have constructed. 

This may seem to make sense in terms of societal status in which people attempt to marry up into a higher station in life, etc., but it doesn’t sit well with our other expectations of passion or romance… and it can actually prevent us from living love for its real merit:  an opportunity to build ourselves as individuals, and build a more humane world, as I express here below.

Second, we can also note some confusion over the Spacing of Love. 

Women seem to expect Mr. Right to fit into our space without taking too much of it (for fear of losing ourselves, our autonomy, or of making too many concessions).  This type of demand is currently applauded as proof of remaining “whole” in France and representative of a woman respectfully in charge of her life through-out much of the Western world. 

But it’s also a guardedness that inhibits much of the exchange a relationship requires to not be sterile or short-lived.   

A real relationship is built by exchanges that infuse it with life, a chemical reaction that leaves neither member of the couple unchanged.  It also creates and fosters a third entity (1+1=3) that represents the 2 beings together.  In this sense, both individuals can continue to grow, their individual growths nourishing, in turn, their common relationship and project. 

However, this synergetic growth system cannot happen as long as either part of the couple holds back.  And, here, I believe, is a real key to the problem:  we all have learned to share, to give… and believe we’re contributing our fair share… when, in fact, the lack is in the receiving.  Not material gifts, but in receiving immaterial exchanges in the realm of ideas, points of view, ways of living, habits, etc.  Kind of like the type of “sharing” we see on social networks where we each spend all our time showing and telling, feeling very creative and magnanimous… without ever realizing that we’re in a soliloquy, spinning in a solipsism and comfort zone in which we are barricading out our vulnerabilities, reinforcing our projected identities… trying desperately to preserve ourselves within the world… and making us incapable and/or unwilling to receive.

Yet with no receptivity, the contact, the interaction, the relationship… the love… can’t really be or become.   

In our 21^st century, we need a return for receptivity with which we stop seeing others as an infringement on our freedom / growth and begin realizing that it’s our interaction with them and their “alterité” that will enable us to grow.  Our individuality will be fortified by exchanging and building with them.  It stands to reason that instead of seeking someone just like us (our “other half” our “soul mate”, our “mirror image”), we could revel in our differences and all that the loved one can bring to us, learn from us, help us learn about ourselves, and all we could build together. 

This, I must warn, has to be symmetrical, from BOTH parts of the couple.  We have all seen couples where clearly one has been eaten up by the other.  That’s not the point here.  The man must clearly be emancipated to open up to his vulnerabilities and be socially liberated so as to be receptive.   For the same reasons, we should also avoid a role reversal in which the woman simply becomes the dominant partner.  Forget about trying to make someone the “wife”, someone the “bitch”, and let’s work towards a respectful balance capable of love and growth. 

We can improve the Spacing of Love if we resolve our confusion over the Timing of Love. 

We expect Mr. Right to come along and somehow presume he will stay forever “right”.  But if we learn to accept that life is dynamic and by definition motion, movement, change, it seems irrelevant to expect someone met at time T to always be an inert “perfect”.  We can’t expect (nor should we desire) the other to stand still, like a still-life, and not evolve.  We, ourselves, constantly (hopefully) growing will grow out of synch with the still-life who made that former “perfect” match…  Furthermore, we won’t remain “right” for the other either …  At least not unless we each embrace the positive power of the Dynamics of 3 (1+1=3 mentioned earlier : 2 evolving individuals plus a growing relationship). 

This dynamic is promising because it means that within a couple, each can meet and re-meet the other, evolving person repeatedly.  Evolution of each individual implies constant renewal.  Let’s discover what it’s like to live by the side of someone who has now changed careers, now been promoted, now become a parent, now started a new hobby… plus this discovery takes on greater relief through our own evolving perspectives that are also constantly changing according to our own ups and downs and growth spurts.  

Our Performance Society pretends like long monogamous relationships are proof of lacking dynamism, good only for the unambitious (I’m not referring to those with serial extramarital affairs).  They’re represented as a synonym of boredom, concessions, a sign of having “settled”.  That may be true of all those who are locked in by their still-life identities that miss out on the actual Dynamics of 3 (or more, if there are children) living, evolving beings who are prepared to discover and rediscover each other.  Songs talk of love like a cocaine rush, authentic only until all the mystery is gone – “I know him so well”.  But that seems a little old-fashioned today in the 21^st century in which we, at every level of society, have access to so many ideas, social networks, possibilities, radical career changes, more than one “life” to live.  The expected timing of love should therefore shift from being a question of “right” right now to a quarkish spherical timing of “in phase” to be regularly re-actualized and reactivated, reinvented. 

These 3 degrees of confusion lead to a major unintended consequence:  The general misuse/misconception/poor practice of love, underestimation of the need for love in our world, leading to a world lacking love, walled behind its vulnerabilities and defense mechanisms, losing touch with its humanity.

And when we lose touch with our humanity… we also lose out on our gains in collective intelligence as a species… and progress for future generations.

Rendez-vous next week for a new bite from the apple.  In the meantime, share your comments based on your own knowledge and consciousness!