Reflections on reflections and relationships
Over the last week I’ve watched (or listened to) this lecture by Helen Fisher a couple of times…
http://www.ted.com/talks/helen_fisher_tells_us_why_we_love_cheat.html
It isn’t immediately related to my work, but does address much of what I’ve been thinking about over the last year… or perhaps my whole life to degrees…because, like every human (& every artist) relationships have been a perpetual aspect of life to balance (not always successfully) alongside a full time art practice…
In the talk Fisher addresses the subject of love from the perspective of an anthropological/ scientific angle. She describes love as “…a powerful brain system…one of 3;…the sex drive…romantic love…and attachment…” & explains how she believes these evolved as part of our genetic necessity to reproduce i.e. hunt out/ find a sexual partner, become absorbed with them in order to successfully conceive & then to stay together long enough to rear a child until it’s old enough to be safe/ fend for itself. Or, in her words, a brain system which “…evolved for us to be able to tolerate another person long enough at least to raise a child together as a team…”
It’s not my intention to deny or discount what is probably the most enthralling & mysterious of human conditions with dispassionate scientific reasoning, but… this idea of love as a genetic programme makes a lot of sense… why else do usually rational, intelligent human beings bind themselves in the yolk of a pairing which is, at least, fraught with differences & complications which must be negotiated, at most, unmistakably incompatible?…
And why are people so blinkered to the short comings and faults of those they have relationships with?… but not to others we share close bonds with (family, close friends, housemates etc)?…
…how is it that any of us, ever, think that colliding two individuals (with their individual personalities, foibles, beliefs, habits, dreams etc) together under the presupposition that they will stay together & love one another, will work??… Is this madness??… Mass human hysteria??*….
…(at this moment the phrase “the love bug” springs to mind & I imagine some kind of emotionally deficient parasite, infecting the brain & stimulating the endocrine glands in order to nourish + fatten itself on positive human emotion)….
But then again, how can this phenomenon be used to explain the love of other things?… of music, for example….(which, I often find can inspire feelings at least akin to those of love for another person)…..or tea, or art, or smoking, or words, or friends?….
….Fisher does offer some words of hope which are similar to a conclusion I’d started to arrive at myself recently….
“…we’re also seeing the return to an ancient form of marriage, equality…”
This is a pairing based on mutuality, something lasting beyond the intoxicating effects of desire/romantic love/attachment….
…maybe it’s not the same for everyone but when I look back at the ocean & tides of 24 years, those individuals whove been constant & lasting in their connections (& remain sources of great love and reciprocity) are all people who I’ve known outside of the bond of so called “love” in the traditional sense… that’s not to deny the possibility of lasting romantic relationships, I’m sure they exist, but I would also imagine what gives them the ‘staying power’ isn’t rooted in the effects of the initial hormone sodden mind…
This conclusion is both frightening and comforting. It’s frightening because – if it is the case that love is a term used only to describe genetically-prescribed, chemical effects of the need to reproduce on the brain – it harbours the notion that it won’t last… & admits to the possibility that monogomy is culturally (rather than naturally) conditioned.**
…But it is also a comforting conclusion to arrive at in as much as it illuminates the essential value of relationships (with anyone, not just partners), being based on something more sane, bilateral & benevolent…
We are inevitably fated to be unhappy animals… most of the time, anyway…..
…that may have all come out completely wrong, & I didn’t give any time to addressing what I intended, to do with Honey & Mumford Tests & reflecting on teaching/learning practices in art….but…oh well…. back to the course work…..
*Just try spending 3 years sharing a house with anybody you love & (I’m almost sure) you will be asking the same questions….
** As Fisher describes “…we’re capable of loving more than one person….”
