“When those you love deeply reject you, leave you, or die, your heart
will be broken. But that should not hold you back from loving deeply.
The pain that comes from deep love makes your love ever more fruitful.”
What the fuck does that even mean? The pain that comes from 'deep love' lost makes your love better somehow...? 'More fruitful'? How does that even apply when the first part of the statement is about love that's lost, and thus there's...nothing left except a broken system, pain attached to an object that's no longer there, so the whole thing's dysfunctional except as an evolutionary deterrent for casually discarding relationships (I assume this is its function), or...maybe not even that; perhaps the pain is just a side-effect of the way our brains form and dissolve attachments? (though this seems unlikely from what little we know--somewhere along the line, evolution decided to light up the anterior subgenual cingulate cortex when relationships are dissolved, in the case of an unwanted breakup, anyway--something that appears to be normally reserved for other purposes [unpleasant ones, like being depressed] ).
So, the original quote sounds like BS to me: circular Western new age optimism masquerading as a deep thought. Nothing more--a useful delusion to some, but grossly insensitive to those with difficulty controlling and living through the pain of a broken heart.
I see little value in 'the pain that comes from deep love.' In my experience, it very unfortunately transforms memories and associations once positive into points of bitterness and pain difficult to speak of or think about, and which can make it hard to converse with the relevant person without a great deal of restraint and social fakery.
All I can say is that I'm determined to let such pain impress itself on my psyche and control my life and actions as little as possible, and to prevent, as far as I can, the bitterness from finding foothold in me now and in the future.
Such a shallow quote.
The basic evolutionary psychology of relationships is not well understood, much less the most annoying parts, which really seem to be maladaptive.
ReplyDeleteBut, I'd be willing to wager that whoever said that quote wasn't thinking a whole lot about reason when they said it. Or ever.
Interesting, and, yes, I agree about the maladaptive part...obviously.
DeleteI don't know exactly how to categorize the quote I found above, but that sort of truthy way of trying to find a silver lining in something that, no, seems to be just unpleasant, and not part of the positive experiences of life, is very irritating to me, and probably a lot of people going through, say, breakups. Confusing, too, that it was quoted in an article that was, though not particularly useful or intelligent, not completely stupid, either. 'Hope' based on poor reasoning or intellectual modeling...rrrh.
Thanks for the comment, too.
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