Valentine’s Week
I’ve resorted to watching lectures by UC Berkeley professors and instructors on YouTube and listening to podcasts of more lectures from their website. It’s keeping me afloat amidst the last leg of dilapidated lessons spewing from the classrooms that I’ve learned to avoid.
Happy Valentine’s to everyone, both IRL and out there on the internet where "Men are men, women are men, and 12-year old girls are FBI agents." The season reminds me of the line from "Rent" that gets repeated in two or three songs: "Connection in an isolating age." I think it’s an apt phrase to describe the state of human relationships today.
In looking at our ideas about relationships, it is immediately apparent that there is so much material going around about love and how to find it, how to make it work, what to do with it, how to repair it etc. The question of relationships is probably the most popular preoccupation of my generation, that’s to say, people in my age group. Just listen to the CHR programming on any day of the year, Valentine’s or not: the subject is almost always about human relationships. Moreover, a glance at some of the defining stories of this generation, such as The Matrix, Harry Potter, Heroes, Samurai X– almost anything in the popular imagination– there is some tie-in to the theme of love. I didn’t know what to think when I read the end of the Dark Materials Trilogy (actually, after THAT part, i stopped reading, because it felt lame). It wouldn’t be too far off the mark to say that it’s a collective obsession.
From the biological standpoint, its easily explained: the second most important drive in an organism, after survival, is reproduction. Since humans reproduce sexually, the question of relationships is of primary concern. Okay, hats off to the scientists. But the interesting thing is that the exploration of the concept of human relationships can’t be reduced to just that. Because, like a lot of things human, we have to attach meaning to function. And that’s where things get interesting. A friend of mine said it was crazy, to think there’s so much mythos and philosophy surrounding what essentially amounts to hormonal reactions. I think she’s right, but I want to make the distinction (which she left out in her ranting over the fact) that we don’t want to attach a negative connotation to that point, as if the whole culture of relationships is something "wrong" for what should be taken as something as just another biological function.
On another tack– veering so clumsily away from the paragraph above without any sort of finesse whatsoever– the interpretation and analysis of human romances can never quite match the experience. Although I’ve (thanks to a healthy dose of Spanish Inquisitionish self-torture) reached the point of being happily single, I still can’t shake the idea that being in a relationship with someone is ultimately a better state of being ALIVE than being alone. Any activity I could enjoy, I could enjoy more if the right person was around to share the experience. The key phrase there is "right person".
With regards to this question, I’ve learned something: that the "right person" isn’t necessarily the same as the perfect person, or even the person who just knocks me down with her, umm, whatever it is she smashes me with (charm? intelligence? beauty? wit? sensitivity? whatever…); rather, its about just ending up with that person. From a faith standpoint, it’s the idea that if you seek the kingdom of God first, then He’ll take care of the partner issue. It makes sense, not just from the view of a Christian, but in a secular perspective as well. In other words, you find the person you want to be with because you simply just end up together, and not because you go out picking up chicks at bars or asking out classmates or activity partners. Because really, if the choice of partner is based on something as superficial as personality, or charm, or attractiveness, or "romantic feelings" or whatever else people use as standards, then it’s quite easily pointed out that 1) these attributes in a person change and 2) there’s always someone out there who’s going to be better (better looking, more intelligent, more sensitive, whatever). A lasting, meaningful and fulfilling relationship is based on something more sturdy than personal preferences (even genetic predispositions aren’t reliable, because our genes don’t choose; rather, they give a set of minimum standards that an entire range of people will fit– hence the proverbial "love map"). What this something is, I cannot yet define; and its bothersome to ask more experienced, happily-married couples, and get the reply "We just knew." It’s interesting to note that this has been the one constant answer I’ve received from people who have been happily married for over twenty years.
But this week, I’m cruising along like every other week. Cheers for those of you who have nice Valentine’s day plans waiting for you with your partner, and i’m sorry for those of you whose Valentine’s days are either going to be too simple– because your home alone watching Rob Schneider movies– or too complicated to be any fun.
February 11th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I’m seriously going to get wasted on Valentine’s day. Wahaha, just kidding. It’s my birthday baya. DOn’t forget to greet me, haha. And I know you’ll be fine. Cheers!