What is love? baby don't hurt me...
Feb. 10th, 2009 09:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sobriqueOK, so on Radio 4 on monday, was 'beyond belief'.
The subject was love. Part of the discussion that caught my attention was how culturally in the UK we've kind of all got caught up in the 'one true love' myth - that there's someone out there, who will make all our troubles go away and 'everything' will be lovely.
But there's just a few problems with the concept, that we'll all see shoved down our necks by the media. (And doubly so with Valentine's day so near). The first, and simplest is that it's actually an extremely narrow scope - it implicitly rules out there being 'anyone else of any importance' because 'true love' is all you need.
Here's the hard part though - we've got a whole culture ... more or less geared up to the belief that 'true love' will save them - they're looking for something that ... well, frankly no one can really provide - whether you're of a religious bent or no, frontloading that burden of expectation on a potential lover is quite a quick road to things not working out. Sometimes it's as much transferring to the mythical 'true love' that which you'd expect from a religion.
It's worth I think, stopping to consider the use of the word, and what it's meaning actually is.
The subject was love. Part of the discussion that caught my attention was how culturally in the UK we've kind of all got caught up in the 'one true love' myth - that there's someone out there, who will make all our troubles go away and 'everything' will be lovely.
But there's just a few problems with the concept, that we'll all see shoved down our necks by the media. (And doubly so with Valentine's day so near). The first, and simplest is that it's actually an extremely narrow scope - it implicitly rules out there being 'anyone else of any importance' because 'true love' is all you need.
Here's the hard part though - we've got a whole culture ... more or less geared up to the belief that 'true love' will save them - they're looking for something that ... well, frankly no one can really provide - whether you're of a religious bent or no, frontloading that burden of expectation on a potential lover is quite a quick road to things not working out. Sometimes it's as much transferring to the mythical 'true love' that which you'd expect from a religion.
It's worth I think, stopping to consider the use of the word, and what it's meaning actually is.
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no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 08:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 01:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-14 01:43 pm (UTC)... statistically, yours is probably Chinese!
no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-10 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 07:57 am (UTC)I know at least one person who would describe it as throwing away contentment for the chance of happiness. More and more we measure achievement, not against what we want, or have any chance of getting, but against perfection. Which is never going to end well...
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 10:50 am (UTC)Personally, I think it's a stupid system, mainly because you're taking the power out of the person's life, and colouring it with another agenda, even if it is well-meaning. But if you do go into a relationship through love alone, you shouldn't let it blind you to other issues you undoubtedly will have, and stop it from making you work at those rather than just float along because 'love will pull you through, and if it doesn't work he/she isn't The One'.
But then this isn't new to me. I remember having long discussions about this sort of thing with Peter long before we were engaged.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-11 01:26 pm (UTC)I very quickly realised that the real world isn't like that.
Hard work is the key to ANY successful relationship.