Temporary Insanity

In my last post I wrote about love, and I described it as "the condition by which we care for others more than we care for ourselves." I stand behind that 100%. Unfortunately many people these days confuse love with what I (and many others) call "lurve"... as in "... but we're in lurrrrrve."

Lurve is merely romantic infatuation. It has very little to do with Love. Unlike love, lurve is all about you. Talk to someone one who is "in lurve"...

• "She makes me feel so..."
• "I feel..."
• "My heart..."

Lurve is all about me, me, me. It's not love at all. And it's worse than that. People "in lurve" do not make clear decisions. Even Shakespeare knew it: read Romeo and Juliet. People "in lurve" are self-destructive, not because they are caring for someone else, but because of the way the self-destruction makes them feel. It is an insidious, twisted parody of love. It leaves people behaving in this sort of ridiculous fashion so aptly illustrated by Bruno Mars:

[excerpt] 

I'd catch a grenade for ya 

Throw my hand on a blade for ya 

I'd jump in front of a train for ya 

You know I'd do anything for ya 

I would go through all this pain

Take a bullet straight through my brain 

Yes, I would die for you, baby 

But you won't do the same

Note that none of this is to actually defend or care for someone, but purely because it's asked... or worse, simply thrown at the object of infatuation; whereas a clear-headed person knows that love is long-term, and that to care for someone else you must first be equipped and prepared to do so.

I offer that lurve is nothing less than bona-fide temporary insanity.

It is temporary in that it always wears off. And when it does, it often leaves the people so stricken with the realization that they don't even like the person that they would have "died for". Sometimes (as in the song) they know this even as they're still "in lurve". That lurve is temporary is why the present divorce rate in America is 50%.  Put another way, as many as 50% of American marriages have not ended in divorce yet.

Our ancestors knew that this infatuation we now casually call lurve was divorced from common sense. A person could not be trusted to look after his or her own best interests when under its influence. Until well into the 20th century it was still social norm for a man to ask a woman's parents for permission to marry. And it was the social norm for them to reject layabouts, louts, and otherwise unsuitable suitors. The parents were the gatekeepers who kept their daughter's interests in mind, even when their daughter's mind was temporarily incapacitated by luuuurve.

And it worked. Marriages lasted, and divorce was the exception, not the rule.

--==--

In some places, this is still the norm. Today I related a story to my wife. As an IT consultant, a very large percentage of the people I have worked with over the last twenty years have been from India. A few years ago, one of my co-workers (for convenience I'll call him by the pseudonym of "Sandeep") told me he was returning to India. I asked him if his work visa had expired.

"No," he replied. "I'm getting married!"

I told him I thought that was wonderful, and asked him what his fiancée was like. Sandeep responded that he didn't know... he had never met her. His parents had arranged the marriage.

--==--

At this point in the story, my wife looked aghast. "You mean to tell me he didn't even know what she looked like, or whether he would like her or not?" She told me that she couldn't imagine having to "submit" to a "forced" marriage. I asked her what she thought about that, and she said she didn't think much of it. I bet her that she would change her mind when I finished the story...

--==--

Sandeep was born in a culture that reveres their elders for their wisdom and life experience. He loves his parents very much, and he knows that no matter how old he gets, they will love him intensely. He trusts that they would always look after his best interests, and do their very best for him. He knew that in choosing a wife for him, his parents would make the best choice they possibly could, using all of their experience and hopes for his future and that of all of their grandchildren.

I saw Sandeep's face. I heard his voice. He did not reluctantly return in fear and trepidation at being "forced" into an arranged marriage. Rather, he looked forward with excitement and anticipation at the prospect of meeting for himself the perfect woman that his parents had chosen especially for him... the very same excitement and anticipation felt by expecting parents toward a baby who has not yet even been born.

Whether a newborn is thin, fat, ugly, or has all of his fingers and toes has nothing to do with a parent's love; it doesn't depend on anything so superficial. So it was with Sandeep and the perfect wife he had not yet seen.

--==--

My wife stared at me for a full thirty seconds, slack-jawed. I could tell she was thinking of our own children.

"I never thought of it that way. I understand it now. It's different. But it's beautiful."

Yeah. It is.

The First Thing I Remember

I'm taking this break from... well, everything else to jot down a recollection here or there.

The earliest memory I have is from quite early. My brother is exactly two years and three days younger than me, and he wasn't born yet. I know, because I remember his coming, and at this time I was still in the crib I would have to vacate prior to his arrival. I don't think my mother was very far along in her pregnancy, either; so I must have been about a year and a half old at the very oldest.

The crib (which was in my parent's bedroom) was wooden and painted white, with solid head and foot boards. On the headboard was a pastel applique of teddy bears.The vertical bars on the sides of the crib were flat and quite plain. They were slats, really. I would post a picture of a crib like it for you, but I can't find any that are close enough. I'm pretty sure that this sort of design has long been out of use. I have no doubt as to why. Over the crib there was a wind up musical mobile of plastic birds with transparent, painted wings. I would post a picture of this as well, if it hadn't been replaced in all modern designs by things that are vastly more safe and vastly less interesting.

--=oOo=--

It was the crib's slats that intrigued me. It seemed to me that I should be able to squeeze through and see what was going on outside the door. So I tried. I put my head against a gap and pushed. Sure enough, my head went through... barely.

That was when I discovered that I couldn't fit the rest of my body through the gap, so I gave up and tried to pull my head back. At that point, I made a second discovery.

I had ears.

I sort of knew I had ears anyway. They were the things that got scraped up as I was pushing my head through in the first place, and they were the things that my mother always cleaned behind. But having ears and being aware of them are two different things.

The problem was, my ears folded backwards, and like the barbs on a fishing hook or arrow, they prevented me from pulling my head back through the bars. I remember trying several different ways, and then coming to the conclusion that this was going to be difficult.

--=oOo=--

I don't know how long I stayed like that. I didn't cry or call for help. Even then it would have been embarrassing; and anyway, I hadn't quite given up. I was just trying to figure it out. I had gotten in there; surely I could get out again. However long it was, that's how my mother found me... head sticking through the bars like a cow in a livestock crush.

She walked into the room and quietly walked up to the crib. She didn't laugh. She didn't shout. She didn't get upset or even look surprised. She just stood there looking at me. After a moment she spoke to me.  She didn't bend down to talk to me; rather she stayed in a position of superiority. She simply said, "Do you need some help?"  I indicated I did. She then asked, "If I help you now, will you try that again?" I indicated that I would not. And then she helped me maneuver my head higher up the bars, where they were more flexible, and separated them enough that I could pull my head back through. Then she took me out of the crib and I got to see what was going on outside the door.

And that's the first thing I remember.

---

Postscript: For what it's worth, the second thing I remember has to do with my Uncle Vic. We had either just met or it was the first time that I was old enough to talk with him. He said something; I said something, then he turned to my mother and said, "He's one of us." It puzzled me at the time.

.