Love is not the Big Dopamine experience, full of romance and adventure, about which we have been taught by the movies. This is the popular idea of love, and the way so many of us struggle with it, and crave it, it is more of an unhealthy addiction than a source of happiness. Naturally, in our struggle for romance, we do what all creatures do in a crisis: we ritual. Alas, we don’t ritual consciously, and that is why we so often fail to successfully navigate this unnaturally painful crisis. In a few posts, then, I will give a few glimpses into relationships and conscious ritualing.
Dating
Dating is a fine example of ritualing because it is not routine. It certainly has some routine to it – traditional stereotypical things, like the man paying the tab, or the woman spending more time getting ready than the man. Despite some routine, though, a date is filled with consciousness and controlled spontaneity.
A date is a moment separated from our ordinary sense of self-comfort. Dates make us extremely self-conscious: how do I look? What should I say? Is it too soon to leave? Should I see this person again? During a date our senses are very focused and we notice all kinds of details. Every detail is a potential new landmark, leading us down new and unknown pathways. We may wind up at a restaurant we never even knew existed. We may find ourselves in a conversation into which we might never have ventured with anyone else. Eating new food and braving new conversations are examples of controlled spontaneity, experiments in which we learn about ourselves and our landscapes, and the landmarks and pathways of others. And we return from a date having gained something – perhaps some nice feelings, or some information – which might forever change us (i.e. I will never date someone like that again, but I think I could eat sushi every day).
The more we date the same person, the less we seem them as part of an outer landscape, and the more we see their inner landscape. We begin to recognize the landmarks and pathways which belong to them. We understand what is meaningful to them. We begin to sense their qualia. We may share an outer landscape with someone, but the landmarks and pathways we both notice may be (and usually are) completely different. This is because of our unique, inner landscapes. After we have been dating someone for a while, we start to anticipate how our inner landscape will begin to intersect with theirs.
Allowing others to guide us through their inner landscapes, takes some trust. Controlled spontaneity means trusting what we know to keep us safe while we act outside of our routines, or comfort zones. We can suddenly jump off a cliff if we know the water below is deep enough. We can have sex on a first date if we have a little experience behind us. We probably cannot fall in love and get married in a week — common sense forbids it. But when we are consciously ritualing, love is always at first sight. That is, we may know someone for years, but in the controlled spontaneity of moment, their qualia may suddenly match with ours, and we find ourselves traveling the same path — and we see them with new eyes. All love is love at first sight.
We are noticing the same landmarks and pathways. Our landscapes are in balance. Suddenly, we share an ecosystem, something deeper than romantic love. Ecosystems hold together the landscapes of individual humans. just as they balance the niches of individual animals. It is ecosystems which make love last, just as ecosystems create harmony amid the competition and violence of nature.