The Conspiracy Against Lovers: The Real Truth They Don't Want You To Know

reply to post by Aeons


Yeats was spooky. In the following passage from "Ode to Psyche", he appears to be anticipating what we now know about neural architecture, and how pathways are formed through Love:

Yes, I will be thy priest, and build a fane
In some untrodden region of my mind,
Where branched thoughts19, new grown with pleasant pain,
Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind:
Far, far around shall those dark-cluster'd trees
Fledge the wild-ridged mountains steep by steep;
And there by zephyrs20, streams, and birds, and bees,
The moss-lain Dryads21 shall be lull'd to sleep;
And in the midst of this wide quietness
A rosy sanctuary will I dress
With the wreath'd trellis of a working brain,
With buds, and bells, and stars without a name,
With all the gardener Fancy e'er could feign22,
Who breeding glowers, will never breed the same:
And there shall be for thee all soft delight
That shadowy thought23 can win,
A bright torch, and a casement ope at night24,
To let the warm Love in!25

He make a direct correlation between trees and thought-forms up there.

dendrite
mid-18c., from Gk. dendrites "of or pertaining to a tree," from dendron "tree." The mineral so called for its markings.

We always know more than we think we know.

I've had relationships that meant many different things to me. I've been in lust. I've been madly in love. I've been apathetic. I've been empathetic. I've been hurt with a broken heart. I've broken plenty of hearts

But I'm most happiest when I'm single and by myself.

I love me the most!

reply to post by Cosmic911


Lots of ups, lots of downs.

But let me pose something to you: if there were a way to keep love, make it work, make it Good; would you still prefer to be alone?

reply to post by Eidolon23


Excellent question. I'm not sure. I've found that the "older" I get the more I enjoy being by myself. I find myself happier when I'm single. I know you could argue it's because "I haven't found the right one," but I don't think its that at all. This is going to sound silly but I sleep the best when....I'm alone....lol...I look forward to stretching out in that big bed, all to myself...ha ha...

Originally posted by Xoanon
reply to post by Eidolon23

 

Romantic love and committed monogamy require more of us and by trying our best to be more, we develop in to stronger individuals. And that spreads to all the right people.

X.

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Read more: www.brainyquote.com...

Evolution ain't easy.

You must be one step ahead of me. It seems as though you have anticipated what I was thinking I would like to post about when you posted Yeat's Ode to Psyche.

You must have read Cupid and Psyche by Apuleius? It is from his book (one of the oldest surviving novels) The Golden Ass. It's real name was the Metamorphoses, which is much more telling of what the book is about. Changing from one thing to another.

In fact the Greek word Psyche does not only mean soul but butterfly too. The story covers a lot of ground and is the basis for many other tales of lovers from folklore and literature. There are all sorts of insights that can be had by reading it and it is no accident at all, in my opinion, that Plotinus points the reader directly there; and to Herodotus.

Have you heard it?

X.

reply to post by Xoanon


I have. It suggests to me that Eros and Psyche restore cosmic harmony through their union. That Psyche is transformed by love and Eros is redeemed by it.

You know what? It was not easy for Psyche. Eros was a sadistic little mama's boy who abducted her and kept her hidden away in his little bungalow. He also imposed a very unreasonable condition: he would not permit himself to be seen by his lover.

When Psyche breaks this injunction, and who would not, he abandons her.

Secrecy and shame, possessiveness and suspicion: these things are poisonous to Love.

reply to post by Eidolon23


Hey, has anyone else ever thought that if we could sort out the beef between the sexes, everything else might more or less fall into place?

reply to post by Eidolon23


I am sorely tempted to go to some anthropological work that has been done on matriarchal societies in New Guinea that have practices that might vindicate Cupid, just a little, but it is not very pleasant stuff for polite company.

Yeah, Psyche really got the short end of the stick, and Eros just kind of slept through the whole thing, if I remember right his mom, Aphrodite brings Sobriety down on his head so he is kinda out of commission. I wonder what that means?

So, no, there is really no excuse for Eros. He is a pretty good example I think of what Plotinus was talking about when he was encouraging the philosopher to detach from the sense realm.

Putting Psyche in the Bungalow of Lies and hiding her away is a pretty good example of the way that men go about things anyhow, I can't speak for women. I think by Cupid and Psyche's bad behaviour they point out the way to avoid the mess. It sounds like it is a common mess but when Cupid and Psyche are taken in light of Plotinus' Enneads as he tells us to do, the 'folk tale' of Cupid and Psyche becomes a sort of road map to turn ones self back toward what is Good so that a person can find union again with The One.

So I think that their whole mess had a lot to do with the problems Plotinus was trying to point out about the material world and how people can be defeated by it. And I guess that brings us back to the pressures that are on people that you described in your OP. And how maybe those pressure can and maybe have been beefed up and leveraged against us.

X.

Persephone, Hades, Adonis and Demeter.

The integration of the self as a story of love and lust often takes on imagery of force. Harnessing the mind is a long process where some parts of you hijack other parts of you until the process is complete.

reply to post by Eidolon23


I think we'd just move on to the next thing that needs to be integrated more appropriately in our universe.

reply to post by Aeons


No way out but up. That's what the wings are all about, maybe.

So, what's our beef, ladies and gents?

A couple of dudes have mentioned the "Sex and the City" programming that women get locked into. I will be honest. I am very, very girly.

But I would rather have acupuncture needles inserted slowly into my eardrums than watch a single episode of Sex in the City. Even Oprah gives me the shingles. And women's magazines make me ill. So why am I feminine, but still displaying an immunity to this tripe?

Men: you don't respect women who adopt this model of womanhood? Well, I don't either, and I am one.

Sorry, ladies, you know I love you, but you have to start seeing the Pony Show for what it is: a shiny distraction. If you concentrate on sex appeal to the exclusion of all other qualities, you truncate your humanity. I know you were told that no one would love you otherwise, but in fact the opposite is true.

reply to post by Eidolon23

"Where branched thoughts, new grown with pleasant pain,

Instead of pines shall murmur in the wind"

Yeats.

This was a stunning connection that you made to what we are discussing about neurobiology, love and using and developing new capacities.

really nice.

X.

Yet another myth gone crazy and then the myth becomes the truth. "Romance" was a word originally used to described the bond between Roman soldiers and had nothing to do with the relationship or intimacy of a couple in love. "Roman" is even the root word. Common sense isn't very common. People accept ignorance as truth and then it becomes the standard definition.

I think that it is all biology. "Love" is a chemical reaction in the brain. I suppose that this is where the feelings of the "soul" come into play if one believes in it. (I personally do).

Great question and thoughts.

BTW, where are all the "Christians" raising Cain about the image? It violates the 10 commandments. LOL Funny how they condemn everything except things that they like.

reply to post by PurpleSun


Except if you tracked any of the academic reseach cited in the OP, you'll find that romance isn't a myth: it's a biological reality. The way it is commodified and used to control us can easily lead us to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

As you may have just done.

reply to post by Eidolon23


Thank you for that...and after posting I realized I didn't fully make my thoughts clear. I fully believe that it's a chemical/biological reaction. = )

reply to post by PurpleSun


Yeah, just caught your edit.

Thanks, the neurochemistry of love is pretty incredible.

It's all about reciprocity and small acts of giving setting up pathways that reinforce even more giving and reciprocity. The more you act through love, the greater your capacity to experience it.

reply to post by Eidolon23


Yeah,

I don't think that there is a lot of mutual respect. When a situation arises like that there is a lot of behaviour that is based on the old,"What's good for the Goose is good for the Gander". Men and women never seem to talk anything out, they just get even. I see both genders doing this and I have done it myself. There is this invisible tally that is being recorded by both parties. I wonder how home life was for Cupid and Psyche immediately following the wedding. Somehow I think a lot of it was covered in a G rated format on the I love Lucy series.

Not that women have not got a reason to shake their heads in disgust. Those Girl's Gone Wild videos generate 40 million a year. And that is just the tip of the giant iceberg that probably represents the Archnemesis of men when it comes to the challenges presented by the 'sense world'; pR0n.

X.

reply to post by Xoanon


Ah yes. Unlimited sexual partners and no obligations.

It's been thousands and thousands of years gone since we first slapped a price tag on our gonads, and you would have thought we might have learned something about the actual cost in the interval.

Not that erotic expression is bad, and I'm not talking about that. Just maybe that the Sex and the City archetype might be a direct expression of what happens to women when they are sold. Sexuality being commodified on a mass scale results in women emulating dehumanized versions of themselves in order to attract a mate.

Intending well, they mold themselves into something men are even less likely to be able to empathize and bond with.

That's just about as vicious as cycles get.