You know that feeling when you read something and you think 'yes, I couldn't agree more with that'? I read quite a lot of stuff, both fiction and non-fiction, and only occasionally do I come across a sentence, a passage or a chapter that says something more to me than what is actually written on the page. This happened to me when I was reading a sample of a Kindle book last week. I'm going to one of the Edinburgh International Book Festival events next weekend with my Dad; the event being an interview with Alain De Botton who is a writer and philosopher from Switzerland. It wasn't something we originally looked at going to (everything we did was sold out by the time my 'place in the queue' eventually got to the front) but the tickets fell to us from a family member who can no longer make it - funny how some of the best things 'fall' to you.
He's going to be talking about his recent book call 'Religion for Atheists' which I've had a brief look at. I also looked at a few samples of his other books as well and the one that contained this 'yes, I couldn't agree more' moment was his book 'Essays in Love'. Here is the passage:
"Do we not fall in love partly out of a momentary will to suspend seeing through people, even at the cost of blinding ourselves a little in the process? If cynicism and love lie at opposite ends of a spectrum, do we not sometimes fall in love to escape the debilitating cynicism to which we are prone? Is there not in every coup de foudre a certain wilful exaggeration of the qualities of the beloved, an exaggeration which distracts us from our habitual pessimism and focuses our energies on someone in whom we can believe in a way we have never believed in ourselves?"
Read it. Then read it again. What is De Botton trying to say here? The answer to that question is one that each and every single one of us knows, whether that be consciously or subconsciously. He speaks of cynicism and pessimism and there is an element of both in everyone. When you apply that cynicism to the context of love and relationships you find that it is a case of 'putting up' with the faults of the ones that we claim to love. In other words when this 'coup de foudre' (literally 'thunderbolt') occurs we often ignore the person's faults and, as De Botton says, 'exaggerate' their qualities resulting in us placing an almost unconditional trust in that person's qualities.
People that aren't in love will understand this more than those that are - including those that think they are. Those that have had a close relationship will have first hand experience of it and the words in the quoted passage above will speak almost as though from the very tip of their own tongues. When you make that transition from feeling love for someone to returning to being friends (or going to the extreme of not liking each other at all) all of the little things that never annoyed you about them before are seen again through the eyes of someone who is not wearing the red tinted glasses of love and lust. It can often be quite a scary experience which finds you asking yourself how did you never see it when everyone else could.
Love apparently does that to you though. De Botton talks of a spectrum with love and cynicism at opposite ends and that idea makes sense to me. Cynicism could be interchangable with words such as dislike, distrust and anything bordering on (but not quite falling into) hatred and the spectrum would exist and apply to both people and ideas.
You've heard people say that you can be 'blinded by love' and that is exactly what De Botton is saying, just in a few more words. We don't like to be told that the people that we hold in our hearts are less than perfect and are not the person that we see them as. Most people will have fallen out or argued with someone when they tell them the 'truth' about their beloved. It's a funny thing in fact that our heads can be so fogged by this sudden surge of emotion for a particular person. I know of a few people that would in fact take a bullet for their partner - Bruno might have known what he was talking about after all.
The trouble with writing about the way we make decisions is that most of what is written about it is never consciously thought about, or at least not on such an in-depth level. The trouble therefore about reading books on these topics is that we become cynics of both ourselves and of the people around us. I like it though and I like to think about things like that on this level. Then again, that might be why I've not had a relationship for a long time - cynics are apparently destined to be solitary for the duration of their cynicism.
Anyway I'm going to read the rest of that book at some point and see I find any more answers. At the moment that passage defines my relationship status - I've not had one of those 'coup de foudres' for as long as I can remember. Well, I have but I either don't have the confidence to act upon it or I don't let myself because I'm a cynic - it's a lethal and lonely combination.
Thanks for reading,
Martin
