miravete.cat
With wool-filled pillows as my shield, the encoded fractals as my sword, and my dad's old camcorder as my witness, I make a declaration of war against the pathologization of feelings that is happening due to the over-practice of rationalizing feelings as a means for survival. In a socio-economical context such as the one we find ourselves in, being in a weakened state can affect your financial livelyhood, emotional well-being, social connections, and overall getting your primary needs met. We seek healing so we can efficently go through the motions of life, but how do we expect to find healing if we shame feeling body and minds and supress our suffering?
Gen Z is a generation of youths who've been born into a social, economic and cultural context with a number of inhereted problems that have reached their breaking point. What's more, with the constant influx of information online and doomsday news, not only are we growing up with little prospects for a stable and serene future, but because of the constant state of panic we are induced into, we develop something that can only be described as generational PTSD. To love is to feel, but what happens if we develop symptoms of apathy as a way to handle what little we feel we have any control over.
Though the importance placed on mental heath and well-being is progressively growing, it's worrying to see so much media labeled as self-help and psychological advice champion individual well-being. Not only that, but it invisibilizes the reality that we will inevitably suffer in love. Therapy isn't something that will, nor should, rid pain and suffering. It should give you the tools to help you understand whatthose negative emotions are trying to tell you. Therapy should not focus only on conversatinal public dialogue either, as I'll explain later on, it can lead to intellectualizing feelings and disconnecting from them.
Gen Z was born into a socio-political climate that has witnessed meaningful changes rise and fall: Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, making for a divisive political context. In the workforce, the spaces we occupy for the most of our week and what we depend on for food and shelter, burnout, time poverty and economic instability are common occurrances that make Gen Z youths coming of age today feel like there are few to no prospects for their future. Making plan for the future, such as owning a home or starting a family, become a gamble when financial stability becomes a privilege even in first-world countries. The absurdity we face in life makes it difficult to take things seriously. From there, the only possible routes are as follow: when faced with meaninglessness; toquit or to rebel against it and try and make sense of the world. The issue I have with both approaches is that they don't ectually tackle the problem. With the former, you simply avoid dealing with it and fall into negative nihilism. As with the latter, ypu try to impose an episteme, such is the case with organized fundemental religion, science, astrology, etc. Ultimately, encounters the same problems, this logic system prevents you from coming to terms with the meaninglesness of our reality. Conversational public dialogue therapy is another example of trying to impose a system of logic on something that has none. Sometimes feelings are just as absurd as the world around us; they fluctuate for seemingly no reason, and at times, it's even difficult to discern what we're feeling.
I hypothesize that, at large, my generation is acutely aware of the absurdity of our world, but we are at an impass of choice; to reject it and seek meaing, accept it and do nothing, or to embrace it. So then I ask: Do we always seek meaning when faced with pain in love? Is there a way to deal with it and accept the meaninglessness of our feelings?
Love is a concept we often interact with and talk about, as well as arguably being in a state that is commonly associated with intense human emotions. But it's not one we question it's significance or the way we interact with it, we treat is as a state that is inherently known how to navigate. But do we? Do we know what loving implies? Or have we just internalized what the status quo tells us love is and how it should look like? Without a doubt, it would be nice to say it has some loose meaning, a concept which each person has mold in their mind. However, only when love has a more concrete definition can we realize our shortcomings when it comes to how we love. Love without any definition makes it easier to look past disrespectful behaviour that either we inflict on others or vice-versa.
In Erich Fromm's Art of Loving, he defines love beyond a bond between a man and a woman destined for marriage. It takes on a more transcendental explanation: love is the act of extending your sincerest you to others, this nurtures your spiritual growth, and intern, the people you connect with. This definition encapsulated all intimate connections and avoids creating a hierarchy amongst romantic, familiar, platonic, etc. relationships. Fromm's titiling for the Art of Loving offers us a metaphore for what this act of giving your truest self means. When an artist finishes a painting, it bestows meaning on their life. The painting is a reflection of their efforts and ability. Love is witnessing the flourishing of another through the nurturing of your bond and seeing the value of yourself reflected. This implies that "to love" requires a voluntary decision to do so. We have a choice, and we aren't forced to have to love someone. When we truly choose to love someone we dedicate emotional resources and feeling towards them, such as attention, affection, time, care... When we define love like this, it means we must care, respect, nurture, care and communicate to be able to love. There's a sense os responsibility between the people involved. What becomes most important in Erich Fromm's definition is that love becomes an active act, rather than a passive one. Contrary to the way we tend to see love potrayed in traditional media, where falling in love with someone is represented as a situation that we involuntarily end up in; these depictions easily trivialize the effort and work it takes to love someone. Pain is a universal reality that is forever present when you love someone- If there is such a thing of a universally painful experience- It's the loss from a loved one, such as the death of a loved one, a friendship breakup, abandonment from a parent, the loss of a romantic partner... Since love takes effort, it's painful what you see what you put so much of yourself into nurturing and growing suddenly dissapear, often causiong a sense of rejection of the self.
It's important to reflect on and define what exactly the "effort" is we need to take to love someoe. If we go back to Erich Fromm's definition of love, when we treat it as an act rather than a thing, love is about giving, not receiving. The act of giving can often be conflated with having to sacrafice. Fromm pushes back against the concept of self-sacrifice by accentuating that giving should be done for the sake of giving and no other reason or expectation of return. Giving as a way to fight our existential loneliness. This is true when you give anything; you see the truest parts of yourself through what you give. But for love, it becomes especially true because to love is to give yourself entirely (not to be confused with sacrafice); you give all that makes who you are; your energy, your feelings and passions and talents and wisdom...
he enhances other's sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness
did you go to therapy or oratory class?
The concept of the giver-receiver dynamic in any form of love is mainly perpetuated through hetero-monogamous normative relationships. In these romantic partnerships, the male role is potrayes the giver, while the female role is expected to receive. This materializes in the male role being the economic provider, making the effort to ask the other one out, being the leader of the relationship, giving gifts, and so on. These standards exist to uphold the perfect nuclear family model and maintaine our current neo-liberal capitalistic society. The male figure embodies power, leadership, stoicism, strength, ambition, determenation and dominance, providing for the state by offering their physical and intellectual labour; in return they recieve currency for food, shelter and leisure. Meanwhile, the female counterpart offers her emotional and physcallabour to educate and raise the future generation, as well as to tend to the home and the emotional and sexual needs of her partener, who alocates all his strenghth to unrelated fiels. Thus, the cycles repeats itself, when the offspring become parents. This dynamic is mirrored still in relationships, the male role is ment to give and protect, while the female role recieves and compensates for the former's emotional shortcomings. A relationship sounds more like a contract than a bond. Of course it's important to recieve from your loved ones, it shows other's true feelings towards you, but you don't love by receiving, you are being loved. To give is to tell the other person you want to make them feel loved back. Let's establish a bit further, what we give when loving. When we think of giving, our minds first drift to tangible objects or currency. Beyond the material, we can offer our strengths to others- our interests, passions, loyalty, care, knowledge...- all that we can offer to nourish those around us. All the acts I've mentioned fall under one of the categories of the Five Love Languages: words of affirmation, physical touch, acts of service, gift giving and quality time. It's a common way to express and recieve love, however I woulr say that there are many ways of showing love that escape these categories, those outside I believe are particularly special, as they take on a more creative approach, they show true thought and intent, a final important factor I'll touch upon. Beyond the five languages, we can give more neboulous concepts to those we love, honesty, patience, compassion, guidance, laughter. But the hardest thing you can give to someone out of love is one's weaknesses, qualities that are anything but celebrated.