[lit-ideas] Re: Violence without Horror
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 22:40:38 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 9/3/2005 5:58:20 AM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Violence without Horror
>
>
> --- Andy Amago <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Since you bring it up, do you have any ideas on
> > where love comes from and why it never seems to last?
>
> Sorry to be so lax in addressing this but my internet privileges were
> withdrawn this week when I was caught trying to sell prison equipment on
ebay
> and set up a website where we could vote for a new governor. First, I
don't
> think I did bring this question up directly.
AA. I think it was an indirect reference. Post dated 8/27:
me: > >and convert
> > it to the more "manly" emotion of anger.
>
you: > Yeh - convert fear into anger, like you can convert anger into love,
er hate.
>
Donal: Second, I think there are many
> examples where "love" does last, and deepens - what often does not last or
> deepen so well is sexual attraction, and this is a major problem [of
> 'acedia'] that no one really understands fully or has a solution to: the
> answer may (at least partially) be Darwinian - that it is in the
interests of
> our genes to want to spread themselves as far as possible and a sexual
> psychology where the law of diminishing returns operates over a long
period
> will be more conducive to this than the converse psychology where there
are
> no initial gains but always increasing ones.
A.A. According to CNN Reports, monogamy in the animal kingdom is all but
unknown. A flatworm in the intestines of a something is I think the only
monogamous animal those researchers found. So maybe you're right, we are
not programmed to be monogamous, and sexual attraction in a long term
relationship can't be as exciting as in a new relationship. Everything is
exciting when it's new.
Likewise, if there is an answer
> to where "love" comes from it will be at least partly Darwinian, but I am
> open to the possibility that the answer is also in part "transcendental"
and
> no full explanation is possible.
A.A. I read somewhere (can't tell you where) that the people we are most
likely to be attracted to remind us of our parents. This sounds like there
should be more to it, doesn't it?
Lastly I think there is a great variety of
> kinds of love and attraction and when people suggest love never lasts they
> are usually speaking from a particular experience and of a particular
kind of
> love.
A.A. I imagine this is correct. Ultimately it seems to me that love is
about what the other person can do for us. It's really not too different
from work in that sense, only instead of money, we get a warm fuzzy. Am I
being too cynical?
Andy Amago
>
> Donal
> My book On 'Love and How To Break The Habit: A 12-Step Program to Quit
Your
> Babe' will be available from all good bookstores soon after I get out of
here
> Chopra Eat Your Heart Out
> Brixton
>
>
>
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