q u e s t i o n o f l o v e
Where does the predisposition towards intimacy after sex, really come from? What is the nature of love? Does it exist at all? Is it just a term created for the sake of identifying a series of sensations resulting from the fusion of chemical elements flowing through the brain’s synaptic receptors during one moment of passion? Why are we only attracted to certain types of people? Why are there sexual hangovers, as opposed to having sex, getting it done with a handshake and a smile … next?
The key to understanding the mystery of man’s essence lies in the question of why we exist. Why do we love during our existence? Why do we cease to exist? The question of existence and death, I would defer to the metaphysicians. I challenge you with the question of love.
l o g i c o f l o v e
Have you ever really … I mean really, tried to answer the question: what is love? At some point in your life, did you ever wonder whether love is real, a myth, or just another word? Love is manifested in mythological characters, in famous novels and plays that immortalize love and lovers … love has been characterized as both tangible and intangible; as a synergistic phenomenon between two entwined souls.
Using the scientific model, others have tried to explore this further with objectivity in mind and rational tools at hand. Crenshaw’s “The Alchemy of Love and Lust” investigates the mystery of love and sex through an understanding of the chemical soup base: the basic elements that drive human sexual and emotional behavior. What about the argument of nature vs. nurture? How can chemicals, per se, serve as the fundamental basis for characterizing love?
Evolutionary theorists argue that the motivation for selecting a particular sexual partner stems from the tendency of the human species to evolve through natural selection; attraction towards another stems from the chemical soup base’s influence in the quest for the most eligible mating partner for producing a potentially better offspring.
Survival instincts may have further encouraged the need to commune and stay together in order to feed and nurture the young offspring. It made sense though during the days of sticks and stones.
Given today’s highly complex economic, social and geo-political structure, the evolutionary and survival principles, as they apply to sex and love, appear to be obsolete. Why? The rapid advancement in science and technology may one day provide man with the ability to manipulate genetic attributes for a better human specie. In certain economic strata, the equal purchasing power of both male and female negates the need for dividing the tasks of nurturing, or protecting and feeding the young. A well-paid professional single mother can simply hire a nanny to nurture her child, purchase food in a convenient store, and provide a secure habitat to nest her offspring and herself. Human society has evolved into a complex socio, economic and cultural interdependent system, changing the basic premises and assumptions necessary to define the triggers of sex and love.
How can I fathom the essence of sex and love? Perhaps it can be understood from a scientific viewpoint, from a systems perspective, or from observing emergent behavior within a system. I have traversed through the cycle of falling in, getting bored, falling out, of love. I had my first kiss, I broke up, I was engaged, I broke up, I indulged in frivolous liaisons, I broke up, I got married, while married I had a few lovers, I broke up, I got bored, I got divorced.
In every love affair I experienced, it seemed that the nature, the feeling, the concept, the chemicals of love were not of the same material or form. Love did not have a face, or a touch; it did not have a shape or consistent form. For each experience, the feeling and intensity were different. I sought to find out exactly what has been discovered to-date on this phenomenon. The stories, conjectures or conclusions did not suffice to provide an unbreakable theory of love.
My search through books and empirical experience led me to conclude that love does not exist. It has no form, consistency or shape. It defies rationality and therefore, the logic of love is nonexistent. Love in itself does not exist because it does not have a consistent universal attribute. How can we tell we are in love? We can’t with certitude. It is the utopia of human emotions. Have we dared fool each other all this time, to think that at some point in time we were in love, at some point in time, it is possible to fall in love?
b e w a r e o f l o v e
In Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel he explores animal domestication as a factor that relates to the emergence of human societies and their political structures. He states, “Domesticable animals are all alike; every undomesticable animal is undomesticable in its own way.” Further he notes that a parallelism exists with Tolstoy’s first sentence in his novel, Anna Karenina, “Happy families are alike; every family is unhappy in its own way.” In essence, animal domestication and happy marriages succeed, if and only if, all necessary factors exist. Exclusion of one criterion condemns the domestication and nuptial efforts to its eventual demise. This mutually exclusive principle of animal domestication and Anna Karenina reminded me of a high school theology class on marriage where my instructor jotted down a list of over ten “compatibility” criteria required to ensure a successful union: mental, intellectual, spiritual, financial, social (class status), economic, and the list goes on. I cynically rolled my eyes and thought, what an impossible search of a lifetime for a so-called partner in life. Does love really require the logical AND operator in between each criterion to guarantee success? How many months and years of trial and error, debugging the code of love, before the all-inclusive one is found? No wonder marriages fail, love falters and people waste their lives in a relentless search for an ideal that is impossible to attain.
On realizing that the quixotic quest was discordant to my pragmatic character, I decided a year ago that sex, love and relationships were detrimental to my goal of achieving a rich and full existential life. There are a lot of mysteries to be unraveled — history, philosophy, physical sciences, political sciences, archaeology, sociology, mathematics, art, literature … — oh, so much knowledge I wish to gain! It is not worth paying the price of knowledge deprivation for a lifetime of boredom and routine, or many a single night of orgasmic pleasure. Suffice it to say that the young should experience the joy and frustrations, the magic and disenchantment, the sublime and divine qualities produced during moments of passion with a mate. However, some of us reach a point in the mating game, when you just wake up one day, gaze at yourself in the mirror, and ask, “What is the point of it all?” Whether it is a boring marriage or a string of one night stands, the mystery of the beloved gradually deteriorates into the humdrum of stagnant relationships, betrayal, deceit, and the ultimate realization that underneath the mask of novelty, you have just unraveled another human body with all its frailty, weaknesses and hang-ups. The qualities in the beloved that have sent tingles up your spine become the same qualities that give you goose bumps — out of sheer disgust. The nihilism of love looms into your relationship’s core and destroys the hope of finding everlasting solace in the beloved’s arms.
l o v e i s b l i n d
Around the final years of my marriage, I had intense and passionate affairs with a geeky Roman scientist, and a young British programmer — definitely not of the Ashton Kutscher genre. Perhaps due to the lack of intellectual growth and stimulation in my marriage, it was a period in my life where discussions of Minksy’s mind-hive theory or, analyzing the structures of the Baroque architecture as it applies to the history of ancient Rome and the church, had an aphrodisiac effect on me. In both love affairs, I was a sexual goddess devouring the poor geek gods in a fantasy world they have not dared to imagine. It must have been during the affair with the Roman doctor that I almost believed I had finally encountered my soul mate.
Our minds had merged into a rhythmic tango where mental and sexual intercourse were indistinguishable. I still remember the first kiss … our first kiss. We were strolling through the Tevere one evening, in silence and awe, absorbing the beauty of the Castel Sant’Angelo. Il Dottore gently whispered the story of Tosca, of the great love of two lovers that preferred death to a lifetime of being apart. Amidst the mystery of the eternal city, he gently grabbed my hand and with the other circled my waist and softly kissed me. I submitted without hesitation, I felt various forms of electromagnetic particles dancing inside me. The waves of electricity elicited sexual desires, I felt moist, vulnerable and ready to take him.
I am not sure what caused these illusions of love to fade like a passing cloud. Was it the wrong timing, the distance apart? Was the intellectual attraction not sufficient to sustain a potential relationship that could have flourished? I met him a few years after that evening in September. We were sitting in a cafe by a modern art museum near the Valle Giulia area. I still remember just feeling repulsed by the sight of him. I wanted to run back to the historic center and enjoy the splendor of the city in solitude, in fact, that was just what I did.
At that time, I was perplexed as to how and why my feelings for Il Dottore had changed. However, in hindsight I am stupefied by the fact that I fell for him at the onset. The stirring sensations I once felt mutated into concrete realizations that 1) he was physically very unattractive, or should I rather say, he has a face that only a mother could love; 2) his knowledge of Roman architecture was obvious, he lived in Rome for all his life; I bet even vendors of Porta Portese appreciate a Caravaggio; and 3) he took advantage of my vulnerability: alone in Europe during the September 11 incident, I would have fucked and fallen in love with Godzilla. What was I thinking of? Oh, love must indeed be blind!
s a b b a t i c a l f r o m l o v e
Where does the incessant penchant towards coupling come from, the desire for a one-is-to-one form of relationship as opposed to a one-is-to-many?
Wait. Let’s take a look at how computers interact with each other. In order for machines to talk to each other they need a common protocol or language, just as we have distinct languages used by people from different countries. Every machine needs a unique form of identification in order to send data to, or receive it from others. How do you know if your data is sent to the correct destination? Each machine is permanently assigned a unique ID called the IP (Internet Protocol) address. IP address to machine assignment is like a marriage between two lovers. The marriage certificate resides in a DNS server (Domain Name System sort of like the Marriage department in your City Hall that stores all marriage certificates, the one-is-to-one assignment). The proliferation of machines within organization, compounded by the internet revolution, meant that the world could potentially run out of permanent IP addresses for future machines intended for this global network community. To address this dilemma, the idea of pooling IP addresses into a pot emerged. As machines come online they will ask for an address, get a lease for a predefined period of time, and possibly renew it later on. This protocol is called, DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol).
So how does this work? In an oversimplified way, when you turn on your machine for the first time, it has no identification, meaning IP address. There is a program that immediately looks for the “container” with the pool of IP addresses and asks for a temporary IP address; the “container” returns a leased IP address along with the expiry date past which, the machine contacts the “container” again for a renewal. Why can’t we establish a similar mechanism where dating, love and sex are concerned? With concise protocols, you and I can agree to have amorous and passionate sex for a given period of time, upon expiration, we have the option of renewing the lease; during the lease period, we have the option to terminate the association, at will. Sounds so perfect, in theory, I would say. Unfortunately, there are other factors that derail this complex machine of the human brain and heart. So much for that fantasy.
Single life, free from the highs and lows of being in a relationship, is an exhilarating experience. On lazy, misty afternoons, I hang out at the Cafe Greco in North Beach with a cup of café latte while reading a book on the life of Che Guevarra. Other days, I carelessly stroll through the Civic Center farmer’s market to watch the vendors sell their fresh produce and search for the best priced eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and flowers. The sense of freedom and aimless afternoons to one’s self is priceless, however, there are evenings when a sudden surge of nostalgia overwhelms me; I succumb to the void and loneliness, bury my head against the pillow and wallow into the depths of restful sleep. The next day, the rays of morning sun permeate the skylights and I gently rub my eyes, stretch and wonder: is it a workday or do I have to go to the gym?
ANIMAL PLANET WITH ROSMAN JACKSON 