liveonearth: (blue mountain painting)
liveonearth ([personal profile] liveonearth) wrote2011-09-11 09:02 am

QotD: Bonded and in Pain is better than Lonely

A relationship that strays from one's prototype is limbically equivalent to isolation. Loneliness outweighs most pain. These two facts collude to produce one of love's common and initially baffling quirks: most people will choose misery with a partner their limbic brain recognizes over the stagnant pleasure of a "nice" relationship with someone their attachment mechanisms cannot detect.

from A General Theory of Love p161.

[identity profile] skyojos.livejournal.com 2011-01-02 05:19 pm (UTC)(link)
just read this myself last night and made lots of pencil marks in the surrounding pages. Up to p172 now and it just keeps getting better as it builds on previous facets of the theory. This book is the most significant writing I have read in a long while and it's impact on me and how I view my self and relatedness in all its shades will influence the future. It is already influencing the present.

The quote at the beginning of the next chapter has touched a deep chord.

'The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.' -Marcel Proust

The book and current experience is giving me new eyes and I am also jolted in remembering my own deeply cultivated techniques for seeing with new eyes. More on that later.... but for now out for a little five-fingered shoe walk in glorious morning sun.

[identity profile] liveonearth.livejournal.com 2011-01-02 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
=-] Yep, it's good stuff. Don't freezes your toeses!!