Primal Reflection Point: Marketing Versus Meaning In Human Love

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“Maybe a Primal lens (at least in the anthropological sense) doesn’t make for the most sentimental post about romantic love. But there’s plenty of authentic awe, and maybe some thought-provoking sense, to be had….

[It]’s more than the emotional narcotic that makes us forget about everything else (in a wonderful and sometimes disorienting way). It’s more than the affirmation of conforming to social norms or the sensible sharing of household duties. Rudimentary desire and dispassionate reason might bring people together, but seldom do either (or both together) offer enough to make a long-term partnership enjoyable. Those might seem to be the ultimate primal motivations, and they certainly had their part, but I’m guessing there was more to Grok’s humanity than those.

As the neuroscience suggests, romantic relationships aren’t just about immediate gratification, but about the construction of memory. Our chosen mates become hormonally and cognitively imprinted in us in ways few other kinds of relationships do. It’s why we can recall the small details of our partners from early courtship (even those we haven’t seen in decades). It’s why when we lose the one we’ve loved our entire lifetime, the most mundane reminders of their presence and routines (e.g. finding their glasses years later in the back of nightstand or catching the scent of their cologne) can send us into simultaneous euphoria and grief.

This is the dimension that Primal logic may not fully explain but human experience teaches. It’s why there’s no manual you can study that comes close to encompassing a life fully lived and how—no matter the cleverness of holiday marketing—the most romantic stories are those you’ll never find in a store.”

Thanks for stopping by today, everybody. Share your own thoughts below, and for more on this topic, read the rest of the past post here.

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