Saturday, April 19, 2025

Saturday, April 19, 2025

  I had no students today.  I thought I would have the Twins. When I tried to connect, Mama K texted me to say they were down south at her uncle's 80th birthday party. She planned for the girls to meet with me. She brought the iPad in anticipation, but no Internet connection was available.

 I went out to do some gardening and worked on updates intermittently.  Mostly, I slept. 

 I've been contemplating a definition of love, a loving or even satisfying connection with another human being.  Love has different faces. Christianity and Buddhism speak of compassion. Fr. Boyle of Homeboy Industries, which helps LA gang members join or rejoin society, speaks of not offering compassion but kinship. 

      How does kinship differ from compassion? We feel compassion for someone who suffers in ways we don't. They are the other. Kinship acknowledges the shared suffering of all human beings. It believes that we could all suffer what someone else suffers. This kinship is attained through cognitive and emotional empathy.

 But all meaningful connections have a similar feeling of bonding. What creates that feeling? It's something neurological. Our brains synchronize; we're in harmony.

 I heard a TED Talk on the subject. The speaker told the audience that while their brains were all on different frequencies before the talk started, the moment the speech began, their brains reflected a similar pattern. (This was based on research in similar situations.) So, a shared activity produces synchronization. There are short-term and long-term synchronizations.

 The shortcut to that harmony is some form of mob action, whether a military action, a crazed mob, a rally, a rock concert, or a crisis. The unrestrained emotional response to a singular event unites us.  There are more subtle bonding experiences, such as classical music concerts, lectures, or running into a single person who shares our religious, political, cultural, or philosophical beliefs. When traveling, we can bond with someone just because they come from the same country.  We even know how close the person is to our point of view by how we harmonize with them.  The harmony can be blocked by caution. Sex is undoubtedly a way to harmonize.  If we're lucky, we meet one or two people with whom we harmonize well enough to feel safe and connected all the time. I had that with Mike. I had 45 years of it. As I said above, it wasn't perfect. When people tell their partner they don't feel loved, I suspect they are referring to that neurological synchronization. 

     Having a common cultural practice or fixed roles can provide a sense of connection and belonging. Actors achieve commonality by fulfilling their roles in scripts. They all have a part to play. A strong family structure can ensure that.  We had 'assigned seats' at the dinner table in my family home. I feel it provided me with a strong sense of security that might be lacking through other means. That provided a type of bonding. 

 Sometimes, we bond with people by following a script that looks destructive, is destructive, and involves endless fights.  Relationships can't be judged from the outside so easily.  People find each other according to their needs. We look for the 'negatives' in people as well as the 'positives.' We prefer not to be consciously aware of it, but there's plenty of research backing up that theory. The question is not where the relationship starts but where it ends. Are the two people good for each other? Do they become better people through the relationship?

 I observed one couple and developed a theory of complementary neurosis.   We inevitably seek out someone like that. How we respond is not. I found myself attracted to the same kind of man over and over. He would be just like my mom, defensive. I let Mike into my life because I recognized my poor choices. I set out to date any man I didn't think would do me bodily harm and did what I wanted to do. I set a limit on how often we could date and how often he could call me. Mike was the third date. I still would have rejected him had he not decided to marry me before our first date and been persistent. 

     My theory has holes in it. Love has something to do with safety, not just for protection against others but also being a safe place to be. I felt bonded with my mother throughout my childhood.  When I told her I didn't want to talk to her for a while because I had always been afraid of her, I was sad about losing my bond with her. My mom was very committed to her children. She took her responsibility seriously.  As I learned later in life, she loved being a mother. That came as a shock. How can someone be constantly angry at her children and be happy to be a mom? But I had glimpses of her love for me. That was enough to keep me hanging on? The question here is, did I do it because I wanted her to love me or because I loved her? People often confuse the desire to be loved by someone with loving them.

     Harlow's monkeys clung to the wire mothers with the soft cloth cover rather than the bare-wire ones with the milk. We settle for what we can get. Is that love? 

    My neurological synchronization argument might not be it, either. Can't people synchronize in mutual hatred?  Maybe neurological synchronization isn't a good, simple answer. Love has to be a synchronization of a specific sort. Does it involve particular parts of the brain or specific frequencies? I know it when I feel it.  However, I have sometimes felt that warm, comfortable presence with someone who wound up disliking me intensely.  I have more questions than I have answers.

   

she had a trip to Costco planned. We haven’t seen each other in person for years. Twin E was with her. I got to give her a hug. 

      I didn’t have a single tutoring session today, and I was good with that. It’s spring break.  Fourth-grade LG always goes away for school breaks to grandparents. It gives his parents a break from childcare.  Mama K and Twin E were in Kona and not available. Fifth-grade GV had a playdate, and his mom asked if I could switch the session to tomorrow.  Sure.  I got gardening done. The plumbagos were getting out of control. I must ensure they don’t expand into my neighbor’s yard.  As Darby says, we don’t plant in Hawaii; we just cut back.