The Art of Happiness (15 page)

“Therefore, when my friends ask me about their marriage, I usually ask how long they've known each other. If they say a few months, then I usually say, ‘Oh, this is too short.' If they say a few years, then it seems to be better. Now they not only know each other's face or appearance but, I think, the deeper nature of the other person ...”

“That's kind of like Mark Twain's quote that ‘no man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century ...”

The Dalai Lama nodded and continued, “Yes ... So, I think many problems occur simply because of insufficient time to know each other. Anyway,
I think that if one is seeking to build a truly satisfying relationship, the best way of bringing this about is to get to know the deeper nature of the person and relate to her or him on that level, instead of merely on the basis of superficial characteristics .
And in this type of relationship there is a role for genuine compassion.

“Now, I've heard many people claim that their marriage has a deeper meaning than just a sexual relationship, that marriage involves two people trying to bond their lives together, share life's ups and downs together, share a certain intimacy. If that claim is honest, then I believe that's the proper basis on which a relationship should be built. A sound relationship should include a sense of responsibility and commitment towards each other. Of course, the physical contact, the appropriate or normal sexual relationship between a couple, can provide a certain satisfaction that could have a calming effect on one's mind. But, after all, biologically speaking, the main purpose of a sexual relationship is reproduction. And to successfully achieve that, you need to have a sense of commitment towards the offspring, in order for them to survive and thrive. So, developing a capacity for responsibility and commitment is crucial. Without that, the relationship provides only temporary satisfaction. It's just for fun.” He laughed, a laugh that seemed to be infused with wonder at the vast scope of human behavior.

It felt odd, speaking about sex and marriage to a man, now over sixty years old, who had been celibate all his life. He didn't seem averse to talking about these issues, but there was a certain detachment to his comments.

In thinking about our conversation later that evening, it occurred to me that there was still one important component of relationships that we hadn't covered, and I was curious to learn of his take on the subject. I brought it up the following day.

“Yesterday we were discussing relationships and the importance of basing a close relationship or marriage on more than just sex,” I began. “But, in Western culture, it is not just the physical sex act but the whole idea of
romance
—the idea of falling in love, of being deeply in love with one's partner—that is seen as a highly desirable thing. In movies, literature, and popular culture there's a kind of exaltation of this kind of romantic love. What's your view of this?”

Without hesitation, the Dalai Lama said, “I think that, leaving aside how the endless pursuit of romantic love may affect our deeper spiritual growth, even from the perspective of a conventional way of life, the idealization of this romantic love can be seen as an extreme. Unlike those relationships based on caring and genuine affection, this is another matter. It cannot be seen as a positive thing,” he said decisively. “It's something that is based on fantasy, unattainable, and therefore may be a source of frustration. So, on that basis it cannot be seen as a positive thing.”

There was a finality to the Dalai Lama's tone which conveyed that he had nothing more to say on the subject. In view of the tremendous emphasis our society places on romance, I felt that he was dismissing the lure of romantic love too lightly. Given the Dalai Lama's monastic upbringing, I supposed that he didn't fully appreciate the joys of romance, and questioning him further about issues related to romance would be as helpful as asking him to come out to the parking lot to take a look at a problem I was having with my car's transmission. Mildly disappointed, I fumbled with my notes for several moments and passed on to other topics.

 

 

 

What is it that makes romance so appealing? In looking at this question, one finds that
Eros
—romantic, sexual, passionate love—the ultimate ecstasy, is a potent cocktail of cultural, biological, and psychological ingredients. In Western culture, the idea of romantic love has flourished over the past two hundred years under the influence of Romanticism, a movement which has done much to shape our perception of the world. Romanticism grew up as a rejection of the previous Age of Enlightenment, with its emphasis on human reason. The new movement exalted intuition, emotion, feeling, and passion. It emphasized the importance of the sensory world, the subjective experience of the individual, and tended toward the world of imagination, of fantasy, the search for a world that is not—an idealized past or utopian future. This idea has had profound impact not only in art and literature but also in politics and all aspects of the development of modern Western culture.

The most compelling element of our pursuit of romance is the feeling of falling in love. Powerful forces are at work driving us to seek this feeling, much more than simply the glorification of romantic love which we pick up from our culture. Many researchers feel that these forces are programmed into our genes from birth. The feeling of falling in love, invariably mixed with a sense of sexual attraction, may be a genetically determined instinctual component of mating behavior. From an evolutionary perspective, the number-one job of the organism is to survive, reproduce, and assure continued survival of the species. It is in the best interest of the species, therefore, if we are programmed to fall in love
_;
it certainly increases the odds that we will mate and reproduce. Thus, we have built-in mechanisms to help make that happen; in response to certain stimuli, our brains manufacture and pump out chemicals that create a euphoric feeling, the “high” associated with falling in love. And while our brains are marinading in those chemicals, that feeling so overwhelms us at times that everything else seems to be blocked out.

The psychological forces driving us to seek the feeling of being in love are as compelling as the biological forces. In Plato's
Symposium,
Socrates tells the story of the myth of Aristophanes, concerning the origin of sexual love. According to this myth, the original inhabitants of Earth were round creatures with four hands and four feet and with their back and sides forming a circle. These self-sufficient sexless beings were very arrogant and repeatedly attacked the gods. To punish them, Zeus hurled thunderbolts at them and split them apart. Each creature was now two, each half longing to merge with its other half.

Eros,
the drive toward passionate, romantic love, can be seen as this ancient desire for fusion with the other half. It seems to be a universal, unconscious human need. The feeling involves a sensation of merging with the other, of boundaries breaking down, of becoming one with the loved one. Psychologists call this the collapse of ego boundaries. Some feel that this process is rooted in our earliest experience, an unconscious attempt to re-create the experience we had as infants, a primal state in which the child is completely merged with the parent or primary caregiver.

Evidence suggests that newborn infants do not distinguish between themselves and the rest of the universe. They have no sense of personal identity, or at least their identity includes the mother, others, and all objects in their environment. They don't know where they end and the “other” begins. They lack what is known as object permanence: objects have no independent existence; if they are not interacting with an object, it doesn't exist. For example, if an infant is holding a rattle, the baby recognizes the rattle as part of herself or himself, and if the rattle is taken away and hidden from view, it ceases to exist.

At birth, the brain is not yet fully “hard wired,” but as the baby grows and the brain matures, the baby's interaction with the world becomes more sophisticated and the baby gradually gains a sense of personal identity, of “me” as opposed to “other.” Along with this, a sense of isolation develops, and gradually the child develops an awareness of his or her own limitations. The formation of identity, of course, continues to develop throughout childhood and adolescence as the child comes in contact with the world. People's sense of who they are comes about as the result of developing internal representations, formed in large part by reflections of their early interactions with the important people in their lives, and reflections of their role in society in general. Gradually, the personal identity and intrapsychic structure become more complex.

But some part of us may still seek to regress to an earlier state of existence, a state of bliss in which there is no feeling of isolation, no feeling of separation. Many contemporary psychologists feel that the early “oneness” experience is incorporated into our subconscious mind, and as an adult it permeates our unconscious and private fantasies. They believe that the merging with the loved one when one is “in love” echoes the experience of being merged with the mother in infancy. It re-creates that magic feeling, a feeling of omnipotence, as if all things are possible. A feeling like that is hard to beat.

It is no wonder then that the pursuit of romantic love is so powerful. So what's the problem, and why does the Dalai Lama so easily assert that the pursuit of romance is a negative thing?

I considered the problem of basing a relationship on romantic love, of taking refuge in romance as a source of happiness. A former patient, David, came to mind. David, a thirty-four-year-old landscape architect, initially presented to my office with classic symptoms of a severe clinical depression. He explained that his depression may have been triggered by some minor work-related stresses, but “mostly it just kinda came on.” We discussed the option of an antidepressant medication, which he was in favor of, and we instituted a trial of a standard antidepressant. The medication proved to be very effective, and within three weeks his acute symptoms improved and he was back to his normal routine. In exploring his history, however, it didn't take long to realize that in addition to his acute depression, he also suffered from dysthymia, a more insidious form of chronic low-grade depression that had been present for many years. After he recovered from his acute depression, we began to explore his personal history, laying a foundation that would help us understand the internal psychological dynamics that may have contributed to his many-year history of dysthymia.

After only a few sessions, David entered the office one day in a jubilant mood. “I feel great!” he declared. “I haven't felt this good in years!”

My reaction to this wonderful news was to immediately assess him for the possibility of a shift into a manic phase of a mood disorder. That wasn't the case, however.

“I'm in love!” he told me. “I met her last week at a site that I'm bidding on. She's the most beautiful girl that I've ever seen ... We've gone out almost every night this week, and, I dunno, it's like we're soul mates—perfect for each other. I just can't believe it! I haven't dated for the past two or three years, and I was getting to the point that I thought I'd never meet anyone
_;
then all of a sudden there she was.”

David spent most of that session cataloging all the remarkable virtues of his new girlfriend. “I think we're perfect for each other in every way. It's not just a sexual thing either
_;
we're interested in the same things, and it's frightening how much we think alike. Of course, I'm being realistic, and I realize that no one is perfect ... Like the other night it bothered me a bit because I thought she was flirting a little with some guys at a club we were at ... but we both had been drinking a lot and she was just having fun. We discussed it afterward and worked it out.”

David returned the following week to inform me that he had decided to quit therapy. “Everything is going so great in my life, I just can't see what there is to talk about in therapy,” he explained. “My depression is gone, I'm sleeping like a baby, I'm back at work doing really well, and I'm in a great relationship that just seems to be getting better and better. I think I've gotten something from our sessions, but right now I just can't see spending money for therapy when there's nothin' to work on.”

I told him I was happy he was doing so well but reminded him about some of the family issues that we had begun to identify that may have led to his history of chronic dysthymia. All the while, common psychiatric terms like “resistance” and “defenses” began to surface in my mind.

He wasn't convinced. “Well, those may be things that I might want to look at someday,” he said, “but I really think that it just had a lot to do with loneliness, a feeling that there was someone missing, a special person that I could share things with, and now I've found her.”

He was adamant in his desire to end therapy that day. We made arrangements for his family physician to follow up on his medication regimen, spent the session in review and closure, and I ended by assuring him that my door was open at any time.

Several months later, David returned to my office:

“I've been miserable,” he said with a dejected tone. “Last time I saw you, things were going so great. I really thought that I had found my ideal mate. I even brought up the subject of marriage. But it seemed that the closer I wanted to become, the more she pulled away. She finally broke up with me. I got really depressed again for a couple of weeks after that. I even started calling her and hanging up just to hear her voice, and driving by her work just to see if her car was there. After about a month I got sick of doing that—it was just so ridiculous—and at least my symptoms of depression got better. I mean I'm eating and sleeping fine, still doing well at work, and I have plenty of energy and all, but it still feels as if part of me is missing. It's like I'm back at square one, feeling just the same as I have for years ...”