This is an excerpt from Design Matters, in which Debbie Millman talks to Alain de Botton about love and sex. You can listen to the rest of the podcast here: / design-matters-with-de...
I like how it's like listening to radio where one doesn't need to look at phone but gaze into the window and listen to on a rainy or summery day-or the darkness in your bedroom
OK, now I know my parents have ruined my chances of finding 'love'. They love me too much and too well and I cannot even imagine another human feeling like that about me or vice versa. Thanks mum-dad!
Great discussion. I really like Alain de Botton's clarity of insight and matter of fact illuminating of the difficulties, challenges and rewards of human relationship. Very helpful .
A lot of money and time would be saved if people could accept that 1) romance has a purpose, and that that purpose is not blissful happiness, 2) that they should have learned early on that the better the sex, the worse the conflicts, and 3) that it is wise, if you have long term intentions , to choose a true friend with whom the sex is mediocre...
This guy is right. He describes my whole wife ,and why society deems it unhealthy(sex inexperience). Love is quite different in reality and here where I live. no women loved art or music like I do. It is society and happenstance. position for luck.
Luna L How do you make out the difference, isn't it just semantics? You can call it what you want, it's the same physical reactions based on changing hormone levels that depend on the quality of the other person's genes and gene expressions.
14:45 im exacly like that and its always scared me i thought i was a monster for some of the things i fantasised about but i realise now everyone wants to be what there not to an extent and that relives me. i also realised that i would not acctually do these things unless the girl allowed me too and liked it so dont worry too much about your fanatseys
At 29:55 I disagree when the guy says that it’s a normal part of a relationship when your significant other says “leave me alone, I hate you” and that we should be forgiving of this behavior. I completely disagree. I believe that saying something like that is never acceptable between two people in a committed relationship, and shows a severe lack of emotional control and maturity on the person that says it, especially as adults trying to start a family
Relationships are extremely hard at times, they all are! There is an almost guarantee that we all will experience one and more than likely more really big blow outs that will break the weaker relationships easily, but it is that very real commitment and love and ones own sense of knowing that the option of giving up is easy and could easily be taken, but keeping on trying to actively make the positive changes needed in order to heal together and get past that painful challenge is what makes their bond worth so much! It is that strength in their connections that every person wants and craves in a partner, and it is why break ups hurt so much knowing that someone gave up on us, and the guilt we carry for having gave up on them and claimed defeat. Either way there is going to be a painful acceptance of our own perceived view on who we are as people, the choice is always ours.
I am currently of the opinion that true love for others is an act of will. That is why you have to work hard at it. The definitions (if they can be called that) that are talked about here sound more like momentary lapses of concentration brought about by an overriding emotion.
Great videos! Can I ask what tool you use to create the wave form graphics that go with the audio? I would like something similar for my podcast interviews. Thank you!
I have found that I dont even understand myself, and how much then am I able to understand my partner! The guilt and shame I feel about so many mean things I have said to my partner, the projecting my own fears of rejection, insecurities about my body and on and on.The false confidence, just so messed up in my own head. The grief of knowing I cant unsay these horrible names I called my partner, the unreasonable demands, thinking my partner should know my needs. Oh my gosh to only look back over more than 40 years, and realize how brutal I was. It scares the crap out of me that I may be a narcissist. What a horrible thing to think or acknowledge to the degree that I have tried to commit suicide twice, and was angry with my family for calling an ambulance and having my stomach pumped of the drugs I took to kill myself.I just felt and still feel like a total complete failure in every way possible way. The depression, shame, guilt and emotional pain is at times unbearable. I went off all my psychiatric drugs cold turkey which included benzodiazepines(the most horrible drug in existence, as far as I am concerned, yet still being prescribed. The pharmaceutical companies have known for decades the damage these drugs cause to the brain. Even with tapering, these drugs sentence the patients to a living HELL, and put their loved ones through hell also for NO one knows how to deal with them, not even most health professionals.I also realize that religion has also caused a lot of damage to me regarding my bisexuality. I was sent to catholic school the first 8 yrs and had to go to confession and all that crap( shamed by a priest about my body) . Of COURSE, I was NOT going to confess to him about masturbation ir that I had been molested by an old man when I was 9 yrs old. Never told ANYONE til I was in my 40's except for my gay partner when I was 31. Have never been able to keep long term relationships, except VERY few. Feel like I have had a chip on my shoulder all my life. Any way, blah blah blah.. Just wish I was dead. I no longer believe in ANY god, whatsoever!!. That too, really created a lot of inner conflict for many years. I had been diagnosed with bipolar 2 and major depressive disorder(in later yrs. anxiety and panic disorder) and put on so many different anti-depressant, anti-psychotic drugs for over 35 years. It's no wonder I will NEVER be any where near normal again. Whatever THAT IS!!!!. Only that I could have myself euthanized so that I could die with dignity, instead of the horrific FEAR of ending up in a nursing home, where residents are forcefully given drugs to calm them down(those with dementia). Ironically, it's the same damn drugs that causes dementia!!!. What a f'd up world this truly is. Why can't I just f'ing DIE. WHY, WHY.
Dearest Naomi, I read what you have written with such pain that you have been through so much pain yourself. Perhaps it's just unhealed and unprocessed pain and trauma that you are experiencing right now. We all have it, but you seem to have been through a very intense life and were not exposed to or able to access the correct people, and modalities for healing. Firstly, a narcissist wouldn't even be aware of question if they are one. I would invite you to watch a documentary called Heal on Netflix, and to seek body based trauma release therapy, as trauma is stuck in the body primarily, just like in animals. I have tried acupuncture, shamanic plant medicine, pranic healing and craniosacral therapy (as well as Emotion Code, and I'm saving up to have EMDR therapy and somatic experiencing - and they all have contributed to my recovery for deep trauma. We each will respond differently to different modalities and healers, and I'm still a way from being clear. There are solutions available, I am certain you have the resources and strength within to access your ability to self love and to access those solutions. Breathwork also seems to work as well to generate different hormones. May your amygdala find peace and release the trauma. It is possible, as I am currently experiencing this after 30 years of being in high stress.
That tension between being honest about who you really are and pleasing a partner at the beginning is made a lot more complex when you're transgender...
8:45 Alain began to explain things perfectly before the conversation was taken in a direction most men wouldn’t be able to read in between the lines and understand...9:10 when the lady begins to talk notice that this is nothing that the guy has previously said . She goes on to explain in these elegant words what is actually true female nature that both women and men have been taught to think as otherwise. The truth is that unlike with a dentist a woman will “before she becomes spiritual” want to put a man’s organ in her mouth and possibly multiple men based off the energy that the next man gave her. This can go on for a very long time. However before a man becomes truly spiritual, his first woman is someone in whom he wants to marry and be with for Life even without sex. Not in the case of women, the sexual experience is actually at the top of her list and this is why she thinks it’s the same with men because she doesn’t understand a man at first. The same with a man what is at the top of his list is a woman that only wants him for Life and for our lack of understanding is why we think every woman that we love feels the same way about us . This is reality and society has taught us to think of it as negative. When he said there is a difference between playing tennis with someone and getting oral sex from them, that statement triggered something in her even tho she is “spiritual” it spoke to something that is still in her and what seems to be in ALMOST every woman. Again not a bad thing, just a nature that has not been taught to society the right way. She went on to say that women “bring certain versions of themselves to the room with certain people.” Think about who she brings the freakiest version of herself to the room with. What kind of guy is that. Then think about the guys she is in long term relationship with, if ever past the honeymoon, how often has she brought that person to her partner? Why is that person so uncommon in long term relationships ? Is a woman’s strong urge to control the image u see of her the reason for the failure in almost all relationships? And is a man telling a woman he loves that image when he actually doesn’t just as much a cause ? U don’t always have to say things “nicely” to women and make them feel good the same way we don’t do that for men. It’s time we set each other free with the truth and not be one sided about it
This man describes himself as a philosopher but he never progressed beyond what he was spouting in his first year at GandC. His eye was always on the 'self help' market and its vast monetary rewards and he made no secret of that. He is one of many scavengers of the unhappiness of many and is in the long tradition of charlatans who cannot see how dishonest they are.
It isn't natural to love only one person for our entire lives. I believe we were programmed to pair bond considering the Marriages in the early 1900s would end early from death as most people didn't live so long. However now we can live till we are in our 90s. So my first husband@ 19 would be a 70 year commitment. I know that is not natural for me. Great discussion..
Avalon Yes, you think that and most people think like you, but we forgot that what we think that is natural for us may be also just a way of looking at our desires and wishes. You said that basically you are afraid the perspective of beeing with one person so long that there is nothing more to explore or know about. But this way of thinking may be the nature trick to coerce you to have offspring with more partners. From nature point it's better because there is more gene variety. And again if you were male you want to be with the highiest numer of woman you can be and ideally you don't want that they have other partners beside you. You don't want to spent your resources to sustain other male genes. And this is what nature tells to a man. We as basic bipolar genders have differient mating strategies that are opposite to each other. And the best compromise that we think of is for the time marriage. But seldom people are happy about compromise exactly because they need to sacrifice something that their opposite natures dictate.
It isn’t in the nature of our early ancestors, the cavemen, and even earlier stages of our evolutionary past, yes! But those are our very basic and primal instincts buried deep deep down that actually cause us to suffer more in our current existence and relationships. As people we are challenged to overcome those primal instincts in order to be able to hold healthy and positive, supportive relationships with others, not just our partners but family and friends as well! Those same instincts are the same drivers behind possessiveness, aggression, violence, resource hoarding, bullying and even attention seeking and external validation. They are all behaviours that as we mature more and more, we become more and more aware of and how we are effected by them and able to counter and take control of our selfs and make better and more constructive conscious decisions.
Early 1900’s wasn’t actually so horrifically different, the majority may have died at early ages due to infectious diseases, lifestyle and workplace accidents and a lack of safe work practices, or just natural born tragedies etc, but for someone to pass of old age was only a difference of a decade to two at most.. even hunter gatherer tribes have been shown to have been able to live to ripe old ages into the 60’s and occasionally 70’s.. it’s a myth that people would become parents before 20 and die in their late 30’s..
Subconscious my dear, subconscious... unconcious is when we are out. In boxing for instance, many athletes end up unconcious on the ground, while the referee is counting to ten...:-) Kissing is a primal thing. Most mammals still do that today... We kiss, because we can smell the pheromones, which if we were telated, or we have too similar of a DNA, we find the other person's natural smell repulsive... It's more about smelling someone's breath, out of their nose... It may be all the other things as well, but the main reason is, to avoid mating with a long lost, too close of a relative... Go primal to find ANY answers... We are WIRED that way. ..
Psychoanalysis uses the term "unconscious". It has been used ever since Freud's time. It means in-accessible to our conscious mind. Subconscious, as a term, is probably more relevant to hypnosis.
I think it's an interesting topic.. but as you see in life everything is connected so is the body and the brain- the science of the brain.. you forget to look at it through different eyes, for instance they have found out chemicals are realised when we kiss and hold hands. or why we biologically choose partners. you seem only to view it through psycollagy and it's a human flaw or a flaw within our society to only view thinks from perspectives that are disconnected!
...best thing to do is listening to this interview in a train journey...he is a real entertainment...his voice, theory and wisdom. i always have a pen and paper while listening to him.
As an Artist I think our features give away more about our personality than we realise. I think we unconsciously look for facial even body characteristics that attract us. It is not just about being visually appealing...we recognise someone who smiles a lot or laughs a lot, or cares a lot. We can be dissolutioned if someones personality doesn't reflect what their features suggest.
I would love to hear Alain's views on polyamory a bit more, as well as asexuality. It seems in his talks that he does not believe that polyamory can successfully work, because of the inevitable emotional attachment we form and vulnerability we release to someone during the act of sex, and love; And if that happens through sex, then we inevitably form attachment and jealously when another partner is introduced. He relates the act of NOT being jealous to "trying to argue with the waves". Which is inadvertently implying that polyamory cannot work because the partners will be overcome with jealousy, in the failed attempt to separate the feelings of intimacy with sex. I know he is a cynic when it comes to traditional romanticism, with good reason, and how strange it is that love and sex in the romantic period were conjoined. But I wonder, with his beliefs on romanticism, why does he think polyamory cannot work? And if he believes polyamory cannot work, where does that leave relationships surrounding asexuality(and/or aromanticism)? Does he think a relationship without the intimacy of sex (or romanticism) intertwined into the love of it all, is possible?
Extrapolating from his key insight about how broken human beings are, and how difficult it is to understand ourselves let alone another person, and how inconsiderate and childish we are on a regular basis, it doesn’t seem likely that adding more people into a tangled emotional mix will make the process any easier. Even if someone is aromantic, that doesn’t exclude them from insane behaviour (which they may or may not be aware of).
Heart, you are lost; but there's a path From the lover to the soul, secret But visible. Worlds blaze round you - Don't shrink: the path’s secret, but yours
Love this guy! I'm not an English speaker and his manner of speaking is so clear and eloquent, I enjoy this SO MUCH! And he is so funny, too. Thank you @Motte & Bailey for the upload!
i've found that it's best to meet someone when your around 44 ish because if you team up with someone when your young familiarity breeds contempt and by the time your in your 30s its over most of the time. you end up bitter and twisted the kids get screwed up ect so meet someone when your 44 ish then when they start to hate you it will not matter because you will have died by then anyway so there you go and they can't take half your stuff in the courts
i'm only joking i'm never dating anyone ever again. the definition of madness, doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result. the definition of insanity? doing it over and over and over. no woman is worth that especially one's that want 1000 k hand bags lost in 3rd dimension eating donuts gaining weight while staring into the phone that tells her what to do while texting away about how useless her typical man is lol
no but my dad invented it many many years ago when he gave my mum a dead rat in a box on her 21st birthday. actually i could kinda be mgtow but i do like women but not the way they have become ..hook on shiny insecure hooked on prozac and sugar in need of a cure and status driven ego flash car driver to manipulate..not my cup of tea. trouble is at my age they all have kids and ex husbands and drama and baggage lots of baggage
Age is just a number if you haven't done anything with it. Age implies that you've had a chance to make mistakes and to overcome failures. Young age is for mistakes to make. There's one thing that is worse than being young and stupid - it's being old and stupid. There's one thing that is a real failure, it is when after making a mistake, a person develops a fear of mistakes. Because it means that the person became bitter and missed the real lesson. Because when the real lesson is learned, the person sees that mistakes a worth making.
I think you are skating onxxthe edge when you talk about what happened in our childhood causing us to want certain things sexually. I think the deep desire to be hurt or experience humiliation is better thought of as a SYMPTOM than simply a "unique" desire. And ????USE THE PARTNER as a TOOL? Sounds like OBJECTIFICATION - NOT LOVE!
Shabby love with no respect or feel they need no respect. Modern parenting is a big part of the no respect, maybe we will find a middle ground that can generate a more gracious behavior.
Mafalda Nobre I think since he is a male individual, the connection between mother and son for him matters. I personally think it's the opposite sex parental figure that matters a lot. Depending on the traumatic levels of the unhappy events that happened in your childhood, like Alain said, we seek for what we cannot have in others, and the desire to win affection from others triumph and creates "editions" of ourselves. Anyway, yes and no. I personally think not, but there are many data and statistics that proved the otherwise.
I feel exactly that! I’m so painfully obsessed with this man who is cold/distant and reserved and sort of like a narcissist. My father was never there to begin with and I felt so detached and shy when I was around him. This makes sense, unfortunately:(
I have been single for 8 years after I was widowed@ 50. I am not an agest nor polyameris, I will say that I have been Serial Mongamis. The point for me is I am grateful for every man I have loved and been loved by ,mostly paired without marriage over years. What I feel is that not being paired for longer than 7 years has been healthy after seeing many married for 25+ years that suffer to the death. I am ok with me and looking forward to my next partner towards the later part of my life. Keeping our best for last . I would feel imprisoned in a relationship that I so had to think I would be in forever. I continue to see marriages that suck and everyone has let them selves go... how could that be loving and/or fun?
I remember being anxious about fully shaving my head. I get it. But, Alain, brother, what are you doing? Shave it, man! I think you'll look SO MUCH BETTER (to the extent that matters at all)!
Thank you so much for sharing and posting Debbie and Alain very much appreciated indeed. All is about how our concept of love works towards who we really are Period..the dynamic of it we easily change behaviour towards the evolution of being More Appreciate.. Subconscious take over by all means.. Walk in Beauty and Gratitude..
As many as his talks are, this one is just as interesting and marvelous! There are even ones that I talk about on my channel like those on TED and Google. They are pretty good as well. What a great speaker with a great mind!
Do you agree that in the modern society sex is the way to maitain ' love' , once the desire for sex is gone in the bedroom the love is gone! The love is so cheap nowadays! It used to be the two people would fall in love first, then have sex, we call it making love! But nowadays is another way around! We just call it sex!
He was so eloquent and wrong at 22. In his ruminating, he completely described the female experience of love and nothing of the man's. It would be expected as 22 year old male.
