Limbic resonance

I think that guys are hardwired to want to adore a pretty woman.

Throughout history, from Adam and Eve, Samson and Delilah, Ahasuerus and Esther, through contemporaries and beyond, men have repeatedly said “I'll do anything you want me to do, as long as you let me love you.”

There are three parts to this:

1) Define “Anything you want me to do”

2) Define “pretty woman”

3) Define “let me love you”

Anything you want me to do

Well, too many guys, including Adam, Samson, Herod, and a bunch of others took this too literally, to their own demise...

I say, anything decent and honorable you want me to do. Eating the fruit or chopping off John's head are not included...

So we won't dwell on it, but yes, there are limits on “anything”...

Pretty woman

Who knows... I think it is defined by A General Theory of Love

    https://www.amazon.com/General-Theory-Love-Thomas-Lewis/dp/0375709223

in which the psychiatrist authors describe the phenomenon called limbic resonance:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_resonance


As in all the cited events, two people met, looked into each other's eyes and instantly knew that

“I belong to you, you belong to me, and nothing in the world can change that.”

As the authors describe, reptiles have a brain stem, but not much else. They lay their eggs and wander off, leaving them to be fertilized by some other creature unknown to them.

Mammals on the other hand, have a nodule at the top of the brain stem, called the limbic system, that enables them to instantly recognize their mate and their offspring.

You have only to observe the kittens in a cattery. There are several moms and perhaps a couple of dozen kittens in a pile, all squirming and mewing.

    The mother cat gets fed up and decides to get her kittens out of there. They all look the same to us, but she knows exactly which are hers, and pulls them out of the pile.

    Similarly, I went to get a Siamese boy cat. There was that pile of kittens. One little guy crawled out from under the pile, looked me straight in the eye and yowled: “You belong to me. I belong to you. And nothing in the world can change that.”

And so it was, for fourteen years. Hank was my buddy. Many wonderful (and a few difficult) adventures, but all in all a wonderful experience.

But now we get to humans.

The problem with humans is that they have frontal lobes in addition to the limbic system.

So when faced with another human, with whom they have this natural limbic resonance, the frontal lobes kick in and block the natural response:

“Oh, no, wrong color eyes...”
“Oh, no, too young...”
“Oh, no, too old...”
“Oh, no, my job...”
“Oh, no...” for a host of other equally invalid reasons.

And everybody loses.

We all need to get back to basics:

Recognize limbic resonance when it happens, and respect it for the truth that it offers:

Look: I belong to you, you belong to me. And nothing in the world can change that.
So let's figure out how to make it work.

Certainly, do due diligence, address the concerns, take the time to check it all out.

But please, please, do not pretend that it does not exist. It does exist, and we all lose for denying its existence.

Let me love you

This means just what it says: Let me...

Again, from Adam and Eve onward, the recurring theme from God has been: surrender.

Surrender your will to God and trust that He will care for you.

Surrender your defenses to your soul mate and trust that they will reciprocate.

Surrender means having the courage to open yourself to another, be it God or another human being, and trusting them to reciprocate.

As with the previous, yes we need to do due diligence and check things out. But after a certain amount of examination we need to surrender.

Because without surrendering to each other, neither can obtain the closeness and intimacy that we all crave. It will always be a game of one upmanship.

In which case we all lose.

That does not work.

Screwtape

Screwtape. A reference to C.S. Lewis' *Screwtape Letters*:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Screwtape_Letters

Lewis was paid by the inch, as was Dickens, so I have tried to boil it down.

In short:

Here is a synopsis of the book:

Screwtape is a very senior devil. He is not Satan, but perhaps his prime minister.

His nephew, Wormwood, is trying to be a good little devil by corrupting the souls of men. But every time he tries to corrupt the souls of men he screws up and they go to heaven, not to hell.

So he writes his uncle for advice: "Dear Uncle Screwtape, where did I go wrong?"

Screwtape smacks his forehead and replies: "Oh, my Satan! How could you DO such a thing? HERE is how you corrupt the souls of men..."

He then proceeds to describe how to corrupt the souls of men:

You just toss marbles in their way. They slip and fall and hurt themselves, then lash out against all around them. He screams at the wife, she kicks the dog, the dog bites the cat, the cat scratches the child. And they all sit around in a miserable huddled mass...

Then Screwtape appears, with his arms folded, and they cry out to him: "Did you do this?"

"No", he replies. "I just provided the marbles. The REST was up to you."

So, when this happens to me, I recognize it and stop:

“Aha! A Screwtape moment!”

And recognize it for what it is, and refuse to allow it to proceed.

In any case, TBTG, I have learned that lesson, so whenever faced with sudden adversity, I stop, look around for Screwtape, and if too many blinking lights just go in a different direction. I've come to call these "Screwtape Moments"...