Fluid Life

Zigmunt Bauman’s book, Liquid Love: On the Frailty of Human Bonds, is about “the uncanny frailty of human bonds, the feeling of insecurity that frailty inspires, and the conflicting desires that feeling prompts to tighten the bonds yet keep them loose”… It is about what happens to love in an age where the logic of consumption dominates every aspect of life, where desire is king and relationships are as disposable as fast-food napkins. Eros and Thanatos have never been seen walking together hand in hand; the arrival of one usually scares the other away. Right now, Eros seems to be ruling free as the only force in charge of the love game, in an age where relationships that come and go as the wind blows are the norm and the mainstream. Any sense of responsibility and commitment is seen as “backwards”, as something belonging to an ancient past; something that only stupid old-fashioned people (like most of our parents) could believe in.

Commitment, the only possible avenue for developing bonds that go deeper than the surface of human emotions, is seen as a “disease” that only “insecure” people could possibly desire. Commitment is not only rejected these days, it is also seen as an impossibility and an illusion. It is not seen as a skill to be learned; one that requires discipline and even, sometimes, sacrifice; it is seen as a prison and a relic from the middle ages.  It is very important to understand that the demise of “commitment” in contemporary times is simultaneous to the demise of the “family”. If commitment is now obsolete, then the very foundation of family life is also obsolete. Once we don’t have family values as moral values anymore, what kind of values are left? Individualism. Hedonism. Nowism: the cult of instant personal gratification.

The cult of the “individual” is so prevalent in our culture these days that every product has disposable “single-servings”. Digital technology and social media add up to this process of individualization when social connections are represented as networks that are as fluid as love itself; as impermanent bonds that come and go, according to individual shifts in momentary preferences. Nothing lasts when it comes to technology: it is always about the “next” gadget. Buy, play, trash it; Buy, play, trash it; and the whole cycle starts again with the next new product or application. Love becomes a game that is embedded within this technological framework: follow someone / become friends on facebook, exchange messages, play, hide it (or unfollow) – and then – Next. Next. Next. Instant gratification. Ooops, it is not bringing instant gratification? DELETE. NEXT. This is the era in which the power of deletion becomes the ultimate means of running in and out of love.

So, these are the facts and these are the times. What happens to those – like me – who still insist on dreaming of Thanatos with a touch of Eros and of Eros with a touch of Thanatos? What happens to us, wild creatures of imagination that refuse to be caged in either one of the two dictatorships: the dictatorship of tradition per sake of tradition and the dictatorship of individualism, hedonism and nowism? Love seems to be, in this Age of Extremes a la Hobsbawm, either entirely a question of achieving some sort of artificial stability via outdated social contracts or a question of achieving instant gratification which is disposable and superficial.

Also in his book Liquid Love, Bauman mentions Eric Fromm’s statement that love requires “humility, courage, faith and discipline”, and that within a cultural setting like ours, where these virtues are rare, profound love will also be rare; for it requires much more from an individual than “instant gratification”. I agree with Fromm: the ingredients of true, profound love are as hard to find as are noble characters and virtuous minds. I would even add a fifth virtue to this mix, and that is “perseverance”. Without humility, courage, faith, discipline and perseverance – there is no love beyond instant gratification; there is no love beyond nowism. These qualities sound just like what is required from monks in Buddhist monasteries – without humility, courage, faith, discipline and perseverance, no profound spiritual practice can flourish. A deeper spiritual practice requires strong commitment, just like a deeper relationship requires strong commitment.

I have a Buddhist outlook on life: in love as in practice; in practice as in love. The same way you should be firm and committed to your spiritual practice once you finally choose the one that you find is right for you; is the same way that you should be firm and committed to the love you have invited into your life, once you finally find the one that you find is right for you. Otherwise you are not gonna get anywhere that is close enough to where you really want to be: the essence of your own heart.

Nowdern Love

I have been talking a lot about nowdernity  these days. I believe that in fact there is such a thing as a Nowdern kind of love… There are two polar aspects in the culture of Now: one is about impermanence, and the other is about eternity. The only eternal moment in time is Now. At the same point from which we can observe the endless flow of impermanent moments, stands also the eternal moment of that Now. There we can find a sense of exhilarating instability due to the velocity of changes in the observation of space-time circumstances; or instead we can find a deep, profound sense of calm and stability if we choose to contemplate the process of observation itself. Contemplating the very act of observation of temporal sequences that keep traversing from the past into the future via one continuous present moment is the essence of meditation. If we choose to identify with instability and instant gratification, we choose to identify with Samsara. If we choose to identify with the continuity and solidity of awareness itself, then we choose to identify with Eternity.

What usually happens when people apply the culture of Now to love is that the vast majority of people are identified with experiencing the Now not as one solid, firm ground of experience (a perception that is only available to those who are identified with the eternal aspects of Now – awareness), but are identified instead with the samsaric aspects of Now: permanent instability, chaos and impermanence.

So there are going to be two kinds of Nowdern love embedded in the culture of Now: one that is based on the act of contemplating the essence of love itself, which is solid, firm; and another that is based on contemplating and following the movements of Eros, which is inherently impermanent, chaotic and samsaric. Relationships could exist based on both temporal and atemporal experiences of Now; and most will include both levels of experience, in various degrees that might fluctuate over time. Chaos and turbulence are indeed facts of our human life. Relationships, which are maybe the most human of all human affairs, are definitely subject to the bumps and sudden curves of emotional rally roads.

I was listening to a lecture by Lama Tsering Everest the other day and I asked her: “Is Love an emotion?” She replied: “Not at all. Love is not an emotion. Emotions come and go; Love is ever present. Love is the key and the essence of awakening”. Maybe what we have been calling “Love” should not be called “Love”. Maybe what we have been calling “Love” is really just Eros, playing. I don’t know.

Nowdernity encompasses multifarious cultural expressions and aesthetics, and Nowdern love is no different: it could be based on allowing yourself to contemplate Eternity or it could be based on contemplating Impermanence; between atemporality and temporality.

It is only a question of perspective. And choice.

I hope I am making wise choices. How about you?

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Renata Lemos is a professional international surfer on the edge of contemporary culture. She has lived and worked in the US, France, Canada, Israel and it is now based in Brazil. She is a well published academic writer and scholar; a builder of transdisciplinary bridges that integrate culture, economics, politics, technology, science, art and spirituality. Her current conceptual exploration is about trying to identify and map the aesthetics of the edge of contemporary culture, that she is calling nowdernity.

Tagged in: age of extremes, Facebook, hedonsim, liquid love, love, nowdernity