1. Love:
Humans evolved and gained this emotional closeness, the ability to love others, because it helps humanity survive. This is a reason that is neither romantic nor interesting, but it is the truth. We humans do not have fangs or huge claws, nor the terrifying strength of gorillas. Instead, we become attached to each other in communities and families, where we feel comfortable cooperating with one another.
The evolutionary process shows that these communities and families are much more effective in helping humanity survive than those huge fangs and claws. And so, humans became the dominant species on the planet.
What other true facts about love do you not know? More precisely, how can love in general and romantic love in particular, when viewed objectively, shatter our illusions?
Romantic love is not as beautiful as you think. Returning to the facts about love, did you know that human instincts help us be sincere with those who are most sincere with us? And this is love: an irrational sincerity towards someone, to the extent that we are willing to do bad things or even sacrifice for that person. It sounds a bit crazy, but this symbiotic emotion has helped humans survive strong enough to fend off fierce carnivorous tigers, proliferate across the earth, and invent Netflix. Not a fact about love, but let's pause for a moment and silently thank evolution for giving us Netflix.
The Greek philosopher Plato said that the highest love is one without desire, without romance; it is brotherly love. Plato argued that romance and passionate desire often lead us to do foolish, unimaginable things and then regret them. The non-romantic feelings between family members or among friends are the true pinnacle of human virtue. Indeed, Plato, like many ancient philosophers, was very skeptical of romantic love, if not extremely fearful. Plato was ahead of his time and correctly contemplated many things. Therefore, the non-romantic feelings he referred to are what people call "platonic love," specifically a type of love in which sexual desire or romantic characteristics do not exist.
For most of human history, the romantic love that young people dream of today was considered a kind of pathology. Just think about it, and you'll see it's true: romantic love often leads people, especially young ones, to do foolish things. Trust me, on this point, the translator Less also has a few words to share about his own experience. Back in college, my then-girlfriend and I were in a long-distance relationship. One time I told her I wanted to meet her, and she said she wanted to meet me too. So I bought a train ticket, left Hanoi on Friday afternoon to meet her on Saturday morning and talk for a few hours. Then, on Saturday afternoon, I took the train back to Hanoi on Sunday afternoon. Oh, I should add that the cost of that round-trip train ticket evaporated half of the money I was allocated for that month. It sounds romantic, right? But now when I think back, I feel really foolish.
2. Conversation:
Going back, it was precisely because of the weakness in making important decisions that ancient people did not value the usefulness of romantic love. Instead, some ancient cultures viewed it as a kind of disease that everyone had to go through, much like chickenpox. The truth is that stories like The Iliad or Romeo and Juliet are not meant to glorify love, but rather serve as warnings about the negative consequences of love, about how love can destroy everything.
You see, for most of human history, people married not because they loved each other. Feelings had no place in that world. You wonder why? Because what’s the point of love, go out there and plow the fields and tend the cattle. If you don’t work, you’ll starve. No one had time for romance, and certainly no one wanted to bear the consequences of the foolishness arising from that romantic love. There were too many things lying between the line of life and death. Marriage was for procreation and financial stability. Romantic love, if it existed, was only for the wealthy young nobles. For the vast majority of humanity at that time, their lives were like a hanging bell. Their average lifespan was even lower than that of the cat in your house. All they did was ensure that they had something to eat the next day. Marriages were arranged by families, not because they liked each other, and certainly not because they loved each other.
Romantic relationships are often not as beautiful as you think. Marriage was often just an economic arrangement designed to promote the survival and prosperity of both families. Therefore, if a boy feels madly in love and wants to run away with the girl milking cows at the neighboring farm, that is not just a common inconvenience but a direct threat to the community's survival. Ancient societies viewed this act as so dangerous that they turned those boys into eunuchs to avoid worrying about this issue. This continued until the industrial era when it ended. When people began working in city centers and factories, their income was no longer tied to land. Their economic future was the same; they no longer depended on families for income, nor did they rely on inheritance or family connections as in ancient societies. The economic and political factors in marriages gradually lost their place.
Nowadays, you can start a YouTube project, easily self-learn, or collaborate with talents in fields like scriptwriting, design, or filming. In the past, especially when YouTube had just emerged and entered Vietnam, things were not easy at all. Early creators had to invest more, strive to learn, and persist longer to create quality products. In this episode of The Creator, let’s listen to the story of one of Vietnam's early creators, Spider-Man From Du. Interestingly, from a creator, he has now become a partner manager at YouTube Google. This position allows him to provide advice, guidance, and support to other creators. His journey of over a decade has begun, going through challenges and bringing what lessons?
3. Sharing:
He shares that when going out, he does not want to be asked about his experience working at Google. This experience has helped him make observations about the YouTube content creation aspect in Vietnam. His greatest desire is to have society recognize the profession of YouTuber. Without wasting any more time, let’s jump into the conversation. Please hit the Subscribe button to chat deeply with us.
The new economic reality of the 19th century, combined with ideas about human rights and the pursuit of happiness from the Enlightenment era, gave rise to romanticism. Suddenly, human emotions became important. In the 19th century, when expressing love became popular, the new ideal was not only to marry for love but also to love to live happily ever after. This ideal of everlasting happiness has only emerged in the last 150 years.
The 20th century, amidst world wars and genocides, was the era of Hollywood and advertising companies. They embraced the ideal of everlasting happiness and exploited it for the next 100 years. The romance we value is a new invention, primarily promoted by merchants who know that you are willing to spend money to buy movie tickets or expensive jewelry. As Don Draper once said, "what you call love was invented by people like me to sell you." Romance is a delicious product to sell. We love to see heroes save beauties and live happily ever after, and thus, advertising programs in the 20th century exploited it thoroughly.
But romantic love, like love in general, is much more complex than what we see in Hollywood movies or on jewelry advertisements. Love can also be annoying and boring, sometimes uncomfortable or even painful. Sometimes love requires effort for months, years, or even a lifetime. We cannot hear such things from what we see every day. The dark sides of love are not interesting at all, and they cannot be sold. The harsh truth of love is that relationships only truly happen when the Hollywood curtain falls. Real relationships encompass all the boring, dreary, unappealing aspects that not everyone sees or values. Like most things that appear in the media, love in modern culture only appears with sensational elements.
4. Relationships:
All the complicated intricacies of a relationship are hidden to make way for sensational headlines like "boyfriend goes to the army, girlfriend has a new lover" or "wife catches her husband cheating right at the motel," or "the boy dates the older sister to marry the younger sister." At the same time, there are also the inevitable "happily ever after" stories like the touching romance of two people at opposite ends of the world. We are often bombarded with such messages to the point that we think the excitement or drama of love is love itself. When we immerse ourselves in romance, we cannot imagine that romantic love can change. We do not see the weaknesses or failures of our loved ones; all we see is that love can do everything. That is not love, but merely an illusion. And because it is an illusion, things often do not end well.
Loving someone does not mean we should be with that person. We can absolutely love someone who does not treat us well, does not respect us, makes us feel worse, or even poses a danger to us. We can also love someone whose life ideals or goals are opposite to ours, or simply take a different path. Loving someone who makes us lose true happiness is why parents have often arranged marriages for their children throughout history, because they have a more objective view. But in recent centuries, when young people can choose their partners, this is good but also leads them to overestimate the miraculous ability of love to solve all problems. That is the definition of an unhealthy relationship.
People in love do not love each other for their nature but because they hope that love will fill the voids in their souls. The more personal freedom there is, the greater the demands for responsibility and self-understanding. We have only just begun to understand these responsibilities after 100 years. People in unhealthy relationships do not truly love each other; they love the idea of each other and the imaginary world in their heads. Instead of eliminating that imaginary world, they try to make their partner a part of that world because they do not know any other way or are afraid to show vulnerability to love healthily.
Centuries ago, people hated romantic love because they feared it would affect others' decisions. When no longer dependent on agriculture and parental opinions, people idealized love and hoped it would solve all problems. But now, people are beginning to realize that, although love is wonderful, it is not everything. Love does not create relationships; it is the result of relationships. Love should not define life; it is a byproduct of life. Someone who helps you feel more alive does not mean you have to live for that person.
The liberation of romantic love has brought wonderful experiences but also requires a truthful and realistic perspective on relationships to accept living together in a painful reality. Some say that in the age of Tinder and brief dates, romance is dead. But in fact, romance is not dead; it is just hiding in a safe place until two people are confident and comfortable with each other before falling madly in love. This may be a good thing.
Romantic love is not wrong and should not be eradicated, but compared to pure love, romantic love is a dangerous thing that requires caution. Romantic love is not everything and should not be something people live or die for. It can make us happy, but do not let love blind us to the point of regretting it later.