WEBVTT

00:00:00.553 --> 00:00:04.894
OK, so today I want to talk about
how we talk about love.

00:00:05.302 --> 00:00:06.411
And specifically,

00:00:06.411 --> 00:00:09.846
I want to talk about what's wrong
with how we talk about love.

00:00:10.753 --> 00:00:15.762
Most of us will probably fall in love
a few times over the course of our lives,

00:00:15.762 --> 00:00:17.834
and in the English language,

00:00:17.834 --> 00:00:18.970
this metaphor,

00:00:18.970 --> 00:00:20.060
falling,

00:00:20.060 --> 00:00:23.074
is really the main way that we
talk about that experience.

00:00:23.642 --> 00:00:24.806
I don't know about you,

00:00:24.806 --> 00:00:26.954
but when I conceptualize this metaphor,

00:00:26.954 --> 00:00:29.832
what I picture is straight
out of a cartoon --

00:00:30.196 --> 00:00:31.515
like there's a man,

00:00:31.515 --> 00:00:33.419
he's walking down the sidewalk,

00:00:33.419 --> 00:00:36.554
without realizing it he crosses
over an open manhole,

00:00:36.554 --> 00:00:39.946
and he just plummets
into the sewer below.

00:00:40.238 --> 00:00:44.318
And I picture it this way because
falling is not jumping.

00:00:44.825 --> 00:00:47.074
Falling is accidental,

00:00:47.074 --> 00:00:48.805
it's uncontrollable.

00:00:48.805 --> 00:00:52.077
It's something that happens to us
without our consent.

00:00:52.380 --> 00:00:53.694
And this --

00:00:53.694 --> 00:00:57.261
this is the main way we talk
about starting a new relationship.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:58.337 --> 00:01:02.225
I am a writer and I'm also
an English teacher,

00:01:02.225 --> 00:01:04.533
which means I think about
words for a living.

00:01:04.533 --> 00:01:08.706
You could say that I get paid
to argue that the language we use matters,

00:01:08.706 --> 00:01:12.929
and I would like to argue that many
of the metaphors we use

00:01:12.929 --> 00:01:14.519
to talk about love --

00:01:14.519 --> 00:01:16.310
maybe even most of them --

00:01:16.310 --> 00:01:17.879
are a problem.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:18.717 --> 00:01:21.350
So, in love we fall.

00:01:21.766 --> 00:01:23.588
We're struck ...

00:01:23.588 --> 00:01:25.641
we are crushed ...

00:01:25.641 --> 00:01:27.353
we swoon ...

00:01:27.353 --> 00:01:29.150
we burn with passion.

00:01:29.849 --> 00:01:31.983
Love makes us crazy,

00:01:31.983 --> 00:01:33.596
and it makes us sick.

00:01:33.868 --> 00:01:35.429
Our hearts ache,

00:01:35.429 --> 00:01:37.435
and then they break.

00:01:38.417 --> 00:01:41.584
So our metaphors equate
the experience of loving someone

00:01:41.584 --> 00:01:44.260
to extreme violence or illness.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:44.260 --> 00:01:45.760
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:47.159 --> 00:01:48.164
They do.

00:01:48.164 --> 00:01:50.542
And they position us as the victims

00:01:50.542 --> 00:01:53.797
of unforeseen and totally
unavoidable circumstances.

00:01:54.642 --> 00:01:57.544
My favorite one of these is "smitten,"

00:01:57.544 --> 00:02:00.366
which is the past participle
of the word smite.

00:02:00.366 --> 00:02:03.628
And if you look this word up
in the dictionary --

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:03.628 --> 00:02:04.628
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:04.628 --> 00:02:09.045
You will see that it can be defined
as both grievous affliction

00:02:09.045 --> 00:02:11.896
and to be very much in love.

00:02:13.181 --> 00:02:17.084
So, I tend to associate the word smite
with a very particular context,

00:02:17.084 --> 00:02:18.816
which is the Old Testament.

00:02:19.560 --> 00:02:24.720
In the Book of Exodus alone
there are 16 references to smiting,

00:02:24.720 --> 00:02:28.516
which is the word that the bible uses
for the vengeance of an angry God.

00:02:29.874 --> 00:02:32.733
Here we are using the same
word to talk about love

00:02:32.733 --> 00:02:35.379
that we use to explain
a plague of locusts.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:35.702 --> 00:02:36.703
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:36.703 --> 00:02:37.695
Right?

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:37.695 --> 00:02:39.501
So, how did this happen?

00:02:39.501 --> 00:02:43.339
How have we come to associate love
with great pain and suffering?

00:02:43.611 --> 00:02:47.674
And why do we talk about
this ostensibly good experience

00:02:47.674 --> 00:02:49.778
as if we are victims?

00:02:50.556 --> 00:02:52.271
These are difficult questions,

00:02:52.271 --> 00:02:53.671
but I have some theories.

00:02:53.941 --> 00:02:55.199
And to think this through,

00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:58.043
I want to focus on one
metaphor in particular,

00:02:58.043 --> 00:03:00.470
which is the idea of love is madness.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:01.199 --> 00:03:04.028
When I first started
researching romantic love,

00:03:04.028 --> 00:03:06.867
I found these madness
metaphors everywhere.

00:03:06.867 --> 00:03:08.731
The history of Western culture

00:03:08.731 --> 00:03:12.942
is full of language that equates
love to mental illness.

00:03:13.440 --> 00:03:15.391
These are just a few examples.

00:03:15.391 --> 00:03:16.863
William Shakespeare:

00:03:16.863 --> 00:03:18.319
"Love is merely a madness,"

00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:19.786
from "As You Like It."

00:03:20.164 --> 00:03:21.573
Friedrich Nietsche,

00:03:21.573 --> 00:03:24.370
"There is always some madness in love."

00:03:24.750 --> 00:03:27.639
"Got me looking, got me looking
so crazy in love -- "

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:27.639 --> 00:03:29.027
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:29.648 --> 00:03:32.269
From the great philosopher,
Beyoncé Knowles.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:32.269 --> 00:03:33.622
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:35.163 --> 00:03:38.020
I fell in love for the first
time when I was 20,

00:03:38.020 --> 00:03:41.036
and it was a pretty turbulent
relationship right from the start.

00:03:41.363 --> 00:03:44.874
And it was long distance
for the first couple of years,

00:03:44.874 --> 00:03:49.470
so for me that meant very
high highs and very low lows.

00:03:50.041 --> 00:03:52.742
I can remember one moment in particular.

00:03:52.742 --> 00:03:56.110
I was sitting on a bed
in a hostel in South America,

00:03:56.110 --> 00:03:59.806
and I was watching the person
I love walk out the door.

00:04:00.222 --> 00:04:02.045
And it was late,

00:04:02.045 --> 00:04:03.328
it was nearly midnight,

00:04:03.328 --> 00:04:05.328
we'd gotten into an argument over dinner,

00:04:05.328 --> 00:04:07.300
and when we got back to our room,

00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:10.380
he threw his things in the bag
and stormed out.

00:04:11.308 --> 00:04:14.703
While I can no longer remember
what that argument was about,

00:04:14.703 --> 00:04:18.758
I very clearly remember
how I felt watching him leave.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:19.122 --> 00:04:20.878
So, I was 22,

00:04:20.878 --> 00:04:23.750
it was my first time
in the developing world,

00:04:23.750 --> 00:04:25.971
and I was totally alone.

00:04:26.587 --> 00:04:30.134
I had another week until my flight home,

00:04:30.134 --> 00:04:32.525
and I knew the name
of the town that I was in,

00:04:32.525 --> 00:04:36.131
and the name of the city 
that I needed to get to to fly out,

00:04:36.131 --> 00:04:40.057
but I had no idea how to get around,

00:04:40.057 --> 00:04:43.327
I had no guidebook and very little money,

00:04:43.327 --> 00:04:45.097
and I spoke no Spanish.

00:04:45.547 --> 00:04:47.893
Someone more adventurous than me

00:04:47.893 --> 00:04:50.429
might have seen this as
a moment of opportunity,

00:04:50.429 --> 00:04:52.259
but I just froze.

00:04:52.581 --> 00:04:54.818
I just sat there.

00:04:54.818 --> 00:04:56.974
And then I burst into tears.

00:04:57.556 --> 00:04:59.950
But despite my panic,

00:04:59.950 --> 00:05:02.543
some small voice in my head thought,

00:05:02.543 --> 00:05:04.956
"Wow, that was dramatic.

00:05:04.956 --> 00:05:07.654
I must really be doing
this love thing right."

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:07.988 --> 00:05:09.207
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:09.417 --> 00:05:14.084
Because some part of me
wanted to feel miserable in love.

00:05:14.337 --> 00:05:16.313
And it sounds so strange to me now,

00:05:16.313 --> 00:05:17.800
but at 22,

00:05:17.800 --> 00:05:21.275
I longed to have dramatic experiences,

00:05:21.275 --> 00:05:26.216
and in that moment I was irrational
and furious and devastated,

00:05:26.216 --> 00:05:27.463
and weirdly enough,

00:05:27.463 --> 00:05:30.862
I thought that this somehow
legitimized the feelings I had

00:05:30.862 --> 00:05:32.907
for the guy who had just left me.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:34.354 --> 00:05:38.740
I think on some level I wanted
to feel a little bit crazy,

00:05:38.740 --> 00:05:42.600
because I thought that
that was how loved worked.

00:05:43.332 --> 00:05:45.355
This really should not be surpsising

00:05:45.355 --> 00:05:47.697
considering that according to Wikipedia,

00:05:47.697 --> 00:05:49.953
there are eight films,

00:05:49.953 --> 00:05:51.973
14 songs,

00:05:51.973 --> 00:05:55.399
two albums and one novel
with the title "Crazy Love."

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:56.020 --> 00:05:57.616
About half-an-hour later,

00:05:57.616 --> 00:05:59.059
he came back to our room.

00:05:59.059 --> 00:06:00.055
We made up,

00:06:00.055 --> 00:06:03.235
we spent another mostly
happy week travelling together,

00:06:03.235 --> 00:06:04.690
and then when I got home,

00:06:04.690 --> 00:06:10.133
I thought, "That was so
terrible and so great,

00:06:10.133 --> 00:06:12.546
this must be a real romance."

00:06:13.261 --> 00:06:15.984
I expected my first love
to feel like madness,

00:06:15.984 --> 00:06:19.697
and of course it met
that expectation very well.

00:06:20.116 --> 00:06:21.830
But loving someone like that --

00:06:21.830 --> 00:06:25.978
as if my entire well-being depended
on him loving me back --

00:06:25.978 --> 00:06:28.177
was not very good for me,

00:06:28.177 --> 00:06:29.234
or for him.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:29.985 --> 00:06:33.686
But I suspect this experience of love
is not that unusual.

00:06:34.137 --> 00:06:38.477
Most of us do feel a bit mad
in the early stages of romantic love.

00:06:38.863 --> 00:06:43.367
In fact there is research to confirm
that this is somewhat normal,

00:06:43.367 --> 00:06:45.276
because neurochemically speaking,

00:06:45.276 --> 00:06:50.008
romantic love and mental illness
are not that easily distinguished.

00:06:51.172 --> 00:06:52.292
This is true.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:52.292 --> 00:06:56.874
So, this study from 1999 used blood tests

00:06:56.874 --> 00:07:00.071
to confirm that the serotonin
levels of the newly in love

00:07:00.071 --> 00:07:02.743
very closely resemembeled
the serotonin levels

00:07:02.743 --> 00:07:06.206
of people who had been diagnosed
with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:06.206 --> 00:07:07.207
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:07.207 --> 00:07:08.205
Yes,

00:07:08.205 --> 00:07:10.116
and low levels of serotonin

00:07:10.116 --> 00:07:13.650
are also associated
with Seasonal affective disorder

00:07:13.650 --> 00:07:15.107
and Depression.

00:07:15.687 --> 00:07:18.137
So, there is some evidence

00:07:18.137 --> 00:07:22.430
that love is associated with changes
to our moods and our behaviors,

00:07:22.430 --> 00:07:25.388
and there are other studies

00:07:25.388 --> 00:07:30.150
to confirm that most
relationships begin this way.

00:07:30.806 --> 00:07:34.992
Researchers believe 
that the low levels of serotonin

00:07:34.992 --> 00:07:39.225
is correlated with obsessive thinking
about the object of love,

00:07:39.225 --> 00:07:43.155
which is like this feeling that someone
has set up camp in your brain.

00:07:43.155 --> 00:07:46.109
And most of us feel this way
when we first fall in love,

00:07:46.109 --> 00:07:49.370
but the good news is that it
doesn't always last that long --

00:07:49.370 --> 00:07:52.480
usually from a few months
to a couple of years.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:53.590 --> 00:07:56.332
When I got back from
my trip to South America,

00:07:56.332 --> 00:07:59.932
I spent a lot of time alone in my room,

00:07:59.932 --> 00:08:01.318
checking my email,

00:08:01.318 --> 00:08:03.989
desperate to hear from the guy I loved.

00:08:04.744 --> 00:08:10.052
I decided that if my friends could not
understand my grievous affliction,

00:08:10.052 --> 00:08:12.074
then I did not need their friendship.

00:08:12.074 --> 00:08:14.459
So, I stopped hanging out
with most of them.

00:08:14.459 --> 00:08:19.341
And it was probably the most
unhappy year of my life,

00:08:19.341 --> 00:08:23.905
but I think I felt like it was
my job to be miserable,

00:08:23.905 --> 00:08:25.720
because if I could be miserable,

00:08:25.720 --> 00:08:28.595
then I would prove how much I loved him,

00:08:28.595 --> 00:08:30.503
and if I could prove it,

00:08:30.503 --> 00:08:33.868
then we would have to
end up together eventually.

00:08:34.265 --> 00:08:36.376
This is the real madness,

00:08:36.376 --> 00:08:38.794
because there is no cosmic rule

00:08:38.794 --> 00:08:42.581
that says that great suffering
equals great reward,

00:08:42.581 --> 00:08:46.485
but we talk about love as if this is true.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:47.742 --> 00:08:51.481
Our experiences of love are both
biological and cultural.

00:08:51.774 --> 00:08:54.477
Our biology tells us that love is good

00:08:54.477 --> 00:08:57.654
by activating these reward
circuits in our brain,

00:08:57.654 --> 00:09:02.297
and it tells us that love is painful
when after a fight or a breakup

00:09:02.297 --> 00:09:04.876
that neurochemical reward is withdrawn.

00:09:05.332 --> 00:09:06.329
And in fact --

00:09:06.329 --> 00:09:07.848
and maybe you've heard this --

00:09:07.848 --> 00:09:09.715
neurochemically speaking,

00:09:09.715 --> 00:09:13.866
going through a breakup is a lot
like going through cocaine withdrawal,

00:09:13.866 --> 00:09:15.525
which I find reassuring --

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:15.525 --> 00:09:16.534
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:17.241 --> 00:09:20.096
And then our culture uses language

00:09:20.096 --> 00:09:22.900
to shape and reinforce
these ideas about love.

00:09:22.900 --> 00:09:23.895
In this case,

00:09:23.895 --> 00:09:27.509
we're talking about metaphors
about pain, and addiction, and madness.

00:09:27.826 --> 00:09:30.641
It's kind of an interesting feedback loop.

00:09:30.641 --> 00:09:34.181
Love is powerful and at times painful,

00:09:34.181 --> 00:09:37.325
and we express this
in our words and stories,

00:09:37.325 --> 00:09:43.433
but then our words and stories prime us
to expect love to be powerful and painful.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:44.075 --> 00:09:45.577
What's interesting to me

00:09:45.577 --> 00:09:50.105
is that all of this happens in a culture
that values lifelong monogamy.

00:09:50.810 --> 00:09:53.013
It seems like we want it both ways:

00:09:53.013 --> 00:09:55.838
we want love to feel like madness,

00:09:55.838 --> 00:09:58.984
and we want it to last an entire lifetime.

00:09:59.617 --> 00:10:01.179
That sounds terrible.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:01.538 --> 00:10:03.067
(Laughter)

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:04.051 --> 00:10:05.670
To reconcile this,

00:10:05.670 --> 00:10:10.695
we need to either change our culture
or change our expectations.

00:10:11.543 --> 00:10:15.438
So, imagine if we were all
less passive in love.

00:10:15.786 --> 00:10:20.085
If we were more assertive,
more open-mined, more generous,

00:10:20.085 --> 00:10:23.352
and instead of falling in love,

00:10:23.352 --> 00:10:25.503
we stepped into love.

00:10:26.326 --> 00:10:28.393
I know that this is asking a lot,

00:10:28.393 --> 00:10:32.158
but I'm not actually the first
person to suggest this.

00:10:33.179 --> 00:10:35.764
In their book "Metaphors We Live By,"

00:10:35.764 --> 00:10:40.683
linguists Mark Johnson and George Lakoff
suggest a really interesting solution

00:10:40.683 --> 00:10:42.587
to this dilemna,

00:10:42.587 --> 00:10:45.374
which is to change our metaphors.

00:10:45.930 --> 00:10:51.238
They argue that metaphors really do
shape the way we experience the world,

00:10:51.238 --> 00:10:54.815
and that they can even act
as a guide for future actions,

00:10:54.815 --> 00:10:56.973
like self-fulfilling prophecies.

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:57.609 --> 00:11:02.113
Johnson and Lakoff suggest
a new metaphor for love:

00:11:02.113 --> 00:11:04.553
love is a collaborative work of art.

00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:08.050
I really like this way
of thinking about love.

00:11:09.171 --> 00:11:12.797
Linguists talk about metaphors
as having entailments,

00:11:12.797 --> 00:11:16.616
which is essentially a way of considering
all the implications of,

00:11:16.616 --> 00:11:19.546
or ideas contained
within a given metaphor.

00:11:19.546 --> 00:11:22.347
And Johnson and Lakoff
talk about everything

00:11:22.347 --> 00:11:25.048
that collaborating
on a work of art entails:

00:11:25.048 --> 00:11:29.203
effort, compromise,
patience, shared goals.

00:11:29.735 --> 00:11:33.698
These ideas align nicely
with our cultural investment

00:11:33.698 --> 00:11:35.876
in long-term romantic commitment,

00:11:35.876 --> 00:11:40.211
but they also work well
for other kinds of relationships --

00:11:40.211 --> 00:11:45.774
short-term, casual, polyamorous,
non-monogamous, asexual --

00:11:45.774 --> 00:11:49.724
because this metaphor brings
much more complex ideas

00:11:49.724 --> 00:11:51.895
to the experience of loving someone.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:52.670 --> 00:11:57.295
So if love is a collaborative work of art,

00:11:57.295 --> 00:12:01.012
then love is an aesthetic experience.

00:12:01.676 --> 00:12:04.264
Love is unpredictable,

00:12:04.264 --> 00:12:07.089
love is creative,

00:12:07.089 --> 00:12:11.245
love requires communication
and discipline,

00:12:11.245 --> 00:12:14.979
it is frustrating and
emotionally demanding,

00:12:14.979 --> 00:12:18.418
and love involves both joy and pain.

00:12:18.988 --> 00:12:22.823
Ultimately, each experience
of love is different.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:23.854 --> 00:12:25.635
When I was younger,

00:12:25.635 --> 00:12:27.087
it never occurred to me

00:12:27.087 --> 00:12:30.385
that I was allowed to demand
more from love,

00:12:30.385 --> 00:12:34.078
that I didn't have to just accept
whatever love offered.

00:12:34.998 --> 00:12:38.725
When 14-year-old Juliet first meets --

00:12:38.725 --> 00:12:42.395
when 14-year-old Juliet
cannot be with Romeo,

00:12:42.395 --> 00:12:44.969
whom she has met four days ago,

00:12:44.969 --> 00:12:49.078
she does not feel
disappointed or angsty --

00:12:49.078 --> 00:12:50.527
where is she?

00:12:50.527 --> 00:12:52.334
She wants to die.

00:12:52.334 --> 00:12:53.333
Right?

00:12:53.333 --> 00:12:54.618
And just as a refesher,

00:12:54.618 --> 00:12:55.904
at this point in the play

00:12:55.904 --> 00:12:57.317
act three of five,

00:12:57.317 --> 00:12:59.745
Romeo is not dead.

00:12:59.745 --> 00:13:01.194
He's alive,

00:13:01.194 --> 00:13:02.753
he's healthy,

00:13:02.753 --> 00:13:05.193
he's just been banished from the city.

00:13:06.028 --> 00:13:12.115
I understand that sixteenth-century Verona
is unlike contemporary North America,

00:13:12.115 --> 00:13:15.010
and yet when I first read this play --

00:13:15.010 --> 00:13:17.514
also at age 14 --

00:13:17.514 --> 00:13:20.700
Juliet's suffering made sense to me.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:21.542 --> 00:13:26.907
Reframing love as something
I get to create with someone I admire,

00:13:26.907 --> 00:13:31.896
rather than something that just happens
to me without my conrol or consent,

00:13:31.896 --> 00:13:33.501
is empowering.

00:13:33.986 --> 00:13:35.627
It's still hard.

00:13:35.627 --> 00:13:41.073
Love still feels totally maddening
and crushing some days,

00:13:41.073 --> 00:13:43.211
and when I feel really frustrated,

00:13:43.211 --> 00:13:45.146
I have to remind myself:

00:13:45.146 --> 00:13:48.513
my job in this relationship
is to talk to my partner

00:13:48.513 --> 00:13:50.694
about what I want to make together.

00:13:52.082 --> 00:13:55.098
This isn't easy either,

00:13:55.098 --> 00:13:58.728
but it's just so much better
than the alternative,

00:13:58.728 --> 00:14:01.883
which is that thing
that feels like madness.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:02.958 --> 00:14:08.315
This version of love is not about winning
of losing someone's affection.

00:14:08.992 --> 00:14:12.613
Instead, it requires that you
trust your partner,

00:14:12.613 --> 00:14:15.826
and talk about things
when trusting feels difficult,

00:14:15.826 --> 00:14:18.295
which sounds so simple,

00:14:18.295 --> 00:14:22.791
but is actually a kind
of revolutionary, radical act.

00:14:23.253 --> 00:14:27.397
This is because you get to stop
thinking about yourself,

00:14:27.397 --> 00:14:30.656
and what you're gaining
or losing in your relationship,

00:14:30.656 --> 00:14:34.417
and you get to start thinking
about what you have to offer.

00:14:35.010 --> 00:14:38.438
This version of love
allows us to say things like,

00:14:38.438 --> 00:14:41.768
"Hey, we're not very good collaborators,

00:14:41.768 --> 00:14:43.892
maybe this isn't for us,"

00:14:43.892 --> 00:14:47.866
or, "That relationship
was shorter than I had planned,

00:14:47.866 --> 00:14:50.362
but it was still kind of beautiful."

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:51.075 --> 00:14:53.888
The beautiful thing about
the collaborative work of art

00:14:53.888 --> 00:14:56.911
is that it will not paint
or draw or sculpt itself.

00:14:57.274 --> 00:15:01.033
This version of love allows us
to decide what it looks like.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:01.033 --> 00:15:02.079
Thank you.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:02.079 --> 00:15:03.057
(Applause)