5/28/2007 Love At First Site: Genius

5/28/2007 Love At First Site: Genius

My father used to tell me a story. It was a story about a girl in his class in elementary school. She was one of these child prodigies. My father would tell me that the teacher let her do whatever she wanted. She could go out and play, run around, leave class. She always got an -A- on every test. And here's the thing: she never read a book. She just knew everything. He'd look at me and ask me if I believe him, and I'd say no. I didn't think a genius would never read. He would get angry with me and tell me I was a narrow-minded empiricist.

So, then, what is genius? Can we know things without the senses? Let's not hold back here, love can easily go into the realm of the mystical. But let's also remain philosophical about it; the word intuition, the word “a priori”. How would anyone know these things without the senses?

Because the world you see is the world you create. Wouldn't the post-modern world see science and art as twin romances? When we look “outside” ourselves to see, we look to learn about our own mind. Not only would many modern physicists tell us this, but many Buddhist sects and Hindu. There is no reason matter cannot pass through matter. Linear time, as we know it, does not exist. The world we see is what we can perceive, not that which is there to be perceived. The world we see is our own imagination. When we learn, we learn about our own mind. Given that, why can we not know things that we haven't seen or read about?

Beauty is not only skin deep. It comes from deep inside us. It moves us. It is part of our mind. And so is love. I still don't believe that the girl never read. But I do believe that we can see past the shield of linear time and the illusions of the mind to something more: to the imagination.

Our mind may be limited in many ways. But the divisions we make are illusion. “I see her body, but I do not know her mind.” I don't believe that. We do not know her mind, but we can imagine it. And that's more important than our eyes. We can spend time together, but our perceptions of each other are always firmly in the imagination. We try to recognize patterns, establish expectations. But then the person changes, and we say, “I don't know you anymore.” We are too complex to fit into those expectations. And, in time, our resentments may build, and we begin to see a selfish reason for all of our lover's actions. That's when we “see through” each other. But no one ever really exists except in our imaginations.

And may I go out on a limb? Women have much stronger defenses than men. Women are hurt more often than men, and women are less able to defend themselves in the physical sense. For women, we need to establish expectations, safety. We need to earn their dropping their defenses.

Listen to “The Tao Of Steve”; be desireless, be excellent, be gone. We have to approach in a non-threatening way, there is nothing to be gained here. All in good fun. Then be excellent: let her know you can make her feel good, that you can take care of her. Then be gone; be anything but overbearing. You don't need her, you give her time to think about it. Easier said than done. But how to be desireless when you are in love? How to be excellent, when you are terrified? How to be confident, when you don't see any reason she would want you? Being gone? Well, I find that part to be easy.

Love at first site, then, may well exist, may well be true. However, it virtually guarantees you won't get the girl; unless your game is already well rehearsed.

I remember once a coworker told me he doesn't believe in love. He said, “It's an invention.” I said, “If it was invented, it must be real.” I don't believe in “soul mates.” I believe you can love more than one person. But I also believe that love is a function of the imagination, like anything else that's real. And whether or not you have the ability to love depends largely on the quality of your imagination. But it also depends on the ability to confront fears. And largely, those two things are in short supply today.