Become a Big Think member to unlock expert classes, premium print issues, exclusive events and more: https://bigthink.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=yt_desc Subscribe to Big Think on YouTube ► https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvQECJukTDE2i6aCoMnS-Vg?sub_confirmation=1 Up next, The science of sex, love, and attachment | Dr. Helen Fisher: Full Interview ► https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORAaaBevtT4 We want to believe that love is guided by instinct, and that following our heart will lead us to our ideal soulmate. Alain de Botton argues that our romantic lives are shaped more by the emotional patterns we learned in childhood than by destiny. 0:14 Chapter 1: Our destructive romantic culture 1:42 How romanticism reshaped love 7:17 The cultural myths that sabotage love 10:02 Chapter 2: Lessons on love from psychotherapy 11:20 What childhood teaches us about love 14:20 Attachment theory and early separation 17:25 When familiarity matters more than happiness 24:40 Chapter 3: The playbook for a successful relationship 26:41 How are you crazy? 29:24 What therapy makes possible 34:41 Why you will marry the wrong person 42:33 Social media and the blame reflex 47:25 Chapter 4: Overcoming status anxiety and loneliness 49:00 Status anxiety in a secular age 50:30 The lost safety valves of older societies 52:31 The need for secular temples 55:02 Love as the bridge out of isolation Read the video transcript ► https://bigthink.com/series/full-interview/why-healthy-love-feels-uncomfortable/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=youtube_description © Freethink Media Inc., All Rights Reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Go Deeper with Big Think: ►Become a Big Think Youtube Member Get exclusive classes and early, ad-free access to new releases without leaving Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/@bigthink/membership/ ►Become a Big Think Web Member Get the entire Big Think Class library, premium print issues, live events, and more. https://bigthink.com/membership/ ►Subscribe to Big Think on Substack Get all of your favorite Big Think content delivered to your inbox. https://bigthinkmedia.substack.com/subscribe/ ►Listen to Big Think Interviews on Spotify Insights from the world's biggest thinkers, now as a podcast https://open.spotify.com/show/7KRYoRD1NdF2aoQcBMyPlb ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About Alain de Botton: Alain de Botton was born in Zurich, Switzerland in 1969 and now lives in London. He is a writer of essayistic books that have been described as a 'philosophy of everyday life.' He’s written on love, travel, architecture and literature. His books have been bestsellers in 30 countries. Alain also started and helps to run a school in London called The School of Life, dedicated to a new vision of education. Alain's latest book is titled Religion for Atheists and is published in the Netherlands, Italy, Korea, Turkey and Brazil in 2011 and in the UK, US and other territories in 2012. Alain started writing at a young age. His first book, Essays in Love [titled On Love in the US], was published when he was twenty-three.
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All this is fair and wise but the main challenge is finding people on the same level of maturity and who are willing to sit and work out on things. A lot of people, especially men are not ready or willing or even acknowledging there is work to be done. That is very isolating.
"We need someone to help us to see the things that are really hard for us to see" "It's like you need a mirror to see the back of your head" Thank you, Alain.
One full hour of Alain!?!?! Legendary!
If you don’t face your demons, they eventually come out in a relationship
"Love is a skill, not a feeling"
I feel privileged to have internet just because of this guy alone
I believe the best answer to "what is love" is still "baby don't hurt me"
Psychotherapist and couple’s therapist here… Love is a feeling that gets ruined by people’s unhealthy and toxic behaviors that they’re not actively working to change. People are lonely because most people don’t understand how to show up in relationships. People tend to feed their egos rather than their heart and soul. They don’t understand what’s required to make relationships healthy and fulfilling. People spend more time being concerned about what they’re receiving rather than what they’re providing. People need to learn what mature love is because the two prominent issues I see that ruin relationships are ego and immaturity.
My wife Melissa and I have been crazily in love for 36+ years now. When we saw that initial honeymoon/drug of love wear off in other couples - I thought - would this ever happen to us. It didn't. We don't know the secret - we look around, and very few have what we have. it's amazing to us. We both place the others needs, above our own. We are different in a lot of ways, but our core values are identical. We keep 'falling in love' - with one another, every month. We joke and 'play' all day. We are super-affectionate, every single day. We build our life together - we have one child. We both, continually and quietly, continue to grow, learn and make ourselves worthy of the other. Lastly - we don't 'work on our marriage' - sorry - but we just don't. If we were granted a single wish - from an omnipotent genie - we both agree: we'd wish what we have on all others. That's all I got. Wishing our wish - upon any who are watching this ... PS: I grew up in a very violent household.
I'm so happy you mentioned the Before Trilogy. It's a trilogy that's not about unrequited love, but purposeful love. It's simply two people talking and connecting, sharing their insecurities, their past mistakes, their future worries, their view on mortality, and how random life is and the mistakes we make. It seems so underwhelming in its explanation, but through all three movies the execution becomes a widow into what true love is over time. It's a showcase that reveals how love is much more about choice, than it is about chance. That when you find someone you truly connect with, you have to choose to hold on to them, because while true compatibility isn't necessarily easy, it's really rare and it deserves to be fought for and cherished.
"Compatibility is the fruit of love"
If someone seems magical when you meet them because they say all the right things and put forth tons of effort, at best, theyve put on a show and created an expectation that they can't live up to. At worst, they're actively hiding a personality disorder and hooking you into a bad situation. Most of the time in a relationship is boring. Sure, there should be effort into romance, but no one can do that everyday. The average person has completely unrealistic expectations of a romantic partner, and they also fail to communicate those expectations before getting upset when they arent met. Dating apps are not designed for success. Theyre designed to keep you using the app. Dating apps give the illusion of unlimited choice, so every potential partner can be dismissed for any number of trivial things.
This was one hell if a monologue
The amount of adults who don’t differentiate between real life and a lifetime movie is astounding.
Partnership is a skill. Love is a feeling. Love and partnership are not the same thing. They just intersect.
The part about "familiarity matters more than happiness" wrecked me. I kept choosing men who felt familiar, distant, unavailable, just like my childhood. I thought that was chemistry. Book called Hollow Intimacy helped me see that I was recreating old wounds, not finding love. That book walked me through attachment styles and why we get stuck. Highly recommend if you keep ending up in the same painful dynamic.
I've never listened to a video intently for a few times. The speaker is such a good communicator and explains complexity so clearly that I am convinced I own my responsibility of bringing problems to the relationships and I could find the right words to say what is a life that is well-lived. Thank you so much!
I had an avoidant attachment style thanks to childhood neglect. Then the trauma of losing my sister in my late20s broke me. After years of dealing with that grief i realized that this most painful loss contained the antidote to my earlier maladaptive style of believing I needed nothing from anyone. Losing my sister forced me to touch my own vulnerability, something I’d buried as a small child to avoid being hurt. It took years but those parts of me finally became integrated. The final piece was psychedelic therapy, and now here I am in my 50s and I am finally whole. And this time when i met a man i was very drawn to, my nervous system wasn’t activated. I felt incredibly calm . We co-regulated. Two whole people touching. I love him but I don’t need him. It’s the most beautiful relationship I’ve ever known.
This may very well have been the most valuable 58 minutes of my year. Thank you.
Find this episode and other weekly Full Interview releases on our Spotify channel: /episode/2rzz3cyNjQqVAARhOlThom