From grandparents to our children. How the biography of love changes.

For years I have wanted to write a biography of love: how it was, how it is, how it will be. But I give up, even though something inside me was moved when I read Vito Mancuso's book, " I Love. A Little Philosophy of Love " (Garzanti, 2014). In the chapter that addresses the origins of falling in love , I read the following passage: "The quantum vacuum, although devoid of any known being, is an entity that produces being. With its oscillations, the vacuum generates the first known entities, which sometimes appear as particles, sometimes as waves. In the vacuum, in its absolute darkness, the first traces of being suddenly appear like flashes of light (...). I have made all this discussion to arrive at this question: is it conceivable that in the quantum vacuum that affects us, random oscillations are occasionally produced that produce flashes of light, until they generate the great explosion of falling in love?"

I felt uncomfortable. Despite having been an altar boy for three years (in middle school, at the Salesian Congregation) and knowing the fundamentals and rites of Christianity, I remain a staunch atheist, and theological discussions don't excite me, let alone the quantum physics used to explain the origins of falling in love.

The fact is that from experience, I've found falling in love to be a very difficult journey: more than a quantum mystery, falling in love is a journey in a competitive arena, where you fight and struggle. You suffer .

Then there's another source of discomfort. The "random oscillations that produce flashes of light" describe falling in love as an independent variable : light that comes from the depths of the origin and strikes you. The independent variable doesn't qualify falling in love, let alone love; in fact, it disqualifies it: it identifies it as a mysterious, divine, or quasi-divine force. Instead, the opposite is true. Falling in love and love depend on many variables: material, psychological, Darwinian, evolutionary, and not very divine . You must consider the sentimental inheritance you've received, the cultural in which you're immersed, whether you're handsome or ugly, whether you're young or old, whether you have money or not: dependent variables.

The fact is, ever since I read Mancuso's book (which, in truth, also discussed non-quantum experiences), I've been thinking that a biography of love, before addressing the question of what love is, should analyze how love unfolds . Talking about how means describing the arena in which love is experienced. Arenas say a lot about the quality of love: they have age-old dynamics; if we don't identify them, how can we talk about love?

Caserta, 1970s: our mentors were Ciccio the womanizer and Gennaro the three-thighed. They imparted very basic teachings.

In my experience, the arenas were quite competitive. In the late 1970s, in Caserta, the older guys advised a man on how to be a man first and then, second, conquer women . The two mentors, the ones most respected, were Ciccio Sciupafemmine and Gennaro Tre Cosce: nicknames that spoke volumes. Ciccio Sciupafemmine was a seducer, and by seducing, he wasted women. Gennaro Tre Cosce had visibly (or so it was said) an extra thigh. Their teachings were very basic: a man, they said, must look at a woman's ass and then make a move (even the well-known intellectual Stefano Bandecchi stated the same thing). Because of the principle of authoritativeness, and given their very straightforward nicknames, people believed them.

From this matrix emerged several rules . For example, a man must despise everything feminine, he must get into fights, he must not go to the doctor if he bled after a fight, he must bring home the money, take care of the protection of the house, he must be brave, he must not cry.

It wasn't just a question of my neighborhood; on the contrary, my neighborhood was representative of a centuries-old way of life. Not for nothing, psychologist James A. Doyle, in his essay "The Male Experience" (1983), examined the stressful patterns of male devotions: the role of the X chromosome, that of testosterone, fatherhood, adolescence, (scant) attention to health. In short, he emphasized how, over the centuries, male models were based on devotions. The similarity in vision between the Caserta natives Ciccio Sciupafemmine and Gennaro Tre Cosce and a refined psychology professor may seem disturbing to some, but these elective affinities were and are a sign: if we really must talk about love, then let's focus on the stressful subject.

Imagine the humiliation of failing to comply with a duty. At the very least, you were a faggot. Mind you, in Caserta, the expression neither identified nor stigmatized a different sexual orientation, but more precisely (precisely) humiliated someone who didn't follow the rules of the duty. The two gay men who courageously and proudly came out in Caserta in the early 1980s opened a record shop where the entire nascent and, until then, hidden community gathered. Well, they were so knowledgeable that all music lovers went there to buy. Me too. And one day I asked for a Pooh record, it was called: "A Bit of Our Best Time." Young as I was, I considered it a good example of Italian prog rock, and Elio (one of the two owners) took the record, handed it to me rudely, and said: "Only a faggot like you listen to this shitty music."

The art of "pusteggia": singing the girl's qualities and emphasizing the power of one's desire. A nerve-wracking practice.

Besides the duties, think about the hardships of the arena. You were forced to perform the "pusteggia." A Neapolitan slang term, derived from the notorious posteggiatori, musicians who performed in front of cafés and restaurants. The more they sang poignant love songs, the more they won over the audience, the more they earned. Entering the arena meant learning the art of the pusteggia. Singing about the girl's qualities and emphasizing the power of your desire. A nerve-wracking practice. Moreover, it was often harassing for women, as well as ineffective. The pusteggia ended with a request: Do you want to go out with me? The first time I entered the arena, I walked for about 40 minutes with a girl and told her how much and why I liked her, alternating my own phrases with those from Pooh songs. She got me talking and finally answered quite clearly: No! Why not? I asked. Because I like someone else who talks less than you, was the reply.

It's a common experience, and not just a human one. Jessica Yorzinski is a scientist who studies peacocks (there's a striking similarity between peacock-like display and preening). Her studies reveal a harsh truth: female peahens are picky eaters—and the choice is entirely female. They don't buy it so easily: in a typical lek (a courtship area where males gather to display their tails), only 5 percent of the males get the majority of the females.

These are merciless and even stressful numbers, considering that the peacock must both watch the females and watch out for competitors. The gaze-tracking technique has shown that peacocks spend 30 percent of their time watching other males, their competitors. Therefore, peacocks become depressed, and depressed, they sometimes attempt to mate with squirrels. They fail, of course, and become even more depressed: a virtuous cycle.

But this highly competitive arena, which has stimulated initiative and boldness in some, ridiculousness and tears in others when they fail, and in still others anxiety and incel hysteria—in short, does the description of how this arena works tell us something about the origins of love?

Mark Twain posed this question in his amusing and philosophical text, “The Diary of Adam and Eve.” Here, Twain uses his ironic wit to mock our founding myth and asks: given that Adam and Eve are our sentimental prototypes, why do they fall in love and end up loving each other for life? Well, you say: there was little choice. True, but even now, despite what some dating apps would have us believe, we don't have that much choice. Indeed, too much choice seems like a deception of romanticism. In “The Paradox of Choice” (2004), Barry Schwartz reaches the following conclusion: when we have more options, we tend to put more pressure on ourselves. We want to make a perfect choice and feel even more disappointed when it turns out not to be perfect.

Let's return to our two sentimental prototypes. Who is Adam? A young pre-adolescent, completely absorbed in his playful activities. A show-off, gullible, he loves exploring the Garden of Eden (for promotional reasons, Twain's Garden of Eden is the one around Niagara Falls) and diving: he jumps into a barrel from the waterfall with great delight. He uses pompous words to impress Eve. He seems neither thoughtful nor introspective. At first, he can't stand Eve—this strange creature with the blond mane who follows him. A woman who insists on naming things. She sees a bird and says: "It's a dodo!" Adam asks her why it's a dodo? She replies: "Because it looks like a dodo." And from now on, Adam comments, those things will be called just that; no one will ever be able to change that name.

Who is Eve? A dreamer. Curious about everything. One night she looks at her reflection in the pond and sees the moon reflected in it. She reaches out to touch it and slips, almost drowning. She resurfaces with a new fear: perhaps, she says, it's the fear of death. She then feels so alone, senselessly alone, and wonders why Adam loves being alone.

Everything changes when the two lose the Garden of Eden. They fall, they are afraid, they feel ashamed, and they feel mortal. Only then does Adam approach Eve. It doesn't seem like a connection dictated by quantum lightning, but rather a strategy. It's worth saying, Twain is keen on this point: Adam feels it's in his best interest to fall in love. Now that Paradise is lost, he needs a substitute for ownership: you are mine and you will work for me, and I will oversee the work.

Adam and Eve as told by Mark Twain. Of course, she doesn't love him for his intelligence, but "simply because he's male and he's mine, I think."

Eve lets him believe it. Then, some time later, she brings him a strange baby. It makes strange, guttural noises, cries, and is always hungry. Adam looks at it and studies it, but he can't figure out what it is: a fish? He even throws it into the water to see if it can swim. It can't swim. Meanwhile, Eve's behavior has changed; now she stays up all night cuddling the little animal, comforting it, and singing songs to it: "He doesn't do this with other animals." Finally, Adam realizes what it is: it's a kangaroo. A new species, since he discovered it, he names it Cangurus Adamiensis. Then she tells him no, its name is Cain. The two start a family, and Eve wonders in her diary why she loves Adam: “It's not because of his intelligence that I love him—no, not at all. It's not his fault that he has the intelligence he has; God gave it to him. It's not because of his culture that I love him—no, not at all. He's self-taught, and to be honest, he knows an infinite number of things, but they're not true. So what's the reason I love him? Simply because he's a boy and he's mine, I think. Yes, I think I love him for the simple reason that he belongs to me and he's a boy. There's no other, I think.” Then she seems to regret it, and apologizes: I'm just a young girl, perhaps others after me will understand better what this is all about.

Adam and Eve, without ever understanding why, will love each other for their entire lives, so much so that Adam will write on Eve's tomb: "Wherever she was, that was Eden." While Eve will write: "It is my prayer and wish that our lives end together—a wish that will never fade from the face of the earth and that until the end of time will live in the heart of every loving bride; that wish will have my name."

So, given this shift in perspective, what is Twain's reflection? Love? Not quantum flashes, but a force associated, from the very beginning, with property.

It's not nice to say. After all, how many movies are there where he wins her over after a textbook love speech? How many experiences have you had where you promised, or were promised, eternal love? How many times have we told our new partner, "It's different with you, you're the one"? How many times have we said, "You and me forever"? But at the same time, how many times have we suffered or caused suffering over a betrayal? What about that excruciating sense of abandonment, the shaking legs, the total disorientation, the grief we feel, the psychoanalysts we pay for, the psychotropic drugs we take? Why on earth do we want to know everything about the betrayal (or resist telling) if not to check how much of the shared property our partner has shared with the other? If love weren't tied to possession, we wouldn't feel those kinds of emotions and that special, unbearable suffering: we are mammals, we seek protection, we are human, we don't seek the truth, but the recognition of the group.

In short, property, possessions, old issues. Ultimately, my grandparents' love wasn't the "go where your heart takes you" kind. That is, it didn't spring from a romantic poetics (it's the Romantics who added this spice to love). On the contrary, it was "go where your dowry takes you."

Love as a stewardship of the territory, valorized by a couple of whom it is said: "They are a company", devalued by a toxic relationship

What are Victorian novels, starting with Jane Austen, about if not dowry? However, Twain, addressing the theme of property, also points us towards a path: love is the management of territory. It can transform itself into territorial valorization (imagine a close-knit couple of whom others say: "They're a corporation"), into territorial devaluation (imagine a toxic love), or into normal territorial administration (those couples that last but no one understands why). So says Twain, and so do we. In moments of spleen, we recognize the ambivalent nature of love: it is a force that allows us to experience empathy, supporting and getting to know our partner, but also to control and manipulate them. It is a force that pushes us to sacrifice (which is a sort of investment in the future) and, at the same time, can humiliate us through excessive sacrifice (thereby destroying our own future)—among other things, the concept of property also applies to polyamorous people. Only a superficial view considers polyamorous people free from jealousy. If you look closely, their pact is a way (with many rules to support it) to control the territory into which the other ventures.

Of course, here too, the ability to value or devalue each other's property depends on many factors. Psychologists talk about inheritance: whether or not you've had enough love, and whether you can capitalize on that inheritance. Which isn't easy; after all, you learned something about love as a child, when you were more inclined to ask than to give.

The soulmate paradox described by Aristophanes in the "Symposium": Is this love? A game of interlocking protrusions?

Be that as it may, the underlying concept remains the concept of ownership. The greatest philosophers know it, and so do we. Let's not be damned; we can reason. Think of Plato and the "Symposium," where ownership is also discussed (critically). Aristophanes does so by inventing the story of the soulmate. In the beginning, he says, we were monstrous beings, two heads, four arms, and four legs, arrogant as well. The gods then cut us in half and separated us into two parts, and not only that, but, as a comical retaliation, our heads were turned so that we only looked at our front side—that is, at our missing part. To remedy this unfortunate inconvenience, each of us must search for our missing part, and finally, once found, merge with it. Is this love? A game of interlocking protrusions? You're mine, I'm yours! These are the key declarations of all lovers: the other part, in fact, is neither interchangeable nor replaceable! That is precisely our soul mate, hence the particular measure that had been drawn for us, the missing part of the sphere: more properties than that.

But Aristophanes was joking; he didn't believe it. He wanted to point out the paradox of the soulmate (today we would say that the soulmate is the antechamber of toxic love). Philosopher Martha Nussbaum, in a commentary on the "Symposium" ("The Fragility of Good," 1986), writes that Eros unites, yes, but arrives by chance. Then, the bodies, after reuniting and regaining their spherical shape, lose all desire and fall asleep: no desire, nothing at all, absence of disturbances.

Then in the "Symposium" the floor is given to Socrates. He says he knows nothing about love; in fact, he learned everything he knows from Diotima, a priestess. Diotima questions Socrates, and they eventually come to a definition of beauty. The Greek word is kalòn. It also includes love for science and democracy. Thus, Socrates—through Diotima—arrives to argue that, in reality, a lover's qualities are not incomparable goods, but rather those goods are a manifestation of beauty, entirely comparable, and therefore similar, to other forms of beauty.

If desires focus on a supposed uniqueness, on a perfect fit, then the first disjunction makes lovers weak and fragile. Even violent. Instead, lovers should embark on a journey of education. If we think of the goods of love as comparable, then we can say that the body of this wonderful lover has exactly (can be compared to) the qualities of her mind, and her mind is similar to the beauty of mathematics, and the latter can be compared to Athenian democracy. Our task is to ascend, to reach that threshold where the comparison of beauties is possible. In this apprenticeship the young man will know “that the beauty that shines in souls is more valuable than that which shines through in bodies and the young man will fall in love with that beauty, so that he will then be led to consider the beauty that is in institutions and laws (…) and gazing into this copious beauty, he will no longer love in the manner of a slave, but on the contrary, drowning his sight in the boundless sea of this new beauty, and contemplating it, he will give birth to many beautiful and splendid speeches, and thoughts abundant in wisdom”.

However, the "Symposium" doesn't end there. After Diotima's proposal, Plato complicates matters. Alcibiades, the Athenian leader, arrives (uninvited). He's handsome and a swashbuckler. But not exactly himself. Due to his drunkenness, he engages in a discourse contrary to Diotima's, and confesses his love for Socrates, who in fact possesses unique qualities. Alcibiades isn't interested in comparing Socrates to anyone else. We're back to square one. According to Alcibiades, love cannot escape this special experience of the singular. But is love then an experience of the universal or the particular? Is it primarily the need for the (immeasurable) property that encompasses everything and is sufficient unto itself, or is it a striving for beauty? Plato doesn't solve this enigma, and if Plato doesn't solve it, how can I?

In the third millennium, we still can't heed the invitation Eva wrote in her diary: will others, after me, understand love better? Nothing, ownership still dominates (otherwise "Temptation Island" wouldn't be the success it is). However, something is moving. Even though the imagination (both Hollywood and Bollywood) insists there is only one answer worthy of being accepted: the romantic one with all that entails, it's also true that many are clearly not satisfied with romance. Also because the world is moving, and the old custom of forming couples, marrying to raise and protect children, is losing its appeal. Whether it's the demographic crisis (a very elderly aunt of mine once said, "I donated my womb to Mussolini"), or the widespread desire for creativity, something seems to be giving way. On the horizon, after all, are other tools not only for thinking about love and desire but also for maintaining them.

Philosopher Carrie Jenkins, in her book "What Is Love: And What It Could Be," argues that love is a biopsychosocial phenomenon. Much of our cultural narrative about love is based on psychological, subjective, and experiential aspects. But in recent decades, we've been able to see what happens at the biological and neurochemical level. A number of drugs are being studied for this biological level, such as psilocybin. You know those couples always trapped in the same pattern? The fact is, our brain is a huge Bayesian prediction mechanism. We try to predict what happens in the world. Once we notice certain patterns or regularities, we store them as an expectation. We then continue to interpret the world in light of those prior beliefs. But some of these prior beliefs become patterns in which we remain trapped. What psilocybin seems to do is temporarily erase some of these past beliefs, allowing us to see things with fresh eyes, assimilating information without prejudging it as much as we did in the past. It's a bit like Diotima said: love is an ascending ladder, but if you're stuck on one rung, you can philosophize all you want, but you won't make any progress. Psilocybin helps.

But take those religious people who blame their libido. Perhaps they feel attracted to it, or simply desire to masturbate. Since it's forbidden, they feel ashamed and depressed. Well, there are SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), a class of antidepressant drugs. One of their side effects is a lowered libido. The libido drops, and so does the desire to masturbate or have sexual intercourse, and Saint Anthony the Abbot and his temptations disappear into the attic. You might ask, can you compare Saint Anthony the Abbot's resistance to temptations with SSRIs? But be that as it may, the biography of love in the third millennium must necessarily understand the new cultural and biological environment and the tools we deem useful (and which could cause us disadvantages we cannot foresee).

Proust even defines the four elements that make up the law of love: habit, anxiety, jealousy, and oblivion. Swann's Torments

Anyway, to conclude, I've never written a biography of love because Marcel Proust already did. For the writer, love isn't the meaning of life. Indeed, love has dynamics that make it resemble a disease. So much so that Proust approaches the theme of love like a doctor approaches a patient and asks how a disease is contracted. Is it possible to be vaccinated? How long is the incubation period? What are the first symptoms? Why don't most sufferers notice the symptoms? How long does the disease, that is, love, take to spread throughout the body? Is recovery possible, and are relapses frequent? Examining the disease like a doctor, Proust comes to define the four stages that make up the law of love: habit, anxiety, jealousy, and oblivion. These too have to do with ownership and once again seem too low to be considered. Thank goodness it is! Proust disagrees. It's not desire that drives love, it's habit, a powerful yet ambiguous force: it's sweet, but it creates bonds that, over time, we can't do without. In "The Search," when, due to a trivial mishap, Swann arrives late to the reception and doesn't find Odette, he wonders where she is. He didn't like her at first, but now that he doesn't see her as usual, habit gives way to anxiety. Indeed, Swann will make an effort, meet Odette again, and experience an incredible sense of relief. That relief is so sweet that it will linger for a long time, evening after evening, and eventually brings that pleasure we call love. But it's only the disease that takes hold, concealing its intentions. Soon afterward, the love Swann feels for Odette will make him sick. When Odette tells him that not tonight, she doesn't want Swann to stay with her, the sick man will enter a new, devastating phase: jealousy. Jealousy triggers suspicion, and with suspicion, interrogation, and with interrogation, lies. Jealousy is central to all of Proust's work.

What happens after this phase characterized by great suffering, experienced and shared? In the best cases, oblivion sets in, meaning we resign ourselves to the absence of our beloved, another habit, according to Proust and Swann, a habit so powerful, even more powerful than the jealousy that triggers oblivion: are we healed? Perhaps so, or perhaps we are ready to begin again, following the old and stable law of love. Oblivion has a consequence: it undermines the meaning of love. We thought that person was our vital center, and instead they are no longer anything. But if they are nothing, then who were we during that period? Who was our twenty-year-old self, afflicted by the disease? If we were to encounter that sick self, would we recognize it? Would we pity it? Or perhaps have we forgotten it forever?

Conclusion? For Proust, love isn't one of the reasons that makes life worth living (art makes life worth living). However, love has its advantages: through love, we become social individuals, we sometimes engage in good conversation, but above all, love is the force (the only one) that can make us come to terms with our mortality. Ultimately, that's what Eve says when she falls into the pond and discovers the presence of death and longs for a companion to alleviate this feeling. I understand that quantum lightning is more fascinating, but the presence of death is enough to cultivate the raw material of love and perhaps attempt to write an honest and collective biography of love, and with love, of course, a biography of life.