Procrastinatr

February 9, 2024

A second-hand emotion?

Hey Reader,

This time last year, I sent a newsletter issue to 32 people. It was called Do You Believe in Life After Love, and it explored the relationship between courtly love in Dennis de Rougement's perspective and the best-selling narrative all times.

I'm putting this out again, with more emphasis on how it all plays into creativity. 95 people (you included, Reader) will get this newsletter in about 45 seconds, and I just wanted to take a minute and thank you.

For trusting me with your emails and your time.

For sticking around so I can find the thing I want to talk about.

And for generally being ultra-supportive.

Cheers, Reader

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When Lucy gets amnesia and forgets him every time she goes to sleep, Henry in 50 First Dates recreates his first date every day. Again, and again, and again.

Adam Sandler might not be your goalpost for creativity or quality (or, frankly, romance), but let’s give Caesar what belongs to Caesar: the movie is a pretty nice romantic take on Groundhog Day.

What makes it special is not Sandler or the performative humor. It’s not even the theme (see Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind.) It’s how it manages to convey a message unusual to the Romance genre in a mega-digestible way: the unfulfillment of love, on repeat.

Sure, Henry and Lucy do walk off into some sort of sunshine. But he spends a lifetime winning her over and over. His Hero’s Journey resets every night. They’re Tristan and Isolde on repeat — their story doesn’t end in tombstones with intertwined roses, but in continuous struggle

Blame the troubadours

Somewhere between the 11th and the 12th century, troubadours bring into Europe the idea of Courtly Love. This concept, which will influence Romance literature for centuries (and arguably to this day), dictates that a knight must fall in love with a married lady, and serve her eternally - even from afar.

The idea's not new to the world, but it's pretty spankin' fresh for Europeans. Inspired by Sufi's idea of love for God, the original idea of Courtly Love is not about fulfillment -- it's about perpetually serving the one you love, knowing you'll never be together.

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Like Henry, the Courtly Love knight's journey is doomed to repeat itself over and over, without ever reaching what we would now call a happy ending. He is to serve his Lady (usually married to the knight's vassal) forever and ever, from afar, and this love is meant to purify them.

In Love in the Western World, Dennis de Rougemont explains how the idea of Courtly Love goes on to influence Western culture and shape our perception of love. The very way the English language describes the act of taking to loving someone -- to fall in love (or tomber amoureuse in French) is reflective of the kind of passion that Courtly Love put on a pedestal: violent, sudden, complete -- and painful.

At first based on physical unfulfillment, though, Western love takes a strange turn: it becomes fulfilled, but only through hurdles, pain, and continuous effort.

The pain is still there. It ends, sure, but it's there. We eat it with a big spoon. Be it books or movies, we go to great lengths to make sure our fictional characters are not fulfilled for a while. We like the tension, the will-they-wont-they, the mother-in-law who doesn't like her son's girlfriend, the fatal misunderstanding. We crave for that pain to be present in our fictional love stories, because it's ingrained in us since Courtly Love was born.

The concept of unfulfilled love, or even frustrated love, has been a recurring theme in literature and art since then. From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to John Keats' Odes, from Gustav Klimt's The Kiss to Taylor Swift's songs, we have been fascinated by the idea of love that is consumed -- and consumes.

Decisions, decisions

We aren't supposed to choose pain. Everything in our body is built so you don't do that -- you pull away from the stove when it's too hot, your stomach rumbles when you're hungry, and your gut (literally) will tell you if you should step way from a situation.

And yet, when it comes to love, we choose pain all the time. We watch movies and read books about it, we sing along to songs that celebrate it, we make decisions that lead us down paths of potential heartache. We willingly put ourselves in situations where there is a risk of getting hurt. Chest wide open, we take a dive into the sea of emotions, knowing that at some point there will be crashing waves.

But why?

We want what we can't have, and when we get it, we want to start over again.

We aren't, essentially, looking to fulfill. We're looking to hunt, to fight, to conquer. Like Henry, we want to win over and over again, because that's where the thrill lies.

Maybe it's evolutionary -- survival of the fittest (or in this case, most persistent) gene. Maybe it's societal pressure-- the idea that love is supposed to be a struggle makes us think that if we don't have struggles in our relationships, we're not really in love. Maybe it's just the romanticized idea of passion and drama that has been ingrained in us since Courtly Love.

No utility. Or maybe all of it, everywhere, all at once

Whatever the reason may be, the fact remains: there's nothing logical about our affinity for struggle -- in love, and not. And yet, we continue to chase it, in real life and fiction, over and over again. Risk aversion be damned, book the ticket, watch another episode of Bridgerton, let's see that love story unfold once again.

In my previous issue of Procrastinatr, we discussed the Expected Utility Theory (EUT)-- and how it (allegedly) explains buying patterns.

Love, well, it sells. Billions, perhaps trillions of dollars every year. Movies, books, Valentine's Day cards -- we can't get enough of Courtly Love 2.0.

From an EUT point of view, this obsession with spending money on love only makes sense if the expected utility of these experiences is greater than the cost. So, in theory, we think the cost (fulfillment of love) is worth the effort (giant teddy bears are expensive.) What we crave, though, is not the actual fulfillment, but the dopamine hit we get from thinking about fulfillment.

And once quasi-fulfillment does come along, we run back to the source to search it up again. Like hamsters on a wheel, we don't seek the utility of fulfillment, but the utility of continuously seeking fulfillment.

Super meta. But, to give you a more down-to-earth example, think of shopaholics. They buy and buy, yet never feel satisfied. It's not the object they crave, it's that feeling of wanting, of having to have something.

So when we say Courtly Love is not about fulfillment but about continuous struggle, maybe it's because our brain chemistry tells us that the pursuit of happiness feels better than actual happiness.

And just like that, one of the most profitable narratives in history proves the Expected Utility Theory is false -- or at least false when you get past surface level and dig deep into actual human behavior.

OK, so what can you do with this information?

"Love" gets thrown around a lot. You love your significant other and McDonald's too. You love how that perfume smells and how your pet always greets you at the door.

But let's call it what it is: we don't love these things/ beings, we want them. We crave the perpetual search for them and the relief of feeling them, if not in ownership, then at least in proximity.

I'll skip the life lessons here, I'm not the person for that, and, generally, you shouldn't take life advice from people on the internet.

Here's what all this can teach you about creativity, though.

There are three marketing lessons I can, however, extrapolate. They're not new, you probably know them:

• Make them want it. What you sell, be it a product, a service or a story, has to make the consumer/ reader/ viewer want more, not settle for what they already have.
• Make the quest interesting. It's not about having something; it's about getting there. Put your characters through hell and back -- just make sure there's potential fulfillment at the end.
• Don't be surprised if they come back for more -- even when you give them what they want. It's not about the goal; it's about the pursuit.

What role does creativity have to play in this?

Everything. We're in this because some troubadour thought it would be a nice idea to glorify unfulfilled love. We're doing this because our brains crave that dopamine hit we get from wanting. And most times, it's the creative acts that push us back into buying the movie tickets, the teddy bears, the fancy dinners.

Rationally, we know that doesn't have anything to do with love.

Irrationally, we'll keep on searching for it in trinkets and shows and songs until the day we die. And, in a way, that's also beautiful. Because, in our search, we tend to create:

• Meaning
• Life
• Art
• Stories
• Culture

So, in the end, maybe it's not about finding love or fulfillment. Maybe it's about creating them, over and over again.

Like Henry, in 50 First Dates.

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Just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song,

Octavia

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