Faster, higher, stronger?
It seems that 2024 is set to be a year of superlatives. My two previous Entries already referred to this year’s European elections and the UEFA European Football Championship.
And now the XXXIII (33rd) Summer Olympic Games have just ended with a brilliant closing ceremony in Paris, France.
The phrase I use as today’s headline “Faster, higher, stronger!” (quite correctly derived from the original Latin compatatives “Citius, altius, fortius!” ) is therefore fittingly the traditional motto of all Olympic Games that have taken place since 1896, proposed by the French philologist Michel Bréal at the First Olympic Congress in 1894.
“Faster, higher, stronger!” – meanwhile, we all seem to be driven and even spurred on by this maxim outside of the Olympic Games – and especially in ethical multiple relationships, the comparison to Olympic “multiple disciplines”, which have to be accomplished, comes to mind.
Accordingly, in those times in my life when I was involved with more than one partner, the proceedings were easily on a par with modern pentathlon: Schedules, individual and shared time had to be coordinated, the formal side of life had to continue – only now with more people involved (trips, shopping, handover times, meals and “other household expenses” increased…), additional sensitivities and needs of several people involved had to be considered, communicated, balanced, precious me-time and self-care had to be accommodated – and last but not least, lightness, love and togetherness had to find their place in all this…
And in those times in my life when I was “Poly-single” (or rather: “Oligo-single” – and personally I was still lucky enough to almost always have at least one companion by my side), I often felt incomplete and drove myself to busy activity on the dating planet – which, as anyone who has ever fallen into the lottery-like hamster wheel of dating knows, in turn demanded resources on its own – first and foremost, life time. And after a number of dates, I could perfectly understand, both physically and emotionally, the frustration of somebody, who seemed to have just narrowly missed out on a bronze medal.
We people who engage in multiple relationships are often like the Olympians themselves in this respect: Outside of the “Games”, they are for four years often as invisible as we are as a subculture. But the rest of the busy world doesn’t care. Bills need to be paid, liabilities need to be met – and above all: Smile!, whether you’re a woman, a man or a diverse person, because nobody usually asks how you’re feeling deep down inside. The Olympians will then be allowed to step out from behind the curtain at least once every four years – but then they will also have to prove their skills, which they will hopefully have honed in the meantime.
However, for anyone practising alternative lifestyles, the curtain tends to remain permanently closed – instead, we have to compete on a daily basis with a normal-normative environment where the conditions seem to predominantly match for everyone else. By which I want to point out that non-normativity per se can be a constant stressor in itself. This can become acutely apparent, for example, in situations where the only people you can discuss your unique concerns with are those in your family of choice. And that’s where things can sometimes get tight when it’s your own family of choice that poses the respective challenges…
This is where looking at the mono-normative world quickly becomes a rushed look over one’s own shoulder: “#§$%! – all the others seem to be getting by somehow…” As a result, we look for the problem primarily in ourselves and react with even more hectic activity: Optimizing the Google calendar, driving faster than is good, creating yet another dating profile (and now receiving even more silly “new-people-in-your-area-discovered!” emails), drumming up at least another 15 minutes of kitchen table conversation together in the evening (which boosts our popularity status immensely and really takes the stress out…) or booking a vacation for the polycule¹ on our own so that all of us might finally get a break…
Whenever this happens to me, I have to think of my current favorite author Matt Haig, who wrote in his book “Notes on our nervous planet” (Canongate Books Ltd., 2019):
»But just as there is only one planet – a planet with finite resources – there is also only one you. And you also have a finite resource – time. And, let’s face it, you can’t multiply yourself. An overloaded planet cajoles us into overloaded lives vut, ultimately, you can’t play with all the toys.
You can’t use all the apps. You can’t be at all the parties. You can’t do the work of 20 people. You can’t be up to speed on all the news. You cann’t wear all eleven of your coats once. You can’t watch every must-see show. You can’t live in two places at once.
You can buy more, you can aquire more, you can work more, you can earn more, you can strive more, you can tweet more, but as each new buzz diminishes there comes a point where you have to ask yourself: what is all this for? How much extra happiness am I acquiring?«
Whew.
Matt Haig reminds me of a very important asset, which even made it into the subtitle of my bLog project here: Sustainability. And it is so important to remind ourselves that sustainability should not just be a buzzword reserved for abstract discussions about fair trade coffee, whether Germany is an eco-friendly business location or electric cars vs. public transportation.
In my Values-Entry 3, I break down this somewhat unwieldy term, which has become much worn out in so many debates, to highlight how important sustainability actually is for our relationships.
To this end, I first of all had used three further technical terms, namely consistency – in other words: constancy and coherence of values, efficiency – in other words: suitability, and sufficiency – in other words: viability. Regarding Entry 3, I was also allowed to borrow a sustainability triangle as a graphic aid to show that none of these aspects can achieve its effect without the other two.
So the day we find ourselves part of a terrible rat race in our multiple relationships, it is enormously grounding to realize once again what really matters in connection with our loved ones (and ourselves!). And the legendary Chinese philosopher of the 6th century BC, Lao Tzu, expressed in my view even better, with all the wisdom and nonchalance of the Far East, what this can mean for us:
“When I let go of what I am right now, I become what I might be.”
Sounds too much like a fortune cookie?
Just think one more time about that almost tongue-in-cheek statement!
Because the quote alludes to our self-image: The more hectic and driven we act, the more we gradually solidify it – as well as our position in life within it, up to a state that the US psychologist Steven Hayes calls “psychological rigidity” ². We are becoming increasingly inflexible in our reactions and in our choice of means, so that in some cases we can hardly find our own way out of our misery; and at that point we have long since lost the visionary power of “what might be”.
I also don’t believe that Lao Tzu meant that we should completely renounce ourselves, as is propagated by some modern gurus of Asian philosophies.
The aforementioned Steven Hayes, for example, recognized in his research that underneath all the hectic pace and the overflowing jungle of to-do lists, all his patients eventually regained their very own core values after a while: The individual consistency, the constancy, which had by no means disappeared, but had merely become overgrown by a bloating of outward trappings.
Hayes therefore logically identified the loss of consistency as the greatest source of psychological stress – as a result of the loss of contact with all the values that are actually of the utmost importance to us personally. For “Values”, Hayes added, are the expression of our individual striving for meaning and purpose in our lives. “Meaning and purpose” in turn represent a basic need that would always become compromised if, in trying to fulfill it, we began to give priority to external “shoulds” or socially standardized ambitions over self-determination and the (self-)chosen quality of our actions.
The mere experience of consistency in our relationship with ourselves or in being together with our loved ones is therefore already one of the most important stabilizing pillars when we feel an increasing emptiness or declining sensitivity in our everyday lives.
The link to the “sustainability pillar” of sufficiency (viability) is very easy to recognize at this point: In fact, “less” is very often the famous “more”. In other words, not “Faster, higher, stronger!” – but rather “Attentive, at eye level, approachable”. After all, we want our relationships to be places of trust, where we feel safe and can take off our everyday armour. Instead, we sometimes manage our relationships like a tedious meeting or work through our affections like an overflowing inbox…
And the “efficiency pillar“, which I translated as “suitability” above?
I believe that when we read or hear the word “efficiency” today, we can hardly perceive this term without associating it with performance and effort.
Which brings us back to the rat race, because today the demand for performance means that it must always be us who are supposed to guarantee suitability and profound effectiveness ( yes, that’s how the word was once intended!).
However, suitability and profound effectiveness are passive forces that promote a result, an effect, a consequence.
In other words, something that happens to us in our relationships. Something almost imperceptible, for which we can’t really “achieve” much in the sense of ” accomplishing” or “getting it done”. But all the more with “participating”, “contributing” and “belonging”…
In the US police procedural drama “Bones”, the protagonist Dr. Temperance Brennan (played by Emily Deschanel) gives the following speech on the occasion of a death in her family of choice [Season 10, Episode 2: “The Lance to the Heart“]:
»But in a real sense. He’s here. Sweets is a part of us. Our lives… who we all are at this moment, have been shaped by our relationships with Sweets. Well, each of us is like a delicate equation. And Sweets was the variable without which we wouldn’t be who we are. I might not have married Booth. Or had Christine. Daisy certainly wouldn’t be carrying his child. We are all who we are because we knew Sweets. So, I don’t need a… a God to praise him or the universe he sprang from, because I loved him. I used to try and explain love, define it as the secretion of… chemicals and hormones. But I believe now, remembering Sweets, seeing what he left us, that love cannot be explained by… science or religion. It’s beyond the mind, beyond reason. What I do know – loving Sweets…loving each other, that’s what makes life worthwhile. Right now… I don’t need to know more than that. Which is embarrassing coming from an extremely intelligent, fact-based person like me.«
Oh, goose bumps… And I could add that it’s a shame that such thoughts too often only occur to us when someone has already died.
At the same time, it is usually precisely these threshold situations in which it suddenly becomes very clear what is actually truly important, what really (!) matters.
This means, that our relationships shape our lives, touch and change us; they are our lives. There is nothing that we have to “do”, “achieve” or “merit” in return.
In many of my early posts on this bLog I referred to multiple relationships as having the invisible quality of being “more than the sum of their parts”. A quality that is obviously attracted to love, authenticity and a sense of community. A strength that arises from togetherness, connection and reciprocity – without the need for performance…
Not a rigid Olympic feat of strength, but rather a receptive surrender and commitment.
Is this magical perhaps? Or mystical? Maybe sublime?
If not even the fabulous Dr. Temperance Brennan was able to explain it, then I don’t have to either.😉
¹ “Polycule” is a humorous portmanteau of “Polyamory” and “molecule” and refers to a group or a number of people who are engaged in ethically non-monogamous romantic relationships with each other. As these “structures” or clusters can sometimes look like hydrocarbon rings, complex molecules or other medium-chain compounds when drawn for graphic illustration, the tongue-in-cheek term “polycule” was coined.
² Steven Hayes: „A Liberated Mind: How to Pivot Toward What Matters“, Avery (27. August 2019)
For more Matt Haig, more about sustainability and especially our relationship resources, see Entry 100!
Thanks to andreas N on Pixabay for the photo!