Looking for the rib. I haven’t been lucky.

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Paulos Yrgaw
Sep 16, 2006

Of course, it is a rhetorical question, but what is love? If I have to answer my own question, I would say, I don’t know. In fact, as much as love takes a center stage in our life, for something that has remained to be enigmatic to this day, our biological system has failed to tersely define love in a linguistic expressions. Again, if love seems to play a crucial role in our survival instinct, why can’t we define it clearly in such a way we define say, other things that are extremely familiar to us? We are able to define love only through symbols, metaphors and of course through mythologies as well.

If someone asks you what an apple tastes like, what would you say? The only thing you can say is, to tell the person to taste an apple, otherwise you can not define what an apple tastes like. With the same token, love is of course an abstract, it can only be known through a life that is lived through it. Experience. And if there is such a thing called, "Pauli Exclusion Principle" in the isle of the hard sciences, it can equally be said about love as well. No two people can have identical experiences of love. Hence, if I can paraphrase, Shakespear’s famous dictum, love is in the eyes of the beholder. There is no a standardized index for it.

Love the paradox and in a perpetual contradiction is brilliantly depicted by the guru of Existentialism, Albert Camus in his book "The Myth of Sisyphus". The aphorism in Camus’ seeming sophistry goes, suppose you say to a girl you desperately love that, you would give your life up for the love that you have for her and you also say to her that, the only reason you live or the only purpose in your life is the love that you have for her as well. Camus uncompromisingly challenges the Lord Byron’s "Don Juan": how is it possible for something (love) to be one’s purpose in life and a destroyer of life at the same time? It is a paradox.

The paradox is however, an obsession and a compulsive fit if you will. We are doomed to be its subservients or slaves simply because our life is a hollow and a dark vessel with out it. Of course, we have a platonic love and an altruistic love as well, where the former is devoid of sex and the latter is an idealistic love where our concern is stretched for the well-being of our love-ones. Love the sacred "entity" however, can not be free of impurity and its sanctity is desecrated by the "barbarity" of sex. Simply because, love with out sex loses its deterministic purpose in propagating the human species.

Theologians however, argue that, the conundrum can only be escaped by protecting the sanctity of love from sex’s predatory impurity by the institution of marriage. We need marriage under a holy solemn so that love can be transformed and bridged into the realm of sex unperturbed. In this unending "game" of necessity between the "yin and yang" or opposite sexes, why is it that one seems to be more indispensable than the other?

A peevish with an exacerbated breath, Danny Aiello stands at the door-step of his would be bride and knocks at the door desperate for someone to let him in. His would be mother-in-law, Olympia Dukakis (the sister of the former US presidential candidate Michael Dukakis) opens the door and Danny Aiello lets himself in and barges straight to the kitchen and grabs a chair to sit.

Olympia Dukakis taken by a complete surprise by Danny’s reaction follows him and stares at him with out saying a single word. In this 1987 great movie "Moonstruck" where the plot of the film is about an Italian woman (Cher) torn apart between two brothers who are at odds with each other, where the younger (Nicholas Cage), a suicidal and pushed to the edge falls in love with Cher who is about to marry the older brother (Danny Aiello).

As Danny grabs the seat, he says to Olympia, "I want to ask you a question". She says, "Shoot". Danny says to her, "why does a man chase a woman?". She says to him, "Man chases a woman to get his rib back". Danny jumps of his seat and he exclaims eureka! eureka! Finally, he says, he has found the answer he has always been looking for. Of course, Olympia’s otherwise terse response reflects the Hebrew creation mythology where Eve is believed to had been created of Adam’s rib. And Adam is doomed to eternity in a tantalizing quest like Sisyphus in search of his lost rib. Are we (men) ill-omened in a perpetual quest for our "lost" ribs? Nature the equalizer asserts otherwise.

Leonard Shlain, a laparoscopic surgeon turned to a evolutionary psychologist, in his best-seller and remarkable book, "Time, Sex and Power" compellingly argues that, the heated dynamism between the opposite sexes is a two tier game and he also asserts that, men have every reason to breath a sigh of relief. Way before Leonard Shlain however, Frederick Nietzsche arguably the greatest western philosopher ever lived "vilified" women which is to this day a center of mockery amongst feminists and the "she-god" movements when he said, a solution to every woman’s problem is pregnancy.

From Nietzsche’s premises, Leonard Shlain as well argues that, a woman’s intense need for child-bearing attempted to control and reign on man’s fate until nature interjected and "saved" man from an eternal prostration. When an infant girl is conceived, Shlain argues, she comes to life with a limited number of ovary cells in her system where she is able to be fertile with in a specific span of time only.

Thus, as time becomes her predator, a woman would need a man desperately as she ages before she runs out of a productive time span in order to conceive. Where as man, can be fertile unbounded by time as long as he is healthy. This an equalizing effect bestowed on man by the "generous" nature has give a man a certain power leverage on woman. The second equally important leverage of man, Shlain argues is Iron or Haemoglobin.

As we know, Haemoglobin is essential in our system where it carries oxygen molecules in order to get the necessary energy to survive and function. As women discharge a good amount of blood every month through menstrual cycle, women need a supply of Iron or Haemoglobin to replenish the lost blood. Man the hunter, Shlain argues is indispensable. A woman would need him to bring her meat by hunting which is crucial to furnish her lost blood. Nature the equalizer has set us in motion in an equal need for each other, even though the real deal between the opposite sexes is more real than the theoretical take.

Paulos Yrgaw
Ottawa, Canada.
Comments: asimov107@yahoo.ca

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