21st Century Loving

People change as they go through life and we need to adjust our expectations to allow for it.
If a situation arrives and you think that you know how your significant other would react, think again. You can be stuck with an outdated opinion of her. Maybe she would do what you never thought she would, or would not do what she always used to do.
Our knowledge of people and things also evolves. It is extremely rewarding to spend effort understanding your significant other. Why does she react, in what might seem as strange ways to you, in some circumstances? There might be some interesting stories hidden under some of these behaviors. And if you query nicely, you might be surprised to learn them.

One thought on “21st Century Loving

  1. shinichi Post author

    What Can Da Vinci Teach You About Your Relationship

    21st Century Loving

    https://psiloveyou.xyz/what-da-vinci-can-teach-you-about-your-relationship-4e390122d57e

    Last time we met, my girlfriend told me the story about her first relationship. We have been together for a year and we still have things to discover about each other. From bits and pieces she had told me before, I had an faint idea with many blanks of what the story might be. But of course, the pieces only felt into shape once she told me.

    Knowing people is central to how I earn my living. I need to motivate people sometimes and give orders at other times, knowing how to walk the thin line. I need to understand what the organization and the multiple top managers I deal with want, separating grain from chaff. I also use these skills to make sense of who my girlfriend is. So I told her, that I think I can see pretty much into who she is.

    Of course, she disagreed. She insists on how there are many things about her that I can not possibly know. She is right, but I also did not explain myself fully. She is right if you see the world in absolute lines like the paint strokes of Michelangelo. The thing is I do tend to see the world through the sfumato drawings of Da Vinci. Let me explain.

    * * *

    Sfumato

    I just finished reading the biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson (which I highly recommend). I was sharing pictures of some of the beautiful drawings by the master himself that are shown in the book with my girl. Da Vinci never used sharp lines to define the shapes in his paintings. He used a technique called sfumato.

    sfumato /sfʊˈmɑːtəʊ/ noun
    The technique of allowing tones and colors to shade gradually into one another, producing softened outlines or hazy forms.

    If you look at this drawing in detail you will notice that there are no sharp lines delineating the shape of the lady. It is more a bunch of soft lines that converge into a main figure.

    When it comes to knowing someone it is better to take what I call “the sfumato approach”, to try to use a bunch of soft lines to try delineating them. This basically removes any ”I’m sure she…” or “That’s not her…” from your vocabulary. Sometimes we don’t even know ourselves. How can we claim that we know someone else? In painter’s talk, using soft shades of grey instead of precise solid lines allow for the uncertainties of life.

    Thus, when I say I know my girl, I talk more in probabilities than in certainties. The probability that she would come along to a surprise trip I organize for her birthday is high (she did). The probability that she will order a medium rare steak is very low (she has not to date and usually complains a little about the dead flesh when I am having one). But knowing her, it is possible that a friend could convince her to try some one day. And then there are some things in between. And lets be honest, it is the same with me.

    As she was telling me that story all pieces of the puzzle were falling in place. She had mentioned the guy before, and she had also mentioned the time frame. I knew about the circumstances. Each one of these facts were a sfumato line being drawn. When she finished telling me her story, this image appeared, and it all made sense. It was a way I would have expected her to approach a new experience.

    So, next time you think you know what your significant other is or is not, or will or will not do, make sure you leave wiggle room for surprises. With an open mind you may be positively surprised.

    Retouching things through time

    The Greek philosophers already knew it:

    You never cross the same river twice.

    You are not the same person that you were one year ago, or five, or one month ago. One of our great advantages is that we adapt based on our what we live through, what we learn. We keep accumulating experiences and might surprise our close acquaintances by doing things that they had not expected from us.

    Da Vinci finished very few projects in his life. He took his Mona Lisa along with him from Florence, to Rome and then to France, always adding more details to it as he learned new techniques. He would go to great lengths acquiring knowledge of anatomy to be able to represent the expressions he wanted his works to show. For example, he prepared and studied long for a painting of a battle commissioned by Florence. Only drawings of it survived.

    For this painting he performed anatomical studies both in men and in horses. Look at the expressions of all the involved in the skirmish. The expression of the Milanese flag carrier as he is overrun by his opponents is also matched by the expression of the horses as they go head to head on the battle.

    Da Vinci dissected horses to learn how to better draw them in movement, and he also kept experimenting with techniques used for wall paintings. Everything he learned led to new, improved versions of the sketch.

    There are two things that we can learn from this. The first one is that people change as they go through life and we need to adjust our expectations to allow for it. Just a few days ago my girlfriend confessed that there were things she felt comfortable doing now that she would not have done a year ago.

    Thus if a situation arrives and you think that you know how your significant other would react, think again. You can be stuck with an outdated opinion of her. Maybe she would do what you never thought she would, or would not do what she always used to do.

    The second thing to learn from Leonardo is that our knowledge of people and things also evolves. It is extremely rewarding to spend effort understanding your significant other. Why does she react, in what might seem as strange ways to you, in some circumstances? There might be some interesting stories hidden under some of these behaviors. And if you query nicely, you might be surprised to learn them.

    * * *

    Understanding the moving version of our loved ones can be extremely rewarding. And being open minded about what we will discover can lead your relationship to heights that you never imagined were possible.

    Life is change, embrace it.

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