Orchid Hunting

The ancient Greek word ‘ailouros’ roughly translates into ‘nimble tail’. It was a name given to ‘various long-tailed carnivores kept for catching mice.’ Our mind immediately matches the cat to this description. However, it seems that at one point there had been more than one supreme rodent killer. Weasels once held this throne in ancient Europe. What exactly it was that deposed them remains unknown. One can imagine that it was something about the mysterious persuasive powers of cats that changed our minds. It seems many of the great thinkers at the time had some comment or other to give the adorable felines. Out of these, the philosopher himself, Aristotle remains the most well-known. He described female cats as naturally promiscuous, as he had observed their aggressive behaviour during mating. Both Aristotle and his teacher Plato pondered much on the nature of love. Rather than an all-encompassing broad definition we find in the English language, the Greeks had several different names for the same phenomenon.

‘Xenia’ is the word used to describe the hospitality of a host towards a guest, especially if that person is far from home or an associate of the one offering accommodation. ‘Philautia’ describes the desire to seek one’s own pleasure or happiness. It is divided into an unhealthy, bad version of self-love and a good, beneficial one. ‘Philia’, as it was described by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, is the loyalty felt between friends, equals, family and community. It is a form of love that is free from any passions and is truly virtuous. It is the root of the word ‘philosophy’, the love for wisdom. ‘Agápe’ is the unchallengeable love one feels towards one’s children and to a spouse. ‘Èros’, sexual love, may seem a simple enough concept to understand. As it turns out, however, it stretches far deeper than one can imagine. It is the subject of discussion in Plato’s Symposium. Arguably, it is his most beautiful dialogue and is definitely a recommendation for a Valentine's Day read.

The word ‘Symposium’ can be translated to a drinking party or banquet and it is in this environment the dialogue is set. As a way to pass the time, the many well-known socialites - there among them Plato's famous mouthpiece Socrates - take turns to give praise to Eros, the god of love and desire. In each of their speeches, the characters explain their understanding of the natural origin of the concept. All give interesting and at times humorous testimonies, the text is casual yet compelling in a way that only Plato seems to be able to do. Each argument is laid out carefully and beautifully which makes it easy to relate to the feelings of its more than 2000-year-old characters. The last one to speak is, of course, Socrates. As is often the case with Plato, this character begins questioning Agathon, the person who had held a speech before him. This leads to his famous dialectic method. This is followed by a long-winded and logically consistent argument for love and its connection to the Theory of Forms.

Socrates claims to have learned the ‘art of love’ from a woman named Diotima. He explains that Eros is not a god at all but a daemon, a spirit that is half God and half man. Eros is not a being of wisdom and beauty, instead, it is something that enables man to seek what is beautiful. It begins as a primal feeling, one that we share with animals, such as the promiscuous household cat. We instinctively seek after the most beautiful mate to reproduce and give new life. This, Diotima says, is the closest humans can get to immortality. By carrying over our heritage to our children, a part of us remains in this world, forever to be carried on throughout the generations. All mortal creatures share the nature of seeking immortality. This explains the erratic behaviour of many animals when they mate. As a lover's wisdom increases, he begins to seek beauty in minds or souls. The lover will begin to see the beauty within all attractive bodies and will therefore begin to seek for it in the virtue and wisdom of others instead. Actions and ideas will begin to inspire the lover to create a form of spiritual birth of new intellectual endeavours. Finally, love will prompt a person to study and experience beauty itself. Beauty, in this regard, is neither attractive nor repulsive, it is not a physical trait, a piece of knowledge or a creature. It is entirely its own thing, Beauty in itself. All beautiful objects, whether they be physical or mental, only partake in it. The existence of the objects themselves does not affect Beauty. A human being is enticed already by its physical representation and so the sight of the true Form of Beauty must be something pleasurable and worthy of seeking out. Diotima then explains to Socrates that one ought to use Love as a ladder to reach this knowledge. One begins by loving one beautiful body, that love is then extended to include several bodies and then physical beauty itself. It then moves on to the love of actions and ideas which in turn leads to the love of intellectual endeavours. This will then, in turn, to lead to an ascension to a ‘final intellectual endeavour’ which is the study of Beauty itself.

What is love in modern times? Except for the odd story one hears from a friend or family member it seems to me, like with most things today, to have become a highly machinist and mathematical phenomenon. Scientists and doctors have reduced it to chemicals in the brain. Pheromones and oxytocin and dopamine. A physical anomaly, part of our primitive bodies, to be studied and prodded into. Something to be measured and altered and controlled. Although it does well in explaining what is happening and how a mere observation of chemicals tells us very little about the actual nature of love and why we experience it the way we do.

Among common folk, ‘love’ seems to become increasingly deranged. The first problem lies in our loss of sense for beauty. Its physical representation has descended into a sickly perversion. The image of a healthy, beautiful body has strayed far from actual perfection. They have become amusement parks. A physical anomaly that, once again, can be altered with chemicals or plastics. A shot of botox to the lips, silicone in the breasts, some trenbolone before a gym session. These are indeed people that strive towards immortality, but their method relies not on their genuine capabilities or a love for beauty, but instead on a foolish fear of rejection. It is a dishonest way of finding beauty. Truly a love for bodies that fail to seek after anything higher.

The people on the other side of the ideological spectrum seek to completely disregard beauty itself as an idea. To them, there is no such thing as a more or less beautiful body. Instead, one can be dangerously obese, misshapen or carry other unattractive traits and still be considered ‘beautiful’ . One might similarly interpret Plato’s message when he speaks of finding beauty in all physical bodies. However, he would vehemently disagree

with the idea that there is no such thing as physical beauty. Instead, I believe, he means to say that all human bodies share in the Form of Beauty, more or less. Furthermore, this complete denial of physical beauty is a danger for the general health of the population. It is also abundantly clear that it diverges from human nature, considering we as an animal instinctively seek the most attractive candidate for carrying our offspring, thus inevitably creating a hierarchy. An ‘attractive’ body by today's standards seems to either be a plastic, chemical monstrosity or to not exist at all. Beauty rejected looks like modern brutalist architecture. Huge concrete structures, human hives, that stretch far up into the sky. It looks like pieces of art that portray absolutely nothing. It is a garbled mess without order, rhyme or reason. It looks like the cutting down and pollution of natural land.

The second problem is the increasingly mechanised way we search for love. The advent of the Internet enabled us to share great amounts of information with each other. It also facilitated the rate at which certain companies can put out products. One such industry is that of pornography. The Internet opened up a market many thousand times bigger than magazines from corner stores could ever compete with. Something that was considered rather taboo became the norm for every adolescent, especially males. This has led to an overconsumption of this particular media with many thousands becoming addicted. The ease at which this material can be accessed has led to a seemingly ever-increasing fetishizing. This, to the detriment of both its viewers, the workers of the industry and the population at large. Many would like to argue that one's personal preference as it relates to porn should not to bother anyone else. However, if one considers an average young male that watches porn several times per day for several years, it is hard to argue that it would NOT affect such a person's mind. This is often visible through a decreased libido or a warped view on sex as a whole. This may lead to confusion and, at times, outright violence. We see here how an individual's behaviour and preferences will directly and inevitably affect people in their surroundings. Pornography is a terrible way to teach young children about sex, it is something that ought to be done in a controlled environment by a school or parents.

The increased facilitation of pornography leads people to seek out increasingly extreme methods of obtaining dopamine. I believe that the next stage in this evolution is a movement into the real world. We are now making each other into porn. Love here is trivialized to a point at which people are willing to leave it up to an algorithm to find good matches, apps like Tinder, Grindr and Bumble. Require only a swipe towards a certain way and a half-decent conversation to produce a meeting between two people. In most cases, this meeting ends only in a quick release of dopamine from both parts after which they may or may not meet again. No reason to look deeper in anyone, no reason to love someone for their intellectual capacities. There is, as I have previously stated, exceptions and there are many stories of people who find love through various dating apps. However, if the goal is to study true Beauty, perhaps a more natural approach is to be preferred. Perhaps it is better to seek it out for oneself, without relying on the help of a computer. Perhaps by letting love happen to you, waiting patiently for it to strike you and feel joy, as it embraces you in its warmth, is the best you can do.

One might wonder after this how one is supposed to find true love and beauty in this grey mechanistic world of ours. If not through Tinder then how? The crisis of love today is shown in skyrocketing numbers of divorces in the West. It seems no one is able to find true love anymore. I suggest we listen to the wise words of Diotima. She suggested that we start with beautiful bodies. Perhaps by observing and appreciating great works of art, be they paintings, music or the like, we can once again get a grip of what beauty is. Once one has learned to do this, one can begin to appreciate beautiful human bodies. From here, one need only climb the ladder to find a love for human ideas and souls. Maybe we can then finally begin to once again study and observe true Beauty. Despite the hardships one might face in one's love life, it always seems to be an equally pleasing feeling to find love. Despite the persistent and painful anger and sadness that rejection and betrayal causes, it can never dampen my belief in love as something utterly good. It always strikes me as an incredibly beautiful feeling whenever I encounter it. Whether that be for myself or for a friend. It is a feeling of wholeness and order that destroys barriers. A feeling of intimacy and safety with another person that you thought could never be given away. The sharing of a soul and a body. We are all lucky that we get to experience it.