Running Love: 21st Century Love?
Imagine an old man who is bald and has a friendly face and who shows up burning a barrel telling you that “Cell phones help you keep in touch with people who are far away from you. Mobile phones allow you to stay in touch… by keeping you away. ” This is a quote from the late Zygmunt Bauman, who coined the term running love, in addition to all the other “liquid” things that seem to define our reality.
I will now take you on a small journey to the concept of running love as defined by Zygmunt Bauman. We try to find out if it really is the reality of 21st century love. What do you think?
Who was Zygmunt Bauman?
Before we move on, it may be a good idea to get to know Mr. Bauma better. This apparently affectionate, old man was in fact a successful Polish philosopher and sociologist. Unfortunately, he passed away some time ago.
But he left tons of jobs for his descendants on current topics such as social class and postmodernism. After the 1950s, in the aftermath of important events such as the Holocaust and the rise of socialism, he turned his attention to more modern topics related to the late 20th and early 2000s.
In his last years, Bauman’s work turned towards postmodernism, globalization, the consumer society, and new poverty. It gave rise to the notion of current modernity, which takes us to today’s subject: current love.
Running love in the modern world
Bauman used the word “running” to explain the way he sees modern society. For him, our human relationships are made of weak ties. Therefore, the fluidity, formability, and ease with which substances in the liquid state can be distributed.
Unfortunately, the exact mind of this Polish philosopher saw modern society as a temporary world. Most people are looking for temporary satisfaction – something immediate that makes us momentarily happy. But the next moment it’s gone, and a few seconds after that it’s almost forgotten.
According to the author, this is because self-love, one of the elements of a romantic love affair, is also fluid. How can we love another person if we do not love ourselves first? What do we offer them if we have nothing valuable? How do we respond to them when they offer us something valuable? Our lack of self-confidence causes our relationships to deteriorate in just seconds.
For this reason, in a unique poetic way, Bauman coined the term running love, which is reflected throughout the world today. It escapes our hands because we can’t make it fixed and hold on to it strongly enough, not even our love for ourselves. We live in a momentary, immediate world as collectors of current events. Every day it becomes more and more difficult to create a solid reality of self-love and genuine human relationships that consistently last over time.
The need for self-love to create genuine human relationships
According to Bauman, modern people need strong commitments. And the first one has to be with yourself. Without self-love and personal duty, without the ability to rule everywhere, we are hardly ready to build solid relationships.
The author believed that in today’s world we create more acquaintances than relationships. To go back to his quote on cell phones, technology allows us to stay in touch but we don’t use it to deepen our relationships but to make contacts.
Interestingly and paradoxically, the more insignificant we are, the more individual we become. Moreover, it is in this context that we have time-sensitive needs that satisfy us momentarily. Transient events with a beginning and an end, and even a transition from true to virtual.
How to give running love a taste of reality
Running love is becoming more and more unreal. The relationships we create are unconditional and lack purpose and commitment. However, we cannot surrender to the lack of self-confidence or momentum. Fortunately, we have a powerful tool at our disposal to fight the non-existent nature of running love. It is called training. But in order to use it and achieve results, it must begin in childhood.
It is essential to raise children so that they are stable, have high self-esteem, are self-aware and create genuine lasting relationships. Raise free children who have the ability to think for themselves and they are stable.
However, it seems that our children, like us, are doomed to the running love of running reality in the running world. Or at least that’s what Zygmunt Bauman thought. What do you think?
