If the attachment fabric of a civilization frays, if people cannot get from their relationships the emotional regulation that those bonds were design… - Thomas Lewis

Modern amorists are sometimes taken aback at the prospect of investing in a relationship with no guarantee of reward. It is precisely that absence, however, that separates gift from shrewdness. Love cannot be extracted, commanded, demanded, or wheedled. It can only be given.

Recordings of encephalographic electrical waves show, amid their jagged spikes and hieroglyph swirls, a signature downward dip signifying that a neuronal mandate for motion is under way: the so-called readiness wave. While the motor cortex produces motion, the readiness wave appears to signal intent. So we should look here for will. When experimenters placed their subjects in front of a clock, however, they found that the conscious experience of a decision to move occurs after the readiness wave has already passed. What we feel as the conscious spark of resolve in this case proves to be an afterthought, not the majestic nexus of initiative we might imagine. Just where and how the early glimmers of intention coalesce, like glittering dust motes into the swirling jinni of action, remains beyond the ken of today’s science. The more we discover, the more we find that we do not know.

Even after a peak parenting experience, children never transition to a fully self-tuning physiology. Adults remain social animals: they continue to require a source of stabilization outside themselves. That open-loop design means that in some important ways, people cannot be stable on their own - not should or shouldn't be, but can't be. This prospect is disconcerting to many, especially in a society that prizes individuality as ours does. Total self-sufficiency turns out to be a daydream whose bubble is burst by the sharp edge of the limbic brain. Stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying near them.