Day 15
Louis XIV only took 7 baths in his life. That’s what a student of mine said on Friday. She went to visit the famous Château de Versailles near Paris and that’s what the tour guide, apparently a specialist of Louis XIV explained. Now Louis XIV lived from 1638 to 1715. He must have bathed about every 10 years. At that time, the dirtiest in history, people didn’t wash, they just hid their smell with perfume and their dirt with powder. Now, we have all seen images of that era. How elegant and distinguished these people seemed! Now, imagine their smell!!!!! Yet, Louis XIV had many mistresses. Women were lining up to have sex with this stinky man! He was married, but he still managed to find time for his extra-marital activities.
Now, no one can deny the joys of sex. Does it bring everlasting happiness? Not when you’ve been with the same person for 10,20, 30 or 40 years. In those cases, it probably brings you at most 8 seconds of ecstasy preceded by 7 to 10 minutes of preparatory joy! Nevertheless, it is truly one of the things that can make you feel ALIVE! Didn’t Freud postulate that human beings were dominated by this basic instinct he called Eros. This is probably why some people develop an addiction to it.
I once read an article about married people who cheat. Like heroin addicts, these people are happily married (so they say), but they just love to experience that feeling you can only have with a stranger. They go and have sex with different women, or men, only in order to feel that sensation again and again. Now, are we made to be monogamous? Probably not! It’s a choice we make based on our personal values.
One of my colleagues, last year, came up to me after Christmas and told me that her resolution for the year was to find a LOVER. She is a beautiful fifty-year old woman who has been faithfully married for 30 years. What was I to tell her? Good for you! Good luck in your search! Hope you find the right one! What a wonderful resolution! Keep it going… you can do it! We sort of joked about it and moved on, but I thought, maybe all she really wants is to hang on to her youth! Would this lover really bring her happiness? How would she feel toward her husband afterwards? Is it that she wants to feel desired like only a new lover could make her feel?
I guess when it comes to cheating, the calculation is simple: does the happiness provided by the immediate fulfillment of desire surpass the pain, guilt and feeling of dishonesty which could follow infidelity? The answer to this question lies within each individual
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