What is Big Think?  

We are Big Idea Hunters…

We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.

A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think

Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.

Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.

Big Think Features:

12,000+ Expert Videos

1

Browse videos featuring experts across a wide range of disciplines, from personal health to business leadership to neuroscience.

Watch videos

World Renowned Bloggers

2

Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.

Go to blogs

Big Think Edge

3

Big Think’s Edge learning platform for career mentorship and professional development provides engaging and actionable courses delivered by the people who are shaping our future.

Find out more
Close

Why Modern Love Hurts So Much

July 13, 2012, 1:30 PM
Emotion%202%20ss

What's the Latest Development?

Everything we tell ourselves about modern love may be misguided, causing us pain and hardship along the way. The ideal of our age, which informs our view of society, remains the individual. Strong and independent, the individual believes society is no longer in the business of fixing marriage, at least not as the economic exchange it once was, and that he or she is free to marry for love. If love is not found, the problem likely lives in the individual and all the terrible things that befell him or her during the trauma of childhood. Now a large psychiatric industry has grown up around solving the medical condition of being out of love. 

What's the Big Idea?

It is essential, if we are to free ourselves from our delusions of romantic love, to see the individual through the lens of popular culture. In other words, the individual has become an exaggerated figure that now forms part of a larger political and economic project. "May we all recognize the pressures we put both on ourselves and on our lovers and may we reject them for greater happiness. ... Love is a greater thing than arranged marriage, and it’s a greater thing than daddy issues and attachment theory. It can transcend it all, as long as you know what the true barriers are."

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com


 

Why Modern Love Hurts So Much

Newsletter: Share: