Ours is the age of shortform content, and people like Orion Taraban capture attention. He is so close to profundity on many aspects of human relationships that any unsuspecting internet-browser can get sucked in to his videos or podcast thinking that wise guidance will follow.
I, like many people, was initially intrigued by his perspective, but became increasingly disturbed by his grotesque worldview. There is an obvious and fast workaround for getting sucked into someone’s bad advice: choose your guru with the end in mind. As in education, making choices with the end in mind ensures you go where you want. As Garrison Keillor quipped, when you get on the bus to Chicago, make sure you want to go to Chicago.
So, this Taraban: no wife, although I have been mistaken for the same. Taraban seems to take a cynical view of long-term romantic relationships. While there are plenty of uninspiring marriages—men who seem caged and unhappy, women who seem endlessly bitter—there are obviously examples of marriages that far surpass the lowest common denominator. You have only to meet a couple who maintain a deep and intimate connection to know that it is possible and, most people would likely agree, highly desirable.
Is there a long-married, apparently happy man who is a father of many? There is! Adam Lane Smith is an internet guru whose advice is much more life-giving and inspiring than that of Taraban, the perpetual bachelor who thinks women are all secretly into bestiality (perhaps the women of his acquaintance but this does seem to remain—thank God!—a deviant and abnormal expression of the female psyche, even in our post-Christian culture gone morally adrift).
Smith has been married two decades to the same woman with whom he shares six children. We have no way of knowing the interior of those relationships but the external track record is worth notice.
Smith calls himself the attachment expert. Relying heavily on jargon and a laundry list of hormones and neurotransmitters to explain his advice, he offers a compelling explanation for the breakdown of relationships and the ways that one spouse can inspire positive change. There is this aching tragedy at the heart of so many families: Often parents married and welcomed children with hope and feelings of goodwill. How is it, then, that the very people of the family become the cause of so much suffering? Smith has food for thought on this and actionable advice for course-correcting.
Like Taraban, Smith appeared on the Soft White Underbelly YouTube channel. Here, it was amusing to hear his explanation of the appeal of stable and healthy relationships. For people who have only known the rollercoaster of volatile relationships of fear and antagonism, it’s hard to know what you would do with your time with someone without all the drama. Smith articulates beautifully the goal of interconnected, life-giving married love. What a vision worth aiming for!
Personally, I am not convinced by Smith’s brain jargon. He may be correct, for all I know, but I have generally found reference to the brain and its mysterious processes to be mild fiction at best. There was a stupendous review in the Wall Street Journal review section—back when the WJS still featured stupendous reviews, you know, before Twitter devoured the attention span of journalists everywhere. The writer evaluated a book making bold claims about the brain. Supposedly, some of the same areas of the brain light up when you are listening to music as when you are engaged in carnal relations. Much was made of this connection, to which the reviewer said he didn’t make much of a science that can’t differentiate between listening to an organ and having your organs played with. Touché!
This is not to suggest that I disagree with what Smith says; I’m not willing to evaluate it one way or the other. If speaking in hormone jargon is how you convince people they will be happier in stable, intimate, long-term relationships, I say, fire away!
Would that more clickers clicked over to the happy universe of Adam Lane Smith in which lifelong married love is not only desirable but also attainable.
