You see, I had a mental breakdown in late February 1974. I was hospitalized in the psychiatric hospital at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine for about a week to ten days. I was diagnosed with having had a hypomanic episode.
Now, in 1974, lithium carbonate was still referred to as a "miracle drug" because nobody at that time understood exactly how it worked to relieve the symptoms of hypomanic episodes - but it did work effectively to relieve the symptoms of hypomanic episodes. As a result, I took 300 mg. of lithium carbonate each day until sometime in 1979, when my psychiatrist insisted that I stop taking it, because nobody knew the long-term effects of taking it.
Now, you may think that I am going to tell you the symptoms of a hypomanic episode. Well, I am not. Suffice it to say here that during my hypomanic episode, I felt euphoric. Thie is the quality of the experience that stands out most prominently in my mind today. Now, when I felt mildly euphoric for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024, I naturally feared that I might be on the brink of another hypomanic episode. But that did not happen. I simply stopped feeling mildly euphoric shortly before the presidential election on November 5, 2024.
So, I felt mildly euphoric for about ten weeks in the fall of 2024, but I did not have another hypomanic episode as a result.
In any event, over the years since my hypomanic episode in late February 1974, the following three books came to my attention; the first one is by a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at a prestigious medial school; the second and thirds ones are by professors of psychiatry at prestigious medical schools:
(1) The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness) and (A Lot of) Success in America by John D. Gardner (2005);
(2) American Mania: When More Is Not Enough by Peter C. Whybrow, M.D. (2005);
(3) A First-Rate Illness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Ghaemi, M.D. (2011).
Gardner discusses John F. Kennedy briefly. Whybrow discusses both John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., somewhat extensively. Ghaemi discusses both John F. Kennedy and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., rather extensively.
I have discussed John F. Kennedy in my recent OEN article "John F. Kennedy Was a compulsive Womanizer" (dated November 29, 2024).
Now, in Agnes Callard's "Chapter 10: Love" in her new 2025 book Open Socrates, she also says, regarding "Socratized romance" (p. 306), "Sexual intercourse: from a Socratic point of view sexual activity is neither necessary nor sufficient for romance, and preoccupation with sex will distract people from Socratic goals" (p. 307).
Under the subheading "VI. Socratic Polyamory" (p. 322), Agnes Callard says, "The real difference between love today and Socratic love is that the Socratic fusion of eros and philia goes both ways. Whereas we countenance many sorts of relationships as being full-fledged instances of philia in spite of the total absence of eros - parents and children, siblings, friends, neighbors - for Socrates, real philia requires eros, because another person can only participate in your attachment to what is truly 'your own' if they are part of your inquiry" (p. 323).
In addition, Agnes Callard says, "Socratic polyamory is that kind of polyamory that doesn't distinguish between having many lovers and having many friends" (p. 323).
Agnes Callard rounds of her discussion on "Chapter 10: Love" by saying the following about herself and her interpretation of Socrates: "Increasingly, Socrates seems to me to be putting all his cards on the table, and this strikes me as an act of great friendliness, openness, and humanity. Where I once saw Socratic irony, I now see Socratic love" (p. 333).
In my judgment, that's an extraordinary statement!
For further reading about love relationships, see John A. Desteian's book Coming Together - Coming Apart: The Play of Opposite in Love Relationships (2021; orig. ed.,1989).
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