Monday, December 24, 2007

Love-are you sure?

In my previous article I wrote a rather raw or under cooked definition of love, which did not quite get down well with many; though, I still feel that they, in their bottom most layer of heart, are more than happy to agree with me. In fact what I have written is not out of experience but what the research speaks. What is research after all, seeking rhetoric for one's thought process? Whatsoever let me just try and confuse people on what they think as Love, is really love? Or is it just the regular business of Brain with its chemicals?
Before going any further, let me clarify (for fear of losing/not getting girl friends) that I am not against love( let me call it Eros raher than love) nor am I a psychopath nor a cynic. I am a techie guy who has got lots of time and a bit of brain (? Citation needed) to do some useless research and keep confusing myself and others around me with a rhetoric which often ends up proving that I am a person with inflated ego and one who would make fools of “ignorant people” because more often than not I end up putting down others’ argument, no matter what! But, I let go, as I said earlier, at the end of the day, there are more people who enjoy my company than who regret.
Averting any further digression from the topic let me have the luxury of asking you to think once again, what actually you meant by saying I love you to your partner? Well for your convenience (or might be due to the extreme inclination towards objective questions) I am giving you options:
1) I want to marry you.
2) I want you to sleep with me
3) I want to control you(or I want me to be controlled by you)
4) I want to increase my expenses (time, energy, money). (Not much of difference between the options but that’s how RCs are framed in CAT).

Now, most of you might have chosen an option and if you dint, then you are not sure about your love. And for all those who have chosen one of the above options, why you are not able to express yourselves with that option and why you rather chose to use the word I love you. Well, I bet, most of you cannot answer this question and most common answer is, “I tell it because I felt like”; but, if I ask, what that feeling is, I get an answer love; and again we get back to our basic question, what do you mean by love or I love you. So, this gets into a vicious cycle.
Yes, I do understand that it is difficult to define love, but if you were to go through the link which I have mentioned above, you will be able to find out that Biological models of love tend to see it as a mammalian drive, just like hunger or thirst. Psychology sees love as more of a social and cultural phenomenon. There are probably elements of truth in both views — certainly love is influenced by hormones (such as oxytocin) and pheromones, and how people think and behave in love is influenced by their conceptions of love.
Now, this sentence “Their conceptions of love” is a killer sentence. It is rather alluring and deceiving because it is allowing you to conceptualize love and it also means that there is no solid definition for love and this encourages each person to think what ever his brain's pleasure centers are asking him/her to do as love. For example, research proved that when you meet a person whom you think you like, there are high levels of Oxytocin that are released in blood along with other chemicals which are similar to the ones released durin drug abuse. So, say for example, that person has started talking to a girl late nights and if he continues doing this for a considerable period, the chances are that this would turn into an addiction. The same holds good for other romantic activities like going out for dinner, watching movies, holding hands and meeting (any activity that makes you meet) all these activities stimulate brain's pleasure centers, and hence one gets addicted to all these activities. It is fun, rather heaven as one female commented about love in my last article, (apparently she missed out the fact that heaven is some thing illusionary and never exists), when one is able to do all these things and hell(which again is illusionary) when one cannot get the pleasure he used to get.
What I want to conclude here is that, Love- as most people think what they are in is nothing but brain's chemicals at work. I am not saying that Love does not exists but as far as I know 95% of the couples bluff themsleves by thinking that they are in Love. While, in reality, what they actually going through is a natural phenomenon which is as natural as hunger and thirst. What I percieve as love will be discussed in my next article.

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