I’ve got an itch that needs to be scratched. Call me cynical, call me young, say I’m bitter, but I think I’m just curious. I have the million... no, billion dollar question. What is ‘Love’ and why do we focus so much of our lives on it? I’ve been observing people, pictures, and even my own mind, so I started with the dictionary. The Merrium- Webster dictionary gives you 9 different definitions and a couple of examples. The first definition actually has 3 different bullet points. The first bullet states: strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.This being much like the ‘Love’ one has for their mom or child. Part 2 notes: attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers. Relating to the want we obtain when we find someone’s body attractive, and sometimes this want is mutual between two or more people. Lastly, it says: affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests.This describes the feelings we have towards friends or a partner, because we like the same TV shows, or listen to the same music, or someone helped you carry your stack of boxes across the street, or maybe just because we find someone to be pretty or smart. All of these definitions are true, yes I do not discredit or disagree with any one. However all three of these bullets use the word affection, which is just a synonym for love. So these three definitions are just descriptions or reasons for why we feel, ‘love’. But what is it?
The human body is a crazy species. Right now we don’t know what other species can feel or think, but we can find out how our own bodies function. So when the Webster failed me I turned to science. Studies in neurochemistry states that there are different feelings to love. These include: Lust, Attraction, and Attachment. When ones body experiences some form of ‘love’, it produces all these crazy chemicals, and extreme amounts of them, the body then shoots them to your brain, where they bounce around resulting in you feeling one of those three types of love. Some of these chemicals make you feel amazing, the most powerful drug could not make you feel like this. However some of these chemicals can make you the sickest you have ever been in your life. There are poisons that can tear apart your organs, or even kill you, but none of them will make you as physically and mentally ill as the chemicals your own body produces. People have driven themselves crazy from being in ‘love’.
Society spends their lives fixated on love, we create life plans, and somewhere in there we want want to find our ‘soul mate’, the person we adore, the person who is our best friend, and the person whom we love. I can honestly say I am one of these people, am I ashamed? no. I however am scared I will never know I am in ‘love’ when I actually am. I throw the word around a lot. It is in my every day vocabulary, however I don’t think I am the only one who does this. If I actually used the word truthfully, I think the word love would very rarely touch my lips. I am beginning to believe that this is the reason for my confusion.
If the word was to be used less frivolously , there would be much less confusion. I hate to be that person but I will say this, I feel as if we make things a lot more complicated that they once were. There are all these adorable stories of how our grandparents met. How one of them ‘wooed’ the other in this romantic way. I am not saying this doesn’t happen anymore, but it is a lot less often. I feel as if we are scared of this feeling, and we should be. According to science, it’s deadly. There are just so many more preconceived ideas about what it actually is, and because we don’t take the time of educating ourselves, we fear the unknown. Over the last few days, I seen two different statements about love. The first one was the old saying, "When you love someone you have to let them go, if they are the one they will come back," I’ve never really understood this but people say it and believe it. The second was, "If they loved you enough, they would have tried harder to not let you leave,"So which one is it? Do we let them go, or do we not? Why do we have to rely on the words of others to make our decisions, and why can we not just do what makes us happy? I’m starting to realize that love is not a lone feeling, it can never be on its own. Much like the search for your soulmate, love is constantly searching for its partner. Fear.
I hold back how I feel towards people because I fear their response, even though I know there is a possibility of it ending with love. As we all make our New Year’s resolutions I think we should think about fighting fear, and allow love to be independent and strong enough to stand alone.
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