Do I Love My Wife? An Investigative Report, article. [Thanks to TC]
"When I told friends and family I was trying to scientifically assess my love for Julie, they all had the same response: "No good can come of this."
[...] Inside the MRI tunnel, the image of my wife vanishes from the screen. And up pops another female face. [...] It's Angelina Jolie. That's another part of the experiment. The scientists and I want to see how my love for my wife compares with my feelings for Angelina Jolie."
One section explained something for me:
"The [brain's] Romance System. This produces the cocaine rush you get from beginning love. And cocaine is more than an idle metaphor. The reptilian brain — one of the nervous system's most ancient parts — floods you with dopamine, just as it does after you snort a line of blow."
I never understood the appeal of strong romance for so many people. Despite the clear disastrous influences strong "love" has on so many lives, it is often treated (just see books and movies) as the most important thing in the world. A dopamine rush explains a lot. Many people simply get high on being in love! And it is unrelated to whether the subject of the love is the world's best candidate for it, or the world's worst.
3 comments:
[Love At First Web Site, now in theaters]
I find it very strange, Eo, coming from someone like you, this tendancy to perceive a special love for a person as some form of alienation. Especially since you seem to agree with me when I say that "true love is not possessiveness, but giving generously". It's not servitude when it's free, spontaneous and MUTUAL, when both give of themselves without counting. Only excesses and/or are bad. And I'd say that Love is an extreme feeling for a very natural reason, that is, a way to compensate for the natural tendancy most people have for being selfish. And to compensate when it's most judicious.
I thought that, as a firm believer in the Course, you were totally "into" selfless love?
Also, it's not because the biological mechanisms are the same as addiction that it's necessarily a bad thing. We're SO MUCH more than just brain chemistry, you know. Substance abuse addiction is the perversion of a natural mechanism. It's not the thing itself that's bad, it's the uses of it that can be. Pain isn't intrinsically a bad thing either: most of the times, without us even thinking twice about it, pain protects us from harm through our reflexes. And tells us to dress that boo-boo, warning us in case it gets infected.
They say an opiate fix is like having an orgasm. Well, I'd be very curious to meet the syringe that can inspire me the same feelings as a loving human companion and the satisfaction of having given as much pleasure as I've just had.
Junkies are self-centered. They are alone. Ultimately, outside their completely artificial -and transient- chemical rushes, they're terribly unhappy in a lonely, cold, empty, pointless Universe. Remember the Universe. The Truth is out there!
Being in Love, it's... it's transcending both loneliness and selfishness. Which are the respective consequences and cause of True Evil, a.k.a. lack of Love.
Love , it's a truly awesome, uniquely powerful force. A magnificent miracle in what Joe Dick aptly called "a Nature that's cruel everywhere you look". It's the heartbeat of Hope in the Universe.
But with great power comes great responsibility. It takes wisdom to wield such a power without it overcoming you, to stay in control without that tremendous god-like force destroying you.
Are you suggesting you're afraid of not being up to the challenge, Eolake?
I can understand you. Having immense power is always a frightening thing. Only fools don't even feel the slightest worry.
["And they lived happily ever after... until the sequel, that is!"]
[National Lampoon's Blog Post : "Are We There Yet?"]
But, as one Princess Pretty Petals told me not too long ago, Love is the very purpose of life.
Love for a person, "special" Love? No, I'm not afraid of it, I don't perceive it as a threat.
And Life helped prove to me that I need not fear falling in love.
The first time it happened to me, well, you can imagine how I felt. She was perfect, she was flawless, she was ideal for me, and of course she had to feel the same for me.
Well, actually, no.
It wasn't mutual. Oh, sure, at the time it "hurt" a lot. Helped me grow up, in fact. A useful personal experience. Because my understanding of love was the same back then, that of generosity, I knew that the only loving choice for me was to let her go, and love that other man.
And guess what? We even suceeded in "staying good friends". Yeah, no kidding.
Of course, it helped, in that aspect, that none of us ever betrayed the other, none of us ever knowingly caused the other selfish pain. It's just that she was not "the One". My mind knew that, even at the deepest of my heart's sighs.
Wisdom, I tell you. It does NOT have to feel like the end of the world, unless you decide to view it so.
I'd rather gain that (once) painful experience than remain in the weakness of ignorance.
"Better to have loved and suffered than to not have loved at all."
Indeed. It's part of Life, the Universe and Everything. ;-)
It's part of our very nature as humans.
The learning journey that is Life is not complete without graduating in Love 101.
I hope this didn't sound too much like a love-drenched romantic plea. Really, that wasn't the intention at all. :-)
I just love Love, that's all.
All forms of love. But especially Love with a big "L".
Otherwise, I feel there's a part of me that would be "missing".
And I'm not talking about that very lively intermittent bulge in my pants. Well, okay, I am, but not just that! ;-)
No hard feelings for that bad date, Love. We'll have a better one some day. We just need to find our marks.
Yup, I'm on a blind date with Love again, some time in the near Future. I just know it.
[The (happy) End. For now...]
Since you yourself bring up A Course In Miracles, see an answer to this very complex question here. Scroll down to Question 108.
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