What is love?
This isn’t the post where all you guys go, “Dude, Y u so emo?” and stuff like that.
This is just me being definitive and assessing factors.
When someone puts up one long/big status message on Facebook, you know controversy is in the neighborhood or it has to be attention seeking of some sorts. Well, that is my plan. Was, rather. But, seeing how people find it to be more annoying than useful, I have decided to rekindle my liking for my “dying” blog and save up some time to write this post. Let’s get down to business here, then.
This post speaks of how I view of this “love” from the results of my studies/experiences so far. Time has come for me to conclude on what I feel it is, being pretty sure about how many of you will be able to correlate with my ideals.
Contrary to popular beliefs and solid definitions that love, is an interpersonal emotion, I believe that love is not specific to being interpersonal. If so, why would or how could anyone fall in love with a place, an object or an activity or even the absence of someone or something?
Clearly it is not confined to being interpersonal. What love is, is actually a feeling of feelings. How? Let me tell you.
One feels happy when he or she has achieved success.
One feels sad after the loss of a person.
One feels excited about exploration into new lands.
One feels anger, sympathy, empathy and nervous in different times.
One feels special when treated indifferently (in a good way, obviously).
So, how can one, categorize this “love” in the same set of feelings as the ones listed above, when love, by itself does not have a specified feeling? Even biologically, feelings have definitions.
From what little of neuroscience I know, I say this.
Happiness, for example is triggered by the serotonin hormones. Similarly, sadness or disappointment is caused by the absence or the lack of serotonin or endorphins. And likewise, ghrelin reduces one’s anxiety levels.
At times, the phenylethamine hormones are mistaken to induce the feeling of love. But tests and studies say that phenylethamine has more to do with trust, as in relationships and we all know that one does not have to love to be in a relationship.
So what do I think love is then?
Love, as I mentioned earlier, is a feeling of feelings. One can feel a number of feelings when in love. (again, not necessarily interpersonal). Let us, for the sake of simplicity and convenience, consider a specific place that one is in love with. Why would someone be in love with a place, you can’t even kiss it. The answer is simple. One feels a variety of feelings which are entitled to love when in that place. A sense of happiness, a sense of being around people who you share memories and moments with, in that place, maybe grief or excitement, but clearly, not just one feeling. If it was just one feeling, like happiness, then one would just be happy in that place and wouldn’t be in love with it. Yes?
For me, the whole “falling in love with someone is a one time thing” is complete BS. Especially in an era where it is becoming super easy to approach and talk to people, I know most of you would be in accordance with this but let me explain this to someone who would still not comply. If the fact that love is a collective feeling of feelings has been established, why can’t one fall in love again? Or maybe even, fall in love more than once, at the same time? Obviously there will be a relative difference but there’s no saying that it is impossible of sorts. If love is enabled by feelings of happiness, excitement, sympathy, empathy, Lakshmipathy and whatever that goes into this collective feeling at the same time, why can’t two people make you feel all those feelings at the same time? When two places can, why not two different people? Especially when all those feelings are triggered hormone-specifically. Not like you have control of when your glands/cells/tissues secrete them. When there is something that is SUPPOSED to make you feel happy, you feel happy. Of course, there is always the option to publicly deny it. But it does happen. There is no denying it from yourself.
So, when you’re feeling love for someone, you’re actually happy in that person’s presence. You feel the absence of serotonin during that person’s absence, excitement when you reach new heights with that person, phenylethamine when that person is sitting right beside you or sympathy when the other person experiences happiness or grief and most of all, empathy. Don’t know where Lakshmipathy comes into all of this, pretty sure it does though.
So, when one person has the ability to make you feel all of this, why can’t another? I am not saying that every other person around you can make you feel the same but there is no strict probability that there is only one person who can do that. If so, it just shows that you are being very picky with who YOU feel you WANT to feel all those feelings with. There, that is enough proof for my opinion.
Now, let us consider someone who has nothing in life to be happy, excited etc.. about, individually that is. Why do we find those people looking for love with so much desperation? Again, it’s simple, it’s because love offers more than any other feeling does individually. People would rather fall in love with a person or an activity than look for people or things that make them feel happy in specific or excited in specific. This shows the importance of love.
Love is also a sign.
It is a social status. It allows people to interpret as to how well you’re doing and not just mentally.
Not being loved or not having someone/something to be in love with as again, a collective feeling. We observe that there is lack of happiness, reduction in excitement, the less you start feeling. Allowing yourself to love more will only keep you happy more; And that is primarily what people want, to be happy. Although, being happy also has a lot of factors, it is a singular feeling.
I do not know how to conclude this post and ending it with the above statement would make it too abrupt and I would of course, blame my amateurism in writing for that but I would like to say that society is moving more towards greed and I feel love would help collective growth more. Love more!
There, I said it.
Oh and I would love to listen to your opinions as well, arguments and debates are always productive in terms of learning. :)
This isn’t the post where all you guys go, “Dude, Y u so emo?” and stuff like that.
This is just me being definitive and assessing factors.
When someone puts up one long/big status message on Facebook, you know controversy is in the neighborhood or it has to be attention seeking of some sorts. Well, that is my plan. Was, rather. But, seeing how people find it to be more annoying than useful, I have decided to rekindle my liking for my “dying” blog and save up some time to write this post. Let’s get down to business here, then.
This post speaks of how I view of this “love” from the results of my studies/experiences so far. Time has come for me to conclude on what I feel it is, being pretty sure about how many of you will be able to correlate with my ideals.
Contrary to popular beliefs and solid definitions that love, is an interpersonal emotion, I believe that love is not specific to being interpersonal. If so, why would or how could anyone fall in love with a place, an object or an activity or even the absence of someone or something?
Clearly it is not confined to being interpersonal. What love is, is actually a feeling of feelings. How? Let me tell you.
One feels happy when he or she has achieved success.
One feels sad after the loss of a person.
One feels excited about exploration into new lands.
One feels anger, sympathy, empathy and nervous in different times.
One feels special when treated indifferently (in a good way, obviously).
So, how can one, categorize this “love” in the same set of feelings as the ones listed above, when love, by itself does not have a specified feeling? Even biologically, feelings have definitions.
From what little of neuroscience I know, I say this.
Happiness, for example is triggered by the serotonin hormones. Similarly, sadness or disappointment is caused by the absence or the lack of serotonin or endorphins. And likewise, ghrelin reduces one’s anxiety levels.
At times, the phenylethamine hormones are mistaken to induce the feeling of love. But tests and studies say that phenylethamine has more to do with trust, as in relationships and we all know that one does not have to love to be in a relationship.
So what do I think love is then?
Love, as I mentioned earlier, is a feeling of feelings. One can feel a number of feelings when in love. (again, not necessarily interpersonal). Let us, for the sake of simplicity and convenience, consider a specific place that one is in love with. Why would someone be in love with a place, you can’t even kiss it. The answer is simple. One feels a variety of feelings which are entitled to love when in that place. A sense of happiness, a sense of being around people who you share memories and moments with, in that place, maybe grief or excitement, but clearly, not just one feeling. If it was just one feeling, like happiness, then one would just be happy in that place and wouldn’t be in love with it. Yes?
For me, the whole “falling in love with someone is a one time thing” is complete BS. Especially in an era where it is becoming super easy to approach and talk to people, I know most of you would be in accordance with this but let me explain this to someone who would still not comply. If the fact that love is a collective feeling of feelings has been established, why can’t one fall in love again? Or maybe even, fall in love more than once, at the same time? Obviously there will be a relative difference but there’s no saying that it is impossible of sorts. If love is enabled by feelings of happiness, excitement, sympathy, empathy, Lakshmipathy and whatever that goes into this collective feeling at the same time, why can’t two people make you feel all those feelings at the same time? When two places can, why not two different people? Especially when all those feelings are triggered hormone-specifically. Not like you have control of when your glands/cells/tissues secrete them. When there is something that is SUPPOSED to make you feel happy, you feel happy. Of course, there is always the option to publicly deny it. But it does happen. There is no denying it from yourself.
So, when you’re feeling love for someone, you’re actually happy in that person’s presence. You feel the absence of serotonin during that person’s absence, excitement when you reach new heights with that person, phenylethamine when that person is sitting right beside you or sympathy when the other person experiences happiness or grief and most of all, empathy. Don’t know where Lakshmipathy comes into all of this, pretty sure it does though.
So, when one person has the ability to make you feel all of this, why can’t another? I am not saying that every other person around you can make you feel the same but there is no strict probability that there is only one person who can do that. If so, it just shows that you are being very picky with who YOU feel you WANT to feel all those feelings with. There, that is enough proof for my opinion.
Now, let us consider someone who has nothing in life to be happy, excited etc.. about, individually that is. Why do we find those people looking for love with so much desperation? Again, it’s simple, it’s because love offers more than any other feeling does individually. People would rather fall in love with a person or an activity than look for people or things that make them feel happy in specific or excited in specific. This shows the importance of love.
Love is also a sign.
It is a social status. It allows people to interpret as to how well you’re doing and not just mentally.
Not being loved or not having someone/something to be in love with as again, a collective feeling. We observe that there is lack of happiness, reduction in excitement, the less you start feeling. Allowing yourself to love more will only keep you happy more; And that is primarily what people want, to be happy. Although, being happy also has a lot of factors, it is a singular feeling.
I do not know how to conclude this post and ending it with the above statement would make it too abrupt and I would of course, blame my amateurism in writing for that but I would like to say that society is moving more towards greed and I feel love would help collective growth more. Love more!
There, I said it.
Oh and I would love to listen to your opinions as well, arguments and debates are always productive in terms of learning. :)
