A little background is necessary. What is love?
Love, without resort to dictionary reference, is basically the desire to do things for another. You want to care for that person, make that person happy, watch out for him / her. This often comes at significant personal cost, and is irrational to boot.
But then, the more important question remains. HOW does love arise?
This is the very tricky part. You often love someone for a variety of reasons, and try as you will, you just can’t narrow it down to a few key qualities. You say you love someone for their capacity to care, or their sociability, or their reliability.
But wouldn’t other people have equal or greater quantities of that quality? In those mixes too? Why do you recognize those qualities in your friends, yet never feel any inclination to pursue a relationship with them?
When pressed, people end up admitting that they can’t quite explain exactly why they want someone, at least at first. They put it down to a whimsical caprice of the human heart, or “chemistry”, if you will.
And that’s when the revelation struck! We humans keep searching for that elusive ingredient, that special thing, and the answer, the answer simply is… chemicals.
Chemicals! Secreted by your brain! Hormones! I have no wish to be cynical and dismissive of the great phenomenon that is Love, but I don’t doubt our body processes have something to do with it too!
Many of us may have read about it before, but I had no idea scientists had already shed light on so many intricacies of the chemical processes. You can read the quite thorough scientific explanations for love, right here. It’s really worth the click.
And the simple summary is this: There are two phases of Love, (1) the Attraction / Lust Phase, and (2) the Attachment Phase. The first Phase is powered by chemicals, the second by true mutual understanding and acknowledgement of qualities.
If the significance of this has not hit you yet, it is this. These sneaky chemicals do the following: they make you obsess about someone, they prevent you from assessing the other person’s qualities rationally, and they can also turn you into a love junkie, someone addicted to relationships for that natural high at the start.
In other words, these chemicals emulate the feelings of True Love.
The evolutionary explanation for these chemical processes is simple. This Chemical Love is the springboard which propels people together, which gives them the confidence to overlook their most immediate differences. Once together, they then have that opportunity to work things out. After all, very few people are matches made in heaven, and great amounts of give-and-take are often required.
This, is the Attraction / Lust Phase of Love.
Then, as your bodies build up resistance to the chemicals, the early passions fade away. By now, you would have already seen all that your partner is good for, and your feelings are truly grounded in rational reasons. There won’t be fireworks, but you’ll get the contented, stable, fulfilling Love older couples experience.
This, is the Attachment Phase of Love.
So why is this information important? It’s because I’ve witnessed too many friends, both male and female, rush into a relationship thinking they may just have found their one perfect mate in life. And it’s only later that they look back and wonder, what the hell were they thinking?
If you had an opportunity to learn how your own brain worked, which would add an extra dimension to the way you approach Love, wouldn’t you take it? My suggestion is, don’t scoff at all this too quickly.
Bookmark the links to read later. This isn’t silly information on how heavy Britney is today, or how many times Snoop Dogg got arrested this month. This WILL affect you in an intricate way someday.
(Part Two will go live in a short while! Otherwise the whole thing would have been so long as to put people off, and for some reason I feel like I reallllllly want to share this with you!)
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