Ten thousands years ago, our ancestors looked to the skies and saw magic lights dance across the blackness. They revered or feared these lights, and to explain them, they created stories and myths, which made them do things like carving hearts out in appeasement to a sun gods. The more they payed attention to these lights, the less they feared them, and began to use their movement to coordinate travel and to schedule the planting of crops. Now, as we have found through advances in science and technology, we know the stars for what they are. Their movements are still the foundation of our agriculture, though the magic is gone.
Three hundred years ago, if someone became ill, the causes were essentially unknown. They blamed spirits, bad blood, sin. Once we discovered bacteria and viruses, we were able to treat sickness. Both instances are real things that are much better dealt with after we accepted their non magical nature. Out minds are capable of creating very unusual connections and illusions as we as a species need to explain our surroundings, and often convince ourselves that things have more mystery than they actually do.
I'm sure most people will flat out think I'm crazy when I suggest that we take a similar approach to love. I know, I know. Hear me out.
Now, I'm not saying we ignore what we feel as love. There is already extensive research into the hormone oxytocin which appears to be the cause of the intense emotions we all know and feel. But these feelings are immensely important. They cause us to bond with one another, to form closeness. Our nurturing abilities are rooted in this hormone, which is unique to mammals; they are closely associated with birth and nursing. The usefulness of this hormone is evident, and I'm in no way saying we should ignore or right off these feelings.
What I propose is that we simply handle them a little better. Much like the stars, germs, and many other previously mysterious phenomenon, the causes of love are very certainly caused by natural things. When we view something as magical, we are unable to properly deal it's effects. If we view love as something magic, we think that it comes and goes for no reason, or we place blame on inconsequential things when that feeling fades away.
Yes, those feelings are there to bring you closer to someone, and are signs that a person could be a partner in raising children and continuing our humanity. But when someone can't let go of a failed relationship because it was something "special" is not handling those feeling properly. There is nothing healthy about obsessive predatory relationships borne in the mind of someone who believes these feelings to be something out of the ordinary. People submit themselves to all kinds of emotional and physical anguish because they believe what they are feeling to be supernatural, and therefore something that can't be truly "explained." I'm sorry to break it to you all, but there is no such thing as meant to be. There is no "one". Fighting to save something that you believe to be destiny will cause nothing but pain.
It's obvious why these feelings are there and make us feel like they do. It is the imperative of life to reproduce, and anything that expedites that process is surely a positive thing. Not to mention the added benefits that these same feelings are the roots of our social nature, and therefore our culture and humanity.
This is why I also think it imperative to treat these feelings for what they are. Yes, it's painful if these feelings go away, and yes, it's absolutely amazing when those feelings are there. That doesn't change if we also realize that it is not magic, but the same amazing chemical architecture that gave the bounty of wondrous beauty that is the life all around us. Isn't that magical enough?
2 comments:
I cannot deny the logic in your argument. I have imagined that perhaps being naiive and ignorant has been the cause of my pain and suffering in all my past relationships. It baffles me that something so mutually gratifying can become the most challenging aspect of life. Perhaps we are taking the wrong approach. I confess to not having a "the one" outlook on the matter. Perhaps to a flaw. I think I can love anyone. The problem is getting that love reciprocated. However, I do suffer from an unexplainable connection that hurts even if severed for good reason. What I do have to admit to myself is that when it comes to love, I believe we lie to ourselves to make a relationship fit a certain schemata. Perhaps this is responsible for the intagible connection. A faulty paradigm. Your thoughts pepper mine like the spice that's missing. I appreciate you sharing them.
I find the best way to conceptualize the idea is to realize that our consciousness is mixture of billions of chemical reactions every second, and large doses of any given chemical will override the rest; be it alcohol, THC or the cocktail of hormones that we have labeled love. It's really not all that surprising when you think about it.
On the other side, I also find it comforting that essentially all us humans, or any other animal, for that matter, feels those same pangs, regardless of how we label it. We are all looking for that reciprocation, because, well, it's pretty crucial to that whole life thing. But the problem comes when you internalize the issue; when you think "why me!?!?" We think that these feelings are unique to whatever moment or person we associate them with, when in reality, it is a ubiquitous, yet powerful, automated response.
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